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Who really said it

Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down

Not Vladimir Nabokov — anonymous stage lore from 1897 Anonymous Originator never identified · earliest documented printing November 1897
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

This is anonymous theatrical trade lore, not Nabokov. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the formula already in print, unsigned, in the Bridgeport Herald of November 1897 — before Nabokov was born — and reports that the wording credited to him “was not contained within ‘Lolita’, and it has not been found in the writings of Nabokov.” The earliest Nabokov credit Quote Investigator documents is a September 2013 Business Insider listicle, decades after the saying had already been pinned on Harry B. Smith, George M. Cohan, George Abbott and Steven Spielberg in turn.

Last verified 7 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down” Anonymous playwriting adage — earliest documented in the Bridgeport Herald, November 1897. Not Vladimir Nabokov: the line is not in Lolita or anywhere in his writings, and the earliest Nabokov credit Quote Investigator documents is a September 2013 Business Insider listicle. Traced by Quote Investigator, 5 September 2015. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Vladimir Nabokov. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of creativity, wisdom and simplicity. Theme: "Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The earliest documented printing

Earliest documented
Bridgeport Herald, November 1897
Author
Anonymous — printed unsigned as general advice to playwrights
Earliest Nabokov credit documented by QI
Business Insider listicle, September 2013
In Nabokov’s works
Not found — not in Lolita, not in his writings

In the first act get your principal character up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him; in the third, get him down gracefully. Bridgeport Herald, November 1897 — anonymous

This is the earliest strong match Quote Investigator documents, and it carries no author’s name. The tidier “Act One… Act Two… Act Three…” phrasing people search for is the title of QI’s own 2015 article, not a period transcription; the closest documented period wording is the 1918 version Augustus Thomas printed as “the French formula”: “Act one, get your man up a tree; act two, throw stones at him; act three, get him down.”

Quote Investigator: the 1897 origin of the up-a-tree formula

How we verified this

  • November 1897 — the anonymous original. Quote Investigator ↗ finds the earliest strong match in the Bridgeport Herald, which prints the formula as unsigned guidance for playwrights — no author, no claim of originality.
  • 1904–1987 — the credit moves. The same QI investigation ↗ tracks it onto Harry B. Smith (1904), Augustus Thomas as an inherited “French formula” (1918), George M. Cohan via Walter Winchell (1942), George Abbott (1954) and Steven Spielberg (1987) — every attribution arriving after the saying was already well known.
  • 2013 — Nabokov enters. A Business Insider writing-quotes listicle credits Nabokov and cites Lolita. QI ↗ reports the line is not in Lolita and has not been found anywhere in Nabokov’s writings.
  • 2014 — the Nabokov specialists agree. On the NABOKV-L list ↗, Joseph Schlegel of the University of Toronto works through a batch of circulating Nabokov quotations and sets this one aside as not his — an established playwriting formula rather than a Nabokov sentence.

No rights status can honestly be asserted for the wording shown here. The earliest documented form — the anonymous Bridgeport Herald item of November 1897 — is a pre-1931 United States newspaper text and would be in the public domain, but that is not the same sentence: the modern “Act One… Act Two… Act Three…” phrasing is an editorial formulation with no identified pre-1931 source, and the variant credited to Nabokov first appears in a 2013 magazine listicle. Treat the popular wording as unresolved rather than free to reuse.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Five famous names, none of them the author

This is a saying that collects owners. Quote Investigator ↗ tracks the credit moving from one prominent storyteller to the next across more than a century, always after the fact.

Vladimir Nabokov 2013

A Business Insider listicle, “17 Quotes On Writing That Every Wannabe Author Should Read,” printed “The writer’s job is to get the main character up a tree, and then once they are up there, throw rocks at them” over Nabokov’s name and sourced it to Lolita. Quote Investigator ↗ states flatly that the quotation “was not contained within ‘Lolita’, and it has not been found in the writings of Nabokov.” A Nabokov scholar had reached the same conclusion on the NABOKV-L list ↗ in September 2014.

George M. Cohan 1942

Gossip columnist Walter Winchell gave Cohan the line as his formula for writing a play: “In the first act, get your hero up a tree. In the second act, throw rocks at him. In the third act, get him down without a scratch.” Quote Investigator ↗ notes this came decades after the expression was already circulating.

Harry B. Smith 1904

The Washington Post attached the saying to the librettist in 1904: “In the first act, get your comedian up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him, and in the third bring him down again.” That is still seven years after ↗ the anonymous 1897 printing.

George Abbott 1954

By 1954 the formula had been reassigned to the Broadway director, in the form “In the first act, get your hero up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him, and in the third act, get him down safely” — one of a chain of later credits ↗.

Steven Spielberg 1987

A Boston movie reviewer presented it as Spielberg’s notion of three-act structure: “In the first act you get him up a tree, in the second act you throw rocks at him and in the third act you get him down from the tree.” Same saying, new owner ↗.

The formula was in print, unsigned, in November 1897 — before Vladimir Nabokov was born. Quote Investigator’s verdict ↗: “The creator was anonymous.”

Context

Why this one keeps landing on famous names

The advice is good, which is most of why it travels. Put the character somewhere they cannot easily get out of, make it worse, then resolve it — that is three-act structure compressed into a sentence a beginner can actually use. Useful sayings with no author attached tend to acquire one, and the name they acquire is whoever is famous for storytelling at the moment of retelling.

That is exactly the pattern Quote Investigator ↗ documents. The line surfaces anonymously in 1897 and then gets re-credited roughly once a generation: to a librettist in 1904, to a Broadway showman in 1942, to a Broadway director in 1954, to Steven Spielberg in 1987, and to Vladimir Nabokov in 2013 — each time to someone plausible, each time long after the saying was already in circulation.

“In the first act get your principal character up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him; in the third, get him down gracefully.” — Bridgeport Herald, November 1897

How the wording drifted

The early stage-lore versions throw stones. Per Quote Investigator, the 1897 item has “throw stones at him,” the 1904 Washington Post version has “throw stones at him,” and the 1954 George Abbott version has “throw stones at him” as well. Rocks first show up in QI’s record in a 1932 syndicated children’s writing column — “Get your hero up a tree quickly at the start. Then throw rocks at him” — ten years before Walter Winchell’s 1942 telling, the version credited to George M. Cohan, carried rocks into the stage-lore line; the 1951 and 1987 retellings QI cites use rocks as well.

The victim changes too: the “principal character” of 1897 becomes a “comedian” in 1904, a “man” in Augustus Thomas’s 1918 telling, and a “hero” by 1942. The Nabokov-credited form uses “the main character” and drops the third act entirely.

Worth noting about the headline wording itself: the tidy “Act One… Act Two… Act Three…” phrasing at the top of this page is the title Quote Investigator gave its own 2015 article, not a transcription from any period newspaper. The closest documented period wording is the one Augustus Thomas printed in 1918 as “the French formula”: “Act one, get your man up a tree; act two, throw stones at him; act three, get him down.”

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Creativity Wisdom Simplicity

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full tracing, 1897 to 2013quoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation. Dates the earliest strong match to the Bridgeport Herald, November 1897 (anonymous), walks the later credits to Harry B. Smith, Augustus Thomas, George M. Cohan, George Abbott and Steven Spielberg, and states the Nabokov version is not in Lolita or his writings.
The Nabokovian — NABOKV-L quote verification threadthenabokovian.org

Joseph Schlegel of the University of Toronto, replying on the Nabokov listserv to a query dated 22 September 2014, works through a batch of circulating Nabokov quotations and judges the ‘up a tree’ line not his — an already well-known writing formula.
Wikiquote: Vladimir Nabokoven.wikiquote.org

Wikiquote’s Nabokov page. Checked 7 September 2026: no version of ‘up a tree’ or ‘throw rocks’ appears anywhere on it, in any section.
Quote Investigator: all Nabokov investigationsquoteinvestigator.com

QI’s index of quotations investigated under Nabokov’s name, including this one — useful for checking other lines credited to him.
Wikipedia: Vladimir Nabokoven.wikipedia.org

Biography of the novelist, poet, translator and entomologist (22 April 1899 – 2 July 1977), including the 1955 publication of Lolita — the book the 2013 listicle wrongly cited as the source.
Wikipedia: Augustus Thomasen.wikipedia.org

The American playwright (1857–1934) whose 1918 telling, quoted by Quote Investigator, is the closest documented period match to the popular wording — and who presented it as an inherited ‘French formula’, not his own.

The real source

The author nobody can name

Anonymous

Unidentified · American theatrical trade lore, in print by November 1897

No one has ever been identified as the author of this formula. Quote Investigator finds it already circulating, unsigned, in the Bridgeport Herald of November 1897, presented as standing guidance for playwrights rather than as anyone’s coinage. Every famous name later attached to it — Harry B. Smith, Augustus Thomas, George M. Cohan, George Abbott, Steven Spielberg, Vladimir Nabokov — arrived after the saying was already common currency in the trade.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Best available source

Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down.” Published 5 September 2015. Earliest documented form traced there to an anonymous item in the Bridgeport Herald, November 1897. No version of the line is documented in any work by Vladimir Nabokov.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Act One: Get Character Up a Tree. Act Two: Throw Rocks. Act Three: Get Character Down’?” Last verified 7 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/act-one-get-character-up-a-tree-act-two-throw-rocks-act/

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