Act I: Creating Conflict

14 Guiding Questions to Propel Your Story Through Act I

Learning Objective: By the end of this post, you will know how to use three key beats to develop conflict in Act I of your story.

In our last craft lesson, we talked about the metaphor Eric Edson uses to describe Act I. In his book,  The Story Solution, he suggests that Act I can be broken down into three key moments:

1. A trap is set for the protagonist.

2. The protagonist steps into the trap.

3. The trap springs shut.

Each of these moments consists of three story beats. 

• A trap is set for the protagonist.

  • The Ordinary World Beat

  • The Core Wound Beat

  • The Call to Action Beat

• The protagonist steps into the trap.

  • The Meet the Bad Guy Beat

  • The Enter the Trap Beat

  • The Take the Risk Beat

• The trap springs shut.

  • The Leg in the Bear Trap Beat

  • The Turn into Act II Beat

  • The Revised Goal Beat

Last month, we discussed how to set a trap for our protagonists using 20 guiding questions to develop the Ordinary World Beat, the Core Wound Beat, and the Call to Action Beat.

Today, we’re breaking down the three beats of Act I that create compelling person vs. person conflict at the beginning of a story. This time, we’ll use Gladiator (2000) as our example. Spoilers ahead for this movie. As always, take what’s useful from this lesson and leave what’s not behind.

To start, we first need to use the three beats from our last lesson to define how the trap is set for Maximus, the protagonist and main gladiator in the story. The film opens with a battle that immediately gives us the Ordinary World Beat for Maximus’s story. We see Maximus in pursuit of a short-term goal (winning the battle), and we learn that he is an excellent soldier and “Rome’s greatest general.”

After he wins the battle, the Core Wound Beat occurs in a conversation between Maximus and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome. Maximus tells Marcus that he has not seen his family in “two years and 264 days.”

Marcus Aurelius then reveals that he is dying and initiates the Call to Action Beat with his final request. He tells Maximus, “I want you to become the protector of Rome after I die . . . give power back to the people . . . and end the corruption.”

As you’ll remember from our last lesson, the Call to Action Beat works best if it includes the inciting incident and introduces the antagonist and their goals. Here, Marcus Aurelius clearly states that he does not want his own son, Commodus, to succeed him as emperor. He says to Maximus, “Commodus is not a moral man. You have known that since you were young. Commodus cannot rule. He must not rule.” This comment establishes two important things: (1) Commodus is the antagonist and (2) Commodus’s concrete, external goal is to become emperor of Rome. This moment also establishes the throne’s succession as the trap for Maximus.

Now that we’ve established how the trap is set, we can break down how the story creates conflict that forces Maximus into the trap.

The Protagonist Steps Into the Trap

In the middle of Act I, there are three beats that herd the protagonist into the trap:

1. Meet the Bad Guy Beat

2. Enter the Trap Beat

3. Take the Risk Beat

Unlike the Trap Is Set Sequence, the order of these beats may change depending on the needs of the story.

Meet the Bad Guy Beat

As we discussed in our conflict and antagonism lesson, the most effective form of conflict for western stories is person vs. person. That means if you’re writing for the western market, your story will be strongest if it has a single, identifiable character as its antagonist. The Meet the Bad Guy Beat is where the audience first sees the concrete ways in which your antagonist hinders the protagonist’s progress toward their goal. In some stories, we don’t necessarily see the antagonist in the flesh in this beat, but we instead see the concrete ways that they are capable of disrupting the protagonist’s external goal.

Up until this point in Gladiator, we know that it’s bad for the story world (Rome) if Commodus becomes emperor, but we have yet to see how Commodus has a personal conflict with Maximus. Remember, person vs. person conflict works best if it's personal, meaning that the protagonist will lose something they deeply care about if the antagonist wins and vice versa. In The Story Solution, Eric Edson refers to this beat as a moment that establishes “the power of the adversary.”

Here are guiding questions that will help you establish the power of your antagonist: