[Music] hey everyone i'm shaylyn here with reedzy so today we're going to be looking at the save the cat plot structure this is also known as the 15b plot structure or the blake snyder beat sheet this is a plot structure that was designed for film by blake snyder hence the name and it's very popular in the film world but the fiction and novel writing community has really taken a shine to this plot structure because even though it was first designed for film it applies very nicely to a lot of novels this is a plot structure i personally really like it's one that makes a lot of sense to me even though i'm not really someone to actually use plot structures when i'm writing my novels this has always been one of my favorite because to me it's just very intuitive the beats and how they fit together make a lot of sense so for today's video we're actually going to be breaking down the structure by developing a plot for it together if you are long time viewers of this channel you might remember this same video from many years ago we're just redoing it making it a little better if you never saw that video and you're new here basically i'm just going to be using a random plot generator taking a concept and turning it into a book using the save the cat structure so you guys can see what the beats look like in application the really nice thing about this structure in my experience is that it's the perfect balance between detail and flexible it's flexible enough that you can apply it to a lot of stories and if you need to make some changes it's really easy to like if you need to change the order of things or skip a beat it's really easy to but it's also specific enough that it gives you really specific events to help guide you to create a story so for that reason it's actually possible to just sit down and plot out a whole story with this beat sheet if you're familiar with the beats so that's what we're going to be doing today welcome to the actual part of the video where we're going to develop a plot together so the nice thing about save the cat is that it has very specific plot beats so once you understand those very specific plot beats it's pretty easy to pull together a plot literally on the fly you know there are some where the plot beats are a bit broader and more vague like we did a video recently on the fiction curve which is a plot structure i love and it seemed really intuitive to me but it would be hard to sit down and just bang out a fiction curve plot line because it doesn't necessarily have distinct plot points save the cat however has very distinct plot points so once you're familiar with them and especially once you start looking for them in movies or books or whatever you become familiar with what they look like so today we're going to be developing a plot together i'm doing this all on the fly i'm just going to do this in the reedzy book editor and i'm also going to generate our plot so we have a plot generator which is pretty fun so let's use that okay so we have for our plot um a janitor who was a compulsive liar as our protagonist and a secretary who has burnt every bridge for the plot it says it's a satire about the american dream it kicks off on the sixth train in east harlem with the beginning of a relationship note that someone in the story has a criminal background that will come to light okay i don't know if i'm necessarily going to integrate all of that because that is quite a lot to consider we're going to work with the two characters a janitor who is a compulsive liar a secretary who has burnt every bridge will start on a train with them meeting with the beginning of their relationship and will know that someone and someone in the story has a criminal background that will come to light so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm just going to write out the beats let's start with our opening image we're going to build this as we go so there might be some reshuffling around obviously if you were using this for your story you would probably give it some thought in advance i didn't do that so let's just name our characters really quick um the secretary i'm gonna name her kelly and the janitor's name is gonna be olivia i'm gonna write that under notes here just so we can kind of keep track this structure was developed for screen and on screen it's all about image right but we can apply the same thing to a novel um obviously just works a little different because on the screen you literally have an opening image whereas a novel might start on narrative it might start on it might start on a variety of things well it's gonna be a train so we're gonna maybe start with olivia boarding the train maybe she is fleeing from something she's a compulsive liar so we'll say trying not to be seen and skittishly takes a seat in an empty car she sits on the train alone for a bit maybe slowly feeling relief she realizes she's gotten away with her crime whatever it is if you look up the save the cat structure it always puts theme stated as the second beat however theme stated and set up actually kind of happen concurrently so the way save the cat works is some beats are just a single event so opening image is just the opening image some are longer periods of time and the setup is a longer period of time whereas the theme stated is a single moment that happens and it happens within the setup so i i think it makes no sense i think that setup should be two and theme stage should be three two happens during three i don't know why it's already that way it's strange to me so we're actually gonna look at the setup first and then we'll think about the theme stated so what is the setup the setup is basically the period of the story that is basically our introductory beat okay so we know that olivia meets hmm maybe we shouldn't start it directly on maybe we should start with her stealing something let's make this a heist okay i'm getting a heist vibe from this so we're gonna make this a heist so kelly and olivia are gonna meet on this train and maybe they're both fleeing their various crime scenes and they connect and they realize that together they could pull an incredible heist can all of that happen on the train if this was normally the setup would be a bit longer but maybe the whole setup could kind of happen on the train so i'm wondering if maybe this could be part of the setup and what we're actually going gonna do is begin with an opening image of olivia stealing something so olivia's a janitor right olivia a janitor is cleaning a fancy building a museum maybe she takes careful note of where the security cameras are the fire escapes so maybe she's not gonna steal something right then and there she's planning her heist her art heist and then maybe oh we can see you know the piece de resistance one might say um she studies let's just say it's a let's just say it's a faberge egg gold and sitting in a glass case this is the prize okay so she's gonna try to steal this faberge egg i don't know that's the first thing that came to my mind when i thought of what's something really fancy so then she's gonna board the train in the setup then kelly is gonna get on board i don't know how are they recognizing that each other criminals maybe we could see kelly like pickpocket someone and olivia could keep her secret two of them now i'm getting a little too detailed with this rather than breaking this up beat by me by the let's just say they end up realizing they have a shared criminal history their specific involvement in the museum and will say that kelly is a secretary could help them pull off the theft of the gold faberge egg so now we need to think about our theme stated we're going to go back and look at the theme stated normally your setup would probably be a little bit longer actually now i think about it this would be the catalyst so the catalyst is the inciting incident right so them deciding to steal it would be the inciting incident because that's when they realized hey we could still just make a much money that's like the first step in the chain of events now that that has happened they've made that decision they have a goal the plot will continue to unfold so we need to go back and think of a theme stated so this is going to go back to the the world view probably of olivia because kelly is our side character olivia is our main character which means olivia's is the one whose world view we're going to be unpacking um which means she needs to have some kind of worldview that needs to be challenged or unraveled probably by kelly so this is interesting because they're both sketchy criminals but i love that for them so let's think about what our theme stated could be it's hard because i don't know what the theme is let's think did our vlogging reader give us a theme oh if there's a twist the child the story is told from the perspective of a child who doesn't fully comprehend what's happening well we're not going to end up doing that because it's too late um doesn't give doesn't tell us what our theme is oh it's supposed to be about the american dream can i work with that i'm gonna actually move the theme stated to after the setup because it makes no sense for it to be before we're gonna say that kelly and olivia agree that see the thing about the theme stated normally it's a character telling the main character that they're wrong normally the theme stated isn't two characters agreeing normally the theme stated happens when a side character will say to the main character why do you always do this or you think this they should go for it this is not a very good theme because i don't really know what the theme is we'll come back to this maybe a theme will emerge as we continue developing it so in my seemingly infinite wisdom turns out i actually forgot a stage when i was recording this so we're just gonna go add that now the stage that i forgot is the debate so this is um the last stage of act one in the catalyst you have a call to action right an opportunity that comes up um that translates to the goal of the story but after the catalyst you have the debate this is where the main character has to actually decide if they're gonna go through with the call to action i think we had you know the catalyst being they realize that they have the capabilities to try and steal this egg and so they're gonna go try and steal this egg together but because we have the debate we actually need a period of time where they're contemplating whether they want to go through with this so i think this would be a great place to raise the stakes olivia contemplates whether it's worth it to risk everything can maybe see her having some financial problems so she really does need the money this raises the stakes maybe she can't pay rent and is close to being evicted so then in the break into two that's when the character will actually decide actually yes i do want to go through with this opportunity that will kind of mark the end of the first act act two is like the middle right so it's where we're basically gonna see the development of the plot escalating stakes escalating obstacles all that fun stuff so the break into two is a bit of a self-explanatory beat like a lot of them kind of the names tell you what they are but it's going to be the event that breaks us into act two so the catalyst was them deciding that they were going to steal it um now what we basically need is an event that's probably a follow-up to the catalyst that's going to begin the escalation of the stakes i'm just copying the plot of ocean's aid at this point they realize that there's like there's an opportunity for them to steal it learns from an event happening museum that will give them an opportunity to steal it so now we need the b story so b story to me this has always been a bit of a confusingly named plot point because you would think that it means backstory right you would hear b story and think it means backstory but it actually means basically subplot so in a novel you'd probably have multiple subplots you might have a c story a d story etc in a movie there's usually just one main one and it's usually a relationship development now this is kind of tricky because we already have character who's in our a plot that we have like a relationship development with and that's kelly so maybe we should introduce another character a side character let's say olivia's brother ophelia's brother comes to town we want to see olivia's compulsive lying happen they meet up olivia lies about her life and makes it seem quite grandiose and like she's very successful he might eventually end up kind of being onto her and what she's up to with the heist um because he kind of knows her deal okay so now we have fun in games funny games is also sometimes known as the promise of the premise i'll write it here too so when you hear a log line or when you hear a read the back jacket there's a central premise to a story this is where we see it play out so in this case the promise of the premise is that there's going to be a heist between these two kind of sketchily minded women um and they're going to try and steal a fabric egg so this is where we're basically going to see them actively doing it so this is where kelly and olivia hatch their plan i don't really know how one would steal a faberge egg so i'm not gonna try to figure that out right now but this is where they plan out their their plan basically this is a longer beat fun and games is usually the longest beat in the story this in a novel would probably be several chapters at least several scenes because it's like the main bulk of the story it's not just one thing that happens however the next thing the midpoint is just one thing that happens and it's basically a turning point so usually the midpoint is either a moment of false hope or false defeat we're gonna make the midpoint them actually going in for the heist and maybe they think they've succeeded oh okay actually here they go in for the heist we're actually going to see the heist happen also in promised of the premise and then the midpoint is going to be they get the egg so that's gonna be a moment of false hope so now for the bad guys close end this is basically where we have a moment of highly escalating tension so in this case i'm gonna make the antagonist the brother i think the brother probably wants the best for olivia but also like doesn't want her to go to jail because she stole a faberge egg greg first name that came to mind just so it's easy to keep track of the characters greg finds the faberge egg he confronts her about it but she lies and says it's just a fake she found at a yard sale she wants to fix it up and see if she can sell it for more money he's not buying it so all is lost so this is going to be where it seems like they have failed maybe the brother takes the egg from her and is going to go return it because stolen oh we'll also add to fun and games that kelly and olivia really bond here neither of them have other close relationships and this is the first friendship that's meant something to either of them in a long time i think what we want to develop here is that the steak is not actually losing the egg the steak is actually losing their friendship um okay so maybe the theme is actually about friendship that's what goes in the theme stated they're both loaders and they agree that's for the best and it's why they'll make a good team so that could be our theme stated and that's what's going to be up ended when the friendship is actually what's most important so all is lost olivia's with her brother is stolen the egg when she tells kelly kelly is furious because it's olivia's letting her brother find out and olivia has now lost both her only friend her brother and the egg so now it's the dark night of the soul they have nothing left and they have to say with that olivia is alone she has to reflect on what's more important getting the egg back or getting kelly back so i think she's gonna realize that she wants to get kelly back so the dark knight of the soul if you have watched a lot of movies you're probably very familiar with this beat think about movies you've watched that are maybe like action movies or have like an ensemble cast where there's like kind of a main group of characters and you know how in a lot of movies something will happen that kind of destroys their plan and it seems like the characters have no chance anymore that would be always lost then you know how there's often a scene where all the characters will reconvene everyone will be sitting in a room and someone will say it's over and someone will say it's not over and they'll have a bit of an argument but then they'll realize that if they kind of settle their differences and hatch a new plan then they can still go after their goal that's the dark knight of the soul beat in this case we don't have a bunch of characters we just have the two main characters so olivia is gonna face the dark knight of the of the soul alone she's gonna have to reflect alone it would be great to see her like on a train call back to the beginning olivia goes to kelly to apologize we'll say they work it out work it out and make a plan to get the egg back from her brother before he can return it to the museum so then in the finale they're gonna do another little mini heist which is stealing the egg back from the brother i don't know what the message here is they don't learn their lesson and still end up stealing but this is just a fun movie where we want to see heists happen and be successful not contemplate morally rather stealing is wrong so they're gonna steal again they go in for heist number two we can say they replace the egg with a fake one that they make when greg returns the fake egg and is told it's a fake he believes um olivia was actually telling the truth so she really does get away with her criminality as does kelly in this movie but they have the power of friendship and then we're just gonna say that they take the money from selling the egg and we see them on the beach enjoying their riches best friends for life morally this movie is very uh morally bankrupt but in terms of fun heists happening um i think it's great so the finale is what would typically be referred to as the climax for some reason in the blake snyder beach sheet there are a lot of familiar plot beats that are just renamed like the inciting incident is renamed the catalyst the finale is the climax of the book so it's where the tension is the highest here we had the main heist actually happen at the midpoint um and then we had fallout and then we have like a secondary heist they're still going after the same goal they've had since the beginning which is to get this egg it's just in a context they didn't expect because there's been obstacles along the way and there's the added stake of their friendship so that's what we want the steaks i've actually risen the steaks at the beginning where we want to get this faberge egg so we can have a bunch of money the stakes at the end now are actually we're friends and we want to go be able to have friendship shenanigans and have a bunch of money the stakes now have risen to include their friendship so in a movie the final image is often something that wants to call back to the opening image this is not a rule it's just something you'll see in a lot of screenwriting advice in this case i don't think it needs to call back to the opening image um i think that the it's just gonna end with him on the beach and i feel happy with that so that's our plot um obviously this is not the most perfect storyline ever because i just made it up out of nowhere but i hope that it shows what the different beats look like and also shows that once you're familiar with the beats it's really really easy to pull together a plot line the best way to learn what the beats look like and kind of how to identify them is to try and identify them in movies they're easier to spot in movies because in a novel there's way more than 15 beats usually movies have way less scenes way fewer things that happen there's not going to be as much extra content kind of disguising the beat so if you want to learn this movies are the place to look especially because movies do tend to be based on save the cat novels can be based on save the cat but it's not like an industry standard for novels to all follow save the cat it's much more common in screens i will leave some more resources on plot structures in the description we've got a bunch of videos on various plot structures that you can check out um it's a pretty fun topic and it is nice studying different ones to see how maybe you can blend them and try to find the one that most resonates with you personally i think this is one that does make a lot of sense to me it doesn't work for every plot there's really no paw structure that does work for every single plot but it is one that to me makes a good amount of sense so i like to reference it so that is all for this video i hope that this was useful um if you want to use this structure in your own work i definitely recommend it it's one of my favorites and it's pretty easy to use and apply thank you so much for watching remember to subscribe and turn on notifications so you don't miss any new videos from us we've got new writing editing and publishing tips every tuesday and friday until next time bye you