Breaking Down Plot Structure: Save the Cat

hi everyone I'm shaylen q3z and today we're going to be breaking down to save the cat structure so in our last video on Tuesdays we covered four different cloth structures save the cat which is a 15 beat expansion of three ad structure 27 chapter which is also a three-act structure created specifically for novels the hero's journey which we've done a full video on in the past and the plot embryo which is kind of a different way of looking at the hero's journey so today we're going to be taking a look at the save the cat structure this is also known as 15 beat structure or Blake Snyder's beat sheet since it was created by Blake Snyder it is originally a film structure and as you're watching this some of the beats might be really recognizable to you as movie beats even though it is a film structure it applies very well to novels there's actually a new book out on the structure called save the cat writes a novel by Jessica Brody which covers how the structure applies to novels so in this video I created a plot from scratch from nothing really just off the top of my head and use the 15 beat structure to plot it out to kind of show what the beats look like and in application and also to show that once you understand the beats it's not too hard to craft a story so the story that I created for this video was a middle grade fantasy novel that wasn't really planned I think I ended up you gravitating towards fantasy because the beats could be a bit more exciting and fun which kind of showcased what they look like a little better for example a contemporary novel might have you know quieter beats you could have all the same beats but they might be a bit subtler whereas with a fantasy book we could see it pretty clearly and I also ended up going from middle grade book since middle grade books are a bit shorter lots a bit simpler and so in this case we could fit basically all of the plot into the 15 beats and it felt like a pretty complete middle grade book if you're writing something longer or something more complicated you're probably gonna have more than 15 beats in your book 15 plot points is not that many although some of the beats cover more than one plot point so when you're looking at this and when you're using the structure remember that this is an all-encompassing this isn't meant to be every single thing that happens in your book and you don't have to follow it point by point you don't have to necessarily it - it perfectly even if you really want to use it and make sense for you if you get to a point where you feel like your story makes more sense if it diverges from this structure that's better than forcing your story to stick to it this is a great guide but it doesn't ever have to be the law if you want a more in-depth explanation of every single beat outside of this example you can check out the video that we did on Tuesday where I covered this along with three other structures I will leave that in the cards today we're gonna be kind of breaking it down with our own story to see what the beats actually look like just gonna take you along through basically developing a story with these 15 beats this is a brand new idea that I am just gonna create all from scratch right now kind of just to show that once you understand the beats you can pull together a story with this structure relatively quickly so let's say for our concept let's do something kind of fun let's do like a heist let's do a magical heist characters and examples are always named Jane so let's go a little off script and name her Janet instead needs to retrieve a magical family heirloom from the Goblin Bank which was stolen a century ago by goblin bandits after her great-grandmother made deal with the Goblin King who will be our antagonist so these are all our beats I have list out here let's start with our opening image of course because this isn't just this isn't a script it's not gonna be a little image it's gonna be kind of our first glimpse into the story this seems like a would be a really good middle grade book we're gonna make her a kid I feel like she's gonna be maybe 12 and I actually feel like 12 Janet doesn't sound like a kid's name this is middle grade so let's make it kind of fun I think a story should start with Janie in her kind of everyday world let's revise something let's revise our Colin section middle let's say instead of it being stolen by bandits which was stolen by bandits as a result of a bargain the problem came so let's say the bargain is old but the family area loom has just been stolen the story starts with Jani hearing strange noises in the vents of her house almost sounds like laughter maniacal laughter I feel like if goblins laughed it would be maniacal sounding so that's gonna be our opening made image like our first scene maybe she thinks it's a dream so then we're gonna have our set up any it's just a little kid she's in seventh grade let's say maybe she likes hockey we're giving her skills now so we can already start to think of the kinds of skills that she will use later um so she's athletic if she likes sports maybe these are the kinds of things that she can use later on as skills when she's breaking into the goblin bank and maybe skateboards doesn't know her family's history long-standing rivalry with the goblins so then we're gonna have the theme stated the theme stated is a little tricky here because we're just developing this from scratch so we don't necessarily know what our theme is quite yet but we're gonna take kind of a stab at it and we're gonna think about Janie's character arc so Jamie is 12 and let's think about the lesson she needs to learn maybe Janie's character flaw is that she's a very independent young kid she's not very good at accepting help from other people so maybe at some point maybe let's say this is gonna come from her mother because this is middle grade so parents can be more play kind of a role her mother tells her that sometimes it's okay to accept help from other people after gets into kind of pickle well skateboard I don't know what happens but she gets stuck somewhere maybe and she doesn't want help but eventually she's okay so now we get into the fun stuff now we have the catalyst so the catalyst is going to be the stealing of the family heirloom maybe the family heirloom is like what protects her family from gobbling magic table magic infested Jamie's home everything is in chaos maybe there are strange moths fasting her house goblin moth and her mother tells her the truth her grandmother made a bargain with the goblins I said her great grandmother a bargain with the goblins then instead of upholding her end of the deal blood protected her family with this magical heirloom the match when protects her family but goblins have stolen it it's announced a debate so the debate beat is where Janie has decide what she's going to do Janie is upset she feels like her family has kept secrets from her everything is in chaos let's say that she also feels confused as to why her great grandmother would make such a decision so the debate they have a longer beat so let's say that in the end as things grow more bearable Jenny realizes that you know what let's add something in the theme stated Janie wants to prove to her mother how independent she is Jane you guys is that she feels very independent and she can prove this to family members who still see her like a little kid by retrieving the heirloom and setting everything right so let's say she starts to research through her old family documents breathing great grandmother's diary maybe prepares to go so that's the end of Act one so break into two is gonna be Jenny making a decisive action so the debate is her deciding what she's gonna do so actually you know what this should actually be breaking it to right there she decides she's gonna leave she finds a portal to the Goblin world and ventures out on her quest now it's time for our me story in the goblin world let's say she's gonna meet some friends a fairy has gotten trapped in the Goblin world and is trying to get I don't know what the fairies name would be what is a good name for free I feel like a fairy would be name something like cute like hairy twinkle Jani want it to complete her quest alone one called tanks along so now it's gonna be the promise of the premise so this is going to be the journey they venture through the Goblin world together maybe they meet other characters they face trials and obstacles maybe they almost get caught they get lost in a foggy ever morphing maze of giant mushrooms they face warm of Mah of goblin moths which are thing apparently in this world so now we're gonna have the midpoint so the midpoint is gonna be they arrived at the Goblin Bank seems like it should be easy they arrive at the Goblin Bank it's time to go in for the heist but maybe they they completely fail so they're gonna try to go into the Goblin Bank but they're not gonna make it they get caught have to make up a quick get away so now the bad guys are gonna close in see now we have a lot of momentum we've kind of figured out our story so now it feels like things are really rolling so maybe the goblins are now on to them they know Jani is in their world and that she's trying to steal her magical family heirloom back Baldwin's chase her periwinkle the Goblin world all is lost so this is gonna be they catch them Janie and periwinkle end up in the Goblin dungeon because it's not just a regular dungeon it's the Goblin dungeon specifically ah they're stuck here forever maybe the goblins the goblins sentence Janie to life in the dungeon breaking or grandmother's her great-grandmother's likey pretty nice her great-grandmother's her great grandmother's deal periwinkle too for helping them tries to find a way to escape from the dungeon she needs periwinkle who is a fairy of course to help her which is gonna tie back into her character where she wants to be able to solve all her problems on her own so let's say they make a plan to escape I don't know what that plan is gonna be periwinkle is going to blind the guards with light because she's a fairy and she can glow and the goblins live underground so they're not used to bright lights and all the guards are confused they'll steal the keys make a run for it now we're to actually break into three they they escaped from prison maybe one thing that we should add to the midpoint is that Janie didn't want periwinkle to help her Jenny wants to do this on her own but she gets caught and then that has consequences for both of them basically from prison and decide to make second attempt at retrieving the heirloom they know more about the goblins now so now we're getting into the finale I accidentally wrote this is part of break into three but for the finale so they find all this Rosa they can I went at the club blank okay what blinds them and any man just quickly and easily serve through the pack of just oriented goblins in order to retrieve the heirloom find portal back to the human world and Janey helps periwinkle escape the goblin world has she's been trapped in this final image Janey returns home and stores the magical protection to her house maybe as a final image just because it would be cute we could see her skateboarding around their front yard catching the last of the you will call bling moths with a butterfly catcher so that's it for this video as you can see even from basically nothing I hadn't even planned out the concept of this book in advance it wasn't too difficult to plot out an entire book and I'm actually not very good at developing plot material it's actually something pretty difficult for me it'll take me a while but just through understanding all these beats it wasn't too difficult to pull together a complete and cohesive plot of course this isn't everything that happened if you're using this for your not will remember that it's not going to cover everything that's gonna happen there's gonna be other things threaded them there probably other subplots this is really just covering kind of your singular main plotline and the major points along that timeline so I hope that this was helpful thank you so much for watching and remember to subscribe for your writing editing and publishing videos every Tuesday and Friday until next time bye [Music]

Channel: Reedsy

Views: 23,885

Rating: 4.9648352 out of 5

Keywords: plot structure, how to structure a novel, how to write a novel, how to write a book, structure, plot, plotting tips, how to plot a book, plot a book with me, outline a book with me, how to outline a book, how to outline a novel, save the cat, 15 beat structure

Id: N8FNu_J4aTY

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Fri May 24 2019