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The Break Into 3

Banes at 12:00AM, Jan. 16, 2025
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Last Week we looked at the “Break Into 2”, the transition between the beginning of a story: The “Before” picture of the Protagonist and their world, and the “Upside Down World” of Act 2.

So, a little later in your average story will come the “Break Into 3”. This leaves behind the Upside-Down, New world of Act 2 and takes us in to the section where the Protagonist is changed in some way, and (usually) commits to that change.

This has to be HARD for the story to really hit. Does that mean physical pain, and screaming, and stuff like that?

Well…maybe. But maybe not.

The important thing is that it takes some combination of what the Protagonist WAS in Act 1, and the new things they've learned or experienced in Act 2. They put those qualities together somehow, or behave in a way they never could have back at the start to win the day.

But let's back up.

We're in Act 2, and all kinds of unusual things have happened to the Protagonist. Maybe it's been pretty fun to have this different life…and maybe they've learned that they can't really go back to how it was before. This might be challenging for them.

But now, something REALLY bad happens.

The relationship breaks up. They get dumped, and they deserve it. Or the key witness to the court case dies. Or the MENTOR figure, who taught them all these new things, dies (this is the archetypal thing that happens here: the death of the mentor).

We call this the “All is Lost” moment. That's a moment talked about in Save the Cat, but also in almost every other story structure method as far as I know. This is an important moment, as are the things that come after.

After this devastating moment comes the “Dark Night of the Soul” (in Save the Cat terminology).

We know these kinds of scenes well. The kinds of scenes that see a lost, depressed hero, slumped over in misery and feeling adrift and hopeless. Maybe wandering through the city streets with a melancholy song playing.

Al Pacino in Insomnia, has a late-night conversation with the hotel clerk and unloads the guilt he's been carrying, finally telling us the story we've been wondering about. Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men drunkenly unloads his rage at his lawyer cohorts about the absolute failure about to befall him. Deniro in “Midnight Run” wanders into a cafe, having lost everything he's been working for, and is a defeated man.

You get to spot these moments pretty clearly if you look for them, and they're great. They're important.

There will likely be a “whiff of death” to these scenes. Maybe it's because someone died in the “All is Lost” moment, or it might show up in some other way. It's hopelessness!

And then, inspiration strikes. Something inside the Protagonist propels them to stand up and continue the fight. They find that spark, maybe some new clue or deep motivation to keep going. Usually a triumphant moment indeed! There will probably still be struggles to overcome, but the Protagonist has become a different individual now, someone who CAN use whatever they've learned through their experiences to overcome this challenge. The rush to the airport, or following their new inspiration or insight to work on solving the mystery…whatever it is.

There's so much to say about it…but one interesting bit is the mirror images of the “Break into 2” scenes and the “Break into 3” scenes. Each one can often be understood as “Something happens to the Protagonist–Protagonist hesitates–Protagonist ACTS”.

So from Act 1, we have the CATALYST (get the new case), DEBATE (learn the particulars and the challenges involved), and BREAK INTO 2 (resolve to dedicate yourself to the case, as challenging as it may be).

Then we have the ALL IS LOST (only witness dies), DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL (get drunk and wish you'd never started this, face your past trauma), BREAK INTO 3 (find new inspiration and a new way forward).

It may not play out this way every time…

…but you see it a LOT!

That's it for now!

Thanks for reading.




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comment

anonymous?

bravo1102 at 9:37AM, Jan. 16, 2025

@Banes: I'd have to see what the script calls for and the logistics of putting it together. 😉

PaulEberhardt at 9:26AM, Jan. 16, 2025

What I've been meaning to say is, this particular break can be quite useful to create even more tension and conflict (it's just that I'm too daft to come up with a good example right now 😉).

PaulEberhardt at 9:22AM, Jan. 16, 2025

Joe vs the Space Fungus is rapidly developing into 2025's new webcomic blockbuster. 😁 A really tricky variety of this break uses dramatic irony: the fungus could easily killed of by a drop of bleach, which Amy mentions, and it so happens that Joe almost got fired the other day for accidentally ordering a hundred gallons of bleach delivered to the ship, which no one has any use for. However, Joe doesn't listen to anybody, being too busy overcoming grave danger after grave danger, and keeps failing to put two and two together under the groans of the audience - until it clicks (because Amy threatens to leave him if he doesn't bloody listen just once in his life?) - one click for a character's braincell, one giant gush of relief for everyone else. The pacing has to be just right, though, or we'll end up with an obnoxious trope like the one Tantz wrote about recently.

Banes at 8:26AM, Jan. 16, 2025

@bravo - A space fungus is a worthy threat in one of your comics. But would it be done in postproduction, or would you dump some multicolored custard on your figures and sets?

Banes at 8:25AM, Jan. 16, 2025

@bravo - hahaha!

Banes at 8:25AM, Jan. 16, 2025

@marcorossi - Yeah, we can see this dynamic play out a LOT. There are still struggles to overcome in the end, but the hero has shed that dysfunctional old flaws from their past, learned some new things along the way, and can now...talk that space fungus out of its wicked pursuits!

Banes at 8:22AM, Jan. 16, 2025

@marcorossi - You've spoiled so much of your next comic, but i think it's going to work out well for Wimpy Joe, Space Hero!

bravo1102 at 7:34AM, Jan. 16, 2025

Got it all sorted out, it's time for someone to do Joe versus the Space Fungus (in 3-D in participating theaters) 🤣 If you ask me to do it, someone else has to write the script because I don't understand any of this stuff.

marcorossi at 1:07AM, Jan. 16, 2025

[continues] to defeat the Fungus, this is the "break into 3" moment, and shows that Joe has made his choices. From now on it will be all action scenes where Joe, while he's going to face big dangers and look like he is going to die many times, will never relent because he isn't a wimp anymore, so while in terms of "external" plot a lot of stuff happens, in terms of "internal" plot the story is very static. (I couldn't resist mentioning the Space Fungus again, I'm a sinner).

marcorossi at 1:03AM, Jan. 16, 2025

[continues] and everything life or the bad guys throw at him/her. For example reusing my "Joe VS the Space Fungus" plot from last week, Joe has to defeat a space fungus but he is a nerdish insecure wimp. He is helped by Amy the badass action girl, with whom he also falls in love, but towards the end of act 2 they have a conflict with the fungus, Joe panics even if Amy tells him that he can do it, and the result is that Amy gets kidnapped by the fungus for some reason. Joe is reasonably shaken by this and has his "dark night of the soul" moment (still act 2b). But then he reflects on his action, there is an extended scene of him rethinking at his life, and the memory of Amy who tells him that he can do it, until he realizes that he is the only one who can save Amy and the Earth so he better stop dillydallying. (this is still the "dark night of thew soul"). This point is actually the moment Joe "wins" the internal conflict. We enter now act 3 where Joe finally makes a plan [continues]

marcorossi at 12:56AM, Jan. 16, 2025

My two cents: we can see the "save the cat" structure (and other similar structures) as based on the idea of a twin conflict: an inner conflict and an external conflict. The inner conflict though drives the external conflict, and this is the reason this structure can be applied to many different genres and stories (because genres change on the external story, but inner conflicts will more or less always follow the same pattern). Specifically, the inner conflict is resolved in the second part of act 2 (act 2b) when the hero has a big crisis but then comes out of it changed inside. This means that the final part, act 3 (that is the last 25% of the story) basically lacks an inner conflict, but it is the point where the hero "cashes in" the result of his/her inner growth in the form of external success. So act 3 will be full of external conflict (because it starts from the lowes point in term of the external conflict) but the hero wil continuously win these conflicts [continues]


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