4thWall

I learned another lesson today after talking with Jon. We were going over an outline I wrote for the pilot episode I’m working on. In the outline, I’d set up a couple storylines in the first two acts. We got through them and everything was fine, but then we came to the third act. “You just built up a bunch of momentum. Here it comes to a screeching halt,” Jon observed. While writing, I had it in my head that Act Three was going to be devoted to a particular plotline. I never stopped to ask myself if that was the most interesting of the plotlines I had. It wasn’t. Looking back on my outline and hearing Jon talk about it, it was clear that I’d chosen the wrong A-story. It should have been obvious sooner. When I struggled to expand it, when I struggled to make myself care about that storyline, I should have realized that there was a reason it appeared to be tapped out so early. That story could only give me so much. The other story, which I established and then moved away from, was the more engaging of the two. I’d developed it to the point that it could have an audience wanting to know what happened next. It could bring people back after the commercials. But, because I failed to stick with what grabbed their attention, when they returned from the break, they would be let down. Why are we going this direction now? What happened to the pressing, high-stakes action? Needless to say, I’m now rewriting my third act, and my third will inform my fourth. This time, I’m sticking to the right story.