Three-Act Outline From a Premise
Turn a premise into a structured outline with turning points.
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Build a three-act outline for my story. Premise in one or two sentences: [PREMISE]. Genre and target length: [GENRE_LENGTH]. Main character and what they want: [PROTAGONIST_GOAL]. Ending I'm leaning toward, if any: [ENDING_IDEA]. Ask me up to three clarifying questions first if the premise lacks an obstacle, stakes or a change. Then deliver the outline with these labelled beats and approximate percentages of the story: opening image, setup of ordinary world, inciting incident (about 10 percent), first turning point into act two (25 percent), rising complications, midpoint reversal (50 percent), all is lost (75 percent), second turning point, climax, and resolution. Under each beat write two sentences specific to my story, never generic. Add a table listing the central question of each act, the main antagonist force, and the cost the protagonist pays. Mark any beat you had to invent because my input did not cover it as [YOUR CALL] so I can change it. Close with five scenes I could write first to test the structure, and what I will learn from each. Quality bar: every beat must change the situation. Add a worked example of the outline applied to an invented premise (a lighthouse keeper discovers her late father's logbooks describe ships that never sank) with the inciting incident, the midpoint reversal, the all-is-lost moment, and the climax, each in two sentences. Label it an illustration, and do not reuse its details in my story. Add a method for testing the outline by asking at each beat what the protagonist wants, what stands in the way, and what changes by the end of the scene. Provide a table of subplots against acts, a list of seven structural problems to check for (passive protagonist, sagging middle, coincidence solving the plot, late stakes, and so on) with a repair for each, and a one-page version suitable for pitching.
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