#five act structure

[thatswhyhestays]

Remember?

[yaraaltrospace]

Which is your style: Storytelling Structure/Writing Method

I identify as a Snowflake Methodist on the long run. Glad to know there was a name for my type of writing, tbh

More info about each here

Tag your fellow writer/storymaker/lorebuilder/OC tale developer pals!

I tag for starters: @ultfreakme and @janethepegasus!

[ahb-writes]

Writing Problem: The Story Goes Off the Rails in the Third Act

Problem: The Story Goes Off the Rails in the Third Act

Solution: Weaving a compelling third act necessitates a guarded understanding of how to view and interpret a story on the micro and macro levels. That is to say, an attention to detail is essential, but equally valuable is the opportunity to take a step back and view the whole narrative as the sum of its parts. Do individual characters achieve their personal goals? Are relationship arcs incomplete? Is the drama, humor, or sense of mystery that drove the story in the first two acts, present or validated by the third act?

If one thinks of the whole of a story as a tapestry of sorts, then one might also view each chapter, arc, or act as a meaningful shape, pattern, or attribute of that greater tapestry. These attributes cue the readers as to what facet of story (or character) to focus on, depending on the moment. These attributes can also expose consequential divergences from established narrative designs.

How should readers interpret and process, or otherwise organize, these complex stimuli? For example, an author who purposefully generates tonal proximity between characters or events will ensure emotional continuity from scene to scene or from act to act.

Writing Resources:

5 Ways to Surprise Your Reader (Without It Feeling Like a Trick) (Writer's Digest)

Writing Great Beginnings and Endings (Writing Questions Answered)

How to Pace a Story (Writing Questions Answered)

How to Write Exceptional Endings (September C. Fawkes)

What Is Pacing in Writing? Mastering Pace (Now Novel)

What Is Rising Action? Building to an Epic Climax (Now Novel)

What Is the Dénouement of a Story? Your Guide (With Tips) (Jericho Writers)

How to End a Story Perfectly (Jericho Writers)

❯ ❯ Adapted from the writing masterpost series: 19 Things That Are Wrong With Your Novel (and How to Fix Them)

[sarahthecoat]

yep. ASIP is a classic heros journey structure, with john as the focus character. BBCSherlock can also be examined thru five act (incomplete) and three act structure (thesis, antithesis, synthesis). i probably have links and reblogs somewhere buried under all the good omens stuff, maybe my hashtags will work, so i'll include them all.

I always found the 7 act structure helped me a lot more than the 3 acts.

Link right here

[katatonicimpression]

first ever fic in the samdennis tag and it's yours?? LFG!! I'm so excited!!

Thank you!!

Very early stages yet, still haven't exactly figured it out but it's officially underway!

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

im now remembering the reason i try not to think too hard about Passiones structure and especially how it operates in relation to other organized crime...

[xomnus]

AKANTHAI

/ἄκανθαι/ (figuratively) thorny issue; something difficult or painful

[sarahthecoat]

good one to re read!

i have a feeling that if/when s5 comes out, the beginning of the first episode will give us all even worse whiplash than the opening of s2 or s3, where all those thing we obsessed over during hiatus and thought "this HAS to be addressed" just... weren't.

except they will be, just not the way we expected.

part of me is just hoping i live long enough to see it, and that it's even more surprising and wonderful than i could imagine, and part of me is dreading how many fans will (again) rage-quit because it isn't what they expected. when in so many ways the whole show has been about being unexpected. with mixed results, i grant you.

time will tell.

Culverton Smith & the Golem

So, if the five pips in TGG correspond to the five (planned) series of ‘Sherlock’, then we have to talk about characters used as foils:

The Golem kills people by squeezing the life out of them with his hands. So does Culverton Smith.

The Golem is a giant (like in a fairy tale). Culverton is a dwarf (like in a fairy tale…well, he’s shorter than a Hobbit, at least:) ).

…Aaaaand John struggles with both the Golem and Culverton to save Sherlock’s life.

Oh, nice teeth, by the way…

The Golem is an assassin. Culverton is a serial killer.

The Golem has to hide, constantly, because his appearance alone would give him away. Culverton Smith hides ‘in plain sight’.

The Golem/fake painting case is the 4th (!) pip in TGG. The Culverton/fake series is SERIES 4!

(Please excuse the TAB screenshot. TGG didn’t have actual orange pips, just acoustic ones. Hence this shot.)

The 4th pip in TGG starts out with John being angry at Sherlock. TLD starts with John and Sherlock having ended their friendship because John is angry with Sherlock.

Is there more? Yes, there’s loads more under the cut…

The 4th pip starts with John blaming Sherlock for the death of the blind woman. TLD is about John blaming Sherlock for Mary’s ‘death’ - Mary…the, erm, shortsighted woman.

When the 4th pip case in TGG starts, John basically thinks Sherlock is an unfeeling sociopath who doesn’t care for what happened to the blind woman. Sherlock even says, “Oh, you’re angry with me, so you won’t help. Not much cop, this caring lark.” Which is pretty much the plot of the first half of TLD when you think about it. 

Basically this is all still about, “Don’t make people into heroes, John. Heroes don’t exist, and if they did, I wouldn’t be one of them.” (Transcript from Ariane de Vere).

The fourth pip in TGG is all about s4!

“This whole case has a distinctly Czech feeling about it. Is that where this leads?” Sherlock asks Ms Wenceslas. And then s4 is all about that East (!) wind coming.

Also, women as baddies…

Oh, no, hang on! There’s one villain missing…There, I’ve fixed it for you:

Anyway, where was I?…Ah, yes…

The 4th pip is s4 in a nutshell! The whole of series 4!

When Alex Woodbridge, a character mirroring Sherlock, is found, he had been submerged under water for a long time. Series 4 is all about, “Deep waters, Sherlock, all your life. In all your dreams.” (Note that this could support EMP theory or some sort of s4-is-all-a-dream theory.)

In TGG, the 4th pip has John say about the Golem, “It’s a horror story, isn’t it?” And series 4 is a horror story! Both to us, the viewers, who were literally horrified by it and because of it’s blatant use of horror film tropes.

(Seriously, I could have gone with any screenshot from s4. I picked The-Ring!Eurus from TFP. But references to the horror genre started in TST already.)

The 4th pip in TGG is series 4 in a nutshell.

Remember what Sherlock told Ms Wenceslas:

“It’s a fake. It has to be. It’s the only possible explanation.” And then “It is a fake. I don’t know why, but there’s something wrong with it. There has to be.” And then we (collectively) as a fandom went nuts after TFP aired, trying to prove that TFP was a fake because it just HAD TO BE!

(Was that Anderson in TEH? Oh, I though that was us after watching TFP…)

By the way, the scene on the left is also where Sherlock tells Ms Wenceslas, “The art of disguise is knowing how to hide in plain sight.” This is literally what Culverton Smith is doing in s4. (It is also arguably what Mofftiss are doing with us as they hide the fact that s4 is fake as hell.)

And what is the clue to the painting being a fake? The supernova!

The painting in the 4th pip case is a fake because there’s a supernova, a ‘dying star’ in it. And TFP is fake because it’s all about a dying John (Sherlock’s dying star). 

(For those who subscribe to EMP theory, the whole of s4 is fake and Sherlock’s the one who’s doing the dying.)

The hostage in the 4th pip case is a child, and that kid is notably absent for most of the story, except for a disembodied voice at the very end of the case. Just a voice on the phone. The child at the very end of s4 (on the plane in TFP) is just a voice and not real. 

(Bonus: John’s daughter is in an odd Schrödinger’s cat-like state of being-there-yet-also-being-non-existent-absent throughout s4. Is she even real?)

Other people have already pointed out how the countdown in the 4th pip case stops at exactly the same number as the countdown in TFP when Sherlock tries to shoot himself.

And how does the 4th pip case end in TGG? How does it all segue into the 5th pip? With Sherlock and John in a half-destroyed Baker Street flat. Sounds like the end of TFP, no?

From there it transitions smoothly into the 5th pip case. Ergo, THERE WILL BE A S5! You know it, I know it, and they know it, too.

Mark Gatiss’s whole song and dance about s4 possibly being the last series is a lie. And the ‘finale’ (TFP) is a fake ending.

And judging by the 5th pip in TGG, a future series 5 (or possibly ‘The Lost Special, if it does indeed exist) will be about John dying. It will be about John being in mortal danger.

Judging by the 5th pip, they will then both end up in mortal danger very quickly…

…and Moriarty will somehow be involved.

Because Jim hasn’t really been in touch lately, has he? I mean, he hasn’t been in series 4…just like he hasn’t been during the 4th pip case in TGG, where John and Sherlock even commented on the fact that the bomber was strangely silent until eventually they got that call at the very end, but even there it was a child’s voice, not Jim’s. 

Just like series 4 which is all about that fake child that binds John and Mary together. Moriarty doesn’t even need to be there. The child is the gun; just like amo (love) is the ammunition.

Note that right before the 4th pip case transitions into the 5th pip case, Sherlock is questioning someone’s paternity here, “Look at the turn-ups on his jeans!”

My guess is that John’s fake child will be a major theme in s5 (or possibly in the ‘The Lost Special’, if that thing exists.)

Also, note how the 4th pip case in TGG ends in an exercise in keeping up the heterosexual façade. John takes off to go see his girlfriend, and Sherlock lies to him by pretending that, yes, he will eat that risotto in the fridge when we, indeed, know that he won’t have sex eat anything and will be lonely.

Well, and how does s4 end? With the heterosexual façade preserved. John is still the grieving widower with his child and that ring on his finger, a straight widower who comes to visit Uncle Sherlock, and Sherlock pretends that these visits are enough for him and that, yeah, everything’s hunky-dory, never been better.

That closing montage at the end of s4 (TFP) is as fake as Sherlock’s lie at the end of the 4th pip case, just as the 5th pip case is about to start.

This s4 montage is as fake as their ‘happy’ goodbye in TGG when John stalks off to go to his very, very female girlfriend and Sherlock is absolutely, not at all, in no way lying about eating that risotto in the fridge.

We all know what will happen during the 5th pip case: *Boom*

Also: “Jim from IT. Hi!”

Also: Sherlock’s (and Jim’s) past is going to get dragged up from ‘under the water’ of the swimming pool.

Aaaand: Sherlock and John are going to talk about ripping each other’s clothes off.

So, technically we know what s5 (and/or ‘The Lost Special’) will be all about, yes?

The rest is fake. Like John’s heterosexual façade at the end of the 4th pip case in TGG. Fake. Like when they assume ‘the bomber’ will now leave them alone and Sherlock will just eat that risotto in the fridge all alone in his cold flat.

Why are Mofftiss doing this?

Well, in their defence, I think they’re not doing it to piss off their fanbase. They’re taking the piss out of the media and the casual viewers. They knew their fans would be too clever to fall for this ruse.

They even told us so, using the voice of Ms Wenceslas during the 4th pip case in TGG:

“I mean, really: brushwork immaculate, could fool anyone… Well, nearly anyone.” Mofftiss never intended to make us angry. They weren’t making fun of us. They were making fun of all the media outlets and casual viewers out there, of the fools that could be fooled. Not us. They knew we would be cleverer than that. “…Could fool anyone…well nearly anyone…”

Because in the end, they fooled (nearly) everyone by using Culverton Smith’s strategy, not the Golem’s.

In s1 the subtext was still hidden in the way the Golem tried to hide himself. The subtext could only be found by the Homeless Network (us!). 

In s4 the subtext is so blatantly in-your-face that they’re using Culverton’s strategy; they’re hiding their intentions ‘in plain sight’.

The difference between the Homeless Network (us!) and the media that are watching Culverton’s ‘in-plain-sight’ routine is that the Homeless Network is clever and recognises a Golem when it sees one in the dark. The media are stupid, and they don’t recognise a Culverton even when he’s hidden ‘in plain sight’ right in front of them.

My meta about the sculptures and paintings on “Sherlock” can be found: HERE.

All screencaps in this posts came from here. (Except for the s4 promo pic, which is, of course, the cover of the s4 DVD.)

Transcripts from Ariane deVere.

[aromanticasterisms]

okay fontaine looks very fun and cool but the only thing to make me genuinely gasp aloud was the instrument choices at the end. glass harmonica?????????

[burr-ell]

Overly specific fanfic assumptions: you are so fucking tired and want a break from the pain in the world for cute shit, loved fairy tales/Disney movies as a kid, think beards are the hottest shit and hope for the cheesiest most domestic romance ever without having to seek it out <3

-the ADHD™ makes me both tired and wired at the same time, it's fun

-i mean!!! matt was giving us fucked up body horror shit from day one, i love a good fic that's an actual story but i'm a future starving artist i need my comfort food where i can get it and dammit sometimes that means writing it myself

-ngl gonna lie i loved all the disney animal stuff when i was little (aristocats, lady and the tramp, 101 dalmatians) and then when i got older i started to enjoy the fairy tale movies more so. this is a Read

-look. ok. listen. a man who can pamper his facial hair is a man who can pamper me

-...we know, but hey—

assume something specific about me based on my fanfics

[thatsuhboldchoice]

writing first acts: amazing, thrilling, groundbreaking, invigorating, life affirming

writing final acts: it took some work but eventually we got there

writing middle acts: hi. it's me. i'm the problem.

[hydrogen-jukebox]

i think i might have to make my show 5 seasons instead of 3 and it's pissing me off

[bangjiazheng]

How A Christmas Carol Perfectly Demonstrates Five-Act Structure

[astarionsunderwear]

nope really is the movie of all time. movie about capitalist exploitation. movie about black people being overworked and undervalued and underpaid in industries they are more than overqualified to be at the top of. movie about black (autistic) men being regarded as unsettling and dangerous. movie about black women being consistently overlooked no matter how hard they work. movie about child actors and actors of colour being cast aside when they are no longer cute or marketable. movie about personal legacy and generational trauma. movie about artists reaching the top of the mountain and falsely believing they are invincible. movie about technology and the digital revolution. movie about exploiting animals for profit. movie about what it means to be predator or prey. movie about the hollywood machine consuming human beings whole and spitting out money. movie about watching and being watched. movie about aliens. movie about movies. movie about horses

[prokopetz]

Frankly, the weirdest thing about Columbo from the perspective of modern network television isn't the narrative structure – it's the episode length. I'm checking Wikipedia right now to make sure I'm remembering this correctly, and apparently episodes of Columbo range from 73 to 98 minutes in length. Like, the shortest episodes of Columbo are on par with the longest episodes of Game of Thrones. The minimum length to be classified as a "feature film" is 80 minutes, so 50% of the episodes are technically movies. Including commercial breaks for broadcast television, this show would have originally aired in a two-hour timeslot. When folks remark on how weird it is that Columbo himself often doesn't even show up until the second act, you need to understand that what we're talking about is a show where the title character is often first strolling on screen thirty-five minutes in.

[hrrtshape]

the hardest pill to swallow . . if you don't assume, it won't work

this isn’t tough love. this isn’t a scolding. this is just the mechanics of reality. this isn’t about blame. it’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility (i saw this quote somewhere and i really liked it, anyway). reality is malleable, but only if you stop acting like you’re at its mercy. stop waiting for permission. stop refreshing the page, stop tapping the glass. it’s done. act accordingly.

consider your brain an old, glitchy computer, whirring in the corner of your psyche, choking on its own outdated code. your subconscious doesn’t know what’s real versus imagined, it only knows the instructions you give it. and if those instructions are "this isn’t happening, i don’t see it, i don’t believe it," well, congratulations, the system registers that as the blueprint. and it prints that out. over and over. like a bureaucratic nightmare, a kafka novel of your own making.

this is not to say that doubt is failure, doubt is human, doubt is a thrum in the background of any great creation. but if doubt is the occasional rainstorm, belief is the structural integrity of the house. belief holds. belief carries. belief is the scaffolding between you and the impossible, and without it, you are just standing in an empty field, waiting for architecture to spontaneously occur.

there’s a reason schrodinger’s cat remains the most infuriating hypothetical in quantum mechanics, because the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box. the observer collapses the wave function. and in this case, you are the observer. if you don’t believe it, you keep the box shut. if you do believe it, the universe is already rearranging itself around your conviction.

this is not new-age drivel. this is not a vision board with a quote about perseverance peeling off in the humidity. this is physics. have you ever thought about someone, and then they text you five minutes later? that’s the speed at which reality moves when you don’t get in your own way. you didn’t sit there clutching your skull, willing them into existence, you just assumed, with ease, with god-tier nonchalance. and because you weren’t scrutinising the timeline like a detective with a corkboard and red string and bloodied eyes, the message came through. the only thing standing between you and everything you want is the way you react to its absence. the hand-wringing, the despair, the creeping doubt, it’s a full-time job, and it pays in absolutely nothing.

which brings me to my next point: trying. trying is the problem. trying implies effort, and effort implies resistance, and resistance is another way of saying "i don’t actually believe i have this." and you know what people do when they have things? they stop worrying about whether they have them. a person in possession of an apple does not pace the room, clutching their chest, whimpering, "but do i really have it?" they just eat the apple.

and before you say, "but look at my reality, it’s contradicting me," i will say this once, and you must etch it into your mind like scripture: reality is old news. what you are seeing is just a delayed projection of past assumptions. do not react to it. do not engage with it. it is a rerun of a show you no longer care about. the moment you stop feeding into the contradictions, they wither. the moment you accept that what you want is already done, reality will course-correct. until then, it is an echo chamber of your previous doubts. ignore it like it’s a tabloid headline about a scandal that never actually happened.

flip the switch. decide, assume, move forward. no more "manifesting," no more "waiting." you don’t wait for what’s already yours. you don’t question a chair’s ability to hold you up before sitting down. you don’t send a letter and then agonise over whether the mail system still exists. you assume. you know. and so it is.

and before the panic sets in, no, this does not mean you must be a perfect disciple of unwavering belief. doubt will creep in, as it always does. you will have moments of existential dread, of scrutinising, of muttering "but what if" into your hands at 2 a.m. this is fine. this is human. just don’t let it become the dominant narrative. there will be moments where you feel like you're nowhere, like your manifestations have abandoned you and you're left with nothing but the weight of your own effort. do not, under any circumstances, entertain this lie. i will personally resurrect the fear of god just to drill this into you: do not. what you do instead is cry a little, wipe your face, and then lock the fuck in, because i swear on everything, sometimes, all it takes is a stretch of nothing to summon an abundance of everything. let the doubt pass through like an intrusive thought you refuse to entertain, like a pigeon that landed in your cafe but is not, in fact, your problem.

maybe this reminds you of when the soviets tried to scientifically disprove intuition, only to realise they had unintentionally proved it instead. maybe this reminds you of every ghost story you’ve ever heard, how the only ones who see them are the ones who expect to.

anyways. it's all already happening.