Four-Act Theory of Everything

I need a roadmap. I'm not disciplined enough to stick to a simple, clean through-line when I'm storycrafting. I need an unflappable navigation system to steer me true north. So over the years I've refined a master mindmap charting the gotta-haves and put-it-heres.

Storytelling is structure. Screenwriting is structure. There's your secret to success. If you sucked in a breath just now and narrowed your eyes and formed the word "but..." in your mind, you are wrong. But you can be cured. Zen with me now: screenwriting is structure. Take your medicine. Fight that burning fever driving you to start writing with no outline. Without even a logline! Drink deep and drink again and feel the pain and anguish lift and drift away. You were lost but you are found. Screenwriting is structure.

Dan Harmon is our gen-X Joseph Campbell. I mean that in a good way — not that it could be construed in a bad way. Nobody distills monomyth four-act writing like Dan. Also, nobody makes John Goodman cool again like Dan.

Only when I stumbled across the School of Dan Harmon* did everything click — really click. That guy knows. It's scary at first how totally he gets it. Thankfully, Dan's wisdom lies scattered throughout the interwebs. You should go find all those little pockets of storytelling treasure (hint: alongside Dan's name google "channel 101" and "acceptable.tv"). Also read this.

Dan's insight helped me understand and organize my years of story structure notes — an ongoing process, one I expect to end only when I do.

Here's the birdseye of My Precious...

* Not an actual school, but let's lobby for one.

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Andrew Stanton (PIXAR) - transcript - Keynote, Screenwriting Expo 5 (2006), Understanding Story: or My Journey of Pain

UPDATE, March 2012: New TED 2012 Talk by Andrew Stanton, covering much of the same material recorded here. READABILITY TIP: For easier reading and to prevent eye strain, narrow the width of your browser tab to reflow the text into shorter lines. I recommend a words-per-line count of 12 to 15. As soon as I found it on Google Video, I knew I would have to transcribe it. Here is all of Andrew Stanton's keynote from Screenwriting Expo 5 (2006). He named it: "Understanding Story: or My Journey of Pain." I have not transcribed the Q&A that followed the keynote. Perhaps I will tackle it one day. Not for a while -- this transcription consumed quite a few of my nights, and I'm happy to be done with it. And now that I can look at it from head to toe, I can see it was worth every coffee-fueled keystroke. With Stanton's experiences and lessons to guide us, we cannot fail to become better storytellers. Note: Andrew talks FAST, so this transcript ...

The 4-Act Story Diamond

Update: new version of the 4-Act Story Diamond graphic here . Update 2 (2023): Even more 4-act structure , courtesy of Stan Williams. I don't believe in the three-act screenplay story structure. It's four acts, plain and simple. I said so ten years ago on Jack Stanley's Scrnwrit list, and nothing has changed since. Four acts, no more, no less. I'm sorry those screenwriting gurus sold you on three acts and then five acts and then seven acts or -- what are we up to now? Nine? Twelve? Look, we're all grasping for the magic template that will reign in the chaos and tame our wild stories, so I don't blame you for listening to those guys. The four acts were there all along and the screenwriting gurus knew it, or at least sensed it. Certainly Syd Field knew it, although he failed to make a clean break from the dogmatic Aristotle three-act structure . I swear, if I hear once more that line about "Get your hero up a tree, throw rocks at him, then get him ...

4-Act Story Diamond v2

This model represents the Hero's Journey in four acts. It supplements my old story diamond. Click the image for a larger view. Discussion about the eight plot points is here .

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