How does the 3 act structure fit in a Non Linear story?
I see that the 3 Act structure can be applied over almost any story, from Hamlet to Mulholland Drive, from The Matrix to Rocky. Story structures like 3 Acts, or 4-5 Acts, always feature a Character Arc and a series of plot turns (i.e. Turning Points) which make the story move on, proceeding from inciting incident, to temporary success, to climax and finale.
But I find it hard to detect these elements in movies like Pulp Fiction, Shimmer Lake, Memento, which proceeds back and forth in narration, and thus seem to elude the typical steps of a story. For example, how can something be an inciting incident if it's shown at the end of a movie? How can it be a climax of the hero's journey, if it is shown at the beginning?
The question is: how can you insert the Plot Key Points in a story which is not narrated linearly?
NB please retain from answering by bashing the 3-act structure as wrong / fad / old / cliche - that is not the core of the question. Thanks.
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1 answer
The three-act or five-act structure can still exist even if the elements are not shown in order. It's the effect on the audience which is changed.
In the case of Memento, you see the end first, and then work backwards through all the successes and setbacks. The "end," the resolution, becomes an inciting event of sorts, because it is where the audience first enters the story. The inciting event in chronological time happens at the end of the film, which retroactively changes how the audience understands the series of events, so it acts as a climax.
In Pulp Fiction, the audience has to hold all the pieces of the narrative in their heads and slot items in chronological order as they appear in the film.
In both movies, once the entire film is done, the events have now all been told to the audience, and the audience can review those events in linear, chronological order, which creates the standard three-/five-act rise-and-fall plot. It's the experience of learning the events out of order, and the retroactive "oh, now that makes sense!" which makes these stories more interesting.
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