Understanding story structure is really gonna help you create your own stories.
Most traditional stories are told through what's called the three-act structure.
We begin with Act 1, funny enough, which is called the set up.
Here we introduce the major characters involved in the story,
usually the protagonist and the antagonist forces.
We also set up the world, or setting, in which the story takes place, or
at least where it begins.
Act 1 ends with what's called the inciting incident.
This is the event in the beginning of a story that sets off the primary conflict
between the protagonist and the antagonist.
And it also defines and gets the hero's quest up and running.
We see this in Sleeping Beauty.
In Act 1, Maleficent shows up to the birth of Princess Aurora
totally uninvited and curses the baby purely out of spite.
That's our inciting incident, and
that is what causes the conflicts throughout the story.
Three good fairies, part of the protagonist forces,
try to help the newborn princess, and agree to take care of her hidden away in
the woods to keep the curse from coming to life when she turns 16.
And with that we end Act 1.
We as the audience, we've learned where we are and who we root for
as the primary characters, and who we want to see defeated as the evil villain.
The major conflict and what they have to face also is what we learn in Act 1.
Moving on to Act 2, often called the confrontation,
this act is where all the action of the conflict plays out.
And we see a rise in tensions.
We see a rise in action as the obstacles facing the hero become more and more dire,
until we get to the end of Act 2 where there's the final conflict,
in which these two opposing forces finally begin to resolve that conflict.
This Act 2 is usually the longest part of the story, and
it's where the idea of rising action is most seen.
Each event that happens in Act 2 should build upon the last and
create more tension and more danger of the hero failing their quest.
This keeps us engaged and always questioning, [SOUND] what's gonna happen?
In Sleeping Beauty we see the forces on Aurora's side trying to
shield her from the curse of pricking her finger and falling asleep.
Throughout this act, new story points come up that put Aurora's safety in jeopardy,
since Maleficent, the antagonist, keeps scheming and
thinking of new ways to trap Aurora into the curse in the first place and
keep the kingdom from saving her at all.
This all culminates when Maleficent turns into a dragon and
fights Prince Philip at the castle.
He truly is the last thing that can save her.
And this is Maleficent's last effort to stop all the heroes.
That's the final crisis, and this ends Act 2.
Finally, there's Act 3, often called the resolution.
In this act, a good story will resolve the conflict in a super satisfying way for
the audience.
Usually this is when we see the hero vanquish the villain in this ultimate
fight, and finally claim what is rightfully theirs.