Writing The First Act

Get it right from the start: without a strong first act your story will fail.

If you are an aspiring storyteller or simply enjoy stories you’ll find this podcast episode super valuable. Michael Arndt, the writer of Little Miss Sunshine, and show hosts of the podcast The Screenwriting Life, discuss the critical importance of the first act in a story.

It is so full of wisdom nuggets and ideas for critically analyzing your stories to make sure they are engaging and successful.

Bad first act, bad story

The first act is the most important part of any story. It generates the thrust of the story for both the hero and the reader. Without a good setup act two and three will surely fail along with the story as a whole.

Guiding rules of a story’s first act

There are so many great points about how to structure a first act to setup your story. I wrote down almost every word from the first 15 minutes in my notebook. A few highlights:

• Act 1 should set up a thirst in the main character AND the audience to see the hero satisfy their thirst. It should make the audience thirsty for the same thing the hero is thirsty for.

• Act 1 should set up the long-term goal and also the ladder/short-term plan they’re going to use to pursue that longer term goal

• Act 1 should cultivate maximum reading/watching interest

Go deeper

If you want to go deeper, Arndt has a YouTube channel. Here’s a video where he digs into the idea of a strong story beginning taken from his experience writing Toy Story 3.