Save the Cat Story Structure: Beat Sheets, Novels, and Screenplays

Join Drake and Marie as they discuss how to use save the cat
 
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Transcript

A story like Lord of the Rings does not fit that well into it. And Lord of the Rings, as a both as a movie trilogy and as the book trilogy works as well as it does because of its sprawling epic nature.

Right.

And that's why Save the Cat should be applied with care and not as a blanket.

Releasing your inner dragon.

Alright Marie. So everyone's heard the term Save the cat. It's actually a plot device. And two different books. One written by Blake Snyder for

Screenplay and one Written by what's her name? Julie. Something or other. Save the Cat writes a novel

for the novel side.

It's also actually a third one where you send me money to keep my cat fed.

If we're going to that, we could just send me money or I will snap the neck of a cat every single day until the ransom is paid. I mean, there's only two in the house, so it's only going to be a two day long threat.

But and that is the difference between a villain and a hero.

Yes, but that's a different episode. Yeah.

So Save the Cat consists of a very structured storytelling mechanic that started in the movie industry. But as you said, Blake Snyder's like that. Blake Snyder's book, Why is it called Save the Cat?

Well, that is a plot device term where and it's from the movie industry, I'm pretty sure. But it's where you're afraid that the character is not likable. So, like in As Good As It Gets, we meet Jack Nicholson's character and he is a racist, homophobic, misogynistic jerk that literally takes a cute little puppy and throws it in a garbage chute to fall for four floors to somehow not die.

That's not a character. I'm probably going to be like, let's follow this guy. He's really great. And so saving the cat is a term where you do something like save a cat from a tree. That's that's what it you know, the the thing is, there's a cat hanging in a tree over his imminent death and your character comes up and rescues the cat, and then everybody goes, aw, he's not as bad as I thought.

So that's kind of where the term comes from. But I don't really know why Blake named his book that. Do you have?

I'm not actually sure why he named the book that.

I'm sure he says it in the beginning of it. It's just been too long since I've read it.

Yeah.

Me too.

It's been a while. But the concept is basically that you save a cat or, you know, some other helpless animal. I mean, this. This face behind you. You would like me if I save this face, I'm petting my cat. For those of you not watching on YouTube.

what is the what do you think are the primary differences between saving the cat on screen and saving the cat in a novel?

Well, from this structure point, there really isn't any. When you read both, you know, and so like a lot of people are like, well, if I read the screenplay, when do I really need to read the novel? One? I mean, not really. They're the same. 15 points are the same everything. The only difference that they do and Save the Cat writes a novel is that she expands.

She you know, Blake was very bereft. And it is Lindsay, right?

Well, I think see, I think that in that expansion is actually where she puts her finger on the actual difference. Right. Because in and of itself, a novel has more space than a than a than a script. Okay. So the Save the Cat beat fits very well into a script. And we'll will talk a little bit later about places where Save the Cat really shines as a story structure.

But it is very good for fitting into a given timeline because it is very much like this one against the other. But in a novel you've got more internal, you've got more space for internalization, obviously, because you can have the inner monologue, you can have the narrative voice, can have more length and so on, and your pacing is different from a movie.

So you can do your beats in a slightly different way because you have more you can sprawl a little more than a movie would allow you to do. So that for me is the main difference between Save the Cat in a book and Save the Cat in a movie.

Yeah. And Jessica Brody, I don't know where I got Lindsay from, so I just want to correct myself and edit that. So Jessica Brody is the one who wrote Save the Cat writes a novel. She did it off of Blake Snyders Save the Cat book. She was actually, if I remember correctly, she was a student of his act, you know, So she had a personal connection with him, which is why after he passed, I want to say if I'm getting it right, I could be wrong.

You could correct me in the in the comments. But I think after Blake passed, she asked for permission to write an expanded version of it for novelists because she's like, she's got I'm pretty sure she has over 20 novels written and all of that. Whereas Blake was a movie script writer. So I think that's the history of it.

Again, it's been a minute since I've well, I should say I've had cancer since I've read both of his books, so it's been a little while, but, but yeah, so I'm sure somewhere in there and I've got both of them right over there. I was actually thinking about pausing the video and get them going and getting them, but that's, I'm pretty sure somewhere in the in the beginning of it, Blake explained.

Kind of like why he named it Save the Cat, but really what they are and they both go off of 15 points and they're just they're 15 points that are structurally sound that you're going to find in a lot of stories. But I want to talk about whereas two things. One, we want to talk about like what They're really good for.

But before then, I don't want to talk about a cautionary tale.

Maybe we should just list the 15 points.

Where I'm saying before we even get into that. Okay, I kind of want to talk about a cautionary tale, and then I think it would dovetail well into what you want to talk about as far as like what Save the Cat really shines in and then we'll get into the 15 points and break them down. So there's a danger in stuff like this, in my opinion, that I see.

I mean, I've worked with writers every single week, obviously in the writer's room, or I just finished my tour at Comic-Con or Jane, where I was teaching classes. There is a class of people that look for shortcuts, you know, say, look for, if I just had a system, if I just had a step by step system, then I could easily write a novel and easily become a New York Times bestseller, an easily get my name as a household name and easily make millions of dollars and easily, you know, live the life of luxury.

And most of the time those people fail more times than not, because there is no step by step system. There is no easy way. There is no and the stories don't work that way. And and here's the thing that I want to say. If you do that, if you're like, I'm looking for the easy step, so I'm going to take shortcuts by using this step or using that step or whatever, using this formula, then your story is going to show that you took shortcuts.

The reader is going to feel that you took those shortcuts and they're not going to be impacted at the level that they should be. So, you know, and many have said this all the time on this on this podcast about different things. All of these things are resources. They are great tools. I mean, Save the Cat writes a novel, not our sorry, Save the Cat not to save the Cats, writes a novel, but just save the Cat itself is one of only two books that I recommend outside of the books that I've written, because it really did impact me.

It was one of the first books on structure that I read 25 years ago, or whatever. It was maybe even longer than that. It had a profound impact on how I think about stories. I still use it to this day, although I don't use the 15 steps I use. And for those who listen to podcasts, you've definitely heard me go through like the five or six points that you need.

And then I you pretty much can fill in the blanks from there. And so I do think it's a brilliant reference, but if you don't use this stuff as so storytelling is about this. It's about learning stuff and then incorporating them into a larger cloud of information that you can draw from as you need them when you need them.

There is no snaps. It's it's filling your head with all of these steps from all of these different structure that are like, I've got this method, I've got that method, you know, my method, your method, and then creating your own method on the fly individually for each story because that's the other thing is I might use certain aspects to save the cap for, for writing one story and then not those same aspect for a different story because it just doesn't work, it doesn't fit.

Everything is so unique to each story that you just the reason why you want to study this stuff is so that you have this massive toolbox and so that as you're building a story, you can go, the tool, you know, step three tool from Save the Cat would really help me here. But step 17 from the 25 basic plot points is going to really help me here and and like you can just grab all these tools and you can use them to build your story, but then the next story you're going to use different.

It's going to be in a different order. You can use different tools from different spots. And so I just want to start off by saying that because we are going to go into depth about Save the Cat, there's some serious weak points to it in my opinion.

yeah, I mean, I just kind of want to start there.

Yeah. And I think that leads well to what your point is, which is save the cat if you're going to use it. Exactly. It really is designed for a very specific purpose.

So so the places where I think Save the Cat works really well. So firstly, obviously it works really well for screenplays. Yeah. The reason why it works really well for screenplays is because it doesn't let you deviate too far into like too far off plot. Yeah, and screenplays are limited. They they have to fit into 2 hours of movie time.

Right? Any minute means that for.

You know, which means that your word count is severely limited.

About 20,000 words or less.

Yeah. Taking that to a novel, like if you're writing a novella, if you're writing a short story, if you're limited in some way in your word count, you want that set in to 60,000 words. You know, you're writing a a pulp detective novel that you're going to submit to a pulp detective house, and you need to have 60,000 words because that is what they publish.

Then Save the Cat is 100% your friend because it will help you to put together a tight storyline.

The other thing that it will really help you with is if you are new to plotting, Save the Cat is a much easier structure than Hero's Journey. Hero's Journey has got a lot of complications, a lot of trickiness. When you're right, you're starting out and you're not sure like what you can, what you have to put in and what you can leave out.

Save the cat is a hell of a lot easier to implement. So if you're a new writer out there and you're trying to find some kind of structure to hang your story on, I would say start with Save the Cat before you try a hero's journey. I think it's it's a hell a lot simpler.

And I think that is the reason why it impacted me so much, because, again, one of I don't think it was the first book on structure I ever read, but it was definitely one of the first handful that I read because it was the first one that actually I went, well, look at that. That kind of makes sense.

It's because Hero's Journey is very highfalutin and academic.

Yeah, I actually think I started with Heroes with a thousand theses. I think that was my first and it's just like.

It's where Joseph Campbell was a professor, right? And it shows, you know.

Like.

Look, I got nothing against the faces but professors of literary anything have I've got some highfalutin ideas

it's it's like we say in software coding we talk about the architects that live in ivory towers and design these perfect mythical systems. And then you reach the point where you're writing code and you're like, Yeah, yeah, whatever buddy. You and your structure.

Well, I mean, is that, is that the the hammer on the nail? Because he was a storyteller and Blade Snyder was the most moneymaking script writer of the nineties.

Exactly. So Save the cat is very practical right. So and it is a lot easier to understand. And once you understand save the Cat, it is a lot easier to then understand Hero's Journey because now you're not you're not struggling with understanding the basics. It's like learning to drive a car. I learned to drive a stick shift scar.

Sorry, because I understand that most Americans don't drive stick. But when you're driving a stick shift car, the first time you get behind the wheel, you're panicking because it's you have to remember to change the gear, put the clutch in, change your petrol, put your hand on up like it's crazy. Okay. But once you master one thing about it, then the next thing becomes easier and it all becomes It's the same way with Save the Cat and Hero's Journey.

Once you understand, Save the Cat Hero's journey becomes easier to understand and easier to understand what to color. So absolutely for beginners I would advise save the cat.

Yeah.

And the last place where I think Save the cat really shines is if you have a massive, sprawling plot and you need to tighten it, save the cat can help you identify what is actually important for your storyline, what is B role and where you've put in C role.

Break.

And help you trim out that C role. That really is not important.

So and if your characters are walking through an entire chapter and that's all they're doing, yeah, someone probably can get cut.

Gone.

Gone.

I, Blake Snyder's would have cut the crap out of Tolkien's books.

Yeah, Blake Snyder had written the screenplay for Lord of the Rings as opposed to Peter Jackson. Jackson It would have been a different movie. It would have been more like throw, throw the ring of power from the train or, you know, or no, stop, or My God, my Gollum Will shoot is one of the things you wrote was Stop or my momma will shoot.

And and I mean that actually highlights a weak point in Save the Cat because it is so direct. It's a train ride.

A story like Lord of the Rings does not fit that well into it. And Lord of the Rings, as a both as a movie trilogy and as the book trilogy works as well as it does because of its sprawling epic nature.

Right.

And that's why Save the Cat should be applied with care and not as a blanket.

And that's probably the biggest reason why I personally have never found a shortcut from anything because I, you know, just like you, am an epic fantasy writer. So once you throw the word epic onto that, like a nice tight middle, we're going to start here and move there. And then in there it's a lot more difficult to think about.

Like one of the the dumbest things about the last two weeks is, you know, I've got the first book of this epic fantasy trilogy, and I'm listening to the authors around me, and they're like, my stories about a fairy who finds the magic dust and realizes that the magic dust she can use to bring back her dead sibling.

And then she goes to see the dragon and resurrect her sibling. And that's the end of the story. And I'm looking at like 1.5 million words, and eight P.O.V. characters are over seven continents. And I'm like, So my stories about pull up a chair, no seriously, pull up a chair is going to take a minute to give you the synopsis of this story.

Like, it's just so much difficult and I still have yet to come up with an elevator pitch for Genesis.

I found Save the Cat very useful when I was plotting out my urban fantasy because it is a fast paced detective novel, right? Right. It it is golden. It like Save the Cat works Fantastic. If you're looking to write Urban fantasy detective noir detective, it fits it like a glove.

So yeah. Now saying all that doesn't mean because again, I use save the Cat for everything I write. I just don't use it as prescribed.

Yeah. Don't. Don't does be blunt. Everything is a tool.

Yeah, well, and in my case, Save the Cat has brings 15 new tools to my toolbox. 15 different size wrenches that are unique from any other wrenches that I have in my toolbox. And so when I run into a scene, you know, we're using the wrench analogy. We'll call a scene a nut. I can look at my toolbox and go, look, you know, wrench number three from Save the Cat is going to work really well to fit this nut so they can tighten it down.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess we should really talk about those beats.

Yes.

And what they are.

And I actually go through and kind of give our definition of each one. So if you want to read through them and then we'll just talk about them for you.

There aren't like, I don't think we need to cover them all in detail. There's just a couple that really need explaining. Okay, so the 15 beats are opening image themes stated Set up Catalyst debate, break in to b story fun and games Midpoint Bad guys closing All is Lost. Dark Night of the Soul break into three final finale final image and that is that is obviously the script right.

And that starts with my first big problem with most structures. Yeah. Try to be too damn clever with the name. Yes. Instead of just doing like opening image, but it's so.

So the opening image is basically the, the like the setup of the story, the kind of like introduction of the story sort of. It's sort.

Of three is. Yeah. Yeah. Step three is setup. Yeah. And I think that was another mistake of Save the Cat because it's not actually step three. Step one is step two are a part of step three. So really step three is more of an encapsulation that includes the opening image and includes the statement of the theme as opposed to we're going to open image, we're going to state the theme, and then we're going to set up the story.

No, you're not like that wouldn't work. There's no way to do that. So it's a dumb way to kind of kind of break that out.

So if we think of like The Avengers from 2012, the opening image would be the introduction of Loki and his threat to Earth.

That's basically it's the it's the opening. Look, there is this thing. It's like the hook. Yeah, it's the hook for your story. It's the opening image.

with a short, you know, a short story novella or a movie, especially a movie, you want that engaging thing. So the funny thing is, is that I've been against that methodology since day one of my career. I've told the story about Patrick Liberto and not wanting me to write the novel the way I did it.

Yes, but yeah, I was going to say, but I just had my first story for Horn World Drop and I sent it out to some close friends, you know, fans or whatever you want to call them. And one of them texted me as soon as he had finished reading it and he was like, Man, I just finished, you know, Carnage of Cars.

It was really, really good. If I had one critique, I would say it just starts off a little bit slow. And so I was answering him of why it was important to start it that way. So I'm typing away on my little phone, my thumbs, because I don't thumb typed very quickly. And then I got a second text from him that said, But now that I'm thinking about it, if you hadn't have done that, I don't think I would have liked the story because then I wouldn't have given a crap when when the action went into overdrive and literally almost everybody dies.

And I just then deleted the text that I was writing because I was like, Yeah, that's what the story needs. It needed a slower start.

So I agree with you and I don't and I'll tell you what. Yeah, it depends. It depends on where you are in the story. Like The Avengers. We didn't need any, any everyman moment.

100%.

Right.

We had 17 of a 20 novel.

It was, it was, I think it was four or whatever, like four or five or whatever. We'd had plenty introduction to the characters. We knew that it could absolutely start off in the middle. There was no problem with that. All that setup had been done. Yes, that that's the first. And the second thing is I think it's somewhat depends on your genre.

Like if I think of my urban fantasy, I spend maybe two paragraphs on get to know the protagonist, and then I start dumping the the problems onto her. But because that's the nature of the genre. and you have time to get to know her as she's dealing with all this crap right in the process of dealing with the crap.

Right? So, So it depends on how much time you need to spend on that. Every man. No. The thing is, again, in Epic fantasy, we were in a fully secondary world. You're not just setting up the everyman character, you're also introducing a fully secondary world. And there the that that is, which is why Save the Cat falls a little flat there because you need more time, right?

You need more time to introduce the world and everything around.

Right. Well, I think there's one other thing to add to that. The difference between movie scripts and novels. Yes. The reason why novels will always be better than the movie is because in the novel you are inside the characters head. You get to know their feelings, their thoughts, their motivations, their you know, everything about them. And in a movie you are not in their head.

You can't be in their head because that's not how the medium works. And so an opening image of, you know, a Loki meeting with, you know, whatever I think was Thanos, it's been a while, but whatever it was that he's meeting going, you know, ha ha ha ha, we're going to do this thing and destroy all of Earth that works really well, because then we get this big conflict, this big thing that's going to happen because we only have the visual medium in a movie.

Whereas in a novel, readers want a connection to the narrating character. And so when you do something like that, you open a novel, the way you open a movie, they're like, I'm not connected anything here. Why did I? And then that's why so many people, you know, we talk about the fact that

at least I say the fact of people say, you know, how do I know if I write a Prolog, correct or not?

And I always say, is it is the first chapter of your book titled Prolog. Then you feel failed. It's pretty simple.

I think I disagree with that point.

But you know, I.

Have had that discussion.

But that's the reason is because and there's a reason why whatever the percentage is, 30, 40% of the people was just skip a Prolog and not even read it because they know there's nothing in it that's going to connect them to the story. So they're wasting their time. They're going to forget it anyway because there's nothing in it that makes you want to remember it.

And so by the time you get in, you know, you get this loki meeting with the big bad and all this evil, and then you meet Biff, the farm boy, and he's shearing some sheep and he's got a sister. And like, it's such a huge shift that in a novel you've completely forgotten that. Whereas in a movie, we're all going be here for 90 minutes.

So if you forget that that quickly, you know, you got problems.

I think themes like that set up catalyst and so on is fine. But then we come to one of the weird ones which is break it into two. So break it into two is where the story basically transitions from Act One to Act two. It's a major shift in the protagonist's journey. Basically, it is what Campbell says, like crossing the three.

Person threshold and I hate the terms break into two and break into three because when I first read those, I'm thinking, wait, is the character shifting to a second? Is there too? No, no. It literally just means moving in Act two. That's a that's a very strong way of saying you're moving into Act two and you're moving into Act three, like break into three. What? Though I hate those titles.

Those are probably my least favorite of these 15 titles because they're I think they're confusing and misleading now.

So the B story is the secondary plotline that often intersects with a complementary plotline of the main storyline. You know, it may focus on a relationship, a personal journey or something like that. Yeah, I can't remember what the B storyline in The Adventures was, but but there's often a kind of B storyline that intersects.

And may have been a couple because I think there was the friendship between Hawkeye and Romanoff. Yes, I think there was the redemption arc of Romanoff. I think there was I think it was a couple B stories.

Yeah, yeah. But then ultimately intersect right then fun and games or the promise of the premise that he really did go wild with these titles. Like it's basically the beat where the central concept of the story is explore and the protagonists are actively engaged in the adventure and they, they, the it kind of showcases to the audience, the unique and iconic abilities of the protagonists and sort of it's, you know, it's your it's your explosion scenes and your fun scenes and your saw and, you know, the Hulk get into it and hit each other around and, you know, all that kind of.

This is my problem with this is my biggest problem was save the cat. The way he describes the first part of back to the middle to climax and the second part of Act two. He is so vague on both of them that I think just a novice writer is going to hit here. And I think it's one of the reasons why so many people who use Save the cat method have sagging medals because there's no details.

It's it's it's this section is called fun and games. Let your characters have fun. Like what does that mean? Like so and it's actually the problem that I have with the three act play. I teach the three act play different than I've seen anybody else do it because it's not a three act play, it's a four act play.

We can't call it a four act play because there's actually a four act play that has different structure. But the three act play is also a four act play. And the easiest way for me to teach it and think about it is Act one is your setup is just like everybody has it. The first part of Act two is your, you know, victim phase, whatever you want to say.

The the the.

Being I call it the plot drags the character.

Right? Exactly. It's where the character can't be in control of anything. It everything has changed so fast in their lives that they are literally at the mercy of the story. The mid act to climax is the information that they gain. The thing that they gain, the ability to gain that allows them to start taking control. So that's what your mid act two climax is.

And then your second part of Act two, which to me should be Act three is the character strikes back. The character is now going, I now know what the plot is about. I now have some tools to deal with this and I'm going to now be proactive. And so that's what that is. And then Act three really, in my opinion, is Act four, which is the climax.

So I think teaching the three ACT players three acts is wrong. I think it's four acts because the first part of Act two has nothing to do with the second part of Act two, they are literally opposite of each other. One is reactive and the other is proactive.

So I, I agree with you in general, especially if you read your attorney. I do just want to push back slightly because I actually reverse those two in the Hidden Blade, because Louis is a very active protagonist from the start. Right. So throughout his up to these mid act to climax, he is 100% in control of everything and he is plotting all the way.

It is him driving the action at the murder to climax. He starts undergoing a transformation that makes him less in control as he starts fighting himself right.

And so all you did was swap the two. Yeah, but that's the thing. And that's why we said this is the beginning of this. These are all tools. They're not they're not defined factual things. So in the Hidden Blade, you went, Wow, Wouldn't it be interesting if the character was in full control in the beginning and then loses control at the end and has to scramble?

You know, how do you now do a climax? When we went from being in control to not being in control, But he still has to overcome the story. And in the third act, or, you know, if you follow my philosophy, the fourth act. Yeah so yeah and that's it we creative is the first word of creative writing. So we take all these tools and then we learn that we can be like, wow, we can mix and match and, you know, it's the only compliment I give to Stephen King in the fact that he did the everyman moment, which is has to be an Act one, and he did it in Act three.

Yeah. So like, that's a brilliant, hard, difficult thing to do. But again, it's just a tool. It's not a this must be here. It's just that it's usually going to be there.

But so we spoke about Flanagan's What does bad Guys close in is the beat where the external pressure starts. You start like getting, you know, the bad guys as opposed to being eccentric. You, you come closer and closer and see.

That's yet one more of the titles that I hate because that's yeah, that to me seems reactive. And usually in Act two you know again there's exceptions as we just point out with the hidden blade. But this is when in act two or in the second half of Act two is when the character has gained enough that they can start actually like in the Matrix.

So the middle act two climax is he gets the the oracle and then Morpheus gets captured and so he gets back to the Manesar and from there on out, he's like, No, I'm going back. I need guns. I can do this. I can take on this.

100%. But if but we have a more active bad guy in save the plot. In save the cat.

Right.

Okay. So our bad for example, in The Avengers, you're the bad guys close in for me would be when Loki's forces invade New York.

Right? Well, it's the same thing in The Matrix. Mr. Smith or Agent Smith actually gets something he wanted. He captures it.

But it's a single event, right? The the Loki like this is where your bad guys are closing in on your, you know.

I just think it's misleading because it doesn't take into account the other side of it. Yeah. It only takes into account because you're right and all of those the guy is becoming more prevalent is winning more is actually, you know, becoming more of a pain in the butt for the protagonist. I'm not saying that the bad guy isn't closing in in the second half of Act two.

I'm saying that calling it that is misleading because only half the picture. Yeah.

And then Dark Knight of the Soul followed. The All is Lost moment is the moment where, you know, the protagonist screws up and that's, you know, that's the false overcome from Hero's Journey and so on. And it leads to Dark Night of the Soul, which is the protagonist. Lowest point. They're like, I'm a failure. I failed. This is terrible.

I'm done. You know, And and then that then leads you into Act three, which you start getting a means to overcome this moment of failure and actually.

Reach the victory point.

You know, if you want to cover any of the other beats in detail.

I mean, do we want to try and in 15 or 20 minutes on the fly beat out a story short using make some points?

Yeah.

So we came up with just a random generated arc and I'm not going to go into the whole thing, but I'll read the synopsis and then we'll since we know a little bit more about it, we'll start going through and using the 15 beats to kind of go through it. So it's called the Silent Symphony. The synopsis of the story is going to be in a small coastal town, a mysterious new teacher, Mr. Ansel, arrives to replace the music instructor at a local high school.

He introduces a group of troubled students to an ancient, magical form of magic that has the power to heal and transform. But it also has a darker side. As the students learn and grow, they uncover secrets about Mr. Ansel's past and the true nature of the music. And so we're going to focus on four characters Mr. Ansel the teacher, Lena, a violinist.

Max a drummer, and Sophie a pianist and just kind of go through. Lena is a shy violinist with a troubled home life. She lacks self-confidence. Max is a rebellious teen. He's angry and defiant. And Sofia is in a very overachieving pianist that her big fatal flaw is that she's a perfectionist. She she cannot miss a note. She cannot make a mistake.

She cannot have anything go wrong. She can't deal with it. So if this is the story we're telling, let's kind of go through the 15 points, see if we can do it in 20, 25 minutes. And I want you to say the story for this room and see if we can the story for this. And we're doing this on the fly.

We have no idea. We have all ideas that we talked about and we have no idea where we're going with this. So we just start shooting through it.

Opening image. So I think that our opening image here, given that we need something that kind of hooks the reader into, you know.

Something traditional for this.

Yeah.

So like my idea and I didn't mean to cut you off, but my idea would be a dark room with some dark demon looking creatures, and they're talking about how one of theirs has escaped and they must be found and punished because they're not doing their thing or something like that. I mean, I have no idea. We have that one twist that me and you know about, and so I'm kind of playing off of that.

So so.

I, I like the idea of the of the the conversation of like a council. I think that instead of having like, demons or whatever, we set it in like a forest, like a darker kind of fairy forest idea, right? And you see people coming together into a meeting and they have like, they have like instruments slung over their backs.

But you, you establish that music motif, like, right up early, you know, that kind of like lutes and shit like that, harps and whatever. And then you have one of them, you know, say the circle is not complete and then say something like, We will circle is broken with you. Say like, you know.

The the.

Is missing some you know the the there's something missing. You know there's someone is missing from the circle and you you said you show the gap

Know, one of ours has betrayed us.

Yeah, one of ours has betrayed us or.

You know.

One of ours is gone, has has gone rogue or something like that.

No one of ours has taken his.

Has broken the harmony, has broken the harmony.

Has done the unspeakable and found their humanity.

Yeah. I would just say broken the harmony.

Yeah.

I feel like I feel like I feel like yours would be a little on the nose. It is.

right, so there's your opening image. You get this for a scene with some weird buried demon type creatures, they're all somehow connected to music, and something is missing from them, and they're not happy about it. So there's our opening image. All right, next time.

Next beat this theme stated.

So usually this isn't the main character or whatever. So what I would probably think about is we have our five characters. We'd probably need to pick a protagonist. So is it going to be the shy violinist, the angry drummer, or the perfectionist pianist? And again, in movies we don't actually have P.O.V.s Yeah, we still have a focal kind of character.

I feel like our best character for this might be Lena and Max together

they seem like the two who would end up in trouble or in some kind of detention or something like that,

you know, given, given their, their flaws.

So probably we open it up. They're at band practice or music class or whatever. They're these two Lena and Max are kind of off to the side. Sophie is completely isolated because who could stand being around her when she doesn't tolerate any type of mistakes whatsoever? So you'd have a normal class of kids that seem like, you know, they're well-adjusted, you have to off to the side.

And then one of the randos, one of the Red shirts would say something like, you know, whatever the theme we're playing with in here, which is probably something about.

I thought music was supposed to make people more chill. And it stares significantly at Sophie.

Right, Right. Or no.

And then somebody else can say, not her. She just bit my head off again.

Yeah. So something like that. That's usually what the theme stated is is this that somewhere in the beginning we throw in a line that is going to state, okay, so this is kind of what they're playing with. So we're we're playing with really we're playing with a journey of self-discovery.

Yes. And how, you know, hobbies like music. Well, especially music in this case, can can provide you with a vehicle for exploration of your self and healing and so on. Like, you know, artistic expression can help you find therapeutic healing for you. Yeah.

So I thought music was supposed to be fun. Yeah. You know, you guys make it. No. And actually, it would be all three of them because, you know, Max's over there. Or maybe. Maybe it starts off and he's drumming and he gets frustrated and just beats the crap out of and breaks another drum. Yeah. Lena shies away and doesn't play very good and definitely plays really quiet.

And all of that.

And Sophie snaps like can you do not just get it right.

Right Yeah so yeah something.

One of the normal kids is like jeez chill it's supposed to be fun. The three of you just make it awkward.

Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Yeah. So it's and that that introduces kids, that introduces the scene. Maybe somebody says it's weird that Miss Smith isn't here yet.

And then somebody is like, you know, why haven't you heard? Yeah, She moved to Idaho. Yeah. We're getting a new teacher today to kind of introduce that.

And that'll then lead us to the setup where Mr. Ansel walks in, and he is our

mysterious and charismatic music teacher.

And there's something about him. He does something magical. He does something that makes, you know, because you don't want to make an impression right out of the gate. Yeah.

So. So he could maybe play like he could maybe play like a pipe, you know, like a like a.

You know, the flute actually.

Maybe they don't have a flutist. The thing in this class, and that's what the teacher used to play the flute is sitting up there and they're like,

you know, yeah. Ms.. Smith used to play the flute because he's like, Why is this on my desk? Is said, we don't have a flute. So she always covered that.

He's like, Yeah, I won't be doing that. Yeah, I wish that away as a little bit. Yeah, a bit of a foreshadowing of little.

Foreshadowing of complexity.

Yeah. Flute. Yeah. And then to set up the world is going to set up these characters is going to set up the fact that he's the new teacher. It's going to set up, you know, that they have things to learn.

So yeah.

That's what we're doing. Maybe he can, you know, maybe he can directly take them into like, you know, help Pete be like, help Matt with a new drum, Be like, actually, if you do it like this, the drummer, you know, like immediately kind of establish his credentials as really well connected to music.

Yeah.

All right. Catalyst, The inciting incident that disrupts the normal lives of people sparking the main conflict. So I feel like our three students because. Because he is not going to change perse. he is. He is our unchanging character.

Yeah.

So their lives have to be disrupted.

Yeah.

They're currently in music practice. So what if something or in bad in the band, right? What if something threatens that and they now have to work with him in order to try and keep their place?

Well, depending on how we do set setup, An idea that just popped into my head was he comes in and instead of ingratiating himself to the three, he actually comes in more like Hammer and the catalyst that happens at the end is set up. He's like, There's too many people in band. And so we're going to be having tryouts in, you know, a month from now.

And I'm going to get rid of some of you people. And so and so becomes more of an antagonist because, you know, Lena has that troubled homelife and it's the only this is her only release and her only thing. And, you know, we do something similar with Max and Sophie that, you know, with Sophie, maybe her parents are driven.

It's like you will be the best pianist or we will beat you to death. And so she has to stay in in band. And Max just is like, maybe he's gotten in trouble. So many times that, you know, the counselors are like, you have a choice. You either be in band or you go to detention every day after school.

Like you have two choices. So Max says he even really want to be there, which is why he picked the drums, because he just beat on things and not really have to learn real music. Yeah, or at least that's what he thinks.

Yeah, I know drummers who will who will very severely object to that.

So I'm saying that's what he thinks. He'd pick drums because he thought that he could do it without actually learning music. Yeah, obviously we'll have to teach him that he’s wrong.

So I think that that works well. If we set Ansel up in that kind of antagonist role because then we have a driving need for our characters to somehow improve their music. Yeah.

So going back to setup, we would set up the room. We don't set up Ansel at all. So to being the complete catalyst. So the setup is the teacher is gone. You have three people that aren't connected to each other that are all there for different reasons. The group shuns them, so each one of them is kind of an island ansel comes as a catalyst.

And it's like I notice that there are some of you that just don't belong here, so I will be culling you out. And then the three of them each look at each other going, He's talking about us. And that might be the catalyst that drives them together as a group, as opposed to being separate.

Yeah. So the three of them start working on their kind of ability to ability to work together.

Yeah. At the end of the scene, maybe, you know, maybe one of them, maybe Sophia comes up to him and says, Hey, you know, he's talking about us. None of us really belong here. And maybe we should meet after school to. Maybe to each other out. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. People, we're not trying to create the next great American novel here.

We're just trying to show you How do you.

I think. But I think that works. I wouldn't necessarily use Sophia because I see her as one of those. I'll do it alone kind of thoughts. Right. But yeah. Yeah. My Lena might approach Max. Who might approach Sophia and bring the three of them together. In that way, I.

Can easily see it that Max and Lena get together and not even ever approach Sophia. And Sophia's like, I don't get any help. I'm definitely not one of the ones being cut and then later realize that she is one of the ones and then and then seek them out when something else happens in the story.

Yeah.

That breaks her confidence.

Yeah. Yeah, I see. Max. Max and Lena getting together, but not Sofia, to me is one of those. Like, I can do it myself, right?

And her problem is that she is so self reliant that she never is able to actually keep in the actual time of the song. So she's either always ahead, she's probably always ahead of everybody else. So of course that would make her sound terrible. Yeah, because she can't. She's too impatient and the rest of them are like, No, you just need to keep up with me.

My. But that's not that. The timing of the song. You're going too fast. No, I'm going the right speed. You guys are going too slow. So that could be her thing. All right, next step.

But I mean, catalyst and debate would be them gathering together and wrestling with a decision. And that takes us into their break into Act two, where we have Max and Lena helping each other and Sophia training like, you know, continuing her like training thing. And it brings us to the B story now. The B story I feel should be Sofia discovering a list, potentially.

Well, luck names.

So I get actually, I think the B story is the is the I mean, it's not really a B story. That's why I'm stuttering here. I think this would be the point that they learn that something isn't natural, that that that Ansel is doing weird things after class. There is there's something magical going on that is evil and sinister.

And and I think this turns them into little detectives as well as happening to do this little thing. I don't think we focus in on.

How about if their discovery of the of Ansel's stuff right leads to them bonding with Sofia and that's what brings her into the.

Group. Yeah.

Of helping each other. So that could see him do something with the instruments. Or maybe that drum that Max broke up and scene one and set up scene. What if Max notices that that drum has been repaired and is sitting in the storage room, but not just repaired? Like. Like it was never broken?

Yeah.

And he's like, but I know just.

Because he's like, is like what's, you know, they're like, what's the problem? He just they just replace the drumhead. And he's like, No, this is the same mark that I made before that this is the same drumhead. Yeah, that's impossible. They can't fix a break and, and it's just they just replace it. No, that's a mark that I put in it.

The tear went right through that.

Yeah. So and then, like, he could convince Lena and Sophie. Maybe Sophie is starting to pick up, like, something weird is going on with her, with her piano or something like that.

Yeah.

Because we're now in the kind of B story fun and games area. So Sophie needs to, I think, have something going on that leads her to intersect with the investigation.

Yes, they break into a musical and they and everybody dances and it's all choreographed and, no just kidding. that would never ruin a story. Like if I. Go ahead. So it's.

So. So Sophie needs a.

Storyline.

That will lead her to intersect with the with the with the other two and their investigation potentially something with her piano or with her baby. Maybe her parents invite Mr. Ansel over for, like, dinner or whatever, and she sees something like at dinner or she sees something when he's leaving.

Yeah. So again, these aren't B story, but these are the things

that would happen fun and game you have to introduce. The B stories would be they're more than likely their personal lives. Yeah. So Nina's trouble with her parents. Maybe they're divorced and fighting and using her as a pawn between them. You know, maybe Max's dad is a is an alcoholic, and he's a single dad and just doesn't want to be.

And so there's that. And then Sofia's parents are just these overbearing, whatever. So those would be the B stories that we would be introducing here.

Yeah.

All right. So. So what does. Sophie. Okay, so we can, we can come back to what Sophie sees that leads to tell us.

About the exact story. We're just kind of. Yeah, I just want to fill in the B. So what's, what's after B story?

Well, we've done fun and games, and then it's basically the midpoint because all of this is fun and games. All of this discovery is fun and games, right? The midpoint, I feel, should be the three of them intersect. Yeah. So they're investigations. They're all three now. You know, they're now investigating him and I find an.

Idea we were trying to look for ways to connect them or whatever.

Yeah.

It could be the break into two and the fun and games as each one of them are island still. Sure, maybe Lena and Max are like, we should probably work together or whatever, but each one of them have something happen. Like Max discovers the drum, Sofia discovered something at the piano. Lena just, you know, whatever. And they start independent investigations That leads them to a place where they all like.

Why are you here at 2:00 in the morning?

Why are you here?

Why are you here? And then they start comparing notes and they're like, okay, that's weird. This is what happened to me. That was weird. This what happened to you? That was weird. Okay. Well, I mean, it looks like we're all thinking the same thing, and that could be.

There is something wrong with Mr. Ansel. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And that's just.

that's a good midpoint because they gained information that they didn't have that lets them see the bigger picture.

Yeah. So now they're all like, okay, so definitely there's something wrong with Mr. Ansel. There's weird freaky

stuff going on. So we need to like, that's two. Listen, you're all American, right? You have weird, like.

It's a I'm a frickin sailor outside of this Podcast so. You know, if I can curb my foul mouth.

For an hour, come from a society where men and women sort out together naked.

Right?

Okay. A you're. He just exploded.

And I was just like, And that has something to do with cussing. How much you know.

Things that bother you less.

right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah. We're not comfortable with nudity so.

Midpoint bad guys close in. So here is where like in our parlance the protagonist start dragging the story but also like in Save the Cat we have the actual kind of Mr. Ansel becomes aware of their investigation and now starts actually like blocking them.

And he.

Does actually kick them off the band.

Maybe. Well, he's definitely doing it, not to get them off of his case, but because we would also have the council wearing its head. And so what he's actually doing is trying to save them. Yes. But they don't know this. They just think he's the antagonist when in actuality some of these things that they've been discovering are not necessarily coming from him.

They're they're coming from the council who's closing in on Ansel to kill him or return him back to the council or whatever it is, whatever the plot is that it's going on with that.

And so so maybe they start like they start being subject to kind of haunting music that tries to cool them away and things like that. So there's definitely like focused attention on them now because they've started discovering stuff that they're not supposed to know.

Yep. And the audience and them are going to think it's Ansel at this point. Yes.

Yeah. And then we come to All Is Lost. So they then go and they try to confront Ansel because they are sure that he is the problem. And then he he is not the problem. And by going to confront him, by dragging this all into the light, they've actually just opened the gates for the council's interference.

Yep. And so they all get taken away, and that's when they would learn who Ansel actually is from their fairy tales and why he left it, because he could never forgive himself for his. Okay, so this is probably so spoiler. This is where they would probably learn that he is the famed Pied Piper who was forced to drowned a village full of children because they broke their contract and he didn't want to do it.

But fairies can't not follow the rules. And so they also find out that he's a fairy and that he is run from his world so that he doesn't have to ever make a contract again. So he doesn't have to ever go down that path again.

Yes, but because wants a contract with a fairy seal, that's it. You're done. Like the fairy has to execute. It doesn't matter what the contract is.

Yeah. And drowning a village full of children broken.

Yeah. So. And. And that then leads us to the dark night of the soul. Like, maybe they're all sitting in cells, you know, And the. The they're, they're like, you know, all of them kind of like, well, what are we going to do now? We're trapped by this fairy counsel.

They're going to kill us.

They're going to kill us.

Can't know this stuff.

Yeah, you know, and that We just heard this dude, this dude who's actually been teaching us tell us that, you know, he drowned a whole freaking.

Village.

Of kids. They're not going to hesitate to kill the three of us. Like.

Yeah.

All right, so what takes us into break with into three and our overcome and final.

Well through the this the middle act they've gained some things that they didn't realize were going to be things that would help them in this situation. They gained some spells but they didn't realize they were spells. But now that they know they're in this magic world, they gain some things. And so it would lean back on their lead.

Maybe it leads us into a contest, maybe, ansel of assist them. I could make a deal. I could make a deal with the council. If you can play well enough to to, you know, to beat whatever. Like we set up a, you know, the devil. The devil went down.

To.

The devil, went down to Georgia and, you know, with the fiddle and.

This is yeah, I think it was the other way. I think it become the other way around. Like there'd be like this trial scene where they condemn them to death. And ansel is like, you can't do that. Like, that's the way it works. The contract is humans can't find out about us. Unfortunately, you ran away and you expose them and now they know about us.

So you know we have to kill them and, you know, answers like there must be a way. And one of the council members is. Well, there is the the contest of fiddles. Yeah, we're very.

Original with our names.

So you know, and then answer be like you can't do that. They're just children, you know, they'll never make it.

And the kids are like, well I mean, we're going to die anyway.

We'll do it. We can try. And so, yeah, we something like that.

I do. I do kind of like and so making a bargain that results in them, having the opportunity to try for the scuttling thing. Right. Because it feels like, like you never going to fully redeem ansel but it feels like a tiny save the cat. Like, are you saving a tiny kitten against the whole heap of dead cats previously I think this little kitten will make it.

And you, the audience, have invested in this little kitten.

You. Yeah.

So? So I do like him making that as a bargain to allow them the opportunity. Then. Then maybe. Maybe it's a bargain where he's like, Well, I will pay for them. I will sponsor them right to this contest.

Yeah. So in that, in that one it would be they're condemned to death. You can't do that. They're just children. You know, the laws been broken. There's nothing we can do about it. And he says, Ah, but there is the challenge of the fiddles. Yeah.

And then they're like, They're human. They're human. They would need a sponsor. He's like, I will sponsor them.

Well, yeah, they're human. They can't do it. They can't do it unless they have a sponsor. Yes. And then it's like, those are in the rules. Damn you. Yeah. Damn you. In your rulebook, knowledge. Yep.

And then. And then, you know. Okay, so then they go through the challenge of the fiddle, you know, whatever that is, whether it's a contest or like an obstacle musical obstacle course classes. And that then leads them to the.

to the.

The escape and so on. And then a final image, I feel like, like Ansel can, you know, basically pay the price of that sponsorship, you know, with like he's taken on their mortality in order to sponsor them. And so he either actually becomes a music teacher, you know, with a human mortal lifespan and no more fairy powers, you know, or something like that.

Yeah.

Or if you want to go darker, like he dies because you know.

But yeah, first I kind of like the whole illusion.

I like him getting a human mortal lifespan because I, I am at heart an optimist who loves I love me a good ending. I love me a optimistic ending.

What are the beats after breaking three?

It's basically the finale. I break into three, the finale, the final image.

And then the final image would be obviously them going to fans class and a mortal mister. Ansel is there and they have this shared. Yeah you know look for this thing that they went through and.

And then the three of them confidently played their instruments you know as part of that.

And the credits would roll. Yeah. There you go. We took a random crazy idea of the pied Piper coming into a modern day high school. And without any. Well, I mean, there's tons of holes in what we just did, but we literally just did it in 15, 20 minutes. So just to kind of show you like Mike Snyder's 15 steps works now, we would have to then now go through and figure out, okay, well, you know, how do we do this and how do we that there's still a lot of things to the plot and plot and plan and figure out and strengthen and add new ideas and everything like that.

But literally in 15 minutes now, we have a beat that we took an idea and we have everything from the time the movie opens up to the time we roll credits at the end.

Yeah.

And we have at least a path that the story's going to follow. And so there's your Save the Cat.

I think that that is a pretty solid story. Like in terms of a it's a story I'd watch. And I think that that is a good note on which to end this episode.

Well, actually there's there's a postscript.

Of, okay, we have a post-credits scene.

Yes. If somebody is going to write that, the only thing we require is that we get the if it's made into a movie or a novel, it is based on an original idea from Drake and Marie, from the Releasing Your Dragon, Releasing Your Inner Dragon podcast. That's all. That's all we need. No payments Necessary must be based on an original idea by us as a credit.

This is CC. You can use it if you like it, but create a tax credit. That's for the idea.

That's the script. And now you can say you're fine. It's a good.

It's a good note on which to end this episode,

we will see you soon for another one.

bye.

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