Structure care of Will Write for Wine

I'm catching up on my podcasts since getting my new Philips 1GB media player. One of my favourites is Will Write for Wine hosted by Samantha Graves and Lani Diane-Rich who write varying sub-genres of romance.

Episode 33 is On Structure. In summary the structure goes something like this:

Act I

• the ordinary world
• the call to adventure
• refusal of the call
• the meeting with the mentor
• acceptance of the challenge

Act II

• tests, allies and enemies
• approach to the inmost cave
• the supreme ordeal
• the reward

Act III

• the road back
• resurrection
• return with elixir

If this has sparked your interest check out the C Block of Episode 33, 30 minutes in. They use four popular movies as examples to show how widely this structure is applied: Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Romancing the Stone and Happy Gilmore.