on Live Write Thrive:

Over the decades, I’ve heard many writers and writing coaches talk about the 3-Act Structure as if it’s a given. Meaning, of course your novel should have three acts. Doesn’t every story?

Thankfully, I’d written a number of novels before hearing that I was “supposed to” structure my novels this way. Turns out, I didn’t ever use a 3-act structure. And that’s because my stories never easily fit into that framework.

It’s assumed that since a story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending that it should logically break into three acts. It is fairly easy to take a lot of stories and break them up that way. Many of the stories we’re told as children, like fairy tales, work in three acts. Little Red prepares her basket of goodies for her grandmother and sets out. She meets the bad wolf in the woods and tells him where she’s headed (dumb, dumb!). Then when at Grandmother’s, the wolf shows up and pretends to be the old lady and eats Red … but the guy with the axe happens by and cuts open the wolf and pulls Red out before it’s too late (phew!). Three acts. Basically.

I will say, at this point, that instead of just assuming you have to write a story in 3 acts that you might want to first consider your story