- Level:
- Beginner
- Lessons:
- 14 Lessons
Act 6: We Were Wrong
Things go sideways, the protagonist's plan falls apart, and they glimpse the face of doom. It's time to regroup and reconsider.
- Reading Time
- approx. 4 min
What about that awesome plan your characters cooked up in Act 5? Well, in Act 6 they find out they really didn’t understand what they were up against.
What is Act 6?
Act 6 is where things fall apart. It’s one of the most crucial turning points in your novel, where your protagonist’s carefully crafted plan from Act 5 spectacularly fails. This act serves as a mirror to the car crash moment from Act 2, but with far greater consequences. Here, your protagonist doesn’t just face a disruption—they face complete devastation and get a terrifying glimpse of their potential future if they fail to embrace the theme.
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Why is Act 6 Important?
This act is essential because it forces your protagonist to confront the true scale of their challenge. Until now, they might have thought they could solve their problems through clever planning or sheer determination. Act 6 shatters that illusion. It reveals the full power of your antagonist and shows your protagonist exactly what’s at stake if they fail.
More importantly, Act 6 demonstrates why your story’s theme matters. When the protagonist’s plan falls apart, it’s not just bad luck—it fails specifically because they haven’t embraced the theme. This connection between plot failure and thematic resistance creates a powerful emotional impact that resonates throughout the rest of your story.
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How to Write Act 6
Act 6 unfolds in three phases.
- Beginning: At the start of Act 6, let your protagonist’s plan from Act 5 appear to succeed even better than expected. This false sense of security is crucial—the higher they climb, the harder they’ll fall. Show them gaining confidence, maybe even becoming a bit cocky. Let readers start to wonder if maybe things will work out after all. This makes the coming reversal even more impactful.
- Middle: The midpoint of Act 6 is where everything comes crashing down. This isn’t just a setback, it’s a complete disaster that exposes the fatal flaw in your protagonist’s approach. Remember, this flaw should directly connect to their resistance to the theme. For example, if your theme is about the importance of trust, their plan might fail because they couldn’t bring themselves to rely on others at a crucial moment. This is also the perfect time to reveal your antagonist’s true power as your protagonist confronts “the face of doom”, a visceral glimpse of what will happen if they never solve their core problem. This vision should be personally meaningful to your protagonist and directly connected to your theme.
- End: By the end of Act 6, your protagonist and their allies are reeling from their defeat. Let them process their failure and begin to realize that they need a completely different approach. They don’t yet know what that approach is, but they know their old methods won’t work.
When writing Act 6, it’s crucial to maintain the connection between plot and theme. The plan’s failure should feel inevitable in retrospect—not because your protagonist made obvious mistakes, but because their approach was fundamentally flawed due to their resistance to the theme. This act isn’t just about breaking your protagonist, it’s about breaking their old way of thinking. The devastation they experience should make them question their fundamental assumptions about how to solve their problems. This creates the opportunity for real growth in the acts to come.
Meaningful Failure
Act 6 shouldn’t focus solely on external failure. While the external collapse of the plan is important, the emotional and psychological impact on your protagonist is equally crucial. Show how this failure affects their relationships, their self-image, and their understanding of their situation.
Another pitfall to avoid is making the failure feel random or arbitrary. Everything that goes wrong should connect either to your protagonist’s character flaws or their resistance to the theme. This maintains the sense that the story is building toward something meaningful rather than just piling on misfortune for dramatic effect.
Your characters’ failure should culminate in “the face of doom”, a moment when they glimpse what the world will look like if they never achieve their goals. This is not only important for the characters, but also for your readers. Until Act 6, your readers have witnessed many possibilities for the characters to succeed, but now they’re presented with the possibility that the characters may lose everything.
Wrapping Up Act 6
Consider these questions as you write Act 6:
- How can you make the initial success feel genuine enough that readers might believe things will work out?
- What specific failure would best highlight your protagonist’s need to embrace the theme?
- What vision of potential doom would most deeply affect your protagonist?
- How will this failure impact their relationships with their allies?
While Act 6 is about failure, it’s not about hopelessness. The protagonist’s realization that they need a new approach, even if they don’t know what it is yet, plants the seed for future development. Make sure to balance the devastation with hints that a different path might be possible, even if your protagonist can’t see it yet.
Your protagonist’s failure has to feel both devastating and necessary. Your readers should finish this act understanding why the old approach couldn’t work, even if they don’t yet see what the new approach should be. By crafting a strong Act 6, you create the turning point that will drive your protagonist toward real change.
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This lesson was taught by:
Corey Ostman
After spending three decades writing science fiction for machines, he now writes science fiction for humans. His brain is almost entirely in the future, so if you encounter him, you’re likely experiencing a form of temporal rift.