Every author knows that the structure of a story should follow a pattern, one that on the outside is fairly predictable. The Four Acts, the one tool used by playwrights, screenwriters and authors of any genre can make or break the story.

For those who are used to hearing of Three Acts, let’s cover them and then add in the Fourth.

ACT ONE – INTRODUCTION
Here we meet the characters, get into the basics of our conflict

ACT TWO – CONFLICT
The main issue is slowly brought to light and dealt with using the characters old ways of being.

ACT THREE – RESOLUTION
The characters learn lessons and change their ways of being to resolve the core issue.

All of your plotting focuses around one central issue and how the characters in your story respond or react to that issue.

In any story we write, our focus is on a specific issue. Especially in Erotic Romance, where our conflict preventing the HEA (Happily Ever After) ending is both outward and internal, we have just the one issue. The world we create for our characters must revolve around that issue and force our characters together. In a BDSM novel for example, the issue is always trust. So our characters would react and respond differently to various scenarios where trust is forced out, using old behavior and thinking.

All of the various factors involved in character creation come into play here. The background we sprinkle throughout the story, the behavioral patterns, the thoughts, they all come into play here to resolve around the ONE issue. Even better if the world we’ve created for our characters helps to hinder and create conflict.

Now I mentioned in the title a fourth act. This I learned from my mentor, Morgan Hawke, who did a TON of research so make sure you stop by her website and check out her fine books.

ACT THREE – THE REVERSAL
In this act we give the characters what they think they want, rather than what they need. We also make things more difficult in order to FORCE new behavior on our characters.

With the REVERSAL, our HEA for romance authors is so much sweeter because we’ve built up that anticipation and crescendo the actions and scenes until it’s time for that needed release.

As we throw a wrench into the plot with our characters, we’ll surprise the readers with that act and prompt them to read further, and more of our work.

I will better define React/Respond and old ways of being in my next post as well as how to apply this in erotic romance/erotica.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download