Hi there, it’s been a while since the last time we went into this amazing prison story and the sick challenge. Last time we built the second act start, an aspect of the truth acting as an antidote to the specific lie (a moment of truth). This time, we’ll go forward into K.M. Weiland’s theme template to write the first part of the second act.

The trials.

But what happens in this part of the story?

The protagonist gains a growing awareness of the truth, meaning, everything it will take to achieve the goal.

• So, the first question would be, what does it take to achieve the goal, in the sense of a learning process?

I think, given the story so far, the protagonist needs to understand that he won’t be able to do it alone and that to do it with others he needs to regain hope, to inspire others to follow him.

Now, let’s remember that the goal of the story is to win the challenge and escape from prison. Okay, so the first part of the second act comprises the lock-in (the moment the character decides to go into the plot, which was our last endeavor) and up to the mid-point, where the character experiences a halfway truth.

So, a good question to ask is…

• What is the halfway truth?

Think about it as an antidote to the specific truth, which was something like this;

If generally “Hope makes people suffer and waste their lives”, then specifically, “Hope can make you suffer and get you killed”.

Considering that idea, let’s say that a half-truth can be suffering because of hope it’s called living, and it’s okay because it keeps you moving forward.

Now, how does the protagonist learn this?

There’s one element that can help us here, remember that people regained hope because of him and also that there are people that have been here a long time, these are the senior prisoners and they have information others don’t have, specifically, information on how to stay alive (but not how to win).

How about if one of these prisoners is his father, the one responsible for the family’s demise in the past. He’s also a senior prisoner and has much experience in “how to stay alive”, but not much about actually living. If we can make him change this perspective after meeting the protagonist and also sacrifice himself to teach this lesson to him at the midpoint, voila, we have our first part of the second act.

We have to understand that, up to this point, the protagonist has been reacting to the prison setting and the antagonist by exposing himself, he’s not thinking about escaping, he’s thinking about revenge. So, in a sense the character is not fighting to free himself because he has no hope for a better future, he’s trapped in the past. At the mid-point, we need the character to distance himself from that past and we’re going to use a mentor figure to make this happen.

At the end of the last chapter, the protagonist was beaten up by the guards as a reprimand for winning the first challenge. He also had his first encounter with the antagonist, who doesn’t recognize him and lets him go, underestimating him. As we already know, because of the protagonist’s win, people in prison town regained hope and started talking again. But, seeing the protagonist comes back harmed after his victory, a question is raised; who will have enough courage to maintain hope? At this point, we should introduce our mentor, which is also the protagonist’s father.

The important thing about this part of the story is that the protagonist enters a learning phase, by which he prepares and acquires the “tools” needed to complete the goal of the story.

• Escape prison.

And we already established that what he needs to learn is:

The understanding that he won’t be able to do it alone and that to do it with others he needs to regain hope, to inspire others to follow him.

As we know from previous installments, the protagonist lost hope after his father failed to show up in a war situation, resulting in the death of his mother and sisters. Because of this, our protagonist now prefers a lonely life and keeps hope away from his mind, which gives him a “coldhearted” persona. But there’s more because this coldhearted persona has a positive side, it allows him to analyze situations rationally and find the best possible ways to face them. Problem is, being led by the specific lie, the protagonist is only half of his true self and he’s also not realizing his full potential.

To make him face the lie he’s been living all this time, we need to make him confront the source, the father, while also making him learn what it takes to win the challenge, to escape the prison. The way we’re using the father, as a senior prisoner, gives us these tools because the father has valuable knowledge about how the prison town works and also because, in a way, he’s the one that caused the wound of the protagonist. What’s interesting here is that the father also believes in the specific lie, “hope can make you suffer and get you killed”. This is the reason he has survived all this time; it may also be the reason he didn’t show up that day in the past. Yet, seeing his son accomplishing the impossible, actually winning the first challenge, makes the father change. Deep inside he can now see the truth:

• Suffering because of hope it’s called living, and it’s okay because it keeps you moving forward.

This means that the attitude of living by the rule “hope can make you suffer and get you killed” is not actually living, and having survived in the past while losing his family, and even surviving now inside the prison is not actually living. He may not need to say this, but the father has made his choice, he will rekindle hope inside his son’s heart as a final testament of his own life, a tribute.

Now, to build the first part of the second chapter we need to keep in mind our main plot lines:

• The protagonist is on a revenge path, guarding no hope to make it out alive if it means killing the man who destroyed his family.
• The protagonist’s father wants to help his son to escape prison to pay for his past sins, having understood that his viewpoint on life is wrong.
• The antagonist needs the challenges to go according to plan to remain on top of the organization and keep the status quo.
• People in prison town have begun to recover a long-lost sense of hope.

Let’s start from the top.

As we remember, last time our protagonist came back to prison town after being beaten up by the guards. People had regained hope and now they can see, yet again, what hope really means in this place. So naturally, they walk away, scared even to help this man who helped them just hours ago. But there’s one person who doesn’t walk away… you guessed right, the father. He obviously doesn’t reveal his true identity immediately, he presents himself as an interesting party and inquires about the protagonist’s objective, even offering to help in achieving this goal. Now, because the father already knows about the upcoming events, he issues a warning, to win the next challenge, the protagonist will need more than himself, he will need a team.

I understand that this might seem a bit “plot-driven”, but I want to explain. At this point, I want to open the story by introducing different characters that can reflect upon the theme while showing interesting characterizations, to enrich the story. It’s also fair to assess that the protagonist has met some of these characters in the first round, he must have found some interesting characters there, especially the ones that didn’t go into the maze blindly. Let’s say he even has one or two in his mind already, added to the ones the father is thinking about.

And so, the day of the new challenge arrives and expectations are high. There’s a new tendency on social media surrounding the event, people are betting on the protagonist, and they want to see him succeed. This poses a problem for the antagonist because he can’t have another prisoner win. He goes hard on the guards, on all the people in charge of the event to make sure this time things go according to plan, yet at the same time, he has to maintain a positive attitude towards the audience and their desires, which forces him to lose control, thus changing the status quo for the first time.

As we know, the new challenge is about teamwork and the stakes are higher than ever. Will the protagonist achieve a second victory? I guess we’ll find out next time, as we’ll go into building this second challenge and moving the plot towards the midpoint of the story. Until then, good luck in writing!