Customer Reviews

The 3rd Act: Writing a Great Ending to Your Screenplay

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Thank god someone has finally written an intelligent and helpful book on 3rd Acts!!

Having earned my MFA in Screenwriting from USC and working full time in development, I have read hundred of scripts. I can say for a fact that even the best writers can meet their downfall in the crucial third act (see Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown).

I have seen many good scripts crash and burn at page 80 - the start of the 3rd act. Usually the writer has no idea how to resolve their plotlines, and winds up taking shots in the dark. The truly amazing scripts have killer third acts - every moment of the previous scenes as been building to this. The mediocre scripts have satisfying, yet never surprising, third acts. And truly horrible scripts? Well, those writers never considered their third act while writing the first act.

Yanno walks the reader (and screenwriter) through the key types of scenes often seen and usually required in successful 3rd acts. He breaks down the mechanisms of the 3rd act, and of scripts in general, without losing the purpose of writing - to tell a story that evokes emotion.

During his numerous examples, Yanno does not discriminate with his taste in films. He discusses a wide range of movies: classics, modern releases, art house flicks, and even popcorn blockbusters. Most screenwriting books focus on the author's one or two favorite examples, Yanno uses almost 20!

Although I read The 3rd Act as a screenwriting guide, it works equally as a critical discussion of story structure - and therefore would be a tremendous value to writers and film theorists alike.

I really hope this is the first in a series by Drew Yanno. His thorough and friendly examination of other areas of screenwriting in definitely needed.

I had the privilege of taking Yanno's screenwriting classes a few years ago, and when I heard he was coming out with a new book, I knew I had to buy it right away. While there are so many screenwriting books on the market, there aren't too many that focus exclusively on the hardest part of a script: the ending. As a struggling screenwriter myself, I know how difficult it can be to write a complete script from beginning to end. I also know how difficult it can be to find the perfect ending to a script that refuses to escape from a state of unfinished purgatory. Yanno's book helps a writer escape that depressing limbo by providing helpful insight to end your movie the right way. Yanno knows that a movie's ending can make or break the story. He knows that a bad ending can make the best movies feel stale, and agrees that even the opposite is true; that a great ending can make a mediocre movie seem better than it really is. The strength in Yanno's book not only rests within the many examples of great movie endings, but also with a good amount of bad movie endings--some of those movies being movies that Yanno himself liked a lot, but agreed that the quality of the ending is the reason why the movie is seen as a failure. While the bulk of this book is focused on showing how to create a great ending, by use of these examples, Yanno has also included a list of thirty questions that I believe is the perfect blueprint for a screenplay as whole. While those thirty questions help the writer form an ending that bests fit with the script's story and characters, they also help the writer isolate the core of the script's story and characters in order to make a complete work more complete. In closing, Yanno's book is a vital (and affordable) tool that any screenwriter should possess in order to make your work truly stand out (in a good way)!

Problem solved! Drew Yanno's book arrived just in time as I was about to give up on a spec script that I had wrestled with for the past six months.

After reading his book, my problem became quite clear. I had conflict, I had resolution, but I had neglected to answer the question raised in the first act.

I use the word "simple" purposefully as this is the style of Mr. Yanno's writing. He lays out guidlines for great endings in clear, plain English. No math degree needed, no plot points, no concentric circles, no diagrams.

The book is rife with specific examples of how great endings were fashioned in a wide range of great movies from Casablanca to Gladiator. His dissection of the third act of the latter was particularly instructive to me as it always struck me as contrived. Walking through the construction of the act, the author explained how and why it was the best way to resolve the ultimate conflict while answering the first act question.

So, if you think your script needs a geometric fix, read McKee. If you want to satisfy your audience with a great ending, read Yanno.

Drew and I had the privilege of working together on the story breakdown of an upcoming major motion picture. It was through that work that we became familiar with each others' book. His THE 3RD ACT and my book The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success. Drew's book is extremely important, and wonderfully detailed analysis of one of the most important concepts in any project, but especially motion pictures: BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND. I have consulted on countless films and it's amazing how many times the end of the story has little to do with the beginning of the story. (Actually, when that happens the writer really doesn't have a story.) One of Drew's mantras is to make sure that your Third Act answers the questions you ask in the First Act. But he's been around the industry long enough to realize that there are just way too many writers who never understand that you have to ASK the question in First Act in the first place. Thus, what is really good about Drew's book is that it does not just talk about the film's ending, but how EVERYTHING in the story has to point to the end. And the only way you can do that is to BEGIN WITH THE END IN MIND. If you don't know the answers to most of Drew's critical questions (at the back of this book) please, please don't even begin to write. Instead, put all the dramatic beats to your story on 4x6 cards, paste them to a wall, and make sure that the cards with questions on them are at the top of the wall, and that the events LOGICALLY unfold so that the question's answers are on cards taped to the wall's bottom. Drew also looks carefully at 17 films (from various genres) and applies the rules of how to make a great film work by ensuring THE 3RD ACT is satisfying and connected to everything else. Good job, Drew, hope we work together again, soon.

While many screenwriting books attempt to instruct you on how to write an entire screenplay, Drew Yanno has wisely chosen to provide readers with an in-depth dissection of arguably the most memorable portion of a screenplay--the third act. Instead of lecturing you on abstract concepts ad infinitum, Yanno clearly presents easy to grasp structural guidelines while providing succinct examples of those guidelines from popular films such as Rocky, Casablanca, Chinatown, Gladiator, and more. The book is not only an examination of endings, but of the entire third act and how it relates to everything you have built up to that point. Even experienced screenwriters should give this a read to hone their skills or simply remind them of practices they may already be doing. With a flowing, comfortable prose and intelligent film anaylsis, The 3rd Act should be required reading for any serious screenwriter.

The book is on the third act, and it does a good job of setting up the set up for that act. In other words, it tells you what you need to think of when you're writing early acts in order to have a successful final act, which is, as the author notes, very important. But I was very taken with the no nonsense rendition of the bones of a screenplay. Everything you need to know about structure, without the bells and whistles, is in a short, concise and extremely helpful chapter.

A film's ending is crucial. It is the last thing the audience sees and often the last thing they remember when they leave the theater. Indeed, it is no stretch to suggest that, more than any other part of the film, the ending determines whether the audience likes the film or not. By extension, the ending of a script is probably the last thing the reader will remember when they put it down. An otherwise great script will likely be passed on if it does not end well.

"The Third Act" by Drew Yanno is the first screenwriting instructional book to focus entirely on that most important part of the film/script - the ending. Much like the three act paradigm for the complete screenplay, this unique book offers a simple structural approach for writing the last act of a script. Drew not only offers suggestions as to which type of ending writers should consider for their particular story, but also provides examples of his technique through analyzing the endings of a number of memorable films, such as Rocky, Rain Man, and Good Will Hunting.

Drew has been writing for film since 1993 and is the author or co-author of more than a dozen screenplays. He has been a member of the Writers Guild of America since 1995. In 1994, his first script Banca's Raviolis was a finalist in the inaugural Massachusetts Film Office Screenwriting Competition. One year later he sold his action/adventure script No Safe Haven to Universal Studios. The screenplay was the subject of a bidding war and sold in less than eight hours.

As an adjunct associate professor at Boston College, Drew has taught screenwriting in the Film Studies department since 2000. He has also taught various workshops, most recently through Grub Street, a not-for-profit, independent writing center based in Boston. Many of his former students have optioned or sold their scripts, won screenwriting competitions, and work in television and film in Hollywood.

Drew has appeared on a number of television and radio shows to discuss films and screenwriting, and his work has also been featured in Daily Variety, the HollywoodReporter, Entertainment Weekly along with other magazines and newspapers. He has also appeared as a panelist at a number of film and screenwriting events in and around the Boston area.

In addition to writing and teaching, Drew is also a screenwriting consultant and has worked as an advisor on a number of films and scripts.

NOTE: This review also appears on my website www.thoughtleading.com

As somebody who is new to the art of screenwriting, I found this book to be an awesome collaboration of ideas. It helps you with the beginning, middle, and the end of a screenplay. Fantastic book, a MUST have for any media writer's bookshelf.

Here's a great book that tackled a very, very important and overlooked part of structure. We hear so much about the almighty first act, while the third act is the red-headed stepchild of acts....

Most advice I hear about the third act is this extensive: build to a climax, wrap up all your story threads, type "Fade Out".

Drew breaks up the act into these parts:

1. Set-up of the final battle

2. The final battle

3. The outcome of the final battle

4. The denouement

5. The bridge (not all screenplays have this)

It's not all as obvious as it seems. Drew analyzes a number of screenplays - Saving Private Ryan, Rain Man, Gladiator, etc. - all contemporary, all award winners, so you really see his theories in action.

Also, he's humble and easy to read - not one of those writers who fills in pages about how he was sitting on the toilet when this idea came to him and he ran into the living room and typed for three days without sleep and all of his friends read his pages (posted on his personal site, insert URL here) and told him how he HAD to turn this into a book.... (Don't those types of screenplay gurus just drive you nuts???)

Another thing Drew does is make a distinction between the ending of a film and the third act, and link the third act back to the first. (This really helped the script I was working on when I read this book a few months ago.) Finally, he breaks down different types of endings - including Hollywood, happy, hopeful, and down.

So, if you're looking for more structure, The 3rd Act is a great, cheap way to get it.

This book definitely helped me understand the connections between beginning and ending and what to do before you start. A lot of great activities also!