Five Acts and on course...

The wordcount is now at 14,012, so I haven't given up yet. I feel happy about this, even though I'm still lagging behind, as I have managed to write about 7,000 words in the last three days. This means I'm on target, but only if I can keep up the pace.

I had a chat with my plot advisor yesterday (fortunately she lives with me, and she's a qualified screenwriter) and we discussed where I was at in the story. I'm just about to introduce the first crisis, which aparenlty seem to be fine. If the thing is considered as a five-act story, then I'm into act two. The acts for my story would be:

1) Background - who he is, etc. Introduction of other characters.
2) Crisis - he is thrown into despair.
3) Surviving the crisis (building this to a crescendo where the hero overcomes obstacles through his wits)
4) Things start to go in his favour, and he starts to see the light. This act ends with a twist.
5) coming to terms with the twist. Resolution and decision-making time.

Well, I think it seems OK, but I can worry about that later, when I have enough material to play with, edit, and reshape. For now, it's back to the grindstone. Let's see if I can polish off the rest of Act 2 in a few days.