By Sean Ryan

Act 3: The resolution

Act 3 is all about the climax and resolution of your story. The act in which the hero gets the girl and saves the day and villain gets what they deserve. This is where you must give your audience their pay off. To tie up all loose ends and finish your story in a way that your audience comes away satisfied and doesn’t feel tricked or cheated.

Often writers concentrate so much on act 1 setting up the story and act 2, building in their confrontation, by the time they get to act three, the story is empty or they don’t show act three enough time or love. You see with a lot of modern comedies, they have a solid concept and great set-up, but by the time they get us to act 3, all the gags are gone. (Hot Tub Time machine, Invention of lying) Their simply wasn’t enough story to carry the film in its entirety and you’ve left your audience unsatisfied and sometimes even bored.

Your audience has invested their time and money in your film/story. Give them what they deserve. A big and satisfying finish. As a friend once said to me, make sure it’s firing on all cylinders right to the end (well until the final minutes). Don’t play all your cards before the ending. Save something for the ending. A perfect film script (if action) would hook early and build all the way to the climax of the movie, keeping the viewer on the edge of their seat until the credits roll.

You don’t need to have plot points or twists in the final act.  These choices are all yours for your story. But you do need to have a climax. If you look at the film The Sixth Sense, everything was explained and resolved before that big reveal (which I won’t spoil). They gave the audience what they needed, what they wanted before the twist. The mother and son resolved their differences and his gift gave her something that she needed.

So the final act is yours. Put in a twist if you want, but give the audience the resolution(s) they want. Don’t leave loose ends and unexplained plot points. Today’s audience is far too sophisticated for tricks and sloppy writing. Look at the continued controversy that surrounded the final season of Lost. They padded the story with too many moments to keep the audience involved and by the end it was impossible to tie everything together. They left their audience cheated. If you have a big reveal or a big twist, your audience — or part of it at least — may see the ending coming. So don’t rely on a big Sixth Sense moment, which the Sixth Sense didn’t. If you watch that film again, we were too caught up with Cole’s story.  That’s top class storytelling. Even if your audience guesses it, you still keep them hooked until the end. This is the reason I wasn’t so sucked into the world of Shutter Island. Beautifully photographed and acted (I would go as far as to say, a master class of film making by Scorsese), but I found myself saying to my wife I hope this is not… (no spoilers). For me it was too obvious and the story relied on the reveal too much. Once I guessed it, I was sucked out of that world. It reminded me I was watching a movie (big mistake) and everything (for me) was playing towards the reveal at the end. My point? No cheap tricks.  Don’t think you are smarter than your audience. Write it with them in mind, or you are part of the audience. Put yourself in their shoes.

Act 3 must contain:

Climax (or the Second Culmination): This is where your story/plot reaches its maximum tension and you have the final confrontation between your protagonist and antagonist. This is the peak of your story’s emotional action. It should be satisfying, it should be justified and it should be big. You’ve been building towards this part of your film. The climax should occur half way through act three.  (15 of the 30 pages if 120 page script or page 105 overall). In the climax of Jaws we see Quint killed, Hooper presumed dead and Brody at his last stand and saving the day (as well as his own life). You can see how this is satisfying to the audience. They’ve hunted this killer and left the situation get out of hand. Now it looks too later. The shark killer is dead and our Hero must make his last stand or die trying. He is up against overwhelming odds and gone through hell to get there. Of course your hero could die and that itself (like many other things) is up to you. But if you want to satisfy your audience, you better remain focused on what you think they would like to see.

Denouement or aftermath: The short time at the end of a film where everything returns to normal – a period of calm. Here you show everything returning to how it should be (or setting up your sequel!). The hero returns home after finding the child. Not an important plot part of your movie, but it should give the audience what they want. We say the hero beat the villain and save the day, but know we want to see him meet his wife and daughter who he was fighting to get back to ala Con Air. In Jaws, Hooper swims the surface and the two men start to paddle their way back to shore.