Why Beats Still Fail

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If you've ever filled in all 15 beats of the Save the Cat beat sheet and thought, okay, I did it, so why does my story feel like it's still not working? If you've ever thought that, then this episode is for you. Because having a catalyst, a midpoint, an all is lost moment, and all the other beats in roughly the right places doesn't automatically give you a story that works. And in today's episode, I'm breaking down five of the most common mistakes I see writers make with Save the Cat, including one that can leave you completely stuck in the middle of your draft and another that can make your outline fall surprisingly flat. So if you use Save the Cat to plot or outline your novel, then this episode is for you. Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. If you're using Save the Cat right now, there's a good chance that you picked it up for the same reason that so many writers do. It makes this enormous, overwhelming task of plotting a novel feel a little more manageable. Because instead of staring at a blank page wondering what's supposed to happen over the course of 80,000 words, you now have 15 landmarks to aim for. You have a catalyst, a midpoint, an all is lost, amongst other ones, and suddenly there is a little more shape to this thing you're trying to create. But I've worked with a lot of writers who fill in those 15 beats and then hit a really frustrating point. Because sometimes what happens is on paper the outline looks right. All the beats are there, everything seems to be where it's supposed to be, and yet something still feels off. Maybe the plot feels like a collection of events rather than one connected story. Maybe the middle just seems to drag, or maybe you sit down to draft and realize the outline isn't actually giving you enough direction to know what happens scene by scene. And when this happens, it's really easy to assume that maybe you've just done something wrong, or that maybe this particular plotting method just doesn't work for you. But usually that's not the problem. More often than not, it comes down to how you're interpreting what those 15 beats are actually asking you to do. So that's what we're going to talk about today, and I'm going to walk you through the five mistakes I see most often when writers use Save the Cat to plot their novels, as well as what to think about instead. Now, real quick before we dive in, I have a free guide all about using Save the Cat to plot your novel. It lists out all 15 beats and there are examples in there from popular stories so you can see how it all works. If you don't already have a copy, go to savanna gilbo.com forward slash save the cat, all one word. So savanna gilbo.com forward slash save the cat to grab your free guide to help you plot your novel with Save the Cat. Alright, now let's go ahead and dive into the first mistake I see writers make when using Save the Cat to plot their novels. And mistake number one is filling in the beat sheet before you develop your story's foundation. So one of the biggest mistakes writers make with the Save the Cat beat sheet is using it as a way to develop their story from scratch. And what I mean by that is let's say you have a protagonist in mind already. You have an interesting premise you want to explore, or maybe even a handful of scenes that you can already picture. So you open the beat sheet and you start working through the 15 beats, hoping that the framework will help you figure out the rest.

Mistake One Missing Story Foundation

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And for some writers, that may work. But for most writers, this is where the beat sheet starts to feel surprisingly difficult to fill in. And that's because the Save the Cat beat sheet helps you organize your story around 15 major beats, but you still need to know what story you're trying to tell underneath those 15 beats. And if that underlying story is unclear, then it can be really difficult for you to decide what should happen in each one of those beats, even if the beat sheet is really good at explaining what kind of event should happen in each one of those moments. And this is why I always recommend starting out with story development. So getting clear on the story you're trying to tell, specifically getting clear on things like what your protagonist wants and why, what's at stake if they fail, who or what stands in their way, what they're struggling with internally and how they might need to change, as well as what kind of story you're telling and what readers might expect from a story like yours. Now, this doesn't mean getting clear on every single detail about your story before you start mapping out your plot, but it does mean having enough of a foundation in place so that you have something meaningful to plot, or so that you have something meaningful to put inside the 15 beats that the save the cat beat sheet calls for. All right, so if this mistake resonates, I want you to pause and ask yourself, do I understand the basic pieces of my story well enough to start plotting? Or am I still trying to figure out who my protagonist is, what they want, what the central conflict's gonna look like, what's at stake, what their internal struggle is, and what readers might expect from this kind of story as I fill in the beat sheet. And if it's the latter, that is okay. Now is a good time to pause, figure out those foundational elements, and then come back to the beat sheet when you have a little more clarity. So that is mistake number one, filling in the beat sheet before developing your story's foundation. Mistake number two is losing track of the central story question. Another common mistake I see all the time is that writers will lose track of their central plot thread while they're mapping out their story beats. Now, we all know that most stories are going to include multiple plot threads. You'll have your main plot thread and multiple subplots, right? If you have a protagonist who's a detective, they might be trying to solve a murder while their marriage falls apart. You might have a character who's falling in love while also trying to save their family business, right? We typically have a main plot and then various subplots. Now, all of these threads, of course, matter, but if you're

Mistake Two Losing The Main Question

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not clear on the main story you're telling, like we just talked about in Mistake Number One, then it's really easy to lose track of which one is your main plot thread or the one that your big picture story is built around. So for example, if you're writing a mystery and the central question of a mystery is something like, is this character gonna solve the crime or the murder or whatever it is? Then that means the major beats of your story should revolve around your character's attempt to figure out who done it, right? That makes sense. But here's what I see happen to a lot of writers. Imagine that you're working on your beat sheet and you're trying to brainstorm the all is lost moment. So you know that the all is lost moment is typically this point in the story where something really bad happens. So you start brainstorming and you start asking questions like, what's something terrible that could happen to my protagonist at this point in time? And of course, you could come up with 20 possible answers, right? Maybe your protagonist's husband leaves her, maybe she loses her job, maybe her best friend betrays her, maybe she gets physically injured, maybe she breaks her leg, right? And any of those events could be devastating to your protagonist, and all of them could belong in your novel. But if the murder investigation is your main plot if you're writing a crime or a mystery story, then you need to make sure that whatever you choose for a moment, like the All Is Lost, also affects that central thread. So if I were coaching you through this exercise, instead of asking, okay, we need to brainstorm the all is lost, what's something really bad that could happen to your character? I would instead ask you something like, within the context of the story you're telling, within a crime, within a mystery story, what could happen here that makes solving the crime feel further out of reach than ever? So it would be the all is lost in terms of that central plot thread, right? And just to give you some examples, maybe this is something like a key piece of evidence is proven unreliable. Maybe the suspect that she was certain committed the murder couldn't possibly have done it. Or maybe she's removed from the case just as she realized everything she thought she knew was wrong, right? So those all would qualify as all is lost moments that are in that central plot thread. They have a direct impact on the crime or the protagonist's ability to solve the crime. Now let's talk about those ideas I had earlier, right? Her husband leaving her, her losing a job, maybe her best friend betrays her, she breaks a leg, any of those things that we came up with earlier. Those could all still happen in theory. They could happen in the same scene where let's say that she's removed from the case, right? They could happen in the scenes leading up to that scene or that come right after that scene, or you could just toss those ideas out, right? So it's not like those ideas would have to go away necessarily. But just because something is objectively dramatic doesn't automatically make it one of your key story beats. And what I want you to think about instead is that in order to serve as one of your key story beats, the event would also need to meaningfully affect and or change the main plot. Because otherwise, the main plot is gonna feel like it stalls, even though something dramatic is happening on the page. Or I should say something objectively dramatic is happening on the page. All right, so if this mistake resonates, I want you to ask yourself what is the central question that readers are waiting to see answered? And then with each of the main beats that you're trying to map out, I want you to think about what changes in your protagonist's attempt to solve the problem, answer the question, get what they want, right? Whatever it is, what changes in your protagonist's attempt to answer it, solve it, get it at or within this beat. Okay, so just basically make sure those main plot beats tie back to your central story. Okay, so that is mistake number two, losing track of your central story question. Mistake number three is treating every beat on the Save the Cat beat sheet as an individual scene. And this mistake is super easy to make. So if you're guilty of this, I just want to say it's very, very normal. But it's really easy to make this mistake because the method itself gives you 15 named beats, which can make it look like or feel like that there should be a one-to-one relationship between the beats on your beat sheet and the scenes in your novel, right? It just makes sense. But a beat sheet and a scene-by-scene outline operate at different levels of your story. And so the 15 beats aren't 15 equal-sized

Mistake Three Beats Are Not Scenes

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chunks of your story, and they're not all going to translate onto the page in the same way, okay? So some of the beats are just small moments that are going to occur within a larger scene. For example, the theme-stated beat could be no more than a line of dialogue inside a larger conversation. You might have a character who offers your protagonist a piece of advice, they might challenge the way they see the world or express an idea that your character will eventually need to understand. But what I see a lot of writers do is they'll look at the theme-stated beat and then they'll build an entire scene around one line of dialogue, or a scene whose only purpose is to state the theme. And then what happens is that compared to the rest of their draft, that scene reads really flat because its only purpose is to express the theme, right? So keep in mind that when you have a smaller moment like this, it needs to happen within a scene that has its own purpose, that has conflict, and that has meaningful change, right? Now, other beats like the catalyst, the midpoint, and the all is lost, those typically correspond to major turning point scenes. So you will often have a catalyst scene, a midpoint scene, and all is lost scene, right? And then lastly, you have beats like the setup, the debate, fun and games, bad guys close in, and the five-point finale, which all describe larger sections of the story. And so what tends to happen when you assume that every beat needs to become one scene, then you can end up padding the smaller beats that don't really need a bunch of space, or you can end up rushing through larger sections before they've had enough time to properly develop. And so what this really creates is a pacing problem that can be hard to spot until you step back and come back around and read your draft as a whole with fresh eyes. So if this mistake resonates, then I want you to pause and ask yourself, is the beat I'm currently working on a moment within a scene, a major turning point scene, or a larger section that needs to unfold across multiple scenes? And if you're not sure how to decide this for yourself, then I am going to link to some older episodes that I did where I broke down every single section of the Save the Cat beat sheet and talked through this exact thing. So there's four episodes in total, and I will link to each of them in the show notes below. All right, so that is mistake number three, treating every beat as if it's an individual scene. Now, mistake number four is writing the fun and games section with no conflict. This is another one I see all the time, especially when I used to edit manuscripts that were finished. I would see fun and games sections that just had little to no conflict. And this mistake is also easy to make, right? The beat is called fun and games, so the name makes the section sound like a break from the harder parts of the story. But no matter which version of the Save the Cat beat sheet you look at, whether it's the original version for screenwriters by Blake Snyder or Jessica Brody's Save the Cat Writes a Novel, you'll hear them talk about delivering the

Mistake Four Fun Needs Conflict

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promise of the premise in this section. And what they typically mean by that is that this section, the fun and games section, is really about delivering the experience that your readers came to the story for. So if you're writing, let's say, a romance, then this is where readers get to spend more time with the two characters in the central relationship. For the reader, that is definitely fun in games, right? If you're writing a mystery, this is where the investigation really kicks off and gets underway. If your premise involves a hidden magical world, then this is where the protagonist begins meaningfully interacting with that world. So this is literally the promise of your premise. And these scenes can be really fun, really romantic, exciting, funny, wondrous, you know, whatever that emotion is that readers want, these scenes can definitely be all of that for the reader. But fun for the reader does not mean easy or no conflict for the protagonist, okay? So the fun and game section is fun for the reader, but it's not fun or easy for the protagonist. And this is where a lot of stories fall flat, because in this section, your protagonist still needs to want something, and someone or something needs to make it difficult to get. So they absolutely need to face conflict, they need to make choices, they need to experience wins and losses, and they need to deal with the consequences that change their ongoing situation. All right, now remember, conflict does not always mean an argument, a fight, or a physical attack. It simply means the protagonist is trying to accomplish something, do something, learn something, get something, and they're encountering meaningful resistance along the way. Because without that resistance or that conflict, then there's nothing to naturally generate what's going to happen next. And this is often why writers get stuck in the beginning of Act Two. Because once they've used up the obvious scenes that are associated with the premise or with what they would naturally put in fun in games, they start asking themselves what other things could happen. And then they end up inventing activities to fill the section because the events themselves or the story itself isn't generating what comes next. But when you have a protagonist who is actively pursuing something and they're encountering meaningful resistance and they're making choices and dealing with the consequence, then the story keeps changing. And that in itself will give you a natural sequence of events to follow instead of having to keep inventing new activities. All right, so if this mistake resonates, I want you to pause and ask yourself, what is my protagonist trying to accomplish during this section? So in the fun and game section, typically in the beginning of act two, what are they trying to accomplish? What gets in their way? And how do their attempts create the progress and complications that carry them forward through act two, eventually towards that midpoint, and then later on towards that all is lost. All right, so that is mistake number four, writing a fun and game section with no conflict. Now, mistake number five is making the bad guys close in entirely external. So this is the back half of Act Two, and typically what writers do is they take this part very literally. So it's called the bad guys close in and they make the antagonist more aggressive. The police get closer, the monster attacks again, the deadline approaches, the rival interferes, or maybe there's now three rivals, and the protagonist's plan starts to fall apart. Now, all of those things might genuinely belong in this section because after the midpoint, the external pressure should naturally increase, and the forces that are opposing your protagonist should become harder

Mistake Five Internal Pressure Matters

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and harder to manage. But the external bad guys are only part of what should be closing in. We also want the protagonist's unresolved internal struggle to intensify under that pressure too. So, for example, imagine you have a protagonist who believes that trusting other people is dangerous. And maybe they've spent the whole story protecting themselves by refusing help, withholding information, and pushing people away. Now, as the external situation becomes more threatening, or as those external bad guys close in, they might cling even harder to those same behaviors. So they might reject an ally's help when they desperately need it, they might keep important information to themselves, and they might push away the person best positioned to support them through this really hard time. And now what you have is external pressure or those external bad guys closing in. And it's not just making life harder for the protagonist, it's also bringing their internal struggle to the surface, influencing the choices they make, and ultimately encouraging them to grow and change. And so, in other words, the protagonist's inner struggle is helping make an already difficult external situation even worse, which is exactly what you want at this point in the story. And that's an important part of what gives this section of the story its tightening effect. Because without it, the section can become a string of increasingly bad things that just happen to your protagonist. But when your protagonist's own fears, internal obstacles, and choices, when those things contribute to the worsening situation, then the story is closing on them from both directions and it just feels really suffocating, right? They almost have to grow and change because they can't stand the pressure anymore. And that helps you build toward a really impactful all is lost. So at that point, your protagonist can suffer a major external setback while also confronting the painful consequences of the way that they've been operating, which just gives that low point more emotional weight. And it helps you set up the internal reckoning that needs to happen before they can move forward differently. All right, so if this mistake resonates, I want you to pause and ask yourself, how is the increasing pressure bringing my protagonist's internal struggle to the surface? And then because of that, what are they doing? So what actions are they taking? What decisions are they making? And then how are those actions and decisions making the situation even harder for them? All right, so that is mistake number five, making the bad guys close in entirely external. Now, really quick, I'm gonna go through those five mistakes again because I know we have listeners who are note takers. So mistake number one is filling in the beat sheet before developing your story's foundation. Mistake number two is losing track of the central story question as you fill out the beat sheet. Mistake number three is treating every beat as an individual scene. Mistake number four is writing a fun and game section with no conflict. And mistake number five is making the bad guys close in entirely external. Now I want to take us back to something that I said in the intro, and that is that the Save the Cat beat

Recap Resources And Next Steps

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sheet can be an incredibly helpful tool for outlining your novel. But it does work best when you have a clear sense of the story you're trying to tell first. That means developing your story's foundation, knowing which plot thread is central, and understanding how your protagonist's internal struggle, the central conflict, and your genre will shape what happens. With that clarity in place, the beat sheet can help you organize those events into a well-structured plot. And if you're not quite there yet, I would like to invite you to check out my notes to novel course, because inside the course, I walk you through a step-by-step process for doing exactly that, developing your story, turning it into a scene-by-scadmap, and then using that roadmap to write your first draft so you'll always know what to focus on next. If you want to learn more about Notes to Novel and join me in the course, I have put the link for you in the show notes. Now, if you're someone writing a romance or a story with a romantic subplot, and if the relationship happens to be built on an enemies to lovers arc, then you are going to love the next episode. Because in the next episode, I'm diving deep into the enemies to lovers trope and I'm giving you my top 10 tips to make your enemies to lovers relationship feel believable. So that's what's coming up next. And that is all I have for you in today's episode. So as always, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope your writing is going well, and I will talk to you next week.