The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 8: The Second Half of the Second Act
Helping Writers Become Authors
K.M. Weiland
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2012
⏱️ 10 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | This is KAM Wyland and you're listening to the 144th episode of the word play podcast. |
| 0:13.6 | Right now there's joy in writing land. |
| 0:16.1 | I finished off my rewrite of Dreamlander a whole week in advance |
| 0:19.6 | and I have to tell you I'm almost sorry to see this phase end. Never thought I'd be saying that about a rewrite. But this rewrite |
| 0:26.3 | has been a joy from beginning to end. Okay, maybe not the very beginning. Those first few weeks |
| 0:31.6 | of denial after discovering I needed another rewrite weren't so great. |
| 0:35.0 | But the actual work was a blast. |
| 0:38.0 | The characters, the story, the timing, everything came together perfectly. |
| 0:42.0 | Writing isn't always blissful, but these last few months definitely qualify. |
| 0:47.0 | Now of course we're on to the next thing, which means a few round of edits to clean everything up |
| 0:51.0 | before sending it on to another crew of |
| 0:53.3 | beta readers and my editor. That part is fun too. How to show the passage of time in |
| 0:59.7 | your novel. The latest post in the video series on my blog discusses two ways in which authors can |
| 1:05.7 | trip their readers up with large chunks of passing time and how to avoid them. |
| 1:10.8 | You can watch the video on my blog at Wordplay-K-M-Y-L-N-D dot blog spot. |
| 1:18.9 | New videos are posted every Wednesday. |
| 1:22.4 | And now I hope you enjoy this week's podcast. |
| 1:25.0 | The Secrets of Story Structure Part 8, the second half of the second act. |
| 1:31.9 | Now that we've passed the midpoint, things are starting to heat up in our story. |
| 1:36.0 | The second half of the second act is where your plot really starts popping. |
| 1:40.0 | Your main character caps the dramatic event at the midpoint with his decision to stop reacting and start acting. |
| 1:46.0 | Almost always, this is born of a personal revelation, even if the character can't yet quite put it into concrete terms. |
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