Two Kinds of Midpoint: Crafting a Compelling Trajectory for Your Story

Whether the midpoint is victory or defeat can serve as a guidepost for the whole middle

I gave a basic introduction to Save the Cat last year, and I noted that I’d oversimplified things in that post. One of the ways I had oversimplified was by leaving out the various genres, which I talk about here.

The other way was in the way Save the Cat handles the midpoint. The two kinds of midpoint presented in this system give you information not only about that beat, but also a map that can guide you out of the mushy middle altogether.

Today we’re going to discuss whether you have a false victory or a false defeat at the midpoint — and what to do with that information. Your answer will change how you handle the whole story from the Break into 2 point all the way to Break into 3.

Let’s start with a quick review of Save the Cat before we move in to these specifics.

Save the Cat Review

In the Save the Cat beat sheet, there are fifteen key points. The ones we’ll focus on today are three in the middle: Fun and Games, Midpoint, and Bad Guys Close In. Generally speaking, Fun and Games covers starting from between 20 and 25% all the way through until the Midpoint at 50%. Then from the Midpoint to Break into 3, about 50% to 75%, is covered under the beat Bad Guys Close In. The Midpoint is one scene right in the middle that separates the two.

Fun and Games

[Fun and Games] delivers on the promise of the premise of the novel and shows us how your hero is faring in the new Act 2 world (either having fun or floundering).

— Jessica Brody, Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel, 60.

Brody goes on to state that this beat usually covers what Save the Cat calls the “promise of the premise.” That is, whatever we came for in the story, we’re likely to get in this new Act 2 world, whether it’s two characters falling in love or the new world on the other side of a wardrobe.

However, twenty-five to thirty percent of a story covers a lot of words. In a 100,000-word book, you could have 30,000 words just in the “Fun and Games” beat. So how do you know how to write them?

We’ll get there. First, let’s look at the second half of Act 2.

Bad Guys Close In

[Bad Guys Close In] provides a place for your hero to rebound after a false defeat Midpoint or fall down after a false victory Midpoint, all while the conflict, stakes, and tension are mounting and internal bad guys (flaws) are closing in.

— Jessica Brody, Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel, 75.

Fun and Games and Bad Guys Close In are separated by the crowning jewel of the Midpoint, where something has changed. Often, a ticking clock is introduced or intensified, stakes are higher, and the action is more intense. It’s in this part of the book that our hero is trying to learn the Truth of their theme and come to terms with who they need to be in order to survive the plot, win the girl, or whatever it is their goal is.

Midpoint

[A Midpoint] marks the middle of the novel with either a false defeat or a false victory while at the same time raising the stakes of the story and shifting the direction of the narrative.

— Jessica Brody, Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel, 65.

Here is the key. Midpoints can be one of two things: a false victory or a false defeat. The version you have in your story will tell you not only about that moment, but also Fun and Games, Bad Guys Close In, and potentially your Break into 2 moment.

Let’s look at how Brody talks about it first:

To put it very simply, in false victory Midpoints, the hero gets something they want, and in false defeat Midpoints, the hero loses something they want.

But that word, “want,” is exactly why they’re both false.

Remember, this story was never about what the hero wants. It’s about what they need.

— Jessica Brody, Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel, 67

Now let’s review the other Brody quotes about Fun and Games and Bad Guys Close In. In both cases, there’s an important word: OR.

In Fun and Games, the hero is either having fun or floundering. In Bad Guys Close In, the hero is either rebounding or falling down. The important thing here is the pattern: what goes up must come down. What comes down must go up.

If the Fun and Games is actually fun, we should then give our character a false victory at the Midpoint, before taking it all away in Bad Guys Close In. If the Fun and Games is awful for our hero, we should show them what they think is rock bottom at the Midpoint, before letting them regroup and kick ass in Bad Guys Close In.

Note that the Save the Cat beats are named with the assumption of a false victory, but many, many stories are actually false defeats.

Let’s look at an example of a story with a false defeat, followed by one with a false victory. Mild spoilers are ahead for The Hunger Games by Susanne Collins and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

Example of a False Defeat: The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games is a master of structure for a variety of reasons, but I want to use it here because it points out what I think is one of the flaws of the naming system in Save the Cat — its focus on false victories.

The below beats are paraphrased from the Beat Sheet on the Save the Cat website, available here.

Fun and Games

The fun and games starts with preparation in the Capitol, but the focus quickly switches to a literal game: Katniss and 23 other tributes are thrown into an arena with the goal of being the last one alive at the end. This is a downward path for Katniss. She might have signed up for this, but she’s floundering in her Act 2 world, and it’s certainly not what she would call “fun.”

This moment ends as she gets stung by tracker jackers and begins hallucinating.

Midpoint

Hallucinating, weak, and ready to die, Peeta saves Katniss’s life. This is a low point for Katniss because she’s already failing at games she volunteered for, and Peeta having feelings for her solves nothing: either one or both of them will die. That’s how the games work.

Bad Guys Close In

Katniss recovers from the venom, allies herself with Rue, a tribute from a different District, and together they figure out how to play the game to their own strengths. Katniss is no longer over her head. While more and more tributes die, bringing her closer to the inevitable choice of what to do about Peeta, the stakes are higher but Katniss has recovered from her low moment and started to rebound.

Analysis

Katniss makes no secret, from the beginning of the book, of her hatred for the world in which she lives. The Capitol and all it represents is awful to her, and the only thing more repellent is sending her sister off to face the machinery. She makes this choice confidently — and is immediately out of her element. From the mahogany moment on the train, through hair and makeup, and into the games themselves, Katniss might have been willing to take her sister’s place, but she wasn’t prepared for it.

Because Katniss volunteers as tribute, if Susanne Collins had chosen to make the Fun and Games easy for her, we would lack dramatic tension. However, because she struggles so much in the first half of Act 2, she’s able to pull it together in the second half, and the Bad Guys Closing In becomes a background problem, while she finally starts taking initiative within the games that have, this far, beaten her.

Example of a False Victory: The Giver

False victories are common in romance novels. They give us a taste for what the relationship could look like between the leads, then rip it away in the next beat. But it’s not the only use for a false victory. Let’s keep in the same dystopian “genre” here, showing how they use a different beat structure to get there.

The Giver is considered by some to be the quintessential, or prototype, YA dystopian novel, as it was a full 15 years earlier than the huge dystopian boom that happened in the mid-2000s. How does it accomplish that?

Fun and Games

Jonas has become the receiver of memories, and as he begins to receive these memories, he learns mainly wonderful things at first. Jonas has been given access to a world beyond his own: he gets to experience Red, and snow, and more and more colors as his training continues. There are some hints that this is a limited view of the memories he will receive, but for the most part, his trajectory builds up — toward a false victory.

Midpoint

Jonas’s midpoint is a smaller victory as he enjoys his new role and wisdom. In a book as short as The Giver, the victory doesn’t last long, and the giver uses Jonas’s confidence in the role to begin to introduce him to pain, starting the raised stakes and downward trajectory of Bad Guys Close In.

Bad Guys Close In

The memories Jonas receives become more and more painful, and at home, the baby his father is caring for isn’t showing signs of improvement and might be released. He’s beginning to doubt what that means, and sensing urgency in his own decision of how he could potentially give back memories — and choices — to his community.

Analysis

Unlike The Hunger Games, Lois Lowry eases us into the dystopian world where Jonas lives. Everything appears perfect here. It’s the “Welcome! Everything is fine” moment like in the TV series The Good Place. Choosing this upward trajectory toward a false victory was a smart choice here — Jonas himself believes in the power of his community. He thinks everything is fine, so the reader does, too.

However, despite his contentment in his world, Jonas enters the second act unwillingly: he doesn’t want to be set apart. He doesn’t want to be different. So the Fun and Games being good initially eases his fear around this new role.

The story, incidentally, even has a canonical reason for the upward trajectory: a previous Receiver could not handle the negative memories, so the Giver intentionally eased the new Receiver into his job.

This also leads the reader down the path toward the ambiguous ending, when Jonas has to make a scary choice. He’s moved away from his belief in his community being perfect the way it is, and willing to do something about it. Because everything starts out fine and he doesn’t want things to change at the beginning, using this path best shows his growth.

Using the Midpoint to Craft the Arc of Act 2

Hopefully this has cracked the code of Act 2 a little bit for you. Here are some questions I look at either when I’m drafting or editing (for myself or others) to see what the trajectory of the story should be.

Brody implies we should make this decision when we’re writing our Fun and Games, and let that choice dictate the Midpoint and Bad Guys directions. However, I personally find it more useful to figure out the Midpoint first, so I know whether I’m building up or tearing down. This is because, to me, the Midpoint is usually a stronger moment that I’m more sure about, while I flounder in the rest of Act 2. It’s possible to work from any one of these beats and use it to place the others.

• Does the hero enter Act 2 willingly or unwillingly? If willingly, it’s likely we should make Fun and Games hard for them, and end with a false defeat. If unwillingly, it’s likely we should make Fun and Games easy, and end with a false victory.
• As written (or planned), is the midpoint a false victory or a false defeat? Does the Fun and Games/Bad Guys Close In support that decision? How could we ensure there is the correct roller-coaster trajectory at work here?