It’s been more than a year since we studied plot arcs and even then we didn’t grab the recordings and add them to our podcast service. So we’re reviving those conversations for a few weeks to get some good episodes for the podcast.
Missed a week of Write On SC? Nostalgic for those oldy-but-goody topics? Check out our podcast library on Apple, Google, and Amazon.
ProWritingAid’s take on this story arc conversation can be found here. But here are some notable highlights:
- Stasis. This is the current situation you find your main character in.
- Trigger. This is an inciting event that changes the course for your main character.
- Quest. The trigger results in a quest for your main character to achieve a goal.
- Surprise. These are complications that prevent your main character from achieving his goal.
- Critical Choice. This is when your main character chooses what path to take and confronts the obstacles.
- Climax. The critical choice results in the climax, the peak of tension in your story.
- Reversal. Your character is changed in some way.
- Resolution. The story ends with a satisfactory closure.
These are high-level plot points. The Save the Cat beat sheet is more detailed:
(15-beat structure of Save the Cat!)
- Opening image – catapult your audience into the story
- Theme stated – what is this story about?
- Set-up – includes the “old” world or the regular world, how things are before the disruption; establish place, characters, and hint at conflict
- Catalyst or inciting incident – disrupt the status quo, but protagonist isn’t in it quite yet
- Debate – will they or won’t they? What’s at stake? Should the protagonist get in this fight?
- Break into two – the clear choice between the protagonist’s options and the choice gets made
- B story – whatever subplot you have planned should commence here
- Fun and games – protagonist learns new tricks, advances in new skills, starts to figure stuff out
- Midpoint – this may be a realization, may be a complication, may be the end of the escape hatch
- Bad guys close in – something has happened that brings the danger closer
- All is lost – the inevitable moment where the protagonist realizes this is just too hard (impossible!)
- Dark night of the soul – protagonist has actually lost hope
- Break into three – character claws around looking for options and trying to salvage the mission, possibly having to overcome some deep fear or damning belief
- Finale – character synthesizes what they’ve learned and applies the solution to the problem
- Final image – leave the reader/audience seeing/feeling the theme of the story
Read more on the blog