How is a high-concept three-act novel created?

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This article The author Build Wish is a text creator who likes popular novels and movies. The goal is to continue learning, and at the same time share with everyone a few things about learning novel writing. I hope to accompany and grow with creators and readers. You are also welcome to visit her [fan page] (https://www.facebook.com/Diamanda.writer). Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby.

[Why we reprint this article] This is an era of story marketing, and everyone needs to learn the skills of storytelling. We not only need to learn to write product copywriting, but also know how to tell a touching story. This article by Zhu Yuan lets everyone know what a “high-concept [three-act play] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-act_structure) novel” is. It is also worth learning from content hackers who are interested in entering the field of novel creation!

Recently, I planned to participate in the [Film and TV Novel Competition] (https://www.mirrorfiction.com/zh-Hant/news/73) organized by the Mirror Literature website. I saw the two proper nouns “high concept” and “three-act drama” mentioned in the “Work Conditions” description. In the past, I would have just ignored it without asking for a detailed explanation. Anyway, as long as I understand the general meaning, don’t violate the rules, and can participate in the competition.

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But it suddenly occurred to me that in early February this year, I signed up for Teacher Li Rock’s Novel Publishing Planning Class, where I learned “High Concept”, I was surprised to find that most of the wonderful stories meet this condition, and it turned out that readers in the mass entertainment market have such a demand (stories with high conflict, in which the growth and transformation of the protagonist can be seen), so I suddenly changed my mind and felt that I should probably learn more about the proper term “[three-act play] (https://udn.com/news/story/6950/2105260)” that I was unfamiliar with.

• Act 1 (starting): Introducing the character of the protagonist, as well as his original situation and issues.
• The first half of the second act (continuation): The elements that promote the story appear. It may be that the protagonist who originally vowed not to fall in love with anyone falls in love with someone he shouldn’t love; it may be that a child who relies on his parents runs away from home and becomes independent for the first time. Then a series of conflicts and adventures unfolded.
• The second half of the second act (transfer): The real theme appears, and the protagonist really grows up here after experiencing the accident. The child who left home discovered that he owed and loved his parents. The proud protagonist found that he had lost all his friends and fell into an extremely lonely situation. He must save his relationship himself.
• Act III (together): The transformed protagonist comes out to save the world. The protagonist of your story is now different from the beginning. He has learned what he should learn and can truly solve his problems. The story is over!

So, I went online and asked Google about everything, and immediately saw the teaching article on “Three Act Drama” on Teacher Rocknovels’ website. Because at this time, I happened to have a novel theme that I planned to use to register for the competition. When I read the teaching article of “Three Act Drama” (https://www.rocknovels.com/2015/02/blog-post_5.html), I was suddenly inspired. The main characters of the story, the key plot scenes, and even the dialogues all jumped out one by one.

Having said that, it sounds like it went well, but after I recorded my inspirations one by one and then turned them into concrete words (such as character settings and story outlines), I gradually calmed down looking at the still empty content.

In the past few days, I have continued to construct settings and outlines, and I have slowly begun to review and reflect. There are many high-concept three-act drama stories on the market, but not all of them make me happy. Even after understanding this principle, I will use it to review the introduction of the work, speculate on the direction of the content, and then filter out a large number of seemingly similar works, exclude books from the list, and save time.

So, I started thinking again: Why?

Then, when I was in a book shortage and trying to find some books that could arouse my interest, I discovered: It turns out that having high concepts, conflicts, and fascinating suspense are just basic requirements; in addition to these, there is also a need for something new. I want to learn something from the story, and the “newness” alone can inspire me that “life can still be like this.” And all of this is what I want, consciously or subconsciously.

Therefore, how to write new ideas based on the basic principles of “high concept + three-act drama” is another question.

However, as a reader, I feel it is not enough. If conflicts are designed just for excitement, and if they are unconventional for the sake of creating new ideas, I will still feel empty after reading it. I found that the story I wanted to see not only had the above, but also had reasonable plot twists and comfortable character characterization (this is very demanding and very abstract).

If you want to become a great author, the more difficult challenge may be to meet the above conditions while also highlighting your personal style. Then it will probably be difficult for readers to forget you. The next step is to persevere, one book after another, one book after another…

So, I drew this picture of my expectations:

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Looking back, the motivation and reason for starting to write novels actually stemmed from “dissatisfaction”. I was not satisfied with having read so many already good stories, but there was still one missing one that I wanted to read. I feel that there are many stories, characters and plots, but there is still a possibility that they have not been written out, perhaps with better twists, better endings, better emotions and dialogues…

Although after actually writing several stories, I really know that it is not that easy. Maybe I will never become the ideal author I want to be in my lifetime, but I want to give it a try, starting today.

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Further reading

• まろ’s writing classroom: [Practical Q&A] From ideation to writing
• Misaki’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 7 [Plot Process] Prologue (Part 2)
• Misaki’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 7 [Plot Process] Prologue (Part 2)

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