…at your peril.
When you first come across it in your aspiration to write, it sounds like a rule, a boundary, chains meant to be broken.
It’s all of those, yet it still exists.
Whether non-fiction or a story made up in your head… we have an opening, a journey taken by a hero, and a climax…oh, and along the way…obstacles, conflict, hurdles, twists, setbacks.
Sounds like life doesn’t it?
It is.
So make sure you are aware of how this structure works, what each act has in it, how each act sets up the next one. If you do this, the inherent structure gives you all the freedom you need to break all the rules. If you ignore it, you have scene after scene after scene leading to…what?
Reinvent the wheel? Or build something on a solid foundation that has lasted centuries.
Onward.
J
Jon Gregory 