May 2005 Archives  A short break   I'll probably be taking a
short break from posting for the next week or two.  Before I
talk about screenwriting, I want to talk about fractals for a
moment.  Fractals are objects where the overall shape resembles
the shape of the component parts. (Yes, yes, I know that's a
vast oversimplification of the proper mathematical definition,
but I don't think I need to get into a discussion of the
Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension to make my point about the
three-act structure.)  The Why of the Three-Act Structure   Why
do most mainstream screenplays--and virtually all good
mainstream screenplays--end up fitting into a three-act
structure?  Alex Epstein has posted some interesting thoughts on
the three-act structure. This is something I've thought about a
fair amount, so I thought I'd weigh in.  First, for those of you
who aren't screenwriters, this post is going to be a brief
overview of the three act structure. I'm going to take my
examples from the original Star Wars (or "Star War