THE STAKES INCREASE IN ACT TWO Marriage Story starts with Nicole and Charlie Barber (Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver) simply wanting to separate on civil terms. But by the end of Act Two, Charlie is shouting, “I wish you were dead!” and hiding his face in shame at the words that have just erupted from his mouth. Each step in this story (consulting an attorney, consulting a second attorney, going before a judge) escalates the stakes for both characters as grimly and as inevitably as the Act Two stages of a murder mystery or a doomsday thriller This is exactly as it should be. Writing Seminar, Nashville, 2019 When my own second act starts beating the crap out of me, I sometimes get out the index cards and write one for each scene. I pin them to the wall in sequence and ask myself, “Is each scene escalating the stakes of the story?” If scene after scene remains at the same level of jeopardy and the same level of consequence, I know I haven’t ratcheted up the tension or made the price of failure for my hero(es) higher and more terrifying with each passing beat.

Love provides a person with the purpose of his life.

Intellect shows him the means to achieve that purpose.

In the scheme of the world, a person is no more than a pine cone, or a weak herb, or a bit of swamp grass, but he is a grass which possesses some intellect.

—BLAISE PASCAL

Man differs from other animals only in his intellect; some people try to develop it and others neglect it, just as they try to reject those other qualities which differentiate them from the animals.

—EASTERN WISDOM

I praise Christianity because it develops, strengthens, and elevates my intellectual nature.

—WILLIAM ELLLERY CHANNING

If a person lacks intellect, he can not distinguish bad from good, and so he can neither truly seek nor truly have real goodness.