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Act One makes up the first twenty-five percent of your story. Ten chapters. Its job is to introduce your protagonist, establish the ordinary world they live in, reveal their flaw, and push them — against their resistance — toward the adventure they can't avoid.
Let's walk through each chapter.
Your story opens here. And the most important thing to understand about this chapter is that it is not primarily about your world. It is about your character.
Open with an image that tells us as much as possible about who your MC is, what they want, and what flaw is keeping them from it. The opening image is a portrait. Before anything dramatic has happened, the reader should already have a feeling about this person.
In this chapter, your MC wants something. It doesn't have to be related to the main plot — it could be as small as wanting to be left alone, wanting to prove themselves, wanting to finish a task. But they have a want, and something stops them from getting it.
There is also a need underneath that want — something your MC actually requires to become the person they need to be — but they're not self-aware enough to see it yet. The reader might sense it. The MC doesn't.
And somewhere in this chapter: the Save the Cat moment. A reason for us to root for this person even if they're deeply flawed.
Ask yourself: what is the opening image? What does my MC want in this chapter? What stops them? And where is the moment that makes the reader trust them?
Something unusual happens. Something that doesn't quite fit the ordinary world. The protagonist notices it — maybe they're curious, maybe they're unsettled — but they have distractions that prevent them from fully understanding what it means.
This is also where the theme of your story is stated. And here's the interesting thing: it's almost never stated by the protagonist. It comes from someone else. A friend, a mentor, a stranger, a moment of environmental storytelling. The theme is a hint at what the MC needs to learn — and the MC, characteristically, ignores it or brushes it aside.
What is the theme of your story? What is the one truth your MC will have to confront by the end? Plant it here, quietly, in someone else's words.
The MC and the antagonist become connected in this chapter — even if the MC doesn't know it yet. Maybe the antagonist's actions create a ripple effect that reaches the MC. Maybe what looks like an opportunity is actually the antagonist's influence beginning to encircle them.
This chapter can feel like a good thing to the MC. An opportunity. An interesting development. The reader might sense something is wrong before the protagonist does. The mystery from Chapter Two deepens.