3 Act Story Mapping

I am a bit behind on posting this week, partially due to starting rehearsals for Fiddler on the Roof on Wednesday and partially because my work schedule has moved around and now I don’t have 30 minutes carved out every day for writing. I need to figure out how to squeeze that back in, but I’m not there yet. In some good news though, I finished the second draft of my novel! It turns out that what I needed to get it done was some long chunks of time to work on it, as 30 minutes at a time wasn’t working very well. I went to Maine last weekend for my best friends wedding, and was pleasantly surprised that because of that trip I was able to work on revising for probably 5-6 hours, and that was what I really needed. It still has a long way to go and I have a ton of line editing to do, but it feels good to have at least completed the second draft and know what direction to go in now.

Because I don’t have a ton of time to work on this post this week, I thought I would share an exercise that I worked on for school recently. We’ve been learning about 3 act story structure in my narrative arts class, which is when you break down a story into turning points. The structure looks like this:

Act 1

The story begins with . . . .

And then . . .

Until  . . . (give your first turning point

 Act 2

And then . . . .

But then (mid point, it gets DEEPER) .  . .

And then .  . 

Until . . . (give your second turning point)

 Act 3

And then . . . 

The Climax . . .

Resolution . . .

We were supposed to write something to practice this, so I wrote a very short story about my main character’s parents, as a way to keep developing their characters as well. Please remember that I wrote this very quickly in one sitting and it was supposed to only be a page (I couldn’t keep it that short), so it’s not very fleshed out. It was a fun exercise though and my classmates liked it. Can you see where the turning points are to follow the three act story map?

Irish Blessing by Anna Balsamo

Belle was having the time of her life. She had been terrified when she’d signed up for the study abroad trip - she’d never been out of the country, after all, never even been on a plane by herself. But something deep inside had told her that she needed to do this and here she was in Dublin, Ireland, singing along loudly to the traditional Irish music at the pub with her classmates. She looked around at their brightly colored cheeks, laughing eyes, and full pints of beer, and felt something like happiness bubbling up from her toes.

Later that night, she was dancing a little sloppily with her new friends at the pub, as the musicians played louder and louder on their fiddles and drums. Belle suddenly looked across the room and locked eyes with a tall young man, whose long reddish hair was pulled back into a bun.  Belle never could resist a man bun, and she found it impossible to look away for a moment, before tearing her eyes back to her friend, who had noticed her staring and was giving her a knowing grin. She couldn’t stop herself from glancing back in his direction, and the man caught her gaze again and smiled, starting to walk over to her. Belle felt her heartbeat drumming in her ears and swallowed nervously.

The man introduced himself as Liam, and he pulled her away from the music to a quiet booth in the back, where they talked for the rest of the night. Her friends eventually gave up on her and went back to the student housing, but Belle couldn’t make herself end the conversation with the Irish stranger, whose accent seemed to have hypnotized her. When he finally asked her if she wanted to come back to where he was staying, she said yes without a moment of hesitation. Somehow, she knew she would be safe with him.

Belle completely forgot that she was supposed to be staying with her study abroad group and spent the entire weekend with Liam. They explored the city together, since he was from a small town far from Dublin, and when they eventually ran out of things to tell each other about their lives, they spent time in comfortable silence, trying to absorb the presence of each other. Belle had never been in love before, but she was pretty sure this was what it felt like. Liam was funny, bookish, and had a quiet lilting voice that sounded like music to her ears.

On Sunday evening as the day started to draw a close, Belle felt more and more anxious. She knew that she needed to rejoin her group, as they would be leaving Dublin the next morning to move on and fly to Rome. She and Liam had briefly touched on her plans during their weekend together, but they hadn’t had any sort of conversation about whether this relationship could live past the weekend, and Belle desperately didn’t want it to be over. At dinner that night she stared silently into her beer, trying to find the words to tell him how she felt.

“Belle,” he finally said softly. “This can’t end now. I don’t know how we can make it work, but I want to try.” She looked up and met his eyes, her whole body flooding with relief.

They spent every last second of the weekend together, and Liam brought her to the airport to meet up with her group. Her friends all stared with wide eyes at the tall Irish stranger who walked her to her gate and then kissed her like they had been dating for years. Belle fought back tears as she watched him walk away from her in the airport, but he had made her promise to call as soon as she landed, and he was going to meet up with her in Florence. She would see him soon.

As soon as the plane touched down in Rome, Belle called Liam’s number, but it went straight to voicemail. She frowned at her phone, a sick feeling in her stomach.

“Maybe his phone is dead,” her roommate pointed out, nudging her shoulder. Belle nodded, but she knew that something was wrong.

She called several more times that night, only to get voicemail every single time. She started to spin with thoughts of him not being who he had promised, or being dead in the street somewhere, and she tried to ignore them. She regretted not getting any other contact information for him. She didn’t know any of his friends or family and she felt like a crazy person even thinking about contacting people who knew him. After weeks of silence, she finally accepted that he had ghosted her, even though she couldn’t make sense of him doing something like that. She had been so sure about their connection.

When Belle came home from the study abroad trip she was still replaying the weekend in her head, looking for clues or signs that he hadn’t felt the way that she had. Everyone told her to let it go, but she started to feel sick along with sad, and couldn’t keep any food down, especially in the morning. She woke up one day so nauseous that she wanted to vomit, and stared at the ceiling with the sudden realization that she and Liam had not been exactly careful when they had slept together. She wasn’t usually so irresponsible, but she’d felt as if she was in another world when she was with him. She covered her face with her pillow and groaned.

An hour later Belle was sitting on her toilet, staring at two pink lines on the pregnancy test. Her mind was a scramble and she had to remind herself to breathe. She pulled out her phone and tried calling Liam one last time, leaving a shaky voicemail and telling him that he could be a dad, if he wanted to be. Something inside of her told her that he would want to know, that he wasn’t some flaky 25 year old guy who had ghosted her. She closed her eyes and imagined his arms around her, telling her that everything was going to be okay.

When she looked into the green eyes of her tiny baby nine months later, the only people in the hospital room with her were her parents and her sister. But somehow, she still knew that everything was going to be okay.

“Hi, Fern,” she said, touching the babies chin. “You’re my Irish blessing.”