Authors

4 Act Story Structure Makes More Sense Than 3 Acts – Jeffrey Alan Schechter

Filmcourage

Published

August 27, 2022

Film Courage: Why do you use four-act story structure instead of three-act story structure?

Jeffrey Alan Schechter, Author/Screenwriter/Founder of Writers Room Pro: Because I’m Jewish. Okay, so the four sons, the four cups of wine, the four acts. Every Passover we sit at the table and we drink another cup of wine to each one of the acts. I’m kidding! Stop it, it’s a joke. Okay, but I wasn’t kidding. I am Jewish. I found it to be an easier way of just thinking it makes things balanced. Three acts on a typical three-act structure, it’s act two is twice as long as act one and act three so why not just call it four acts already? You can have act one, act two, an act two B and then act three. I used to think in the early days when I was working on the system (I think that’s how I was calling it then) that just felt confusing so I just went with act one, two, three and four. It’s a four-act structure but it’s all the same, it’s all three-act structure. I forget who, it could be [John] Truby there’s a six-act structure, [Syd] Field’s three acts, we’re all talking about the same stuff. It’s really just here’s your pie. You’re going to slice it into eighths or sixteenths or whatever. Then other pieces of my understanding of story structure played nicely with the four acts so the four archetypes, things like that. It just felt like four acts brought a nice order to the universe.

Film Courage: Did anybody fight you on it?

Jeff: They fight people like me all the time.

Film Courage: But in terms of didn’t they say “That can’t be done, it’s always this,” and you said “Sure, why not. It’s 2a, 2b.”

Jeff: It’s like every conversation…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

BIO:

After moving to Los Angeles, Jeffrey Alan Schechter quickly established himself as a versatile writer, able to work in all genres from action films to family comedies, from pre-school to adult drama, from live action to animation. His writing has earned him a Gemini Award as well as nominations for two Emmy awards, a Writers Guild of America award, a Writer’s Guild of Canada award, and a BAFTA award. Over the years Jeff has worked with dozens of studios and networks including Warner Bros, Universal Pictures, ABC, NBC, The Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, The Hallmark Channel, the BBC, VH1 Films, RHI, and The Walt Disney Company. Jeff is the author of a book on story structure titled My Story Can Beat Up Your Story! and is a noted speaker and lecturer on screenwriting. Jeff is the founder/creator of WritersRoom Pro software, a digital writers’ room for secure, remote creativity and collaboration.