Oh no! The cat is in trouble and it’s up to YOU to save her! If you’re a fiction author like I am, then you know that it’s your job to put your protagonist into perilous situations and then help them find a way out of that mess. One tool you can use to make your novel look like an actual story is to use story beats. One of the best methods to get those beats down is to use the Save the Cat model. I was invited to review the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, as well as the online course, as part of their latest Save the Cat! Blog Tour.
I’ve reviewed the book Save the Cat! Writes a Novel previously, but today I’m going to talk about the Save the Cat! online class and the Save the Cat! beat and scene cards.
I had written nine novels (or novellas) before I had ever heard of story beats. I wrote the first two books in high school (don’t remember the full details of those stories), but I think I got lucky with the next seven stories I wrote. If you’ve read books or watched movies before, you’re probably familiar with story structure, even if you’ve never used it before. Story structure probably was used even as far back as cavemen around the campfire. If you want your story to shine, then using the Save the Cat! beats as a guideline will probably make your books stand out.
When I started my tenth (still unfinished) novel, I ran into some problems. I knew where I wanted my story to go, yet it kind of ran off the rails. This is probably why this story is… still unfinished. I love the main characters, but not having clearly defined story beats when I started the story caused the middle to turn into an unfocused mess.
If you want to enhance your storytelling skills, Save the Cat! might be able to help. Some of the tools you might be interested in are Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Save the Cat! beat and scene cards, and the Save the Cat! online course. I’m reviewing the last two today.
Save the Cat! Beat and Scene Cards
The Save the Cat! Beat and Scene cards are adorable! These can help you focus on what you want to write about in each beat. They’re big enough to make plans, but not so big that you’re going to outline EVERYTHING.
I probably should add more to the beat card above, because I know what the final image is going to look like, and I want it to mirror, in many ways, the final image. With my unfinished 10th novel, which I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2019, I could definitely put some more thought into what I want the opening image to look like, as well as the final image. I’m already using these cards to plan my NaNoWriMo novel for this November, so hopefully it won’t run off the rails.
You probably have heard before that every scene should move the story along. The Save the Cat! Scene cards can help you make sure that each scene should be there, and that there’s some conflict in each scene. They come in different colors. You could use them for different books or different acts.
Sure, you could probably use regular notecards for these, but these cards already have everything you need in here. It’s easy to plan your story with these, because everything is already laid out for you.
Save the Cat! Online Class
The Save the Cat! Online Course outlines a lot of what you’ll find in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, in an easily digestible video course. You can go through the course at your own pace, working on your own story ideas. The class starts out nearly opposite to how many writers create their stories: create a title and logline to your story first. A lot of times, writers will write the story, then try to figure out the title and logline. And then when they try to write the synopsis when they get around to querying, they have difficulty. Using Save the Cat! will help you write a story that works, rather than one you have difficulty querying when it’s done.
The Save the Cat! class works in conjunction with the book. If you have the book, great! The chapters you’re assigned as homework will reinforce what you’re learning when you watch the video. If you don’t have the book, you won’t be able to do that part of the homework, but don’t worry. You’ll still be able to put together all your story beats.
The online class is designed with screenplay writing, not novel writing, in mind, but the same story beats that work well in movies work well with novels too.
Does Save the Cat! Work for Pantsers?
A lot of people like to sit down at their keyboard with a blank screen and just write whatever comes to them. These are commonly known as “Pantsers.” Can you use Save the Cat! if you’re one of these people?
Yes! Well… probably. We all have different writing methods, but Save the Cat! can probably work for you. There are a couple ways this course can work for you: 1) If you’re a pantser and know about story beats, you will have a “milestone” that your characters can work towards, or 2) You may want to use these beats to help edit a book–especially if the story’s all over the place.
Whether you’re looking to fix a story that’s gone off the rails (like my still-untitled NaNo19 novel), trying to improve an already good story, or trying to create a story from the ground up, Save the Cat! can probably save you a lot of pain and suffering. It’s worth checking out.
The full Save the Cat! Blog Tour information is below:
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