- What's up my friend, Abbie here, and welcome back to
Writerslife Wednesdays, where we come together to help you make your story matter and make your author dreams come true. Today we're continuing
with, you guessed it. The three act story structure,
story beat breakdown series. I've been taking you through the three act story structure step by step and showing you why it's so amazing and also the brain science
behind why it works. Because why else would
you follow a structure? Unless it was scientifically
proven to work. If you haven't seen the
previous videos in this series, you can check them out right here. But if you've been following along, let's jump right into today's video. We've already explored
act one and act two. Wow! We're in the home stretch now, act three, which starts off with one
of my favorite story beats, the disaster. Yes. The time has come to
destroy your characters. - Why does your story matter? Good question. What if I told you that there's a science
behind every great story. I don't just teach you how to write. I teach you how to change the world with your story and make
your author dreams come true. - Contrary to popular
belief, the disaster, isn't just some crazy
horrible thing that happens to your protagonist. No, that might be what you think it is, but you and millions of
other writers would be wrong. See, when most writers arrive
at this part of the story, they get a little too excited. They've been saving up their
sadism for this moment, and now they just wanna
make their characters suffer by inflicting some random and terrible pain on them
and make the reader cry and just be alone some person in general. But what if I told you
that is not the best way to make your character suffer? What if I told you that is in fact, the most bland and non
riveting way to handle this climactic moment in your story? I'm serious. Don't squander there's a moment, not when you've spent
so much time building up this amazing internal
conflict for your character, because here's the thing. A horrible thing is a horrible thing if it happens to anyone. Just like we talked about in the pre mid point
reactionary hero video, your story becomes a boring when the stakes are the same for everyone, or let me put it like this, if the disaster that you have in mind would be equally terrible
if it happened to any one of your characters, you need to think of a different disaster. Let's pause here and read the description of the disaster plot point from my three act story
structure template, which is linked in the
description box below, by the way. And then we'll go into the
brain science behind this. First, right before the
disaster plot point, we have an extra plot
point that's kinda optional and it is the supposed victory. Protagonist thinks they have overcome. Making progress with their
new and improved plan, protagonists feels confident
they will be victorious, or perhaps they have already
overcome the smallest of the challenges and feel
pretty good about their plan. Little do they know
disaster is on the way. Note, this plot point is
optional, but awesome. Prompt, ask yourself, why
does my protagonist think they will be victorious? What is happening to
make them feel so close to achieving their goal and
finding happiness at last? Okay, so I say this story beat is optional because not every story has
it, not every story needs it. Sometimes it just doesn't
fit into the narrative that you've crafted. And that's totally fine. But if you have the time
to fool your protagonist into thinking that they've won and things are going good, and the ultimate plan
that they have plotted out is going to be a success, then it's all the more
devastating, isn't it? When disaster strikes. Just something to think about, it could greatly enhance your story. Okay, boom! Disaster. Everything goes wrong. Bring your protagonists to their knees by rooting the disaster in their greatest fear and misbelief. And might be something that's terrible for anyone to experience, but go beyond that and make it something especially bad
for your protagonists because of their fear and misbelief. Every decision they've
made throughout the story has led them to this moment, which means they are to
blame for their own ruin. Prompt, ask yourself,
what does this disaster specifically mean to my protagonist? How does it force them to realize that they're the one to
blame for this crisis? How does it completely disarm
them and make them face off with their fear and misbelief? Okay, there's so much to
unpack in this description but I don't wanna overwhelm
you with too much information. I just wanna stay super
focused on one thing, rooting the disaster in your
characters greatest fear. That's it, that's it. Because you've been showing
us what their fear is this whole time, right? You've been building
their internal conflict and letting us see their
misbelief and where it came from. Right? Well, now why to totally destroy them because nothing else will. I mean, think about it. Some things may hurt
them may cause them pain, may make them suffer just
like it would for anyone. But this isn't a story about anyone. This is a story about
your unique protagonist. So what would destroy them? Hmm, I don't know. Maybe the thing that they've
always been afraid of, maybe the thing that's so deeply rooted in the core of who they are, they would do anything to
stop it from happening. The thing they've spent most of the story running
away from like the plague. I don't mean literally running from it. I don't mean the antagonist. Okay? If you have an antagonist that's actively hunting
the protagonist down. I'm talking about the
thing behind the thing. The reason why the
protagonist does what they do, the misbelief that shapes their reality more on crafting a
misbelief in this video, by the way. See, this is the trap that
most writers fall into. They get so caught up asking
themselves what that thing is going to happen to my character. And they forget to make the bad things specifically meaningful to the character. They forget to ask themselves
why does it matter? Just like we talked about in the inciting incident video, the definition of your
characters comfort zone is what makes the disaster disastrous. In the case of the inciting incident, it was the difference between characters pushed outside the door to characters shoved
outside their comfort zone. Small change, but it
makes a huge difference. Why? Because it forces you to think
about why it matters to them. It forces you to draw the
lines of the comfort zone, which means that you have to
think about their misbelief, which is basically the reverse
engineered big idea or theme that you want to convey
through this story. Well, see what just happened there? That bad thing happening, just turned into something
really meaningful. Not just to the characters, but to you as the author. Without the meaning, all you're doing is engaging the readers mirror neurons. Their brain is reacting
to what's happening as if it's happening to them, but they don't step in the shoes of the character and become the character. They don't feel the same desires
and fears as the character. They just feel their own
biochemical reactions to the peril happening on the page. Don't let your character be
a punching bag for the plot. Remember, but wait, Abby, if the disaster is going
to destroy my character, then doesn't that make
them a punching bag? Yes and no, because they are more or
less punching themselves. Remember what I said in the description. Every decision they have
made throughout the story has led them to this moment, which means they are to
blame for their own ruin. This is really what makes
the reader want to scream because they saw it coming. They may have picked up
on your first shadowing, they may have called it, but even if they didn't, they've had a front row
seat to this character, getting themselves in deeper,
deeper, deeper trouble. They've been waiting
for disaster to strike. And after disaster strikes, it's time for the dark moment. When your protagonist is hopeless, it's always darkest before the dawn. Your protagonist needs
a rock bottom moment in order to have an "aha" moment. And that's what makes the
revelation so satisfying. But right now in wake of the disaster, your protagonist is feeling utterly and completely broken, confused,
lost, and disappointed. Prompt, ask yourself, how is my protagonist forced into the ring with their kryptonite? That's another really helpful prompt. How are they forced into the
ring with their kryptonite. By that I don't necessarily
mean their fear. It could be their specific fear, but more likely it's the
thing behind the fear. The thing that emotionally disarms them and leaves them hopeless. Now this has a lot to do with personality, and we talked about personality
types in my Enneagram video. In fact, in my Enneagram video, I included this infographic, which is like a cheat sheet
for the various kryptonite of each Enneagram type. So for example, once kryptonite is being criticized. Yap. For sure. (Abby laughs) So if your characters are one, maybe take this concept of criticism and just turn up the volume. Make it really bad because of who is criticizing them or why. Some of these will obviously
have to be intensified like the nine, never talk over a nine. That's probably not strong enough to be a disaster plot
point, but maybe it is. If you're a nine that
might just destroy you. But the point is, you
can turn up the intensity on all of these things and
just use this as a springboard to spark some ideas for a disaster that's super meaningful to the characters because of who they are. Again, the three act story
structure can be bent and edited to suit your specific story needs. Don't get too obsessed with trying to make your story align
exactly with every letter of the structure. It's okay if you need
to make some changes. And the most important thing is to just remember the
principles behind the structure, why it works, why it matters, and always,
always, always make it matter to your characters. Okay, so I really, really wanna
show you some story examples of what the disaster in dark
moment plot point looks like in real stories, but I'm going to save those examples for the next video, because that's when we're going
to unpack the "aha" moment and you really need to see how all three of these plot points, the disaster dark moment and "aha" moment, all come together to create incredibly powerful climactic
moment in your story. So next time, we'll talk about the "aha" moment, my favorite story beat and why it is the most
important part of your story. Plus in that video, we'll do a major case
study of real stories, all different genres, and look at how the disaster to "aha" moment all flows together. And if you're from the future, the link to that video
will be right there. I also wanna add real quick
that there is an alternative to the disaster dark moment story beat, and that is a moment of temptation. And I'm gonna do a whole separate video on the temptation story beat. So, stick around for that. I don't wanna overwhelm you
with too much information in this video, it's already getting super long. So stick around for that video and eventually the link
will be right there. Okay, let's recap what we learned about the disaster dark moment today. The disaster isn't just some random, terrible thing that happens
to your protagonist. If the disaster you have in mind would be equally terrible if it happened to any
one of your characters, you need to come up with
a different disaster. To really make your character suffer, root that disaster in their
greatest fear and misbelief, it might be something that's terrible for anyone to experience, but go beyond that and make it something especially
bad for your protagonist because of their fear and misbelief. Every decision your protagonist has made throughout the story has
led them to this moment. Which means they are to
blame for their own ruin. This is the extra layer of pain that is so deeply
satisfying to your audience. If it's just random thing happening, then your protagonist is a
punching bag for the plot. But if it's a direct result
of their own actions, then your protagonist is the
creator of their own suffering and the cause of their own destruction. Ask yourself, what does this
disaster specifically mean to my protagonist? How does it force them to realize that they are the one to
blame for this crisis? How does it completely disarm them and make them face off with
their fear and misbelief? How is my protagonist forced into the ring with their kryptonite? Okay, boom! That's it for this week, don't go away. Make sure you subscribe because next week we're going
to dig into the "aha" moment and I'm gonna show you how
all of this flows together, again, I'm gonna show you
the exact story examples of the disaster, dark
moment, "aha moment", and how that looks and
flows so beautifully in some of my favorite stories. Smash that like button
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