Every screenwriter is familiar with the classic three-act structure plot diagram. It shows the rising and falling action of the events in your script. The story starts, an inciting incident kicks things off, things escalate to a climax, and then come to a resolution.

The diagram is helpful to give you the general shape of a story, but if you’re writing a movie or TV pilot, it gives you the sense that there are only two big things happening in your script: the inciting incident and the climax.

But what about the middle of your script? What happens there?

The middle is where most of your story takes place, and it’s where a lot of scripts run out of momentum. You can avoid this, however, with a powerful midpoint.

In this post, I’m going to explain what makes a midpoint great and how you can write one, using the example of Bong Joon Ho’s Oscar-winning Parasite.

What’s the midpoint of Parasite?

Let’s backtrack a little to set up the story. The movie starts with the Kim family struggling to make ends meet working odd jobs as they live in their “semi-basement” apartment. A fortuitous event allows the son, Lee Sun-kyun, to fake his way into a job as a tutor for the wealthy Park family.

Through a combination of lies, forgery, and sabotage, the rest of the Kim family is hired by the Parks as an art therapist, driver, and housekeeper. It’s fun to see the Kims take advantage of the rich and clueless Parks, who aren’t very sympathetic.

But as we reach the middle of the film it seems like things are slowing down. The Parks have left on a camping trip, and the Kims are staying in their house acting like they own the place. The Kims feel rich, and money has been their goal, so it seems like the story is running out of steam. Where is the story going?

And that’s when the doorbell rings.

At the door, in the pouring rain, is the old housekeeper whom the Kims sabotaged to get fired so that the mother, Lee Jeong-eun, could replace her. The old housekeeper claims she was fired so quickly she left something behind.

Spoiler alert!

But in truth, she’s there because her husband has been living this whole time in a secret bunker under the basement! What follows next is a wild ride that ends up with the old housekeeper bleeding and unconscious, and her husband tied up in the secret bunker.

What’s the midpoint doing for Parasite? And what can a midpoint do in your script?

The first thing the midpoint does is inject energy into the story, which as I mentioned earlier had slowed down a little. It’s like a boost of adrenaline or a giant slingshot accelerating us up the slope of the rising action to the climax.

If your script feels like it’s slowing down, a great midpoint can give it a similar energy boost and get your story moving again!

The midpoint also allows for a tonal shift in Parasite. The first half of the movie felt more like a lighthearted heist, but the midpoint makes us realize we’re in a bloodier, more desperate world. You can use the midpoint in your own script to shift the tone and intensify the script.

Beyond that, the midpoint makes us realize that we are not living in the world that we thought we were living in. The rug has been pulled out from under the audience.

Everything feels like it has been turned upside down, which is disorienting for the audience. They want to return to a sense of equilibrium, which means they feel compelled to keep watching to find out how things turned out.

What lessons can you use to write the midpoint in your script?

First, this midpoint did not come completely out of nowhere. There was foreshadowing. Remember, the Kims live in a semi-basement, so this idea of desperate people living below ground has been established, and earlier in the movie there was this mention of a trauma to the Park’s son, which we later learn was because of the man living in the bunker.

But those are just small things, in my opinion the biggest thing that sets up this midpoint is the whole thematic idea that the class system is unfair. The Kims get this little respite where they get to feel rich, but the universe won’t let them keep this. The universe is going to have its say. It is going to hit back.

Now your script is probably about something different, but what this means is you can foreshadow your midpoint, and you can also figure out what will happen by thinking about what the theme or point of view of your story is. Let the universe in your movie have its say. How is it going to hit back?

This leads me to the second point, which is that the midpoint in Parasite is partially a result of the world or external circumstances, and partially a result of the characters’ actions.

The Kims didn’t hide the guy in the bunker. That’s the setup of the world. It has nothing to do with their choices or actions. But the other part of it is on them. They got the housekeeper fired. They were all abusing their position at the Parks’ house when they shouldn’t have been there.

So as a writer you can take the circumstances of the world and crash them against the actions of your characters to create a great midpoint.

Third, we have this moment where the Kims are living it up. They feel rich, and this has been their goal the whole time. They’ve won! Of course, they haven’t really won. This is what’s called a “False victory.” You can give your protagonist what they’ve wanted, or something close to it, and then twist it or rip it away to great dramatic effect.

Accelerate after the midpoint

Of course the midpoint is not enough. Things keep getting worse. In Parasite the Parks come home and the Kim family is stuck. When they finally escape, they return home to find their semi-basement apartment is flooded, forcing them into a temporary shelter. This leads directly into the incredible, insane climax of the movie. So in your own scripts, don’t let up after a great midpoint. Hit the gas and keep accelerating to your climax!