Change is Storytelling: Act 2.
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 core parts of Act 2 of every journey.
How complications and reality checks help us learn and keep going.
What happens at the low point — the Dark Night of the Soul.
Welcome to part 2 of 3 in this series looking at how growth and transformation are stories we live and tell. Last week, we looked at Act 1, including Status Quo, Inciting Incidents, and Crossing the Threshold moments of transformation journeys, using my early experiences breaking into comics as a template. This week, we’ll be looking at the middle section of these stories — Act 2.
Parts of Act 2.
Act 2 makes up the long-middle of any story. There are lots of models with lots of different structures for middles, but there’re three key components:
Roughly speaking, the middle section of any story sees the protagonist on a mission and encountering obstacles along the way. As they struggle and overcome those complications, they learn the skills needed to achieve their goals. For some added drama and stakes, about midway through, they might experience a Reality Check that reminds them that there’s still work to be done before their resolve is tested one last time during the Dark Night of the Soul.
Complications.
Once you’ve crossed the threshold and committed to your path, the real challenges begin. Act 2 is where the protagonist encounters Complications that test their resolve and push them to their limits.
One of the most famous examples of Act 2 Complications can be seen in The Empire Strikes Back. In ESB, Luke Skywalker faces significant complications during his training with Yoda on Dagobah.
Learning to use the Force, mastering lightsaber combat, and confronting his fears are all daunting tasks. These challenges push Luke to his limits, testing his resolve and commitment to becoming a Jedi.
For me, this phase was about learning and mastering all the moving parts of telling a comic book story. Crafting a compelling narrative arc, creating memorable characters, and balancing dialogue with visual storytelling were all significant hurdles. A lot of times, it felt like every skill I learned only showed me two more I had to figure out. Enthusiasm wasn’t enough; I needed to continuously develop new skills and deepen my understanding of the craft. And while frustrating, each complication presented an opportunity for growth, forcing me to adapt and refine my techniques.
Regardless of whatever kind of transformation you’re trying to make, you will inevitably face complications along the way. Learning how to overcome these obstacles and adding those lessons to your arsenal is how you will build out your toolset for success.
The Reality Check.
After overcoming complications, the protagonist eventually gets hit with a significant reversal of fortunes around the middle of the Act 2 – a moment when progress seems to unravel. Most 3-act structures call this the reversal. I call it The Reality Check. For me, this is the moment in the story where the protagonist, who’s been busting their butt to get better, flies a bit too close to the sun and realizes their training isn’t done yet, that they don’t yet have all the skills they need to achieve the goal.
One of my favorite Reality Checks is in the first Matrix movie. About midway, we see Keanu Reeves’ Neo take on Hugo Weaving’s Agent Smith for the first time.
This is after Neo has trained with Morpheus and has started to believe that he may be “The One.” It’s a wonderfully choreographed fight scene in a subway station that runs for nearly five minutes and shows how much Neo has grown. But he ultimately isn’t up to the task of beating Mr. Smith (yet) and he has to escape.
For me, my Reality Check was actually five Reality Checks. About six months after committing full time to learning and writing comics, I thought I was ready to test my mettle. One of the first stops on any comic creators’ journey is getting a short story published in an anthology, so I set my sights on making that happen. I found a handful of contests and anthologies looking for submissions and I submitted work. After not hearing anything for a few weeks, in the span of three days, I received five rejections.
Reversals are pivotal because they challenge us to confront our limitations and push beyond them. They compel us to question our assumptions and explore new possibilities, leading to breakthroughs that would have been impossible otherwise. Five rejections were, of course, very deflating, but also illuminating. I wasn’t good enough…yet. In a weird way, though, this “failure” gave me a benchmark, a sense of where I was at and what work was still left to do.
Dark Night of the Soul.
As you approach the end of Act 2 on your transformational journey, you might find that things have been looking up, or maybe you’ve experienced a series of minor setbacks lately. Either way, now you’re going to get hit with a major setback, and this one is a doozy – the Dark Night of the Soul. This is the final test of your resolve. At your lowest point, when all the chips are down, can you rally and come back stronger than ever?
You may recall in The Avengers, at the close of the Act 2, the act climax sees Loki and his forces attack the Hellicarrier, resulting in the team finding themselves beaten and scattered. Then, we see member-by-member how each of the Avengers picks themself back up and they all come back together, resulting in one of the most iconic camera shots in modern cinema:
After receiving my five rejections, I decided to take another approach. I would keep studying and writing, but also take my fate into my own hands. If I couldn’t get a short story accepted for an anthology, I’d make my own. At this point, I was halfway through my self-imposed one-year deadline and the heat was on.
For the next five months, I read, studied, wrote, and collaborated like never before. More and more complications reared their heads and I handled them in stride and, in February of 2016, eleven months after I’d begun my journey, I had the finished print files for my first book, GRIEF.
I should have been celebrating, but with the work done, I was immediately hit with a tsunami of self-doubt and impostor syndrome. What was I thinking? Nobody would want to read this trash. I had just wasted so much time, money, and effort, and for what?
However, it was in these dark moments that I found clarity and renewed determination. I reminded myself of why I started this journey in the first place and leaned on the support of my loved ones. I also looked to my favorite comic book heroes for inspiration, remembering that they too faced their darkest hours before emerging stronger.
The Dark Night of the Soul is a crucible that tests our resolve. It strips away illusions and forces us to confront our deepest fears and insecurities. But it’s also a period of profound transformation, where we find the strength to rise above our challenges and continue on our path.
Putting it all together.
During the long middle of a story (and your journey) there will be complications that need to be met and overcome. These lessons will equip you with the tools you need to achieve the goal. But inevitably, you will get ahead of yourself and receive your reality check. This is your reminder to keep doing the work. And then, at the end of Act 2, you’ll hit your low point. You will be tested. Will you bounce back or will you fail?
Act 2 of my journey to become a comic book writer was fraught with challenges, reversals, and moments of doubt. Yet, it was also a period of significant growth and learning. Each complication and setback taught me valuable lessons that brought me closer to my goal.
In next week’s newsletter, we’ll explore Act 3. We’ll see how the journey culminates in a moment of triumph (or failure!) and how the process of growth and transformation continues in a cyclical manner. In the meantime, consider what complications and reversals you’ve had in your own journey. How have they shaped you, and what have you learned from them?
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.
For the last week, I’ve been devouring Pure Invention: How Japan’s Pop Cultured Conquered the World.
As someone born in the late-80s, and whose childhood was the 90s and early-Oughts, I found this book really illuminating. So much of what I loved growing up (and to this day) was exported stories and technology from Japan and this book details a lot of how all these things came to be and came to be in my sphere. I definitely plan on revisiting this book for a second read soon and could not recommend it more!