Act I: Setting a Trap for your Protagonist

20 Guiding Questions for Writing Act I

Learning Objective: By the end of this post, you will know how to use three key beats as guides for writing Act I of your story.

Act I is all about set up. The opening of a novel, screenplay, or short story lays the foundation for the conflict of the entire narrative. For much of my writing life, I always thought that image-driven writing was the key to hooking a reader. This belief made me think I could write strong beginnings simply because I could create image-driven openings that evoked all five senses. But I’ve recently discovered that this belief is actually false when it comes to my own writing and reading sensibilities. Image-driven writing—while immensely important—doesn’t actually hook a reader’s attention, it maintains it. I think this is why I’ve read so many books (particularly in grad school) that are beautifully written but boring because nothing happens. I now believe that character-driven writing is the key to hooking a reader’s attention. This kind of writing focuses on two things: (1) the protagonist’s intentions and (2) the obstacles the antagonist and story world puts in front of them.

While reading The Story Solution by Eric Edson, I discovered a strategy for character-driven writing that helps me develop the opening of a story. This strategy is derived from a metaphor Edson uses to describe Act I. In his book, he suggests that Act I can be divided up into three important moments:

1. A trap is set for the hero.

2. The hero steps into the trap.

3. The trap springs shut.

Each of these moments has three beats that we can use as a guide to shape the first act of our own stories. Today, I’m launching a three-part series that breaks down each section of Act I. We’ll also cover the guiding questions that will help you create a character-driven opening for your story. As a reminder, I teach western storytelling conventions because this is the tradition I write in. Take anything that helps you and your writing life and leave everything that doesn’t behind.

Since I’m writing today’s post on my flight to the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, I’ll be using Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) as our example because it’s available on the plane. Spoilers ahead for the first 30 minutes of this film, but most of the plot points I mention here are actually in the trailer.

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Three Act Structure Series

1. Act I: Three Beats to Start A Story

2. Act I: Three Beats for Creating Conflict

3. Act I: Three Beats for the Turn into Act II

4. How to Write a Subplot

5. Act II: How to Write the Fun and Games

6. Act II: How to Write a Midpoint

7. Story Structure Analysis: Bring It On (2000)

8. Act II: How to Avoid a Soggy Middle

9. Act III: How to End a Story

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A Trap Is Set

In the first part of Act I, the antagonist or the story world itself sets a trap for the protagonist. The following three beats are often used at the very beginning of a story to effectively set up the trap:

1. The Ordinary World Beat

2. The Core Wound Beat

3. The Call to Action Beat

The Ordinary World Beat

In our craft lesson on conflict and antagonism, we used this definition for the ordinary world:

The ordinary world is what the protagonist’s life looked like before the start of the story.

As Edson writes in The Story Solution, the best way to demonstrate the protagonist’s ordinary world is to show them in pursuit of a short-term, external goal. This goal can be as mundane as Daisy lighting the ground floor fires in the first episode of Downton Abbey and as exciting as Thor killing Surtur in the opening of Thor: Ragnarok. Here are some guiding questions to help you develop the Ordinary World Beat of your story.

Guiding Questions: