Two Ways to Make Your Midpoint Matter
There’s a powerful tool built right into the middle of your screenplay that can help you navigate Act Two with more clarity and energy. It's the Midpoint!
But in a lot of scripts, the Midpoint doesn't get a chance to live up to its full potential.
So today let's talk about the real purpose of the Midpoint and explore the two most effective ways to make yours matter — by increasing the opposition and raising the stakes. Along the way, we’ll look at why some Midpoints feel flat and forgettable, and how you can avoid that in your own script.
What is a Midpoint?
The Midpoint is a major plot point that occurs — you guessed it — around the middle of the screenplay.
Its job is to inject new energy into the story at just the right moment. Structurally, the Midpoint functions like a booster rocket, reigniting the audience’s engagement and giving your story enough momentum to power through the second half.
Any plot point’s purpose is to move the protagonist closer to or farther from their goal. So a Midpoint does that — but in an even more pronounced, impactful way. It often raises the stakes, introduces a big twist, or sends the story in a whole new direction.
You’ve likely felt it in movies even if you didn’t consciously register it: that moment when the story tightens, the pacing quickens, and everything suddenly feels more urgent.
It’s Indy finding the Ark but getting left to die in the Well of Souls in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s Brody’s son nearly getting eaten in Jaws. It’s Neo meeting the Oracle and learning he’s not The One in The Matrix.
A good Midpoint makes the audience eager to stick around for the rest of the story. But how does it do that?
What makes a Midpoint work?
The most effective Midpoints do one or both of these two things:
They increase the opposition (making the goal harder to achieve)
They raise the stakes (making the goal more urgent or meaningful)
Either one of these can give your story a much-needed boost in tension. Together, they’re even more powerful.
When you hear writing advice like: "Add a time clock!" "Big reveal!" "Sex at 60!" "Now it’s personal!"
...what all of these really aim to do is either make the goal harder to achieve, or make doing so more important or urgent. That’s why they work (when they work).
They create new tension, and tension is what keeps the audience leaning in.
But for that tension to land, it has to matter emotionally. A Midpoint isn’t just a plot device. It only works if it affects what we already care about — the character’s goal and what it means to them.
So let’s break down those two key functions: increasing the opposition and raising the stakes.
Midpoints that increase the opposition
Anything that makes it harder for the protagonist to achieve their goal counts as increasing opposition.
Before the Midpoint, your story should already be creating plenty of conflict. But if, at the Midpoint, something happens that intensifies the conflict, then we’ll be on the edge of our seats, watching to see what the protagonist does now.
It makes the protagonist’s path forward steeper, slipperier, or more treacherous, and that makes us lean in.
The increase in opposition can manifest in many ways:
The antagonist gains an advantage — more power, resources, or knowledge.
The protagonist loses something critical — an ally, a tool, ainformation.
A new obstacle appears, or the rules of the game change.
(The options are practically endless. When you're trying to come up with a powerful Midpoint in your own story, brainstorming is your friend.)
Example: The Silence of the Lambs
The Midpoint hits when Dr. Chilton sabotages Clarice’s deal with Lecter. He exposes it as a lie, betrays her trust, and makes his own deal with Lecter — cutting Clarice out of the loop entirely.
And since we know Clarice's greatest fear is that she's too weak to "save the lambs," we know this hits her where it hurts. She's just bungled her first case, so it feels like proof that her greatest fear is true.
When the conflict escalates in a way that connects to the character, it’s more than just a great plot turn. It re-invests the audience emotionally.
Midpoints that raise the stakes
You've probably heard that the Midpoint should "raise the stakes." But that advice is usually offered without much additional explanation.
Let’s fix that.
Stakes are what the protagonist stands to gain or lose, depending on the outcome of the story.
Sometimes that’s life or death. Sometimes it’s career success, a personal relationship, self-worth, etc.
To raise the stakes can mean:
Making the consequences more dire.
Making the goal more important.
Making the risk more personal.
And just like with opposition, this works best when the new tension hits the character emotionally. When we know the story means more to the protagonist, we care more about the outcome.
Example: The Ring
What's at stake in the first half of Act 2 is Rachel’s life. She’s been cursed, and if she can’t figure out how to escape it in seven days, she’ll die.
That’s already a pretty high-stakes setup. But the Midpoint raises the stakes dramatically.
Through her carelessness, Rachel’s young son ends up watching the cursed tape, too. Now his life is on the line.
It’s no longer just about her survival. It’s about her child’s. And that presses hard on Rachel’s biggest fear — that she’s a bad mother, not doing enough to protect him. The urgency we feel is driven by what this means to Rachel, emotionally.
For the sake of our discussion here, I've separated the two different ways a Midpoint can add tension into their own sections. But remember that your Midpoint doesn't have to hit just one of these targets. And, in fact, great Midpoints often hit both at the same time.
Does it have to be a False Victory or False Defeat?
Writers often ask if the Midpoint has to be a false victory or false defeat, an "up" moment or a "down."
But there's no rule you have to follow here.
What matters more is what the Midpoint does for your story. If it increases the opposition and/or raises the stakes — in a way that matters emotionally — then it’s doing its job.
Many Midpoints are a mix: a win in one area, a loss in another. The movie Big is a good example of this. At the Midpoint, Josh begins a romantic relationship with his new, grown-up co-worker Susan. But this "win" effectively creates an obstacle to achieving his goal, as his attention is now diverted.
So rather than checking boxes, focus on impact.
Prompts to brainstorm Midpoint events
Trying to come up with a great Midpoint can feel like staring into the abyss. So many things could happen, where do you even start?
My suggestion: use this list of questions to brainstorm the possibilities.
What would make the story goal harder to achieve?
How could the goal become more important or meaningful to the protagonist?
What might happen to create new urgency?
What would hit the character emotionally, or play on their biggest fear?
How could the potential consequences of failure increase?
And when you have all of those options in front of you, remember that you don't have to choose just one. Mix and match what you've come up with, layering elements to create a powerful Midpoint that injects new tension from several directions.
The Midpoint is a storytelling tool
A strong Midpoint gives you a clear target to aim for as you're plotting and writing the first half of the story, and fresh fuel for the second half. It breaks up the Act Two desert and keeps your audience engaged.
When in doubt, come back to the Midpoint’s core purpose: to create new tension by making the goal harder to reach or more important to achieve. Bonus points if it does both — and ties into the character’s emotional journey.
A great Midpoint doesn’t have to be big or flashy. But it does have to matter.