In his book, The Screenwriter’s Bible, David Trottier describes a moment that happens in the middle of Act II as a Pinch. The hero becomes more fully engaged in the adventure at that point either through finding out a new piece of information, a particular event, or some other important moment that has to re-galvanize the hero towards his or her goal. Christopher Vogler refers to it as the Ordeal while Blake Snider simply calls it Midpoint. But by any other name, it’s still as important a moment in your script as either of the act breaks.

And here’s the dirty little secret of screenwriting: Screenplays are really 4 acts.

When you think about act breaks in a screenplay, we correctly think of them as act breaks because the story usually changes direction somehow. Act I ends when the hero crosses the first threshold and leaves the ordinary world that she’d been living in up to this point to enter the special world of the adventure. It usually happens between 25 to 30 pages in to the script, and most people agree that that’s the proper way to do it. Act II ends with the hero losing everything, and seeming to be without hope. The adventure has failed, however she’s probably learned something about herself or the world around her that she didn’t know before, and that knew knowledge and/or power will allow her to ultimately win the day.

In The Writer’s Journey, Vogler divides Act II into II-A and II-B. In The Screenwriter’s Bible, Trottier gives the Pinch equal importance as any other moment in the script, including the act breaks and the climax. The reason for that is, just like the other important moments in a screenplay, the Pinch sends the story in another direction. In the original Star Wars film, the adventure begins when Luke Skywalker decides to leave his home planet to find princess Leia. Well, he accomplishes that by the midpoint of the story. That leads to a whole new adventure of having to destroy the Death Star. In Raiders of the Lost Arc, Indiana Jones’ adventure starts when he goes looking for the Lost Arc. Again, he finds it half way through the movie, and his new adventure is keeping it from falling into the hands of the Nazis. One of my favorite films is A Clockwork Orange, and it’s clearly a 4-act story. Act I is Alex as a criminal. Act II is Alex in prison. Act III is Alex getting the treatment. Act IV is Alex getting re-introduced to society.

Quite often, but not always, the Pinch is the moment in the second act when the hero accomplishes her goal, and she has to spend the rest of the second act dealing with the consequences.

Think back to some of your favorite films and consider how they applied this in the script. Think about where the Pinch was in other great films. Think about what that moment meant in the overall telling of the story and how it influences the hero and the action for the rest of the film.