Compelling Question Continued

Following up on my previous post here, I found that tToS (the Tools of Screenwriting) has a concept called, "the main tension," which is the conflict or question of act two. Additionally, the culmination is the "resolution" of the main tension, which creates a new tension for the third act. The resolution is how story as a whole is resolved." They state, "... it is extremely wasteful of a writers time to begin work on a screenplay before the culmination and resolution are clearly in mind."

This is interesting. Writers usually focus on the climax of the story as a whole: the resolution. But, it seems there are two important climaxes to a story: the culmination (end of act two) and the resolution (end of act three).

Whatever terminology you use, your story should have a strong dramatic event at the end of act two, which resolves the question or tension of act two, and a strong dramatic point at the end of act three which resolves the question or tension of the story as a whole.

A great example is Casablanca. Act two begins around the time Rick spots Ilse in his cafe. That event creates the main tension for act two, "What will happen between Rick and Ilse?" The culmination, at the end of act two, is when Ilse confesses that she still loves Rick. When she then asks him to do the thinking for both of them, that sets up the third act tension, which ends in the resolution.