In the Midpoint of The Hunger Games, Peeta Mellark (B Story character) saves Katniss’s life just as the other tributes in the Games are about to kill her (A Story characters). This crossroads not only ups the stakes of Katniss’s journey (because she now knows that Peeta really does care about her and it wasn’t just an act for the cameras) but also demarcates a pivotal moment in her transformation. From here on out, it becomes more and more difficult for Katniss to only think about surviving (A Story); she is now forced to also think about how she will stand up against the Capitol (B Story).
To sum it up, the Midpoint changes the direction of your story, making it (yet again!) harder for the hero to go back to who they were before. Does this sound familiar? It should. Because it’s exactly what you did with the Catalyst. You raised the stakes so it was more difficult for your hero to turn around and run back to the safety of their status quo Act 1 world.
This, too, is no coincidence. A great story is a continual raising of the stakes. It’s one plot device after another that keeps your hero moving forward. Because each time you raise the stakes, you make it that much harder for them to move backward.
10. BAD GUYS CLOSE IN
WHAT DOES IT DO? Provides a place for your hero to rebound after a false defeat Midpoint or fall down after a false victory Midpoint, all while the internal bad guys (flaws) are closing in.
WHERE DOES IT GO? 50% to 75%
The good news is, you’ve already gotten the longest beat of the novel out of the way (the Fun and Games). The bad news is, this is the second longest beat of the novel.
I’m not gonna sugarcoat it. Act 2 is a beast. It’s more than 50 percent of the story! By the time you finish the Midpoint and reach the Bad Guys Close In, you think you’re nearly to the end of Act 2. But then you look at how much ground you have to cover before the All Is Lost beat, and you may really feel like All Is Lost.
But fear not! We’re going to get through it together.
Like the Fun and Games, the Bad Guys Close In is a multi-scene beat, and it spans a fairly large chunk of pages (approximately 25 percent of your novel). But if done right, these can be some of the most exciting pages of the story.
The beat itself is named after the sequence in an action movie where the bad guys regroup (after having failed to enact their evil plan at the Midpoint) and come back stronger, more organized, and with bigger, badder weapons.
Well, that’s all fine and dandy if you’re writing a thriller. But what about the rest of us? What if we don’t even have traditional “bad guys” in our story? What then?
First of all, don’t panic. And secondly, don’t be fooled by the title of the beat. Just because it’s called Bad Guys Close In doesn’t mean that you need to have literal bad guys (or what I call external bad guys) in your story. It doesn’t even mean that only bad things can happen in this beat. The direction of the beat is actually highly dependent on what you did with your Midpoint.
If your Midpoint was a false victory (your hero seemingly “won”), then yes, your Bad Guys Close In is going to be a steady downward path to the All Is Lost, meaning things are getting progressively worse for your hero, and more and more bad things are happening (with a few bouncing balls thrown in there to keep things interesting and unpredictable!). Because remember, the victory at the Midpoint was false. The hero didn’t actually win. They only thought they won. So now it’s time to show them (and the reader) just how wrong they were. This can be done with literal bad guys, like the perpetrators in Memory Man who start killing more and more people after the Midpoint. Or it can be done by simply inflicting more “bad” things on your hero, like in The Martian. After the airlock on the Hab breaks, raising the stakes for Mark, things go from bad to worse. Mark suffers from injuries; the supply probe NASA tried to send to him explodes; and then Mark loses all communication with Earth. It’s a fairly steady downward path for Mark.
On the other hand, if your Midpoint was a false defeat (your hero seemingly “lost”), your Bad Guys Close In beat is actually going to have a steady, upward path. Life is getting progressively better. Things are looking up! Your hero is making great strides. Improving their situation. Conquering obstacles. Maybe this upside-down world is not such a bad place after all!
In The Grapes of Wrath, after a difficult Midpoint, the Joad family’s predicament starts to improve. They find a nice government camp (a vast improvement over the Hoovervilles they’ve been staying in), and they even find work picking peaches.
Similarly, in The Hunger Games, even though Katniss is still dealing with the bad guys of the Capitol and the other tributes, things start to look better for her in the second half of Act 2. She’s earning some wins in the arena. She forms an alliance with Rue, and together the two blow up the supplies of the Career tributes. When the Bad Guys Close In is an upward path, false victories like this are often found right before the All Is Lost. Your hero has a small win right before everything falls apart.
But regardless of whether your Bad Guys Close In beat is a downward path or an upward path, whether there are literal bad guys or just bad things are happening to the hero, there is one kind of bad guy that does exist in all stories.
And that’s internal bad guys.
By this, I mean your hero’s flaws. Those pesky things you set up all the way back in Act 1 that you promised (via your Theme Stated) that your hero would eventually deal with.
Despite everything that Louisa Clark has been through in Me Before You, despite trying to convince Will to enjoy his life, she still hasn’t done the same for herself. She still hasn’t answered the thematic question: “What exactly do you want to do with your life?” (page 22). She’s still living the same unfulfilling existence that she was at the beginning. She hasn’t even broken up with her incompatible boyfriend. In fact, just the opposite. She moves in with him! This is a prime example of Louisa’s internal bad guys—those flaws from Act 1—closing in and stopping her from making any real change.
And that’s what the Bad Guys Close In beat is all about. No matter what strides your hero has been making in Act 2, those internal bad guys are still hard at work inside your hero’s psyche. Messing up relationships, sabotaging successes, destroying happiness. Because until your hero learns the theme and fixes their life the right way, those internal bad guys are going to keep wreaking havoc, pushing your hero toward that lowest-of-the-low point.
Welcome, my friends, to the All Is Lost.
11. ALL IS LOST
WHAT DOES IT DO? Illustrates your hero’s rock bottom (lowest moment) of the story.
WHERE DOES IT GO? 75%
Rock bottom. Your hero has finally hit it. It’s a truism that no one really changes until they’ve hit rock bottom. Because until they’ve tried everything else, until they’ve lost everything that’s important to them, they can’t see the true path. It’s a human condition. And therefore it’s a hero condition. Because our heroes are, if nothing else, human. That’s why they resonate with us.
So before our heroes can find that true path to real transformation, we have to bring them so low, so far into despair, that they have no other choice but to change.
Change the right way.
No matter which direction your hero was headed in the Bad Guys Close In beat (upward or downward), all heroes must eventually fall.
And fall they will!
That’s the function of the All Is Lost. It’s a single-scene beat (one scene or one chapter), approximately 75 percent of the way through the novel, in which something happens to your hero that tosses them deep, deep down into defeat.
The totalitarian government arrests the hero (1984). The king dies, leaving the hero and her family in crisis (The White Queen). The two lovers break up (It Had to Be You ). Justice is not served (The Hate U Give). The killers strike someone close to the hero (Memory Man). The hero discovers that the love of her life is already married (Jane Eyre). The hero is
betrayed by someone they trust (The Da Vinci Code).
Whatever it is, it’s BIG. Even bigger than the Catalyst! It seems insurmountable. Your hero must be worse off than they were at the start of the book.
All really does seem lost.
I see too many writers in my workshops try to tiptoe around the All Is Lost. They’re afraid to do something really awful to their hero. Don’t be afraid. Kill people! Fire people! Break people up! If your All Is Lost isn’t big, and I mean big, your final transformation will feel contrived. It won’t be believable. Rock bottom means rock bottom.
ALL. IS. LOST.
So how do we make sure this beat is as epic and moving and transformative as it needs to be?
We insert something called the whiff of death. Nothing spells despair more than death itself. So this is the point in stories where a lot of characters die or almost die. I’m not trying to sound callous here; it’s just the way it is. In The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus dies at the All Is Lost. In Me Before You, Will tells Louisa that, despite her efforts, he has not changed his mind about ending his own life. In Room by Emma Donoghue, Ma tries to commit suicide. In Memory Man, Amos Decker contemplates suicide. In The Hunger Games, Rue is killed.
Just look at some of your favorite books, find the All Is Lost, and see for yourself. So many characters die in this beat. Particularly mentors. Killing of a mentor character at the All Is Lost is especially effective because it forces the hero to do the rest on their own. It forces them to look deep inside and realize that they had the answers—the power, the ability, the “force”—in them all along. It’s not until Preacher Casy is killed in The Grapes of Wrath that Tom Joad finally realizes his true purpose is to continue Casy’s teachings and help mankind.
And even if there’s not an actual death in this beat, there’s a hint at death. There’s a whiff of it. Like a dead plant in the corner, a dead fish in the fish bowl, maybe even the death of an idea or project or relationship or business. In Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin, there’s a death of a lifelong friendship. Even in the comedy Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella, there’s a whiff of death in the All Is Lost when Becky tries to buy something only to find that all her accounts have been frozen and the cashier confiscates her card. It’s the death of her credit!
Basically, something must end here. Because the All Is Lost is where the old world/character/way of thinking finally dies so a new world/character/way of thinking can be born.
I like to think of the All Is Lost as yet another Catalyst. It’s an action beat that serves a very similar function to the Catalyst beat in Act 1. If the first Catalyst pushed your hero into the Debate and then into the Break Into 2, then the All Is Lost will push your hero into the Dark Night of the Soul and finally into the Break Into 3.
And even though whatever happens in the All Is Lost is happening to your hero, it should be, at least somewhat, your hero’s fault. Why? Because that stubborn fool still hasn’t learned the theme! Your hero’s internal bad guys have been working behind the scenes, tripping them up, causing them to make mistakes. And now it’s led to disaster. Even if the action itself isn’t their fault, their dismal predicament is.
In The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Greg is completely to blame for the end of his friendship with Rowley. He’s been a bad friend. He hadn’t yet learned the theme of taking responsibility. In Pride and Prejudice, although Lydia makes her own decision to run away with Mr. Wickham, if Elizabeth hadn’t been so prejudiced against Mr. Darcy, she would have realized Mr. Wickham’s true character earlier and possibly prevented the whole thing.
The hero must be in some way responsible. Otherwise, there’s no lesson to be learned. And that is the whole point of the All Is Lost. Now your hero has nothing else to do but wallow in their defeat and reflect upon their choices and their life. Little do they know that it’ll be the most powerful, life-changing reflection they’ve ever done.
12. DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL
WHAT DOES IT DO? Shows how your hero reacts to the All Is Lost and how they eventually break through to a resolution.
WHERE DOES IT GO? 75% to 80% (This beat takes us to the end of Act 2.)
If the All Is Lost is another Catalyst, then naturally, the Dark Night of the Soul beat is another Debate. After hitting rock bottom, what does your hero do? What does anyone do? They react.
They think about everything that’s happened. They ponder. They contemplate.
They wallow.
I like to call the Dark Night of the Soul “the wallowing beat.” Because that’s pretty much what heroes do here. They sit around or walk around, feeling hopeless and sorry for themselves. And there’s often rain involved.
Jane runs away from Thornfield Hall and nearly starves to death (Jane Eyre). Katniss mourns Rue’s death by burying her in flowers (The Hunger Games). Winston wallows in his jail cell, uncertain of his future (1984). Louisa sits in her room for days, refusing to come out (Me Before You).
Not all heroes wallow, however. Some get angry, like Starr in The Hate U Give, who, after finding out justice won’t be served for Khalil, just wants to riot and destroy. Some slip into denial, like Greg in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, who tries to convince himself he’s better off without his best friend, Rowley, by hanging out with someone else.
Your hero’s specific reaction depends solely on who your hero is as a person. How do they react to this low point in their lives?
The All Is Lost was a single-scene beat. It happened fast. It was one scene or one chapter and then it was over. Now your hero needs time to process it all. That’s why the Dark Night of the Soul is a multi-scene beat. You get several scenes or chapters to show how your hero is dealing with this defeat.
But it’s not just wallowing (or brooding) in the rain. The Dark Night of the Soul has a very important and useful function. It’s the darkness before the dawn. It’s the moment before the big breakthrough realization.
It’s the last moment before the real change occurs.
That’s why most revelations in stories happen in this beat, during what I call the Dark Night epiphany. The final clue falls into place, the hero sees something in a new light, the truth they’ve failed to see all this time suddenly becomes clear. Lots of mysteries (in both mysteries and other types of novels) get solved right here in the Dark Night of the Soul. In David Baldacci’s Memory Man, at the end of the Dark Night of the Soul is when Amos Decker finally realizes why he has been targeted by the killers (the last piece of the puzzle). In Confessions of a Shopaholic, the end of the Dark Night of the Soul is when Becky Bloomwood discovers that Flagstaff Life (a major financial institution) has been scamming its investors.
So even though your hero is pretty down and depressed about their life right now, something deep inside of them is working. Analyzing. Processing. They’re breaking down their life and looking at their choices; they’re thinking about everything they’ve tried thus far and failed to achieve. They’re slowly coming to an ultimate conclusion.
Which is why, similar to the Debate, the Dark Night of the Soul will often revolve around a question. What will the hero do now? How will they cope with this despair? How will they Break Into 3? After Tom Joad kills Preacher Casy’s killer in The Grapes of Wrath, the Dark Night of the Soul question becomes “What will the Joads do now?” After Mark loses contact with NASA, the Dark Night of the Soul question becomes “How will he get himself to the Ares 4 site to rendezvous with his crew?”
This is also the one beat in the novel where your hero is allowed to move backward, instead of forward. I call it the return to the familiar. After Becky Bloomwood has reached her financial and emotional rock bottom in Confesions of a Shopaholic, she goes to her parents’ house, where she feels safe. After Louisa Clark storms off, leaving Will at the airport in Me Before You, she moves back in with her family.
If possible, take your hero back to where they started. Reunite them with an old f
riend. Get them back together with an ex. Give them their old job back. Somehow return them to their original status quo Act 1 life. Because when you’re wallowing and feeling lost, it’s only natural that you’d start searching for something familiar and safe. But here’s the clincher: it doesn’t feel familiar and safe anymore. And it certainly doesn’t feel the same.
A return to the familiar essentially shines a giant spotlight on how much your hero has already changed. They’re no longer that Act 1 thesis person anymore. They’ve gone through the upside-down antithesis world, and it’s altered them. Therefore, inserting them back into that Act 1 world only exaggerates how much it’s altered them. They feel like a complete stranger in a place that once felt familiar. This points out to the hero (and the reader) that they don’t belong there anymore. That they can’t go back to the way things were.
That it’s time to make the tough choices.
It’s time to rip off that Act 2 Band-Aid, face the deep wound underneath, and finally start to heal it.
It’s time to make the real change.
Act 3
We’re nearly there! We’ve reached the third and final act, also called the synthesis.
Remember, Act 1 was the thesis (or the status quo world), Act 2 was the antithesis (or the upside-down world), and Act 3 is the synthesis (the fusion of those two worlds).
Here’s another way I like to look at it:
Who the hero was in Act 1 + What they’ve learned in Act 2 = Who they will become in Act 3
If the Midpoint was the crossroads of all things, then this final act is the blending of all things. The hero will combine their Act 1 self with their Act 2 self, to create a brand-new and improved Act 3 self. Friendships are repaired. Relationships are mended. Jilted lovers are reunited. The A and B stories will meet again, but this time they will intertwine and become one. It’s the ultimate combination: the fun and excitement of the external story, combined with the knowledge and wisdom of the internal story to create a dynamic, engaging, and powerful third act that will resonate and leave your readers breathless!
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel Page 7
