The crisis is a standard structure point in your individual scenes and in the overall story. From a scene perspective, the crisis comes as an uninvited fork in the road as your protagonists moves toward their scene goal and forces them to make a choice. The choice is the climax of your scene that will determine the goal(s) of your next scene.

For example, in Elf, Buddy tried and failed many tasks that are simple for most elves and wonders why he struggles where others succeed. Then he overhears one elf say that Buddy is not an elf at all but a human. This throws Buddy’s whole world upside down. His adopted father confirms this information. Buddy then has a choice: remain at the North Pole and continue not to fit in or take a risk and seek his human father and a life among his own kind in the unknown world.

In the overall structure of the story, the crisis is the point in Act 3 that sets up the climax. It is the lowest point for the protagonists. Like with the scene crisis, the story’s crisis presents the protagonist with two equal, but irreversible decisions. What the protagonist chooses reveals his character and what he values most. The choice he makes will prove or disprove your story’s thesis or theme. At the character’s lowest point, he must choose to press on or turn back.

In season 1 of The Mandalorian, the Mandalorian delivers the child to the empire as he was hired to do and then returns to his ship and attempts to leave. But he discovers that the knob on one of his controls is missing. The child had been playing with it earlier in the series, so the audience understands the significance. The question is: what does the Mandalorian truly value: his status as a bounty hunter or protecting the child from the empire? He must choose one of these. There is no third option. His choice will reveal his character. The climax occurs when he risks his reputation as a reliable bounty hunter and incurs the wrath of the empire to rescue the child from their grasp.

The crisis is simply a moment that obstructs the protagonist’s goal and forces them to make a choice that will alter the course of their story both within a scene and within the overall story.