The First Act (Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 3 of 12)

The First Act is the first major section within story structure. It comprises the first quarter of the story and focuses primarily on setting up and introducing the plot. As the foundation for everything, a solid First Act ensures your plot can achieve solidity and depth in subsequent acts.

Within the First Act, we find three important structural beats:

The Hook – 1% The Inciting Event – 12% The First Plot Point – 25%

The Hook, which we discussed in last week’s post, begins the story by introducing the first domino in the row of causality that will allow each scene to lead into the next. At that point, the protagonist will likely not yet be engaged in the main conflict. What happens at the Hook begins to set up the conflict, providing the first bit of foreshadowing and context.

The Inciting Event, which we will discuss next week, divides the First Act in half, providing the story’s first important turning point. It symbolically represents the Call to Adventure and invites the protagonist to engage with the primary conflict.

The First Plot Point does not discretely belong in either the First Act or the Second Act. Instead, it creates the “threshold” or Doorway of No Return between the Normal World of the First Act and the Adventure World of the Second Act. The First Plot Point is when your protagonist becomes fully engaged with the primary conflict. From here, the protagonist will not be able to turn back from the pursuit of the goal without consequences. We will discuss this all-important beat in more depth in a few weeks.

From this brief overview, you can see that the primary focus of the First Act is not the immersion of the protagonist in the story’s main conflict. Rather, the First Act is where the story develops the reasons the character will choose to engage with the antagonistic force later on. The story will go full-on in the Second Act. For that intensity to make sense, the First Act needs to provide context for what follows. You can think of the First Act as foreshadowing for the Second and Third Acts. It is the plant to the subsequent payoffs.

Setting Up the Story: Characters, Settings, and Stakes

After hooking readers, your main task in the First Act is to put your early chapters to work introducing your characters, settings, and stakes. Twenty-five percent of your book might seem a tremendous chunk of the story to devote to introductions. But if you expect readers to stick with you throughout the story, you must give them a reason to care. Mere curiosity can only carry readers so far. Once you’ve hooked their sense of curiosity, you must then deepen the pull by creating an emotional connection between them and your characters.

These “introductions” include far more than the moment of introducing the characters and settings or explaining the stakes. In themselves, the presentations of all the important characters probably won’t take more than a few scenes. After the actual introductions is when your task of deepening the characters and establishing the stakes really begins.

In one sense, the First Act is like a program for a play. Its primary purpose is to prepare readers for what’s in store. You’re using these early chapters to indicate which characters are important, what type of story readers can expect, and where the journey will take them.

The first quarter of the book is where you compile the necessary components for your story. Anton Chekhov’s famous advice that “if in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired” is just as pertinent in reverse: if a character fires a gun later in the book, that gun should be foreshadowed in the First Act. The story you create in the following acts can only be assembled from the parts you’ve shown or foreshadowed in the First Act.

Introducing Your Story’s Characters

Your first duty in the First Act is to allow readers the opportunity to learn about your characters. Who are these people? What is the essence of their personalities? What core beliefs will be challenged or strengthened throughout the book? If you introduced someone in a Characteristic Moment, as discussed last week, then you were already able to show readers who this person is. From there, the plot can build as you deepen the stakes and set up the conflict that will explode halfway through the First Act in the Inciting Event and later at the First Plot Point.

Every story spreads out the arrival of important cast members differently. Usually, prominent actors should all be on stage by the time the bell rings at the end of the First Act. You can find exceptions in which prominent characters don’t arrive until late in the story (e.g., Cynthia in Wives and Daughters), but these late arrivals must be well planned. An arbitrary new character is never a good idea.

Try to introduce all the following players within the First Act:

Protagonist

Introduce the protagonist as quickly as you can, in the first scene if possible (and it should almost always be possible). The early introduction of the main character signals to readers this is the person whose story they’re reading and therefore this is the person to whom they need to attach loyalty.

Antagonist

You’ll usually introduce or at least foreshadow the antagonist early on, both to get the conflict rolling and to foreshadow the opposition to whatever your character cares about.

Love Interest

Particularly if your story is a romance, but even if the love story is only a subplot, you will most likely bring your protagonist’s love interest on stage in the First Act. Although you don’t have to signal these two people will end up in love, you can at least signify the character’s importance with an early introduction.

Sidekick

Minor characters come and go in a story. Some will be important, some won’t. Those who will be at your protagonist’s side for the majority of the book deserve at least a short intro sometime before the First Plot Point.

Mentor

Mentor characters (which may or may not be Mentor archetypes) can enter a story just about anywhere in the first two acts, depending on their importance and the size of their roles. When possible, avoid convenient plot twists later on by introducing, or at least foreshadowing, a mentor character’s existence in the First Act.

Introducing Your Story’s Stakes

As your characters walk onto the stage, they will bring the stakes along with them. What they care about—and the antagonistic forces that threaten what they care about—must be shown or hinted at to foreshadow the deepening conflict of the Second Act.

Keep in mind the arc you’re trying to create for your characters. Some characters may need to endure a nuclear holocaust to learn their lessons and change their ways. Other times, the catalyst a story needs (i.e., the “worst” thing that can happen) will be smaller and more intimate.

Whatever that worst thing ends up being, you must set it up in the First Act. If your character’s daughter is going to be kidnapped, the First Act is the place to show readers how much her daughter means to her. You can’t up the stakes later on without something first being at stake.

It’s not enough to merely mention whatever is at stake for your characters. You must also take the time to develop it. Don’t be in such a hurry to get to the action that you neglect this foundation in the First Act. You can explain the stakes outright (“I love my little girl,” the mother says. “I would do anything to make a better life for her.”), or you can prove them through action (the mother lovingly swings her daughter at the playground)—or both.

The more proof you supply of your character’s investment in something (i.e., family, job, honor, etc.), the higher the stakes will be when that thing is threatened. The First Act is your first and most important opportunity to supply this proof. Once the First Plot Point hits at the 25% mark, the story will move too quickly to fully establish these important aspects of your character.

Introducing Your Story’s Settings

Why is it important to introduce prominent settings in the First Act? Aside from the necessity of grounding readers in the story world, well-planned settings will empower your story with continuity and resonance. Your setting is the visual frame that unifies your story. If your book takes place in a prison, that’s the box in which readers will put your story when they think about it. Shawshank Redemption and The Great Escape? What do you think of when you hear those titles? The prison setting is what defines them and frames their plots.

But what if you write your prison story so the character doesn’t land in jail until the First Plot Point at the 25% mark? What if the settings in the First Act won’t ever be seen again? Maybe your protagonist starts out as a loving father who is wrongly accused of murder and tossed into the pen. You spend the first quarter of your story establishing his Normal World with his suburbanite family, then bam! he’s in jail and he won’t return to the suburbs for the rest of the book.

Even if you introduce a new batch of settings later on, your early settings are crucial for establishing character and stakes. Early settings can also create contrast when your poor protagonist is dumped in the brig later. Setting is the foundation of verisimilitude. Make readers believe they’re in a real place, and you’ve won half your battle against their skepticism.

Setting should never be an arbitrary choice. Consider what settings the plot will require, then try to create a strong reading experience by eliminating extraneous settings. A limited number of settings gives both you and the readers less to keep track of and allows more opportunities for deepening existing settings. A handful of important settings will allow you to create thematic resonance when you return to them at key moments in the story, thus bringing their presence in the story full circle.

Let’s say your jailbird dad in the previous example is released from prison during the story’s Climax. If you stage your closing scene back home in the suburbs, you’ll bring the story full circle, neatly closing the frame you opened in the First Act. By the same token, if he doesn’t get to go home at the end of the story, you might want to question whether opening with the suburban setting was your best choice.

What if the protagonist is on a journey with no main setting? Journey stories present a different set of challenges. What you’ll need to create in this sort of story is a “transient setting.” Alert readers that the characters will be jumping from setting to setting, then ground readers with the details that will remain the same no matter where the characters are. If they’re with a camel caravan in Egypt or just driving cross-country in their Jeep 4×4, these, in essence, become the primary settings no matter where the characters go.

The hectic nature of journey stories, particularly adventure stories, creates a milieu in which their exoticness is the setting. When you open the story with an exotic setting and plant the expectation that the character won’t be staying long, you’re providing the same foreshadowing as you would by using a more domestic story’s First Act to accustom readers to one or two prominent settings.

Examples of the First Act From Film and Literature

Pride and Prejudice: Ten pages in, we’ve met all the major characters, learned about the setting, and seen what’s at stake for the Bennet daughters if one of them can’t ensnare the unwitting Mr. Bingley. By the time we reach the First Plot Point, we’ve gotten to know all the sisters. The beauty and sweetness that will eventually win Jane a husband, the independence and strong opinions with which Elizabeth drives the conflict, and the foreboding irresponsibility of the youngest daughter Lydia are all in place and ready to be developed later in the story. We’ve also been introduced to the Bingleys, Darcy, and Wickham. Before the First Act is over, Bingley is in love with Jane, and Elizabeth has made up her mind to dislike Darcy—the two factors that will drive the story to come.

It’s a Wonderful Life: Under the guise of explaining George Bailey to novice angel Clarence, the senior angels show us the prominent moments in George’s young life. We see him as a child, saving his little brother from drowning, going deaf in one ear, and preventing old Mr. Gower from accidentally poisoning a customer. We glimpse him as a young man, planning his escape from “crummy” Bedford Falls, even as he becomes smitten with the lovely Mary Hatch. By the time the Inciting Event strikes, we know George Bailey inside out. We’ve been introduced to Bedford Falls and its colorful array of denizens. And we’ve learned of the stakes from George’s father, who explains the importance of the Bailey Brothers Building & Loan in giving the people a financial haven from evil Old Man Potter.

Ender’s Game: Card uses his First Act to establish his setting: the orbital Battle School, where brilliant young children train to stave off an alien invasion. We learn about this strange and brutal place through the eyes of the main character, Ender Wiggin, who is a new arrival. This also allows us to learn about Ender. We see his determination and his kindness, but also the underlying bedrock of his ruthlessness—around which the entire plot turns. Almost all the significant supporting characters are introduced. Readers are shown what is at stake, not only for the human race, but also for Ender if he does not overcome the handicap of his extreme youth in order to flourish in this place.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World: After the initial onslaught of the furious opening battle, the movie slows considerably to allow viewers to get to know the main characters—the captain, the surgeon, and other featured crew members. The opening battle already demonstrated the high stakes, and the characters’ reactions (most notably the captain’s intense desire to refit the ship and reengage the enemy) help us understand why they’re fighting and what will happen if they fail. As the crew repairs the battle damage, we’re also given an inside view of the ship, the primary setting throughout the story.

Top Things to Remember About the First Act

If the Hook has done its job, you can safely slow the action to thoughtfully introduce and deepen your characters. The characters’ salient personality points, motivations, and beliefs should all be developed. The pertinent points of the initial setting must be fleshed out. Readers should already be oriented by the time the First Plot Point arrives. The readers’ bond with the characters helps raise the stakes. Make clear what the characters stand to lose in the coming conflict to drive the point home. Every scene must matter. Each scene is a domino knocking into the next domino/scene, building inexorably to the First Plot Point.

Stay tuned: Next week, we’ll talk about the Inciting Event.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinions! Do you take the time to introduce your characters, settings, and stakes in your First Act? Tell me in the comments

Related Posts:

Part 1: 5 Reasons Story Structure Is Important

Part 2: The Hook

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