> Because there's a fairly concrete distinction between acts in stage plays, and that's how plays using the structure are tradition broken up (act divisions in

> Because there's a fairly concrete distinction between acts in stage plays, and that's how plays using the structure are tradition broken up (act divisions in film and novels are often more metaphor than concrete, so, yeah, without the stage precedent, it would make more sense to name it for the four parts, two of which are jammed together in the three-act model.) I don't know, lots of classical works were written with more than 3 acts, for instance lots of works from Molière, Corneille or Shakespeare consist in 5 acts. The legend says back then acts were as long as the candles lighting the scene lasted, but I don't know if it's true. If it is, it's the old equivalent of five act structure in tv series, mandated by commercials' breaks: the number of acts is determined by external reasons, not narrative ones. > Not really; it's got a lot of genre and form specific but, though it's certainly not entirely useless outside of that focus. The Writer's Journey is better for describing the shape of Hollywood successes (Save the Cat does so even more precisely for recent ones, providing very close to a minute-by-minute breakdown.) Yeah, I forgot about those 2 (I wrote my comment in a hurry). They are way better examples, for sure.