Preptober: Save the Cat for Beginners

A series on structure

We talked about what a beat sheet is. Here I want to look at one of the more famous ones, Save the Cat, to note what the beats mean, how they work, and one way you can use them to guide your prewriting process.

(Unless otherwise linked, all information is from the Save the Cat website linked above.)

Save the Cat is an outlining system originally derived by Blake Snyder for screenwriting, and most recently updated by Jessica Brody into Save the Cat Writes a Novel. The title of this beat sheet comes from a beat that isn’t usually included below, but can be an important one in character development — saving the cat. That is, the character taking time away from their goal to do something kind at some small cost to themselves. It’s the scene that shows us what makes the character interesting, and proves the character is capable of change.

Outside of that character-oriented beat, there are fifteen main steps in the Save the Cat outline that can help structure your story. Let’s look at them now and define what they mean.

The Beats

Opening Image (1%)

The opening image is, simply put, the first scene of your book. The opening image should ideally do all three of these things:

• set the mood/tone for the story
• create an image that will be contrasted by the final image
• introduce a character who both needs to change and is capable of changing

Theme Stated (5%)

The theme stated is a specific moment in the story where a secondary character speaks the theme to the main character. In most stories, the theme is stated and the main character rejects it because they aren’t ready to believe this truth.

Setup (1–10%)

This part of the beat sheet isn’t a moment but a movement — a collection of scenes that comprise the first 10% of a story. In the beginning of the plot, we set up the character’s life before the story happens. We are introduced to the characters and the general world they inhabit.

One feature specific to Save the Cat is that the setup beat explicitly asks to see the character in three settings: at home, at work, and at play.

Catalyst (10%)

The catalyst is the moment when something life-changing happens to the protagonist. They can point to this moment as the before/after split of what their life used to be and what it now is.

Debate (10 to 20%)

Like the setup, this is a movement within the book, covering all the action between the catalyst and the break into 2 moment below. Whatever else is going on in the story, the main character is likely asking a question to themselves, something akin to “Must I deal with the catalyst?” or “How will I deal with the catalyst?”

Break into 2 (20%)

This is the moment when everything changes. The door to Narnia is open; we’re going on an adventure. Your character has gone through their debate and decided to opt in — or realized they don’t have a choice. At this point, the story changes from the world the character is used to into a new world. This can be literally or metaphorically, but it is now clear the characters will go through change.

B Story (22%)

A second storyline is introduced that ties in thematically to the whole. In an adventure, this is often the romance or relationship aspect of the plot.

Fun and Games (20 to 50%)

Blake Snyder defines this part of the story as “the movie you came here to see.” In The Hunger Games, it’s the hunger games. It is the falling-in-love part of a romance story. When you read the back of a book or watch the trailer for a movie, this is the part you’re usually witnessing.

In many stories (we’ll talk about nuance and exceptions in a later article), this is a fun, relatively stress-free part of the book. The character made a scary decision to enter this new world, and it’s going better than they expected it to.

Midpoint (50%)

In a story with an upward trajectory in the Fun and Games, the midpoint usually hits with a false victory. The main character thinks they have their problem solved, and it very nearly works. However, it doesn’t go as planned, and now more is on the line than ever. This is also often the point of the story where some kind of ticking clock or other threat is introduced or heightened. Now the goal must be reached by X, or else. There is no more time for fun and games.

Bad Guys Close In (50 to 75%)

Now that the stakes are raised, the pacing of the story picks up.

The bad guys — internal and external — are everywhere, lurking around corners. Disasters to one conflict happen concurrently with others, and the main character is, quite probably, over her head even as she tries to one-up the bad guys.

All Is Lost (75%)

Everything your main character has feared comes true. This moment often features death, whether literal or metaphorical. A relationship dies, or a mentor or trusted friend does. Often, this is because all the effort your character put into trying to save them is for naught. It happens anyway. All is, well, lost.

Dark Night of the Soul (75 to 80%)

For a small part of the book, now, your character gets to wallow. Moving on too quickly from All is Lost can make it feel like the loss wasn’t deep enough. It didn’t cut hard enough. They wish they’d never gotten to break into 2, and instead had said no from the start. They’re worse off than they were and regret the choices that led them here.

Break into 3 (80%)

Something happens — often internally — when the main character realizes how they can solve all the problems that have developed over the course of the story. This is often thematic, and tends to involve some new piece of information, or a piece of dialogue from someone else that helps them connect the dots. It’s the “Eureka, I’ve got it!” moment that pulls them out of the wallowing they’ve been entrenched in.

Five-Step Finale (80 to 99%)

What makes Save the Cat a standout beat sheet for me is their attention to detail for the finale. Instead of a simple “and then everything comes together and the climax happens” beat, Save the Cat develops what they call a “Five Point Finale” that goes point by point through what it means for everything to come together.

Gathering the Team Now that the main character has had their internal revelation, they need to make this information known to the others they are with or need to be with. The hero finds the right people, compiles tools, etc., to enact the plan they now realize they have to complete. Personally, this beat is strongest when it involves apologies and amends. The character has hurt people on their way to this point, and in order to gather the team, they need to accept the hurt they caused and ask for forgiveness.

Executing the Plan Break into 3 gave the hero the idea, and gathering the team provided the planning session. Now it’s time to do the thing the hero set out to do. To “storm the castle,” as the Save the Cat website describes it. This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It might even seem easy at first! Maybe the main character gets a bit too confident.

High Tower Surprise Just as our hero thinks she’s got this down, something goes wrong. One last time, the bad guy is one step ahead of our hero. Their plan leads to a dead end, a trap, or the Big Bad themselves. What they thought was going to be simple definitely is not.

Dig Deep Down Now that the hero knows what she’s really up against, she needs to rethink the plan she spent much of the beginning of act 3 building. Since the original plan didn’t work, it’s time to improvise. Now our hero needs to — usually — let go of their thought and lean into their instincts. To trust the force. Do they really believe what they’ve learned about the theme?

Execution of the New Plan Now the character knows what they need to do and, unlike the previous attempts, this one is (in a positive change arc) going to work. They take what they learned, face the antagonist, and find themselves at a hard-earned victory.

Final Image (99 to 100%)

This is the final scene(s) of the book. It often mirrors the opening image, providing us with an “after” to our hero’s “before.” How has this story changed our character? What can we see them doing now that wouldn’t be an option for them before?

How to Use This Beat Sheet

Save the Cat doesn’t pretend to give you a scene-by-scene outline of the book. This is evident in how whole chunks — as much as 30% in some cases — are grouped together. Instead, the beat sheet helps you determine what to include, as well as how to pace it.

Are you hitting every beat? Are they far enough apart? These are the questions a beat sheet answers.

Beat sheets are great for outlining, but also good diagnostic tools after a book is complete. I’ve edited a story before that opened with what would have worked best as a break into 2, which made it hard to see the before and after of a character’s world, since there was no before.

My own first several books had finales that were too easy and too quickly paced, because I missed some, if not most, of the steps outlined in the five-step finale on my rush to the conclusion. This made the emotional impact fall flat and the victory feel unearned. If I’d known about this beat sheet for my first books, I could have more quickly seen the flimsy storytelling and worked to strengthen the scaffolding before I ever started writing.

Another way to use this beat sheet is to see other plot points that are implied within these major milestones. If “gathering the team” includes needing to apologize or make amends, by necessity you must have a scene earlier in the story where there is a falling out.

Benefits of Save the Cat

Save the Cat can have numerous benefits for beginning writers. The structure is specific, laying everything out by percentage. You can easily check your own book against it once written to see how the pacing compares to the structure, or ensure before you’re writing that the pacing won’t be too far off and you hit the general structure.

Unlike most beat sheets, Save the Cat provides a detailed look at how to create a satisfying finale. These beats alone make the whole structure worthwhile to me, as I find finales extremely difficult to get right myself.

Within its general structure, there is a lot of freedom. Some structures can feel rigid, and writers may feel they lose their creativity to have things dictated so precisely. Since there are larger chunks without guidance — usually around the places writers have the most fun, like “fun and games” — it might not feel too constricting to the creative process.

Limitations of Save the Cat

All that said, Save the Cat isn’t a be-all, end-all beat sheet that will guarantee you have an amazing story on the other side of it. Below are a few of the limitations I’ve found with this particular scaffolding.

The opening image can be a tough one to get right in terms of maximum impact. Unless I come to a new story with a specific opening/closing contrast in mind, I start my story with the understanding that “the scene that helps me get started writing this book” and “the best opening scene for this book” aren’t necessarily the same. In this respect, the opening image in my outline and the final opening image are rarely identical.

Another way I struggle with Save the Cat is the singular mention of the B Story. With as much guidance as Save the Cat has toward developing the main plot, there is no guidance on how to combine the B Story with the main story to ensure they converge and belong in the same book. It’s left hanging after its first mention.

I also find that Save the Cat can be a bit overwhelming. I’ve gone over the “basic” beats here (and even this is a doozy of an article), but Save the Cat actually has specific, slightly varied, beat sheets for ten different genres. There are also more technicalities to the pacing and when to have an upward versus downward trajectory that can be overwhelming at first. We’ll get into these more later.

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