Lost in the Second Act?

Hey Screenwriters (and TV writers, novelists, memoirists)​

If you've found yourself lost in the second act of your screenplay or manuscript, first of all, do not feel bad. Every writer gets lost in the second act. And honestly? It's a good sign. It means you're deep enough into the work that the easy part is behind you.

There's actually a term for this feeling from the world of navigation: Dead Reckoning. Before GPS, when sailors were crossing open ocean far enough from Portugal that they'd lost sight of shore, but not yet close enough to see New York, they had to navigate by compass, speed, and trust alone. No landmarks. No confirmation. Just forward motion and faith in the process. 

That's exactly where you are in your second act. 
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Here are a few ways to navigate through it.

1. Be kind to yourself. Just because it's annoying, scary, and/or hard doesn't mean it’s wrong. 

Getting lost in the middle is not a sign that you're a bad writer. It's a sign that you are a writer writing something new. If you are writing something original, it will always feel like you are driving in pitch-black darkness with one headlight and can only see two feet in front of you. You are building the road as you are driving on it. If the road were already there, you would be writing something that already exists. 

2. Trust that the answer is to keep writing. And don’t be petty about pages. 

Write through it. Keep going until you can see the shore on the other side. If you're the kind of writer who worries about "wasting pages", pages that won't make the final draft, here's the truth: you have no idea which scenes are going to get you there. You are still writing to discover the story, the characters, the choices, and sequences that will carry you to the end. 

I've never met a musician who said, "My goal is to play guitar as little as possible while making this album." So accept that you are going to write a whole lot more than 110 pages in order to arrive at the 110-page draft you actually want. Prioritizing the least amount of writing over getting a great draft done will leave you disappointed. 

Great writers, prolific writers, accept the truth that they might need to rewrite a scene dozens of times to get it to where it needs to be. Just like great athletes practice plays and passes hundreds of thousands of times to compete professionally. How many times do you think a professional pianist rehearses a single song? A LOT!

3. Talk to your characters.

They're right there. Sit down and have a conversation with them. Ask: "What are some ways we could get from where we are right now to the end of this story?" “What do I not yet understand about you?” This is something we practice in the Meditative Writing classes, going back into the world of the story and letting the characters lead. 

If you don’t have much time, this is a great way to connect with your characters and story during your lunch break or on your commute to work. 

4. Map out your four possible endings.

Every story has four possible outcomes for the protagonist:

- They get what they Want and what they Emotionally Need
- They get what they Want but not what they Emotionally Need
- They don't get what they Want but get what they Emotionally Need
- They don't get what they Want and don't get what they Emotionally Need

Try writing all four of those endings as rough sketches, then pick the one you're most excited about and write toward it. And when you're choosing how to get there, don't ask: "What's the quickest route?" Ask: "What's the most fun? The most surprising? The most true to my genre? The most thrilling?" Ease and convenience are not the goals. Great art is.

5. Get feedback.

Sometimes what gets you to the next shore is another pair of eyes. In a workshop like the TV & Screenplay Alchemy Workshop, you get professional feedback, you hear how other readers are experiencing your work, and you walk away with a clear to-do list for your next draft, a compass to navigate by when the horizon feels blank.

You are not lost… at least not forever. Trust your course, keep writing, and the shore will appear.