Hi friends! Welcome back to another blog. If you haven’t already, catch up on the romantasy novel I’m writing before you read through this one. If you prefer video, I covered this topic on YouTube.
Today, I want to talk about Act 2 of my novel, specifically, and the mini-breakthroughs I recently experienced. I think they might be helpful to other authors out there.
So Act 2 of any book is a beast. It’s about 50% of your novel, assuming we’re talking about the three-act structure. For a long time, I used to follow the three-act structure, which was so overwhelming. Then I discovered the four-act structure, which splits Act 2 down the middle. That helped, but I still found Act 2 really tricky to write.
What I always end up doing is writing something very linear. My protagonist does this, and then this, and then this, and this, and this… and then we mysteriously arrive at the climax.
No tension. No increasing stakes. No building conflict. Act 2 would be flat, and then it would just randomly climax. That makes for very wonky pacing and, ultimately, a very flat story.
In every book I’ve written, I’ve run into another problem. Act 2 was always too short, which means my books, overall, are always short. And I mean short. Like I’ll finish telling a whole story and my book will be 50,000 words. And I’ll always be like, “I have nothing left to say.”
So those were my two big challenges with Act 2: It’s always flat and it’s always short. The Save the Cat! blueprint did help, but with this latest novel, I could still tell that I would eventually run into the same problems.
And I was like, “Hell no, I’m not doing this again.” I want so much juicy material to work with that I have to trim words, not desperately try to find more.
Now, for the breakthrough.
The role that Act 2 plays
I cannot take credit for this. I discovered an editor on YouTube. Her name is Ellen Brock. Four of her videos, in particular, cover all four acts of a novel. So she covers 25% at a time.
When I say I binged her content… boy, did I.
She explains the four acts in more detail, with more clarity than anyone else I’ve come across. And I’ve never felt so seen.
Here’s what I learned about the problems I’m having with Act 2. For the rest of this blog, when I say Act 2, I mean Act 2 of 4—the second 25% of my novel. So we’re talking about the four-act structure.
The protagonist is a fish out of water
Remember the first challenge I mentioned: Act 2 always seems flat. Ellen said that there is a natural decline in the speed or pacing of Act 2 because, at the end of Act 1, the protagonist enters a new environment or new circumstances, so Act 2 is when we see the protagonist becoming acclimated to those new surroundings or circumstances.
They’re a fish out of water, and they’re stumbling around trying to solve new problems with an old way of thinking, which won’t work.
But it’s the part about allowing the protagonist to become acclimated that caught my attention. I’ve always got it in my head that the main character always needs to be moving toward their goal.
And that’s true. But the thing is, in Act 2, that’s going to look different. They are moving toward their goal but they’re doing it by learning more about what doesn’t work, rather than what will help them. Additionally, there’s a good chance they’re chasing the wrong goal in the first place!
So that immediately alleviated one of my issues of that feeling of flatness to my Act 2, because it’s not supposed to be nonstop action.
Here’s the second part of this though. Because I was so worried about Act 2 falling flat, and then tried to skip right to the action, I was essentially skipping Act 2 completely.
My protagonist leaves Act 1, goes on this new adventure, and then goes right into Act 2 with all the knowledge she needs to make progress toward her goal.
No, all wrong! I was skipping an entire quarter of the book which is why my novels have always been too short.
I was surprised to learn that I’m not alone in this because I feel like I more often see authors agonizing over having a book that’s too long and needing to trim it down. I’m the opposite. But Ellen said that this is a thing (I’m not the only one!), and she also said it’s kind of surprising because structurally, Act 2 is the simplest.
It should be the easiest to write, but I get so hung up on it that in anticipation of it, I dread it.
How I’m reframing my mindset is I’m going: Ok, my protagonist is setting out in this new world to accomplish this goal. However, her current way of thinking is this. She’s going to try to solve these problems in the wrong way and it won’t work. How can I Illustrate that?
“Where are all the bad guys?”
I went back to the drawing board, redid my synopsis, came up with a couple of new ideas, and showed them to my husband–who I’ve mentioned is my test audience–and he was like, “…No.”
He said that it still felt very linear. This happens and this happens and this happens.
I was like, “What is still missing?”
He said, “Where are all the bad guys?”
I had conflict in Act 2 in the sense that what the protagonist was doing wasn’t working. And there were hints of the main antagonist. But he was like, “This is a fantasy novel. You need more bad guys. More threats.”
What I did was I went online and read summaries of the first books in a few fantasy series I’ve read, and sure enough, in the first half of those novels, there are several bad guys that show up. They’re just smaller bad guys sent by the big bad guy.
That’s when I realized I was seriously lacking in this department. Having more threats will help ramp things up and further demonstrate, “What’s happening is bad and it’s going to get worse.”
Plus, it’s fantasy. Why write fantasy if you’re not gonna have some cool bad guys?
I’m really trying to change my mindset around Act 2 because like I said, I go into it, at this point, expecting it to be hard, which—I have no doubt—is making it even harder. If I can approach it with the same excitement and confidence that I approach Act 1… why wouldn’t I do that?
I highly recommend Ellen Brock’s channel. A lot of what she talks about, you’ll also see in Save the Cat! But what I love about her, and she calls this out, is that she doesn’t just talk about the main plot points. She talks about what happens in between those points which is what no one else is talking about. I know I need a midpoint, and a pinch point, and this, that, and the other thing. What about in between those? She does a great job explaining that and also offers a ton of examples. Go check her out.
The romantasy journey continues! Thanks for reading. xo