"Maple Street, Anytown, U.S.A. A tree-lined street filled with white picket fences, neighborhood barbecues and children's laughter...until late on Saturday afternoon. After a sudden flash of light and a rumbling in the sky, Maple Street loses all of its power—cars, lights, telephones, appliances. The neighbors come to the conclusion it was just a meteor, but 8 year-old Tommy, a sci-fi buff, says he knows the real cause...aliens disguised as humans have infiltrated Maple Street and now they're taking over."
At their most basic, the three acts of a book or script represent a beginning, a middle, and an end. In most three-act stories, about 50 percent of the actual storytelling occurs in the second act, with 25 percent of the story falling in the first act and 25 percent falling in the final act.
What Are the Elements of Three Act Structure?
Act One The first act typically starts with the exposition—one or more scenes that establish the world of the story. If the story contains supernatural elements, the rules of the supernatural world would be established here. This act should also establish the ordinary world of the story’s main character. Before the act is over, however, an inciting incident should occur—one that pulls the protagonist out of their normal world and into the main action of the story. The act concludes with some sort of turning point that launches the action into act two.
Act Two A story’s middle act consists of a rising action that leads to a midpoint, then devolves into a crisis. Let’s say a story is about a detective who is tracking the killer of her murdered partner. The Act One inciting incident would be her partner’s murder, and the turning point would be her decision to track the killer. Thus the rising action of Act Two would involve the sleuthing she must do to track down the murderer. Act Two will raise the stakes of the protagonist’s journey, perhaps revealing the danger to which she’s exposing herself. By the story’s midpoint, the detective would be fully immersed in her journey. The second act typically ends with another turning point that makes it seem as if the protagonist will fail. This is sometimes called the “dark night of the soul.” Perhaps our detective has gotten too close to the killer and has been wounded by one of his henchmen, allowing him to escape.
Act Three The third act begins with what’s known as a pre-climax. This consists of events leading up to a climactic confrontation in which the hero faces a point of no return: they must either prevail or perish. In our detective story, perhaps our hero has regained the trail of the killer and has traced him to a safehouse. This launches us into the actual climax, where the detective apprehends her partner’s killer—either taking him into custody or killing him. Finally the story de-escalates in a denouement, where the events of the climax wind back down into normal life. Of course the hero detective’s life will never be the same again.
“The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices — to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill — and suspicion can destroy — and a thoughtless frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own — for the children — and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is — that these things cannot be confined — to the Twilight Zone.”