I'm glad more of us are talking about structure like this. Earlier this year I wrote an essay building up an understanding of act structure from what I called "first principles" AKA the inescapable parts of storytelling so as to arrive, backwards, at a structure which only contained the strictly necessary parts of a story.
I found that, really, 3-acts, 5-acts and 6-acts all group the same key moments of plot, just differently to each other. The more useful thing I think is understand what those key moments are, and how accurately identifying each one in your story—for risk of having your first act take half your page count because you mis-identified it as your midpoint... for instance (no, I'm not speaking from experience, what meee, nooo neverrrr)
That sounds like a great essay! Key moments and choice moments are really great ways to look at story structure, too. I'm so glad that you've delved into them. Those midpoints, though. Agh!
I'm glad more of us are talking about structure like this. Earlier this year I wrote an essay building up an understanding of act structure from what I called "first principles" AKA the inescapable parts of storytelling so as to arrive, backwards, at a structure which only contained the strictly necessary parts of a story.
I found that, really, 3-acts, 5-acts and 6-acts all group the same key moments of plot, just differently to each other. The more useful thing I think is understand what those key moments are, and how accurately identifying each one in your story—for risk of having your first act take half your page count because you mis-identified it as your midpoint... for instance (no, I'm not speaking from experience, what meee, nooo neverrrr)
That sounds like a great essay! Key moments and choice moments are really great ways to look at story structure, too. I'm so glad that you've delved into them. Those midpoints, though. Agh!