There are two types of authors: those who open their notebooks and start writing without hesitation and those who must plot their novel before penning a single word down. Nonetheless, planning or (re)mapping a story will always occur at some time. Outlining is an integral part of the writing process; thus, my research aims to determine the best story structure method you, as a writer, may employ for your work.
Save the Cat! Beat Sheet, originally designed for screenwriting,[1] but subsequently adapted and applied to novel writing,[2] is perhaps one of the most common techniques for outlining. Save the Cat! breaks a story’s beginning, middle, and end into 15 ‘beats’ or plot points. Save the Cat! helps to create an outline of the events of your story and tells you in what order and when they should happen. However, the concept is fairly restrictive, and you are limited to a linear narrative. Furthermore, it has been overused to the point that new works based on it have become predictable. Thus, the most you could do with Save the Cat! is employ it as a starting point.
John Truby is one of many people who disregard Save the Cat!.[3] He reminds us that outlining is just one part of the whole writing process, which also involves the following elements: the premise, character, theme, story world, symbol web, plot, scene weaving, scene construction and dialogue.[4] He proposes a more organic planning method, using Twenty-Two Structure Steps to give us the key beats of our novel and then he advises us to add the plot beats specific to each genre, but he fails to tell us which they are owing to scope limits of his book.[5] In fact, none of the methods discussed so far has delved deeply into Genre.
Genre is a label that tells readers what to expect from a story. Knowing the genre is important since it informs you of the tropes, obligatory scenes, and conventions that must be included in your story. A method that looks thoroughly into Genre is the Foolscap Global Story Grid.[6]
Story Grid divides the content genre into two categories: external and internal. These genres define the protagonist’s core need, the story’s core value, the reader’s core emotion, the story’s core event, and the story’s theme or controlling idea in a masterpiece.[7] Furthermore, ‘each content genre also has a set of five to eight obligatory moments and conventions that readers expect to find in your story’.[8] As a result, identifying the genre(s) of your story is the first of the Editor’s Six Core Questions to fill the Foolscap Global Story. The last five questions are as follows: what are the (1) conventions and obligatory scenes; (2) narrative device and point of view; (3) object of desire for the protagonist and the antagonist; (4) controlling idea, and (5) the beginning hook, middle build, and ending payoff of the global story?[9]
On balance, the Foolscap Global Story Grid is the best outlining method since it not only incorporates the best of Save the Cat! and Twenty-Two Structure Steps but also considers the story’s genre(s).
[1] Blake Snyder, Save the Cat!: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions, 2005).
[2] Jessica Brody, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need (New York: Ten Speed Press, 2018), Kindle ebook.
[3] John Truby, The Anatomy of Story (New York: Picador, 2011), chap. 1, Kindle ebook.
[4] Ibid., chap. 1, Kindle ebook.
[5] Ibid., chap. 8, Kindle ebook.
[6] Shawn Coyne, The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know (New York, NY: Black Irish Entertainment, 2015), Kindle ebook.
[7] Shawn Coyne, The Four Core Framework (Egremont, MA: Story Grid Publishing, 2020), chap. 2, Kindle ebook.
[8] Lori Puma, ‘The Story Grid Translated Into Common Writing Terms’, < https://storygrid.com/the-story-grid-translated-into-common-writing-terms/> [accessed 2 Jan 2023]
[9] The Story Grid, chap. 3, Kindle ebook.
