Evelynn McDowell – thelogline

Contrary to my usual dislike for pre-plotting a story, I went into writing HERCULES knowing it would be a submission for a well-established screenwriting lab. With this being the case, I felt it important to make sure I knew intimately not only what happened in the story and exactly when, but also that I could justify or explain my decisions. Not to mention, in the world of advancing use of generative AI, the digital chicken-scratch of incomplete sentences and bullet points in my plotting document is further evidence of having assembled ideas from my own imagination. So, for the plot structure of HERCULES, I present the Five-Act Structure. (And obviously major spoilers because I’m using my plot as a teaching tool).

You may ask, “why not the three-act structure?” To that I say, because it is not detailed enough, in my opinion. By that I mean, within each part of the three-act structure, I find myself adding bullet points and subpoints, and feeling worried when it seems like there is way too much information in a single plot beat. I think the five-act structure cut out the middleman and addressed my need for extra plot beats with intentional timing and placement in the structure. The three-act structure isn’t bad and of course my story could likely fit into just fine, so it’s only a matter of contextual personal preference.

The Five-Act Structure: Act I – Exposition and Inciting Incident, Act II – First Major Turning Point and Progressive Complications, Act III – Rising Action and Midpoint, Act IV – Falling Action and Major Turning Point, and Act V – Catastrophe and Resolution.

Act I – Exposition: I establish the normal for Matilda as being a wildly lucky (or unlucky) girl who no matter how much danger she puts herself in, never seems to die by the hands of HERCULES androids as she attempts to destroy one of the data centers that has drained a once vibrant rainforest into a desert. She steals data from the data center looking to gather HERCULES’ weaknesses (as well as in the future manufacture a virus to destroy it). Finally, she sets the data center to explode, all of this very simply and rhythmically because she has done it many times before.

Act I – Inciting Incident: Jaxson Hayes comes to arrest her where the androids failed and Matilda is excited to see him, much to his surprise, because humans are few and far between in the desolate area. However, she is one step ahead of his arrest and pick-pocketed his technology, leaving it to be blown up as they escape. Jaxson arrests her to take her to his city to be charged with her crimes against HERCULES and she goes gladly, content to learn where he’s from and why he is the way he is.

Act II – First Major Turning Point: Jaxson and Matilda mutually interrogate each other as he blindly leads her through the desert, significantly lost without his technology. Jaxson wants to know how she evades the androids, why she fights HERCULES’ perfection, and why she is going with him so willingly. Matilda wants to know why a human willingly works for HERCULES, why HERCULES lets someone work for it, and general information about HERCULES, looking for weaknesses. Finally, Jaxson asks Matilda to get them to civilization in exchange for them answering each other’s questions.

Act II – Progressive Complications: Matilda leads Jaxson to the nearest city, which has long been disconnected from the HERCULES database and removed from updates and funding. Jaxson takes advantage of being around tech-supporters to have Matilda arrested and meet the mayor of the city, Reynard, to get his hands on some tech. However, when Reynard becomes too bossy for Jaxson’s taste, he attempts to sneak out of the city. Meanwhile, Matilda breaks out of the prison and reunites with Jaxson as they escape. After a while, they are tracked down by police from the city and the fight draws the attention of the anti-tech extremist rebel group run by Matilda’s enemy, Silas Thorne. Matilda’s calm, cheerfulness finally breaks as she mouths off to Silas to get herself arrested while Silas holds Jaxson captive to interrogate him about HERCULES and show him exactly how harmful HERCULES is in practice. Matilda escapes capture, confronts Wynn (an old friend who fell for Silas’s rhetoric), saves Jaxson, and frees some allies Silas took captive during his revolution. They steal cars from Silas’s town to expedite their trip and escape in the chaos.

Act III – Rising Action: Matilda turns the table on Jaxson now that he is outnumbered and gives him an ultimatum to help them find the HERCULES’ core database or be left in the desert to be caught by Silas. Matilda’s kind, supportive personality has faded and she no longer has patience to humor Jaxson’s moral ambiguity and Matilda’s friends try to change Jaxson’s point of view. Wynn escapes from Silas to find Matilda and Matilda repairs her strained relationship with Wynn that resulted in her hyper-positive, patient personality.

Act III – Climax/Midpoint: Jaxson becomes overwhelmed with guilt and reveals he not only knows where HERCULES’ core is, but how to destroy it. They reach the main city and Jaxson uses his acces to sneak them into the city and the lab where HERCULES’ core is based. Jaxson begins separating HERCULES from the database that controls all of the technology to avoid a permanent tech blackout.

Act IV – Falling Action: To their horror, Silas and Reynard have joined forces and are attempting to break into the lab to take control of the database for themselves. Matilda and her friends break into Dr. Forge’s abandoned lab to find weapons, and her friends go to confront Silas and Reynard, while Matilda discovers a hidden door in the lab and investigates. Meanwhile, Jaxson discovers that HERCULES is somehow restoring data as he destroys it, despite putting the AI into hibernation.

Act IV – Major Turning Point: Matilda finds a second database point for HERCULES hidden behind the secret door where someone has been manually repairing HERCULES to stop Jaxson. Matilda gets ambushed by the person updating HERCULES and warns Jaxson there’s another person in the building. After temporarily stopping Reynard and Silas, Matilda’s friends catch the runaway man, Dr. Forge, and learn he faked the AI takeover and murdered his staff so he could assert his will over the populace after his tech took root in society.

Act V – Catastrophe: Reynard and Silas manage to escape their imprisonment and sneak up on the group, killing Dr. Forge and threatening Jaxson to finish destroying HERCULES so they can take control of the database and all of Dr. Forge’s tech. Jaxson loses his temper with Silas and attacks him and Matilda gives the fatal blow. With his ally overpowered, Reynard attempts to escape, being caught by Matilda’s friends.

Act V – Resolution: Jaxson and Matilda finish destroying HERCULES, then resolve that the best way to begin restoring society is to return complete control over their devices and return jobs to real people. Society can start rebuilding from there.

This project was a bit of a beast and will certainly undergo vigorous editing for plot clarity and smoothness before being anywhere near ready for submission. There are multiple subtle aspects that this plot structure does not address, such as the severity and nuance of Silas’s abusive characteristics or Matilda’s trauma induced hyper-positivity, as well as Jaxson’s character arc as those are things best understood with the context of the full script. One of the strongest messages after the obvious regarding the dangers of totalitarian AI inventors is the dangers of extremism and the people who take advantage of being “chosen” or “right” to be bullies. There are also many other significant messages in this story, because the real world is just loaded with good life lessons to address.

As always, thanks for reading!

– Eve