“Clarify nothing until Act Two,” says the host of Escape the Plot Forest, Daniel David Wallace. According to writer and coach Wallace, “authors try to explain way too much in Act One.” He advocates for no backstory, no character profiles and no world history until Act Two.
It fits with his previous advice to focus on the present; on the story that is happening now. If the novel as a literary form is obsessed with the past, then the last hundred years of Freudian analysis makes that even more intense. All that exploration of formative experiences, social context, trauma. And novelists feel the pressure to include all of that in Act One, to lay out why it all matters to the characters. Or else it’s a desperate attempt to hook the reader. Try this trauma, have this history, this family tree, this invention, this magic, this custom, this religion; flashback, flashback, flashback.
Wallace simply says ‘don’t.’ Don’t let the story bog down in all that internal and external detail.
The Antidote to Panel Games
Daniel’s antidote? Keep all the pieces moving; hint and allude, but don’t stop. Instead, lay a trail of breadcrumbs for the reader to follow.
In place of all that, build some tension, some mystery, some suspense. Give the reader just enough to latch onto the story and the characters but no more. No distractions, no fat paragraphs of exposition, no delving into childhood trauma. We know it is always there, but hidden beneath the surface, glimpsed fleetingly through a window as we pass by.
Daniel’s formula is to reference everything by the 25% mark; characters, plot and world. But these are promises that pay off in Act Two and Three. The one essential thing in Act One is for the main character to commit to the plot by the break into Act Two.
By moving all that other stuff to the longer Act Two, the story gains momentum. Without all the distractions and delays, the elapsed time feels much, much shorter. The pace of Act One accelerates.
Balancing Act
There is a downside, of course. Go too far and the reader is left in the dark; who are these people; what world am I in; why do all these unexplained words matter?
It’s a balancing act; the reader wants the story to move forward and fast; but also why it matters? And to immerse themselves in the story world. Can you do all three? Can you really clarify nothing until Act Two? That’s the art of writing.