Structures of a Story: Beat by beat

Up to now, this series has been focused on ways we can conceptualise story structure using shapes: simple peaks, wigglier lines, and circles. This week, we're taking a slight shift to look at beat sheets, a tool you can use in conjunction with the structures we've looked at or on its own from a template.

For those of us who want a more detailed structure for our stories, there is the option of using a beat sheet. This is a technique drawn from screenwriting in which key moments from the plot are set out in sequence and linked together. We have come across beats in previous story structures; they include necessities such as the inciting incident and climax, but can also be much more specific than that.

You could create a beat sheet using one of the previous structures we've discussed, with any number of important points listed in it, but it's likely that you'll want to fill it out a bit further than the most important five or seven events; the benefit of a beat sheet is being able to connect those dots. The Hero's Journey is complex enough to work as a beat sheet in and of itself, but the most popular template in this style is the Save the Cat beat sheet, which combines individual moments with more general plot shifts. Using a template like this is a good starting point, but another benefit of a beat sheet is that it's easy to customise for your particular project. A custom beat sheet can be especially useful for works where you're mostly following a standard formula, such as romance novels or an episodic series, because it's an easy way to make sure you hit the right beats consistently across different works.

Save the Cat Beat Sheet

The Save the Cat sequence of beats comes to us from screenwriter Blake Snyder; initially designed for screenplays, it has also become a favourite amongst novelists. Like most of the other structures we've looked at, Save The Cat falls naturally into a three-act division. It also rather handily includes suggested percentages indicating roughly where in the story each element could sit, which makes it a useful tool for writers who (like me) have difficulty intuitively timing plots.

According to the Save the Cat model, the first tenth of the narrative is dedicated to the set-up. This section begins with a meaningful opening image, and the theme of the story is communicated about halfway through. At the 10% point, a catalyst occurs to incite the plot. The next tenth of the narrative shifts into debate, where the characters must decide how to respond to the catalyst; the decision that comes out of this debate marks the shift into the second act.

Act two, starting about a fifth of the way into the story, starts with a big chunk of "fun and games", which is another name for the bulk of the rising action. A secondary plot line kicks off early on in this section to add complexity. At the halfway point, the fun and games are interrupted by a major shift in the plot or tone of the narrative (the midpoint!), and the antagonistic forces facing the characters start to close in. This shift covers roughly the third quarter of the story, with things becoming bleaker and bleaker for the characters. Around the 75% mark, all is considered lost and the characters spend the next 5% of the story suffering the dark night of the soul before act three.

The transition into the third act, sitting at around 80% through the narrative, is marked by by a more positive change that prepares the characters for the upcoming climax. The remainder of the story is about that ultimate conflict and its consequences, with a final image showing how the characters and their lives have changed, come full circle, or otherwise come to a resolution.

This structure looks very prescriptive, and a common criticism is that if you follow it precisely you could fall into the trap of being formulaic. Its most effective use is as a loose guideline, which you can tinker with or diverge from as needed. If the specificity of where to place each section or beat is likely to be a distraction for you, for example, it's easy to ignore the percentages and just take the beats as they come. You might also decide to change which moments to highlight as beats depending on what is important for your genre; customisability is a necessity.