Change is Storytelling: Act 1.
How self-transformation is a story you tell through your actions.
Welcome to EFFIGIES, a weekly newsletter offering actionable insights from my journey through reading and writing comics, designed to inspire you toward building a better life. To become our best selves, we must burn away who we are today.
What’s Inside:
The parallels between 3-act structure and self-transformation.
Exploring the Status Quo, the Inciting Incident, and Crossing the Threshold.
Digging into Act 1 of my journey to becoming a comic book writer.
Over the years, two areas of learning have really become obsessions for me — the 3-Act Structure of story and self-improvement. And in studying these two seemingly unrelated and different topics, I’ve come to realize how very similar they actually are. If you can marry something you're passionate about to a self-improvement engine, then you’ve got a real shot at realizing your dreams. So this will be the first in a three-part series of newsletters exploring this concept.
Today, we’ll be looking at Act 1.
Parts of Act 1.
There are many takes on the 3-Act Structure. In my years of writing, I’ve found that no one version is necessarily better than another; they are flexible tools for a job, not rigid, dogmatic structures. With that in mind, what comes next will be my loose accounting of a 3-Act Structure as it is useful to this discussion. It will be very familiar, but won’t be a perfect 1:1 with any particular model.
For Act 1, the three key components are the Status Quo, the Inciting Incident, and Crossing the Threshold:
The first act is about how your life is, how you wish it were different, the opportunity to change your life, and what you do with that chance. In the next few sections, we’ll explore how Act 1 of a personal transformation plays out through the lens of how I started writing comics.
Status Quo.
For every transformative journey, there’s the way things are and the way things could be. The pre-transformation existence is the Status Quo. When you’re in the Status Quo, there’s an itch at the back of your mind that things could be better if something were different.
I knew, since my senior year of high school, that I wanted to write comics. And then I went to college and grad school and then joined the workforce. I was checking the boxes and was, more or less, living a comfortable existence, but there was always an itch…
Inciting Incident.
I like to think of that itch as potential. It’s what could happen. But first, something has to create the opportunity to pursue that potential. That opportunity is the Inciting Incident.
My Inciting Incident came in March 2016. I was working at a good job I was good at, but it wasn’t very fulfilling. My then-girlfriend (now-wife) could tell something was off and asked me what was the matter. I explained to her how I was feeling. Then we sat in silence for a long while before she asked me, if I could be doing anything with my life, what would it be? In my bones, I knew the answer, but it felt like such a pipedream that I was almost embarrassed to say it out loud. But what did I have to lose? I told her I wanted to write comics.
The conversation that followed could fill a whole other issue of this newsletter, but the takeaway was that if I wanted to seriously pursue my passion, I had her support. Whatever happened, we’d make it work. Opportunity was knocking. Would I take my shot?
Crossing the Threshold.
As cliché goes, talk is cheap. When the protagonist is presented with the opportunity by the Inciting Incident, the story only moves forward if the character decides to act, to leave the Status Quo behind and venture into the unknown in hopes of becoming more. This is known as Crossing the Threshold.
After my Inciting Incident, that conversation in March 2016, I had my opportunity to change my life, but I needed to take action. Well, two actions, really.
The first action was to leave my day-job. If I were going to commit to this path, I knew I really needed to commit. I knew I had the support at home, but I also knew I never wanted to take advantage of that fact, so I gave myself one calendar year to do the work and would treat it like a full-time job.
The second action was signing up for Comics Experience’s Intro to Comic Book Writing course. Between these two actions I had skin in the game, something to lose, and my circumstances were drastically changed – whether or not for the better remained to be seen.
Putting it all together.
Act 1 of my journey to become a comic book writer hit all the major first act milestones. Every transformative journey begins with the discomfort of the Status Quo. For me, the unrealized potential of writing comics kept nagging at me. Despite a comfortable life, I knew I needed to pursue my passion.
The Inciting Incident came in March 2016 during a conversation with my partner. Her support gave me the courage and the opportunity to take the first step. I left my day job and enrolled in a comic book writing course, Crossing the Threshold on a new path — that’s when the real story began.
In next week's newsletter, we'll dive into Act 2 of this journey. In the meantime, ask yourself: is there an itch at the back of your mind? What would you do about it if given the opportunity?
- Frank
I’m Frank Gogol, writer of comics such as Dead End Kids, No Heroine, Unborn, Power Rangers, and more. If this newsletter was interesting / helpful / entertaining…
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After credits scene.
Over the long Memorial Day weekend, I was lucky enough to travel to Lisbon, Portugal, with the aforementioned then-girlfriend, now-wife, to celebrate her birthday and to see Taylor Swift and the Eras Tour.
Credit where it’s due: it was a hell of a production. I have a lot of thoughts about what the comics industry and folks in general can learn from Taylor and this tour, but that’s a topic for another newsletter.