Story Structure Breakdown Series

In this series, I’ll breakdown the timestamped story beats of several critically acclaimed, commercially successful films and TV episodes and see how they stack up against four popular narrative formulas:

Syd Field’s version of the three-act structure
Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat
Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey
Dan Harmon’s Story Structure 101

(The last two are both based on Joseph Campbell’s concept of the Hero’s Journey.)

Guardians of the Galaxy

The first film I’ll cover is the 2014 Marvel hit Guardians of the Galaxy. I chose this movie because it was commercially successful (it earned $94,320,883 its opening weekend) while also being critically acclaimed with a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 8.1 out of 10 on IMDB.

When I saw this movie in the theater, I was struck by how well plotted it was – it’s funny, exciting and emotionally moving with no boring parts, and it has a satisfying resolution. So I was curious to see how the story beats would line up with popular story structure timelines.

For timestamp and story percentage purposes, I excluded the opening and closing credits, including the bonus scenes that play during the closing credits, and also the short prologue that plays before the opening credits. While important for the viewer to see, I felt that the prologue existed outside the main narrative arc. I started the film when adult Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) lands on the planet Morag to search for the orb. Based on this cut, the movie “starts” at timestamp 04:24 and runs for 110 minutes. My timestamps came from the version streaming on Amazon Video.

Syd Field’s Three-Act Structure

I’ll start with the basic three-act structure as interpreted by Syd Field. In this structure, Act I should fill the first 25% of the story, which means it should end at minute 32, and the Inciting Incident should occur halfway through Act I (at the 12.5% mark).

Syd Field defines the Inciting Incident as the event that sets the main story in motion. I felt this moment was when Gamora, Rocket and Groot all simultaneously jump Peter on Xandar (Gamora to steal the orb, Rocket and Groot for the bounty on Peter’s head). This is when the four of them meet and it’s what leads to them being arrested and taken to the Kyln space prison together.

Based on Syd Field’s formula, this moment should take place around minute 18, which turns out to be exactly when it happens.

Syd Field says that Act I ends when the protagonist makes the decisive choice to pursue the first major goal of the story. At this point, the story twists in a new direction that the hero can no longer turn back from.

I felt this moment was when Peter chooses to save Gamora from Drax and suggests that she, Rocket, Groot and he should join forces to break out of the prison and sell the orb to the highest bidder. This is an important moment for the characters’ inner journeys because it’s when all four go from going it alone to trying to work with a team. It’s also a moment when the protagonist makes a definitive choice that sets a story in motion that he cannot turn back from.

Syd Field thinks this moment should happen at minute 32, which is exactly when it happens.

According to this formula, Act II should run from minute 32 until minute 87, with the Midpoint occurring at minute 59 and what Field calls First Culmination happening just before it.

The first part of Act II is when the protagonist pursues his goal, encountering obstacles but not yet aware of how truly difficult the journey will be. The First Culmination is the moment when it seems like the hero has achieved his goal, then everything falls apart leading to the Midpoint.

The First Culmination is when the teammates finally arrive at The Collector’s lab and are about to sell him the orb. He’s explained the significance of the item and is about to pay them for it and it seems like the story could be about to end. This scene happens between minutes 56-59, which is exactly when Syd Field says it should.

The Midpoint is when it all goes south – something unexpected happens that twists the story in a new direction, proving just how difficult this journey will really be. In the first half of Act II, the protagonist tries to solve the problem in a way that’s similar to how he normally would, but after the Midpoint it begins to become clear how much the hero will need to learn and grow to achieve his goal.

I felt the Midpoint was the moment when The Collector’s attendant grabs the infinity stone, blowing up the lab and killing herself and The Collector and nearly killing everyone else. This is the moment when the heroes learn how powerful and terrifying this orb they’re carrying really is. It’s also the moment that ruins their chances of selling the orb as planned. The story has twisted in a new direction and they will need to take a different approach. Stakes are raised and the story’s direction changes. This moment happens at exactly minute 59, just as Syd Field said it would.

The rest of Act II is predicted to last from minutes 59 to 87. Screenwriter Doug Eboch says that this half of Act II often contains what he calls fireside scenes, chalkboard scenes and emotional revelations. All three of those appear between minutes 59 and 82 in this movie.

Syd Field says that Act II ends with another reversal that spins the plot in yet another new direction. Typically, this is the moment when the hero finally realizes the true solution to his problem and it’s a solution that involves the synthesis of everything he’s learned. It’s also a solution that seems nearly impossible, but is unfortunately his only hope. This moment occurs when the team sets their plan in motion to warn Nova HQ of Ronan’s attack and then kill Ronan themselves. This happens at minute 82, which is a few minutes earlier than when Syd Field thinks it should happen (minute 87).

The rest of the film is Act III, which Syd Field says includes the Climax (Second Culmination), which is the point at which the story reaches its maximum tension (the final showdown between protagonist and antagonist) as well as the Denouement, which is the brief period of calm at the end of the film. He thinks this act should last between minutes 87 and 114 in this film, but it actually begins at minute 82. This act includes the Climax (the moment when the team joins forces to defeat Ronan once and for all) as well as the Denouement (the calm period at the end when the team reflects and looks forward to their next adventure).

In a future update of this post, I’ll analyze the structure of this film based on Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat formula, Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, and Dan Harmon’s Story Structure 101.

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How to Build Suspense: 5 Lessons from The Walking Dead

Whether it’s the mounting dread that any second now a zombie is going to jump out at you, or the pit in your stomach as tension builds between two characters and you know one of them is not making it out of this episode alive, if there’s one thing The Walking Dead does well, it’s build and maintain suspense.

But how do they do it?

Here are five effective tactics they use a lot that work really well.

NOTE: This post only contains spoilers through Season 3.

The Bomb Under the Table

In a now famous conversation with François Truffaut, Alfred Hitchcock said the difference between “surprise” and “suspense” is that surprise is when a bomb unexpectedly blows up from under a table, and suspense is when you see the bomber put it there.

A great example of this from The Walking Dead is in Season 3, Episode 13 when Rick and the Governor meet to discuss a possible truce. The Governor makes a big show of putting away his weapons and convinces Rick to do the same, but after sitting down, we see that the Governor has a gun taped under the table. This makes the scene much more suspenseful because as tensions rise in the room, we know that the Governor has a gun, and we know that Rick doesn’t know.

gun under the table S03E13

Several times during the scene, the Governor’s hand moves near where we know the gun to be and suspense builds – will he go for it? Similarly, there’s a moment when Rick lowers his guard and takes his eyes off the Governor for a moment. We want to shout at the screen, “Keep your eyes on him, Rick! He has a gun!”

The writers could instead have not shown us the gun but had the Governor suddenly pull it on Rick at an unexpected moment. This would have been surprising, but not suspenseful. We’d have spent the whole scene thinking the two were having a pleasant chat over whiskey and might have gotten bored.

On the other hand, they could have not shown the gun and not had the Governor pull the gun, but then shown after the scene was over that the gun had been there all along. That’s an interesting approach, but it would not have been as effective in this particular scene.

The Takeaway: Surprises can be great, but it doesn’t always have to be the audience that’s surprised. Sometimes the most suspenseful thing of all is when the audience knows something a character doesn’t.

The Silent Treatment

In several episodes through the series, the episode’s cold open (the part before the title credits) has no or almost no dialogue. Two examples are Season 3, Episode 1 (“Seed”) and Season 3, Episode 13 (“Arrow on the Doorpost”).

These scenes are incredibly suspenseful, even without the context of knowing where the characters are or what exactly they’re doing, and part of what makes it so tense is the lack of dialogue. We wonder why everyone is being so quiet – are they hiding from something?

S03E01 silent cold open

Also, the extreme quiet makes us think something very loud is about to happen. It’s not a bad guess.

The Takeaway: Not every scene needs dialogue. If you want to ratchet up the tension, try taking out the talking.

Everybody’s Right

If you break down the average episode of The Walking Dead, you’ll see that a large portion of the story is groups of characters in various combinations debating what to do about something. In a single episode you might have three separate debates raging between three different collections of characters. We rotate between these debates with episodes of zombie hunting (and other “fun” scenes) sprinkled in like seasoning.

What makes these debates interesting to watch is that in most cases, all of the characters are right. Or at least they’re partly right. Or they’re wrong, but you understand why they feel how they do and you wonder if you would feel the same in their shoes.

everybody's right S03E13

There are no easy answers and we can’t predict with certainty how things will end. The opposing sides of the debate set up two or more possible directions for the episode to take, like a Choose Your Own Adventure book you read as a kid.

We follow the debate like a tennis match as each side volleys its argument over the net, and the suspense comes from wondering who will finally win. Hint: sometimes when you win, you really lose.

The Takeaway: Show your audience two or more ways the story could go and have different characters lobby for each option. Make all the options equally bad, but give the characters good reasons for wanting what they do. Keep the audience on the edge of their seat wondering who will win, and what price they will pay for winning.

Somebody Screws Up

This is a situation where things are already tense, but then someone does something stupid – they make a noise when they were supposed to be quiet, they go outside without a weapon to check out a strange sound, etc. It adds suspense because it creates that classic horror movie trope where you scream at the TV: “DON’T GO IN THERE!”

This is a dangerous one because it’s wildly overused and can be frustrating for the audience when it isn’t earned. It works best in my opinion when two qualifications are met:

(1) the stupid thing the person does is surprising, and yet

(2) the stupid thing the person does is exactly what they would really do.

It doesn’t work, for example, for a kid whose constantly whining to start whining at the exact moment that the family is silently hiding from the killer. That’s annoying because it’s not surprising (the kid is always whining) and it’s also not super believable (they’re hiding from a killer). What does work is for the bratty kid’s toy he stole earlier and stuffed hurriedly in his pocket (but that you forgot he had) to suddenly roll out of his pocket in front of the killer’s feet. That’s surprising, but is also exactly the kind of stupid thing that kid would do.

A good example from The Walking Dead is from Season 3, Episode 14 (“Prey”). Andrea and Milton are talking about the Governor while standing in an open catwalk above his torture chamber when the Governor unexpectedly walks into the room below. Milton immediately hides, which is smart, but Andrea continues standing in the open, watching the Governor, where she’s in grave danger of being seen by him (which would likely result in him killing her and Milton).

S03E14 somebody screws up

This is incredibly stupid since the Governor could look up and see her at any moment, and it’s surprising because it’s so phenomenally stupid, but it’s exactly what Andrea would really do in that moment – she’s much braver than most people, is not afraid of confrontation, and is incredibly curious, especially about the Governor, so it makes sense that she would stay in the open where she can see what he is doing, even though that means she’s also in danger of being seen by him. That scene is incredibly suspenseful and would have been much less so if Andrea had ducked out of sight like Milton did.

The Takeaway: If a scene needs more tension, maybe somebody needs to screw up – just make sure they’re screwing up in a way that is both surprising and yet also in character.

I’m Ready for My Close Up

Next time you watch this show (or any scary movie), notice how often the camera crops close on a character’s face during a tense scene. This serves two purposes:

(1) it zooms in on the character’s facial expression (usually fear or tension), which heightens our emotional response as we naturally empathize with the character, and

(2) it restricts our view of the character’s surroundings.

This second part is important. All we can see is the character’s face and maybe a sliver of out of focus background, but what we want to see is the place the character is in – is there something behind them? Is there something around the corner ahead of them? Look out, look out, look out!

S03E13 suspenseful close up

This is a directorial choice but it’s something we can do as writers as well. It’s basically a tactic of withholding information when we know the audience is very anxious to get that information as soon as possible. Maybe more on that in a future post.

The Takeaway: Withholding information can make an already tense scene even more suspenseful. Think about how you can do this with your writing (and look forward to a future post on the topic).

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