Story structures helps you map out your myriad ideas into a screenplay. In the year 2005, Blake Snyder famously introduced a 15 point beat sheet in his book book “Save The Cat”. It provides a set of 15 clearly defined elements that every screenplay should have. Additionally it also specifies what page or page range each beat should occupy in a typical 110 page screenplay. The skeleton provided in this book provides a fantastic platform to build screenplays on top of.
You can buy the book from Amazon, a Kindle version is also available.
We absolutely recommend that you read the book. However, if you want a really quick summary of the book and its concepts, you can read the PDF below.
While, we are here, may we also recommend that you read this excellent article from Erik Bork about Save The Cat Beat Sheet? In this article Erik not only explains Save The Cat Beat Sheet, but also breaks down the film Legally Blonde.
Starting with version 0.5.9, Scrite lets you download a ready made template based on this book. It consists of 40 empty scenes, neatly segregated into the 15 beats that make up the “Save The Cat” structure.
Just launch Scriptalay
Double click on “Save The Cat” template to download and open it on your computer. When you switch to Structure tab, you can see 40 scenes neatly placed and grouped into “Save The Cat” structure beats.
All you have to do is map your story on to this structure.
Enjoy writing your screenplay!