Continuing on from where we’ve been working all month, the First phase of the book planning process is the Logline, and then Save The Cat.
Save The Cat is the barest bones approach to having a plot. You feel like you’ve done something by writing it, but it’s not enough for me to completely plot my story. Even writing screenplays Save The Cat is only enough to have a bare bones grasp of what your story is. It is enough to pitch your screenplay – it’s not enough to write your novel or screenplay.
So I improvised a 21 point sheet. It’s good – only requires adding six points to the Save The Cat. It’s (again) enough to give you a stronger feel for where your story is going – but not enough to write your story from. That’s our last step.
The 21 point sheet.
- Opening image
- Setup – the current perfect world of your protagonist
- Theme stated – something said to your protagonist that forms the theme of your novel
- Inciting incident – the one incident that drives EVERYTHING in the novel after it
- New item
- Debate – this can be internal, or by two persons about the protagonist – should he do it? Can he do it? Can he risk it? Etc.
- New item
- Break into 2 – this is usually the action that occurs at the beginning of act II.
- B story – usually a relationship, or something else that runs concurrent to the rest of the novel.
- Fun and games – Blake describes this as “This is the part you came here to see”. A pursuit, the training montage, etc.
- The midpoint – the action that occurs dead set in the middle of the novel. Notice all the turns are ACTIONS.
- Bad guys close in – from this point until the end, things begin to go wrong for your protagonist.
- All is lost – your protagonist can’t win!
- Dark night of the soul – this is the scene in “Elf” where Buddy stands on the bridge, thinking of killing himself. He is saved by Break Into Three, when he sees Santa’s sleigh malfunction.
- Break into three – the Action that kicks off act 3 and all its madness. In “Lord of the rings”, this is the drums in Moria that herald the battle!
- New Item
- New Item
- New Item
- Finale – the climax of your novel. Your protagonist must be losing until the last four pages of the novel. Then it’s “Leroy! You all warmed up yet?”, followed by “who’s the Master?” “I am.” If you know what movie I’m talking about, this moment should encapsulate the feelings you had the first time you saw the movie!
- New Item
- Closing image – this scene is the very last scene in your novel – it either echoes or mirrors the first scene. If first was a sunrise, this is a sunset. If someone arriving, it’s someone leaving. It can be the same object or place, shown in perspective of the change wrought by the novel. It’s artsy – you’ll love it.
The Explanation
You’ll notice that most of the new items you’re adding are all in Act III. This is just how it ends up, because I’m trying to place Act 2, midpoint and Act 3 where they need to be. It means roughly one new item per act, and the majority of them in act 3.
There will be a lot more added items on the 20th as we enter the last phase of our story planning. Why don’t I go right from “save The Cat” to the 60 point sheet? The answer is, we’re already adding 39 new plot points between 21 and 60 points – more than doubling our work.
If we move from the Save the Cat to the 60 point sheet, that means 45 additional points – and that’s a lot of white space between points. It can mean the difference between getting your sheet filled out and choking over too large a task.
What Do I put there?
You’ve already got the structure in place from Save The Cat. You’re already utilizing a 3 act structure. If you just add tension by increasing the difficulty in scenes you add, you’re building a successful novel.
To increase tension, it’s simply a matter of rising action. You can’t have “18. Knife fight” and “19. Golden Corral dinner” unless it’s a comedy. If you have “knife fight” and “Joey runs”, you’re building tension. Tension is now rising. Joey survives the knife fight and is running from everyone – fear mounts as he’s avoiding capture and stretching out the fear of death. Even if you continue the tension from 17 or 18 and add only to it a small amount, then you’ve got rising tension, and it works.
Example – Braveheart. King William I lures Wallace to a trap while sending his armies to Scotland. Wallace learns of it and races ahead to Scotland.
- Longshanks lures wallace to meeting
- Wallace finds about invasion
17 Wallace rides to Scotland to head off the armies
18 The Nobles refuse to heed Wallace
That’s rising action. 18 is a weak plot point, but extends the rising tension caused by 16 and 17.
What next?
Right or wrong, just put something there. As you write out the 60 point sheet, it’ll be blindingly obvious what goes next. How will it be obvious? If you’re looking at it and can easily add points, you did your job well. If you look at it and think – “No clue”, then the point before it doesn’t work.
Writing “bottom of the ocean” was like that. The points worked, but my 60 point sheet turned into a 35 point sheet by the time I was 60% done. Too many of the points were easily combined in one scene, leaving me with half a story. I had to re-plan it, and add about 15 plot points before I could finish.
Conclusion
Not too difficult. Just add 5 or 6 plot points, and your story is taking shape – and much more balanced. On the 20th we add 39 minor plot points to build your story, and ALL your planning will be done!
