This is K.M. Wyland and you are listening to the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoy this week's episode, The Two Halfs of the Third Plot Point.

The Third Plot Point is one of the deepest moments in a story's structure.

As the doorway between the end of the second act and the beginning of the third act,

the third plot point functions as a bookend to the first plot point.

And indeed, as we've discussed in our series last year

about kyastic structure, the two are linked.

Symbolically, the third plot point represents death

and potentially rebirth.

Writers sometimes refer to it as the dark night of the story. rebirth. the third plot point is made up of two halves which work together to create a

scene arc even though technically the entire arc of the beat might be told over

the course of a scene sequence made up of mini scenes.

The halves that create this arc are important because only together can they create the realistic resonance of cause and effect.

If the third plot point is where the character sinks into a reverie on mortality, or at least the potential failure of his plot goal,

there must first be a high place from which he falls. The higher this place

the more striking the plight of the third plot point will be.

The third plot point also signifies the descent into the climax.

Regardless the characters travails up to this point,

everything is about to get much worse,

at least in the sense that the conflict

is finally coming to an irrevocable head. in the

conflict is finally coming to an irrevocable head. At the third plot point, the protagonist descends into the abyss of the third act.

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