Free Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... by Blake Snyder

melodramatic secret: “I got nowhere else to go!”
    Whether a false victory or a false defeat, the purpose of this Midpoint “public display of a hero” is to force that hero to announce himself as such — and up the ante of his growth. We've had some fun, we've seen you either rise to the top or crash spectacularly; you've tried out your new identity — here in the upside-down version of the world — but what are you, the hero, really gonna do about it? Are you real or are you fake?
    “Stakes raised,” “time clocks” forcing his decision, the hero must decide. What's it gonna be, pal: butterfly or worm?
    The Midpoint is where the hero stands up and says: Yes, I'm going through with this. Whether by dumb luck, determination, or pressure from the “Bad Guys,” he must keep going forward.
    And speaking of Bad Guys, this is where they start to “close in” — and there's a good reason for that, too. Part of the risk of declaring one's self a hero is that it attracts the attention of those who most want to stop us from growing, changing, and winning. The Bad Guy/Good Guy intersection at Midpoint is key to upping the stakes of that conflict. The Midpoint is the place where “the Bad Guy learns who his rival is,” as Alan Rickman does when he first meets Bruce Willis and his cowboy persona at the false victory Midpoint of
Die Hard
; it's where the secret power or flaw of a hero, or his role in besting the Bad Guy, is discovered, as in
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
when Jim Carrey's rival for Kate Winslet's affections (Elijah Wood), learns he's getting competition from Jim…
still
; it's also where, if the hero is hiding, or his location is unknown, “the Bad Guy learns the hero's whereabouts.” We see this when the chasers in
Witness
realize Harrison Ford is hiding in buttermilk country, andwhen Peter Coyote and his gang of key-jinglers discover E.T. is secreted somewhere in suburbia.
    The Magical Midpoint has all these characteristics, but like a writer brilliantly pointed out in my workshop one weekend, it's not all
on
page 55! These beats are spread out, often over several scenes mid-way. To quote Gene Wilder in the dart-throwing scene of
Young Frankenstein
: “Nice… grouping!”
WHY BAD GUYS
REALLY
CLOSE IN
    Having crossed the “point of no return” at Midpoint, a hero of a story begins the most difficult phase of his transformation.
    And this is true for the writer of the tale as well.
    Remember change is painful. Midpoint is not only the end of the Fun and Games and the glimpse of what a hero can be, it's the knowledge that he has to change. Whether a false victory or a false defeat, the lesson's not over. That's why the hero starts to fight it from here until All Is Lost.
I don't wanna go!
you can almost hear him cry. But like it or not, he's going!
    And you as the writer have to go with him.
    Part of the reason this section is so difficult to figure out is it's about stuff happening
to
the hero — that will lead to the ultimate when he “dies” on page 75. As writers we like our heroes to be proactive, leading the charge, always in control.
    But this is the part where what the hero once believed was real, solid ground, is crumbling away, forcing him to react.
    After the false victory beat in
Alien
when the monster attached to John Hurt's face drops off and “dies,” Sigourney Weaver and the crew of the
Nostromo
prepare to go back to Earth.
    Hey! Let's have a party!
    But once that creature splatters John's stomach all over the dinner table and skates off squealing into the darkness, the disintegration of Sigourney's world begins in earnest. Not only do her fellow crew members start getting eaten right and left, it's slowly dawning on Sigourney that her belief in the company is false… and the rules she thought would keep her safe, won't.
    And that's unthinkable.
    So she resists. And resists. And resists.
    Until it becomes painfully obvious at All Is Lost.
    That's
Bad Guys Close In.