Home > Work > Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
1 " We call that real problem the SHARD OF GLASS. It's a psychological wound that has been festering beneath the surface of your hero for a long time. The skin has grown over it, leaving behind an unsightly scar that causes your hero to act in the way they act and make the mistakes that they do (flaws!). You, as the author and creator of this world, have to decide how this shard of glass got there. Why is your hero so flawed? What happens to them to make them the way they are? "
― Jessica Brody , Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
2 " Plot, structure, and character transformation. Or what I like to call the “Holy Trinity of Story.” All together, these three elements are pure storytelling pixie dust. The three essential building blocks of every great story ever told. "
3 " In all of these Midpoint examples, you might have noticed a subtle shift from wants to needs. This is no coincidence. The third essential Midpoint element is the intersection of the A and B stories, when your hero starts to let go of what they want in lieu of figuring out what they need. "
4 " Imagine if Harry Potter had started out a confident, powerful wizard. Imagine if the Dursleys had been nice adoptive parents who took Harry under their wing and nourished his magical soul. What a dull first book that would have been! "
5 " If the Break Into 2 was the hero figuring out how to fix things the wrong way, then the Break Into 3 is when the hero finally figures out how to fix things the right way. "
6 " And don’t we writers just love to manipulate? "
7 " THE SAVE THE CAT! LOGLINE TEMPLATE On the verge of a stasis = death moment, a flawed hero Breaks Into 2; but when the Midpoint happens, they must learn the Theme Stated before the All Is Lost. "
8 " Herd mentality can defy all logic and reason. "
9 " at the start of the novel, your hero is resistant to change. They hear the theme stated and they go, “What the heck does he know? He doesn’t know me. "
10 " If you’re writing a story with multiple main characters and/or multiple points of view and you’re still having problems figuring out who the hero is, or whose arc is the biggest, try asking yourself, Which of my main characters is most like my reader? "
11 " That’s why I like to call Act 2 fixing things the wrong way. "
12 " They must in some way represent the upside-down Act 2 world. They must in some way help guide the hero toward their life lesson or theme. "
13 " THE SAVE THE CAT! SHORT SYNOPSIS TEMPLATE PARAGRAPH 1: Setup, flawed hero, and Catalyst (2–4 sentences) PARAGRAPH 2: Break Into 2 and/or Fun and Games (2–4 sentences) PARAGRAPH 3: Theme Stated, Midpoint hint and/or All Is Lost hint, ending in a cliffhanger (1 to 3 sentences) "
14 " Whatever life lesson your hero has to learn, whatever epic transformation your hero has to make, it should be subtly mentioned within the first 10 percent of your story. You don’t want to shout it from the rooftops or spend five pages delving into it. You just want to delicately plant the seed in the reader’s brain. "
15 " And this is what I love about the Theme Stated. The hero often ignores it! "
16 " Act 2 is the opposite of Act 1. If Act 1 is the thesis—the status quo world—then Act 2 is the upside-down version of that. The polar opposite. The inverse. The antithesis. "
17 " There’s something buried deep within our DNA as humans that makes us respond to certain storytelling elements told in a certain order. We’ve been responding to them since our primitive ancestors drew on walls and tribes told stories around campfires. "
18 " We love our "foolish" heroes because they win for the underdog in all of us. And they teach us that believing in yourself is sometimes the only weapopn you need. "
