The truth of the matter is that publishing is a game of waiting. However setting aside anxiety attacks and the like, it’s been a fair pleasant couple of week.

I’ve been reading up on he 5 act structure and how that applies to film writing. Naturally I have also been looking to apply it to prose, particularly novels. I think that there is a lot of overlap in story structure between novels and screenplays simply because both are trying t tell a story. The differences come from the nature of the mediums. This past Sunday and Monday nights I watched one of my favorite films — Double Indemnity — but taking notes in how I thought it broke out in five acts.

I have to say that it fit five acts like a well made glove. (Or as Barton Keyes would have said, ‘it fits together like a watch!’) — spoilers ahead —

Act One is set-up: We introduce the characters and their basic problems and nature. For this film act one ends when Neff, our main character understands that what Phyllis is interested in is r and he wants no part of it.

Act Two Thing go into motion: Despite his intention to keep clear of it, Neff is seduced by Phyllis and the act ends with his decision to help her murder her husband, I think it is vital that the final element of the second act is a choice made by the main character versus an external event.

Act Three Crossing the Rubicon: Phyllis and Neff murder her husband, following Neff’s detailed plans for ‘crooking the house’ The act ends with Neff going home but with the silent steps of a dead man.

Act Four Everything spirals out of control: Things go wrong and the situation spins out of Neff’s carefully plotted plans. Keyes has his hunch that the death was murder, the victim’s daughter shows up with alarming evidence, and Phyllis stops being the passive follower and shows she’s unwilling to do as Neff advises. The act ends with Neff learning that Another man is seeing Phyllis.

Act Five Resolution: Act five starts with Neff spying on Keyes to learn that Keyes suspects the other man as the murder. Neff puts into place his plan to set up the other man and remove Phyllis from the picture. Because this is noir and there was the Code to deal with, neff cant get away with his plan. It goes wrong and he pays for his crimes. (interestingly until I read about the behind the scenes on the film I always had assume Neff was dying in the final scene, but originally there was to be a gas chamber scene that was filmed but cut out.)

I have to say that the five act structure worked incredibly well here I plan to experiment with it in my own writing.