-
Lesson 2
Reply to post your work.
-
1 Reply
-
Subject line: Shelley Darling’s 4 Act Structure
“What I learned doing this assignment is the importance of taking another look at the structure to raise the stakes of each act builds strength and coherence to the story. Staying aligned with the pitch keeps us on track and elevates the writing.
Act 1:
Flash Forward Opening Montague: A distraught woman struggles to cross a bridge over a wild river. Following a flashing neon sign leads to a tavern. A creaking screen door opens to a huge saw blade on the floor. A photo of a gravestone on the mantle. Men cackle from a dark corner table. Bottle crashes. Misty apparition. Crashing car. Exploding fire.
-
Opening: MOLLIE wakes to fireworks exploding over Boston Harbor. Her dog, Togo, is howling in sync with the music. Clues of Mollie’s crumbling world are evident; her daughter’s empty bedroom, shaky promises, elusive love, a modern-day exile, and a box of cannolis with an eviction notice attached. Still, she vows to quit working for her demanding Jewish father.
-
Inciting Incident: Mom, in the lead, with Dad and Mollie trailing behind, charges past the nursing station into the head neurosurgeon’s office. Discovering an encapsulated tumor inside her spinal column is slow-growing, Mollie triumphantly tells the doctor she will delay treatment as Mom, spouting furiously, pushes Dad out the door.
-
Turning Point In the pounding rain, grasping her spasming leg, Mollie limps to her car and speeds out of the parking lot, nearly hitting a battered white pickup with a tribal license plate. Spooked by a misty apparition, she loses control and crashes into a large tree by the river.
Act 2:
-
New plan. Emboldened, Mollie, buoyantly crossing an old bridge, commits to returning to Poland to solve her dreams’ mystery.
-
Plan in action: Mollie, curious to learn more about the water bottling company, agrees to meet Moses for lunch. Thrown off balance by his overt charm and gentlemanly behavior, Mollie hesitantly is swooned into going to Paris Hill with him the next day.
-
Midpoint Turning Point: Dick the dowser cuts a forked maple branch in the woods. After Mollie gives up trying, Dick, putting his arm around her, holds one side of the branch taut, instructing her to let go of her mind to connect with the water. Feeling the branch pull her hands down, Mollie surrenders her frustration, breaking down in tears when finally locating the spring.
Act 3:
-
Rethink everything Hiking towards the cave, once again Moses prods Mollie about her upcoming plans. Feeling vulnerable,and defensive, Mollie receives a heart-breaking call from Brigitte, who inexplicably breaks off any future contact. Retreating into the cave, hitting her head, Mollie unleashes the angst of her childhood trauma. Cautiously, Moses tells the story of his own rejection. Uncontrollable giggles erupt when a wet, fat porcupine waddles into the cave as Mollie lets go and receives Moses as an ally.
-
New plan Looking at old photos in the Ricker Memorial Library, Dick reminisces about returning home on the night of the fire. In sharing her query about the truth of her dad’s loyalty as the accountant for the previous Poland Springs owner, supported by Dick Mollie is ready to trust Moses and tell him everything.
-
Turning Point: Huge failure / Major shift Over the moon to see Moses, Mollie, innocently in haste, divulges her research and the mystery surrounding the Confederate soldier Robert Cheever’s lost treasure. Suspicions confirmed and caught in a riptide of emotions, Moses leaps upon the gravestone, yelling at Mollie, shoving the cease and desist order towards her. Mollie declares she’s done.
-
Act 4:
-
Climax/Ultimate expression of the conflict: Retreating to Boston, family pandemonium boils over at the Chinese Restaurant as tempers flare and the flaming hotpot knocks over. Mollie’s devastated to learn a week later, her parents have just taken their lives.
-
Resolution: At the river, a rowdy group of children interrupts Mollie’s introspection as Angela, a friend from her past whom she lost to evangelistic beliefs, remorsefully relays a biblical parable highlighting her epiphany on relationships. In a moment of awakening, an eye-to-eye encounter with a large hawk causes Mollie to reach out to Grandmother Sasa. When Grandmother Sasa divulges her relationship with Molly Ockett, Mollie commits to follow Molly’s moccasins and go on a 4-day river journey.
-
Log in to reply.