Everything Film School Taught Me About Outlining

Apparently, you don’t have to just “vibe it out”

Before film school I was 100% a pantser. Any time I actually did try to outline beforehand, I got stuck knowing what needed to happen next and would give up. One of those “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it” kind of decisions. While I know that works for some people, I have over a hundred unfinished drafts that say it does not work for me.

So here’s the structure we learned in screenwriting that changed how I write forever: Intro -> Inciting Incident -> First Act Turn -> Fun and Games -> Midpoint -> Things get Worse -> Second Act Turn -> Crisis -> Climax -> Resolution

Once you learn it, you start to see it in almost everything you watch (my brain does this annoying this where it has to go, “midpoint!” every time I reach the midpoint of a movie). Today I'll be going through each point and demonstrating how it works on Disney's Moana.

Intro

This is the setup. It introduces the protagonist, the rules of the world we’re in, the genre, and contains a bit of foreshadowing for the story to come. How does it do all of that? There’s usually a small conflict—something your character can solve or face to show their strengths, and will also foreshadow the inciting incident and choice they make at the first act turn.

In Moana, this is largely done through a song where we learn about Moana’s island and people, how Moana is meant to become the next chief of her people, and how she feels compelled to travel the ocean. She handles small conflicts amongst the villagers, and fights with her dad about getting to travel on the sea. Through this conflict, we learn that Moana is a great leader, but her goal contradicts what’s expected of her, and thus, she is unsure of where and who she is meant to be.

Inciting Incident

The inciting incident is an event that happens to the main character and triggers the changing of their normal world. It forces the character to act if they wish to reclaim the life they’ve always known. It works best when it’s irreversible and has personal consequences.

In Moana, she learns the darkness has spread to her island. It’s something that’s happening to her, has personal consequences (we already know how much Moana cares about her island and people based off the intro), and is difficult to reverse unless Moana makes a decision (she’s forced to act.)

You might want to argue it’s her grandma dying, but that’s more of a raising of stakes, rather than the inciting incident. Moana was already going to act from when she discovered her island was dying. If the grandma had stayed alive she probably would have still left—but the grandma dying gives her extra motivation to make the leap.

First Act Turn

This is the first active choice made by the protagonist to pursue their goal. It’s a direct response to the inciting incident, which means this is the character’s first attempt to solve what happened. It’s important these two are connected, because your inciting incident was meant to jumpstart the story, and this is just the follow-up to that.

Moana takes a boat and leaves the island. We get a sense that there’s a plausible chance of success. The important part in this early stage of your story is hope, no one wants to read through a story where they can’t possibly see your protagonist winning. (Whether they win/achieve their goal or not! They always have hope in the beginning.)

Fun and Games

This is where we get to have a little bit of fun and banter. It’s your protagonist seemingly achieving what they want; their decision is paying off well so far. While there still should be conflict, we’re on a trajectory of success. However, there’s a growing problem the character isn’t ready to address yet--one that will rear its head back around at the midpoint.

In Moana, she finds Maui (success!) gets left behind (conflict) but escapes the cave (success) and they start across the ocean, facing the coconut pirates (conflict) but overcoming (success). The growing problem here is that Maui clearly doesn’t really want to help her and has a secret self-consciousness that’s holding him back: “I’m nothing without my hook”

Midpoint

This is the false victory—the character thinks they’ve reached their objective, but it’s quickly followed by a reversal; the objective is snatched away, or they lose something essential. It typically surprises the audience/readers, sends the plot in a new direction, raises the stakes, strips away support the protagonist was relying on, and often starts a ticking clock (time pressure). Ever heard of the advice “what does your character take for granted? Take it away from them.” This is the part to do that.

In Moana, they get the hook back during fun and games, Maui finds success in using it again, and Moana leads them right to Te ka. So the midpoint is this moment: when they’re trying to restore the heart and fail. They get there (victory) but can’t restore the heart (reversal) and Maui has left (strips away support).

Things get Worse

This is a bit like fun and games in that it’s almost a transition stage between major points, but so much sadder. Essentially it finishes what the midpoint started: removing allies and raising stakes. Our protagonist is still using the same strategy they chose at the first act turn.

Moana’s boat is damaged and Maui is gone, she talks to her grandma and discovers what she needed to realize (unconscious need) that the ocean is part of her identity, she can’t force herself to be anything else: “the call isn’t out there at all it’s inside me.”

Second act turn

Here’s the second large choice the protagonist makes that responds directly to what happened in the midpoint. We’ve now changed strategies to getting what we want, but the goal/objective remains the same. It should feel desperate, but of course a slim amount of hope is necessary.

Moana decides to take the heart back herself instead of relying on Maui. It’s a change of strategy, but she still has the same objective: to return the heart.

Crisis

This is the consequence from your character’s choice (all choices have consequences). It typically puts your character in a dangerous or unstable situation where the stakes are high, they’re in jeopardy, but they’re so close to achieving their objective/goal even if the probability that they fail Is high. This is the “all hope is lost” moment, your protagonist has lost and knows they have. They’re facing their worst fear.

Your character probably realizes now they must make another choice, they understand their need, and they can either adhere to it (positive arc) or ignore it (tragic arc). In Moana, this is the moment she discovers that Te Fiti is gone, all hope is lost because how can she return a heart to someone that’s not there? She’s in danger from the fury of Te ka, and her probability of failure is high. This is typically a pretty short plot point to keep the momentum moving towards the resolution.

Climax

This is the choice your character makes. They’ve realized their need, and now they’re choosing what to do with that information. It should be a difficult choice, maybe even requiring a sacrifice to do what the story considers to be the right thing and reveals who the protagonist is/who they’ve become over the course of the story.

Moana needed to realize her own identity (there’s that motif again!) and that ‘call inside us’. She gambles that Te ka will turn into Te Fiti once she has the heart back, so she offers Te ka the heart. It’s a sacrifice, she’s practically giving away her objective if it doesn’t go well, so it’s a difficult choice—but Moana is now able to see her own identity, and thus understands who Te Ka really is.

Another important part of the climax is that it reveals your theme. The choice your protagonist makes carries an implicit statement about the world, such as “who we are is about what’s inside of us/you know who you are”.

Resolution

All actions have consequences, so here’s the final consequences of the choice your character made at the climax. This is where you reveal whether the choice was the right one (happy ending) or the wrong one (tragic ending).

It draws any remaining questions brought up by the story to a close and demonstrates the “new normal” of the world. Where the character set out to put their world back into order, they grew as a person to create instead a new normal. If the world is the exact same as how it started, it will feel as though there was no point to the story, so character and world must change.

In Moana, Te Ka turns back into Te Fiti, Maui gets his hook back, and Moana goes back home to restart her people’s tradition of travelling the ocean. That’s the most important part! If Moana went back to her island for her dad to say, “thank goodness you’re back, now you’re never leaving again!” we’d wonder why we had wasted the runtime watching her overcome struggles and achieve her objective. Instead, Moana’s world is changed, her people leave the island, and that leadership strength we see at the beginning alongside how she grew as a person throughout (having the confidence in her identity to take lead in returning to an older tradition) leads us to our happy ending.

It’ll help to understand this structure better by doing what I did to Moana. Pick your favourite movie, watch it through, and try to outline it as accurately as you can (tip, the midpoint happens at the middle, but feels like the start of the end).