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When the protagonist enters the second half of Act II, and as things go from bad to worse and they just fall down the hill, they think, “Why? Why did I even leave in the first place? I was crazy! Why did I cross the threshold? Wow, I thought I was, like, so smart and responsible making choices at the midpoint. I’ve made such a mistake.” I mean, I imagine that the protagonist really just wants to go home. This is the part of the story where we start to feel sorry for ourselves, you know, if we start to put ourselves in the shoes of the protagonist. This is where we think, “What was I thinking in the first place? How did I ever imagine that I could undertake this quest? It would have felt more comfortable to stay home," but it’s a very hard place to be because at the same time, we realize we can never go back there and that’s why it’s such an important part of the process. By confronting how life has changed so much, and by confronting how much the quest seems to have gotten out of control, and by confronting how strong the forces of adversity are pushing us back, we reach a place where we have to decide it’s all or nothing. Either I give up or nobody will ever stop me again, and that’s the power of the second half of Act II. 

You know, the first half of Act II shows us the protagonist discovering the extraordinary world. We realize the new rules of engagement, it’s kind of cool, we see new landscapes or new personal landscapes. The second half of Act II is all about what happens when we think we’re nearing the end of our journey and adversity strikes. This is, in essence, the time of the story where the antagonist is having their heyday. No matter what the protagonist does, the antagonist is always going to push back and they’re always going to get the upper hand, to the point that they will push the protagonist up against a brick wall, and that’s where we have to make the real transition from passive to active. It’s kind of like what happened at the midpoint is just a first step in the direction of committing to being who we are now. The antagonist has pushed us up against a brick wall and is saying, “Hey, do you really want this or do you want to go back to where you were at the beginning of the story?” and even though it hurts, even though it’s hard, even though we’ve maybe lost someone that’s dear to us or we think that there’s no recovery, we have to take a deep breath and we have to remember that: “This is bigger than me. I’ve been called on this journey and I have to just break that wall down. I have to commit to becoming the person I’ve been called to be from the beginning.” This is the moment where the butterfly fights its way out of the cocoon. I don’t know if you know this story about butterflies.

It’s a rather painful process for the butterfly to get out of the cocoon and if you watch it happen, you might even be tempted to help the butterfly and to break the cocoon, but the reality is that the butterfly needs to wrestle its way out in order to build the strength in its wings so it can fly. The second half of Act II is that wrestle for the protagonist. You know, at every step that we confront resistance, we have to say, “No I’ll keep on going,” until we’re so broken that we don’t even know that we can do it. Then, when we confront our own weakness, and when we confront everything holding us back, we have to let it go, break down the brick wall and commit to seeing this story though to its end in Act III.

I mean it might look like the second half of Act II is the least enjoyable moment of the story for the protagonist, and this is indeed true, but it’s a process that that protagonist has to go through to get out of that cocoon. It’s a process that teaches them to fight for what they believe in and at the end of the day, when they hit that brick wall, it’s likely the supporting character is going to have to come in and remind the protagonist that it’s not all about them. They’ve been part of something that’s much bigger than them. Something that’s worth fighting for. Something that goes beyond the constraints of the journey, beyond the constraints imposed by the protagonist. The second half of Act II, the downward spiral, really demands of the protagonist to fight. How much are you willing to suffer to achieve your goal? That’s what the second half of Act II is asking, and we need to feel that sense of commitment as the protagonist gets beaten down and they need to realistically hit a point where they may not want to go on.

The brick wall has more to do with the interior landscape of your protagonist than we’ve discussed thus far, and I will recommend another book here. You should go over and check out a book by my friends John Bucher and Jeremy Casper called Inside Out Story. It's a great book that reminds us that stories play out on two planes: one, our interior landscape, and the second, the exterior landscape. What am I getting at here? It can look like the second half of Act II is all about the antagonist pushing back against the protagonist. The protagonist failing to complete what they must in order to achieve the quest. The MacGuffin getting further and further outside of reach. But at the end of the day, the brick wall is not just about the external constraints the plot. This is really the moment in your story when the protagonist must confront their past, what we call “the ghost.” We have to confront something that's holding us back. The protagonist has to rise above their circumstance and have a moment of self-realization. 

That means acknowledging something that we’ve been running from in our past forever. A limiting belief, if you like, that has been holding us back, and usually the person to point it out is the supporting character. It doesn't have to be, but this is a common role the supporting character occupies, and it goes a little bit like this: “You think this quest has been all about you? You think that this is about you achieving what you want? It’s so much more than that, and because you're so stuck on what happened to you all this time ago, you've forgotten that there's a bigger landscape here. You’ve forgotten there's a bigger question. You’ve forgotten that the future of the world is at stake or the future of your relationship is at stake. Is it really about her and the way she looks at the world or is it about you and the way you look at yourself? Is it really about winning this competition or is it about overcoming your fear?” You get my point? The brick wall provides this extraordinary moment for the character to confront their inner secrets, their inner fears, and once they overcome that inner landscape at the end of Act II, nothing will ever hold them back again. When they go forward and make the break into Act III—this is why I conflate the brick wall and the act break—when they cross that threshold from Act II into Act III, there's no looking back. The full development of their character is complete. There's no turning back. They are who they are supposed to be, and now they're ready for the final face-off. They're ready to take the story to its conclusion, and that all involves confronting their inner landscape. It's not just about the pressures of the external world. We all have those battles to fight, I guess, in our own lives, and for me that's why being a writer can be exceedingly cathartic. We realize that as human beings, we have failings, we have fears, and we're constantly trying to overcome them, and when we do great things happen. The great characters of the stories that inspire us remind us that if we take the chance to overcome our internal limitations, we can achieve greatness, not just on our own scale but on a scale we could never imagine. So I think that's one of the ways that stories make us better people. Confronting those moments of weakness like the brick wall. We all have them, myself included. We all do.

© SJ Murray, 2018