The Second Act

Rouge Wavers, welcome back from a blessed three-day weekend after which the Wave-inatrix trusts that you feel uplifted, rested, renewed, restored and sick of chocolate bunnies and matzo. Today we jump in by considering the second act.

The second act can often feel like a vast, empty field with your various elements bivouacked, huddling for warmth around tiny fires. Your first act went well, you know what you want to happen in the third act, but oy, that second act – so much empty space, so many pages to fill. Have another chocolate bunny.

There are a few things to remember about the second act which will help narrow it down to something more manageable and one of them is that the bulk of the entertainment that you set up in the first act, will appear in the second act. The second act is most of the movie, in other words. The second act of BIG has lots of scenes that show a kid experiencing life inside a grown man’s body. That’s the upshot of the promised entertainment in BIG. So whatever your promised entertainment is – you’re going to pay that off in the second act. With lots of scenes that show: an unlikely couple falling in love, or nurses battling vampire doctors, or passengers dealing with snakes on a plane. SNAKES is a lesson in high concept for all of us, incidentally.

While the Wave-inatrix freely admits that calculating a tip is a task that requires ten minutes and a calculator, for the sake of argument, take the golden 100 page script. Your midpoint is on or about page fifty, yes? This means that, in rough terms, you have 30 pages in your first act, 50 pages in your second act and 20 pages in the third act.

The second act can actually be divided into two parts: the first half of the second act which is punctuated by the midpoint and the second half of the second act which is punctuated by the second plot point which leads us into the third act. Most screenwriting texts will tell you that the midpoint of a script should be a very big reversal or complication; the point of no return, the point at which your character will have to completely change tactics in order to reach their exterior goal.

The advantage of viewing the second act in two parts is that you no longer view it as a huge, sprawling part of your script during which god-knows-what-will-happen but rather as mini-acts unto themselves. We know that in a screenplay each scene builds upon the last and introduces or foreshadows the next. There is a causal relationship between scenes. Well, the second act is no different in context. Things. Must. Ramp. Up. In fact, here’s a quick rule of thumb, from page one on – tension is always building. Whether that is comedic, dramatic or anything else. It is headed up up and up just like a beautiful balloon. Which will burst right around the second plot point.

The second act is the real meat and potatoes of your movie in the sense that it is here that we will see the essential action, drama, romance or battles that you the writer promised us in the first act. The second act is where you get your writer on. The second act is where you show us your chops. How great will those battle scenes be? How snappy or funny will the dialogue be as the story escalates into wilder and wilder setpieces? How emotionally invested will we be by the second act?

Fear not, Rouge Wavers, the second act need not be a dark, barren expanse littered with the dead bodies of what would have been your script. The way is lit for you: the second act is bracketed by plot point one which concludes the first act, the midpoint and the second plot point which propels us into the third act. Those guideposts, along with understanding that the second act is divided into two parts, will help make the second act a more digestible, less intimidating part of your script. Set forth with courage and confidence into the charted territory we call the second act.

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