Turning Point One

Turning Point One is pretty much the last chance you'll have to grab your reader.  Hopefully, you grabbed them right away, or at least early on, but by the end of Act One, even the most patient readers will have decided whether they like your story or not.  You may have hinted at the main conflict before this point, but Turning Point One is where it kicks into gear.

The most important factor in Turning Point One is that it is a point of no return.  After this, nothing is ever the same.  The characters cannot go back to their flawed status quo.  They might still want to, but circumstances have conspired to prevent it.

Often, this transition will be some kind setback; for example, the death of Luke's aunt and uncle in Star Wars.  But that's not necessarily the case.  In Billy Madison, Turning Point One comes when Billy resolves to re-do his education in order to earn control of his dad's company.  Instead of a setback, the turning point takes the form of accepting a challenge.  In Mr. Deeds (to stick with Adam Sandler examples), Turning Point One comes when Deeds learns he has inherited a large sum of money.  The turning point takes the form of a sudden victory.

But even in the positive cases, the character cannot go back to where he was before.  Billy can't let his dad's company go to that douche Eric, and Deeds now has a whole corporate structure depending on him.

Turning Point One should occur somewhere near the 25% mark, and signal the transition into Act Two.  Why?  As I said in the beginning of this series, story structure is all about conforming to the innate forms that are already in the reader's mind.  The simple fact is that if you refuse to conform to these forms, at least obliquely, readers will not want to read what you wrote, no matter how good it is.  There are still valid methods of subverting expectations, and valid reasons to do so, but it's a risk that only skilled and experienced authors should take.

For whatever reason, readers and movie audiences expect some kind of major turning point about a quarter of the way into the story.  It's hard-wired into the human brain, and it's one of the few structural points that are non-negotiable.  However, what form it takes is open to liberal interpretation.  Your character can experience a victory or a setback, accept a challenge, meet someone new, learn something important, be thrust into some role unwillingly, the possibilities are endless.

In my version of story structure, Turning Point One also has one additional job: it needs to let the character know--consciously or subconsciously--that something is wrong in their status quo.  Until now, they have been complacent--even comfortable--in their flawed world.  But after Turning Point One, they enter a state of conscious incompetence, and they know that they have some learning to do.

Next, we'll take a look at Act Two.