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

Become Authors Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed this week's episode,

Understanding The Adventure World of a Story's Second Act.

Every story is an adventure.

No matter its genre, focus, or tone, a story is always about an undertaking of some sort, whether cosmically large or

familiarly small. This is why writers can use the metaphor of the

adventure world for a story's second act to better understand this

crucial part of story structure in almost any story.

Last week we kicked off this short series with an examination of the normal world of

a story's first act. In that episode I noted that the terms normal world and adventure world, which I frequently use in reference to a story's first and second acts, originate with the hero's journey.

There, they are meant to evoke the journey of a character who moves from a safe

space or mindset into a quest through a challenging or even dangerous landscape or mindscape until finally they return from the descent with a healing prize of some sort.

So basically a character arc.

Now one could argue that the terms normal world and especially adventure world should remain specific to the hero's journey.

And this is why I offered alternative terms

for other archetypal arcs,

such as the Regal world of the King's first act

and the preternatural world of his second act.

However, I still find that normal world and adventure world seem to be applicable umbrella terms for all stories,

as long as we understand them to be metaphorical rather than literal.

Or maybe not, because, as I said,

...