Planning · ScreenwritingNO.153 / 166

Watch: A tension curve: in Act I something happens (the inciting incident), Act II gets harder and harder with a turn in the middle, and Act III rises to the peak and resolves. When the little dot travels the whole line, that's a complete story.A line-art demo that only illustrates the technique, not finished footage.

Planning · Screenwriting

Three-Act Structure三幕结构

Beginning (set up the character, something happens), confrontation (it gets harder and harder), resolution (resolved after the peak): the most reliable skeleton for a story.

Category: Screenwriting
Group: Basics
Medium: Planning
Library: 153 / 166

This is a step in making a film, not a visual technique. For the whole process, see Make an AI short from scratch.

Prompt templates are written from how generation models usually behave and have not yet been verified one by one with real generations. “Common pitfalls” are judgment from experience, not official limits.

When to use it

Writing any narrative film longer than 30 seconds; even a single short-drama episode can be compressed into three parts.

Prompt template

Break the logline below into a three-act scene outline totaling [60] seconds: Act 1 about 25% with the inciting incident, Act 2 about 50% with two escalations and a midpoint turn, Act 3 about 25% with the climax and resolution. For each scene give duration, location, what happens, and the open question it ends on. Logline: [write here]

Sample prompt · ask a chat model

This one is written for chat models like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini: replace the ideas in brackets with your own and it will help you write the story or revise the script.

Break the logline below into a scene outline in three acts, 60 seconds in total: Act I about 15 seconds, with a clear inciting incident; Act II about 30 seconds, with two escalations and a midpoint turn; Act III about 15 seconds, with the climax and resolution. For each scene give: length, location, what happens, and the question the scene leaves at its end. Output as a table. Logline: a delivery rider who lost his job wants to get home on Lunar New Year's Eve, but the last bus has gone and he has to find another way before midnight.

Common pitfalls

Act II spins in place with no escalation.
The climax is solved by coincidence while the protagonist does nothing.
Unbalanced timing, with the opening dragging on too long.

Parameter tips

About 6 to 10 scenes for a 60-second short; every scene should end harder than the last.