A summary of the book. Save The Cat. The last book on screenwriting that you´ll ever need. By Blake Snyder. Summary by Kim Hartman. This is a summary of what I think is the most important and insightful parts of the book.
Go step-by-step through plotting and writing a novel. Learn how to find and develop ideas, brainstorm stories from that first spark of inspiration, develop the right characters, setting, plots and subplots, as well as teach you how to identify where your novel fits in the market, and if your idea has what it takes to be a series.With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure offers ten self-guided workshops with more than 100 different exercises to help you craft a solid novel.
Learn how to:. Create compelling characters readers will love. Choose the right point of view for your story. Determine the conflicts that will drive your plot (and hook readers!). Find the best writing process for your writing style.
Create a solid plot from the spark of your ideaPlotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure also helps you develop the critical elements for submitting and selling your novel once it’s finished. You’ll find exercises on how to:. Craft your one-sentence pitch.
Create your summary hook blurb. Develop a solid working synopsis And so much more!Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure is an easy-to-follow guide to writing your novel or fixing a novel that isn’t quite working.
Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including, and from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of 'Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read' from the Georgia Center for the Book.She also writes the for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.
I've devoted most of this year to studying structure. Recently I picked up 'The Moral Premise' which combines many of the more popular structures, including 'Save the Cat.' But the author also ties in the Moral Premise, which guides every aspect of the story. All of these authors have one thing in common: they recognize what works. When we understand structure and apply it, it gives us the creative freedom to write spectacular scenes without concern that we're heading off in the wrong direction. Keep up the great work, Janice!
While we are at outlines, did you know someone has analysed the Classic Roman Comedy five act structure as actually (tension+relaxation.)^3?Two major parts that act like tension + relaxation. Helenthis is such a typical man move - to comment on an article that deals with a specific kind of scriptwriting with something completely unrelated like an ancient dramatic form that barely anyone uses nowadays and then asking 'do you know about this highly specific type of analysis of an outdated form?
I must be the only intellectual around here then'. This is why we women get tired of men. Women barely use someones work as a platform to get on our own high horse and spray the world with our wisdom aka jerk off intellectually at our own special knowledge.
This is what you just did. Women (including me) are tired of men slowing down our conversations and our intellectual exchange with their constant need for approval. It's so boring.ps.as a cultural scientist I can tell you that Aristotle's Poetics have been deconstructed already starting in the Middle Ages. Every epoch has its own rules or, if you look into modern times, the deconstruction of these rules.
You wrote (more or less) 'The middle of the book. Stakes goes up and the 'fun' is over. Now it's serious.
This beat is either a false victory or a false defeat, which will be the opposite of the All is Lost beat. Midpoint and (The Ordeal).'
If you look at the Alien beat sheet midpoint, it doesn't seem to me that your explanation that the Midpoint and All Is Lost Beat are opposites of each other. Please take a look at this breakdown for the movie Alien (1979), which came from Save the Cat Goes to Hollywood:Midpoint was when the chest burster comes out of Kane and runs away.
That's not a false victory, unless you take Kane eating beforehand and everyone thinking he's fine. But that wouldn't make sense because the midpoint is when 'things get serious' as you noted (and the creator, Blake Snyder noted). So you'd have to say it's when the thing bursts out. That's freaking serious. Then you would say it's really a false defeat (nobody knows what will happen next but it's going to be bad - it's a false defeat).Now, go to the All Is Lost beat for Alien.
Ripley discovers that the Company (Weyland Corp.) knows this alien is a badass and really wants to bring it back to study (presumably as a bio weapon). That's a defeat moment as well. So I don't understand why you are saying the Midpoint and All is Lost Moment are opposites of each other. If you could clarify that I'd appreciate it.I'm still trying to find a good plotting device that I understand. Thought this might have been the one since everyone watches movies it would be easier to figure out how the plotting device work because of all the examples. It's a general guide, not an absolute template. Not every movie is going to fall into this exactly, though many successful ones do.Personally, I don't use this structure-I find it too restrictive.
I prefer a modified Three Act Structure that fits my personal plotting style. In that, I have the 'midpoint reversal' in the middle, which does something unexpected and shakes up the story. I feel this gives a writer more freedom while still providing guides for plot turning points. Something surprising should happen in the middle and take the story in a new and unexpected direction, but what that is can be anything.I think the midpoint and the All is Lost moment are more often mirrors of each other, than opposites. Whatever happens in the middle frequently leads to that dark moment when everything looks bleak for the protagonist. It's the surprise that causes things to get so bad the protagonist considers giving up (generally speaking, as I said this doesn't always hold true).In the Alien example, the midpoint surprise is the alien itself and how deadly it is. This triggers the all is lost moment because Ripley sees how deadly it is and knows bringing it back is bad.
And sacrificing her crew for this weapon is wrong. To me, they work because they build off each other and ultimately give Ripley the strength to fight (it's be ages since I've seen the original Alien, so forgive me if I don't remember the exact details. I'm more an Aliens gal, which is a beautifully put together film, especially the director's cut:)If you're looking for a structure, I'd suggest looking at the various options and picking and choosing aspects that fit how you like to tell your stories. Let these various structures guide you, and inspire you, but mold them to your personal tastes.In essence, all you need structurally is a beginning (the general setup and introduction of the characters and the problem), the middle (the attempts to solve that problem and how it all goes wrong), and the ending (how the protagonist resolves the problem after being pushed to almost giving up). What you do within that general scope is up to you and how you like to craft your story.Hope this helps! Thanks Janice for that detailed explanation and your advice! So with Alien (1979) would you say that the Midpoint and All is Lost beats are not opposites of each other but are going in the same direction?
They went from the Midpoint from being bad (egg has hatched. Baby Alien comes out of guy's chest, scurries across table and out the door) to much, much, worse in the All is Lost beat (the baby Alien grew to human size, it's still got acid for blood, it killed our leader and other members, and the android is telling us the company anticipated this and we will will not survive)? Most welcome. Yes, that's how I would see it. The midpoint is like a preview of what horrible thing Ripley will face in the end.You could probably take it even further and say the alien represents the 'monster' of Weyland.
It symbolizes the evil company Ripley has to fight to survive. We get the first glimpse of that evil at the midpoint, and then see how it affects Ripley the entire second half and how she decides to fight it (and why she should fight and not just give up).Also keep in mind that this story is about overcoming the 'evil monster,' (it's horror after all), so if you were writing, say, a romance novel, your turning points would illustrate these concepts differently. What's a dark moment in a horror movie is different from a romance, even though the character faces a similar emotional struggle. It's about facing weakness and flaws and wanting to give up, and how the character decides to deal with that moment. It's the moment when the protagonist realizes they can't walk away without serious consequences.When you're looking at all these various structures and turning points, keep in mind what they conceptually mean-for example, a 'battle' is just a struggle of one person/force trying to win against another.
You can struggle over whether or not to eat the cupcakes and ruin your diet, and in the right story, that can be a 'battle' and work just fine for the plot point. It helps not to think of these points literally and adapt them to the type of story you're writing.
Wow.:) Thanks for that information! I can see why your site is called 'Fiction University.' :) I used Alien because I want to write horror and the beat sheet Blake put together in the movie was both interesting and confusing. But now I'm not confused on that point (midpoint vs.
All is lost) thanks to you.:)I think a story about someone agonizing over whether or not to eat a cupcake and ruin diet is hilarious. I don't think I could pull a novel out of it, but I think the idea would make a pretty funny short story if it was spiced up a bit! Kind of reminds me of when in Ghostbusters (the original) when the team unwittingly summons a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow man as the device of their destruction.:DSoo, you're a 1986 Aliens fan? I liked everything in the movie except how in the beginning they portrayed the USCM as a bunch of trigger happy knuckleheads.
But once they left the reactor and the sentry guns ran out of ammo, they started behaving more like soldiers.I think it would have been more interesting if the soldiers were more like the Weyland-Yutani Commandos in Alien 3. After all, it was supposed to be a 'rescue' mission (even though in reality, Ripley was lied to AGAIN - the evil corporation wanted to bring an alien back for study). So I think if they sent the commandos and they failed, the corporation would have realized how truly dangerous the aliens were. Glad I could help:) Oh yeah, Aliens is one of my favorite movies of all time. There's a fantastic documentary about making it (and I can't for the life of me remember the title right now), that goes into how the actors playing the Marines trained together to build that camaraderie, and how they decorated their lockers and armor themselves to suit them and the character. It's fascinating stuff.The Marines didn't bother me, because I viewed them as psyching themselves up and getting ready to go into a dangerous situation. Once there, they were all business and doing their jobs.
And no one really believed Ripley anyway, so they didn't think they'd need elite troops. Though the Marines did put a hurt on those aliens. There were just too many of them and they were unprepared and had bad leadership with a green Gorman:).
Love the article, and the comments! I have a 'beat sheet' form that mentions 'save the cat' but I had no idea what that was talking about. I've already written a novel, which is now in revision stage(s), and I think this information will still be very useful. I think these basic beats are in the story, but because I wasn't intentional about it they are often not clear enough.
I have a problem with things happening in my head that never make it into the actual words of the story. This will help me clarify and reinforce those major plot points, and know which extraneous points can be cut or re-purposed.
I took a break from outlining my fourth novel, but I’m back! This week I did a few more beats from the Save the Cat Writes a Novel outline method and also discovered the genre of this book, which is super exciting!If you’ve been participating in the Save the Cat experiment, let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear how it’s been going for you!What is the? Hosted by Brittany Wang and Bethany Atazadeh, they’re testing out Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody to see if you can follow the book to write a novel.Watch my previous writing/outlining vlogs:Bethany’s Channel:Brittany’s Channel:→Newsletter & Free Downloads:→Author Platform Webinar:→Join me on Patreon for exclusive content:→Get your book cover designed:→Start your AuthorTube Academy:→Schedule a marketing consultation:→Markering for Authors Series:→SHE'S NOT HERE on Amazon:→I AM MERCY on Amazon:→ESSENCE on Amazon:Want to help support me as a creator?
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