Rach's Reading Club

The best beat sheets even tell you how far into the book to make things happen! By 8% you should have introduced your main characters and the primary setting. By 25% any romantic partners should have met and you should have created the sticking points. Some beat sheets are more comprehensive than others. To me, a 5 beat beat sheet, unless you are writing a 2000 word short story, isn't very helpful. But that may be my inexperience talking. I need you to spell it out step by step. What type of event needs to happen next and when do I need to make sure it's happened by?

This page doesn't say how far you need to be for each beat, but I've decided to go with this beat sheet for my current story. https://byrslf.co/how-to-write-a-screenplay-or-tell-a-better-story-e91b3a2f9bfb Yes, it seems to be more for a heroic journey and it's definitely for a screenplay, but I think it fits my 1st book of the series pretty well, actually.

Yes, my series is about sex and romance, but I think especially the 1st book is more about her and her life choices after her long-term boyfriend breaks up with her when she thought he was going to propose. Yes, she gets with some guys, but while they will be a big part of the book in terms of the content, the real motivation and character growth is from her choices. I could replace the sex and men with chocolate and cocaine and it would be a similar story. Okay, maybe not cocaine. Alcohol? Probably.

So, that told me that the Romancing the Beat beat sheet, while a good one, is probably not the best one for book 1. But I am pretty sure I'll use it for the last book when she finally gets the guy she's meant to be with (who she meets in book 1). Until then, I'll be taking some of the beats from Romancing the Beat and including them to make sure I don't lose touch with the romance portion of my book series, though.

Anyway, yes, I'm now a big believer in beat sheets! Actually, if you ever do and win NaNo, you can get discounts on stuff. I got Plottr mainly FOR the beat sheets! They have something like ~15 now to choose from. That's actually how I found the one I'm now going to use. I had planned for Romancing the Beat, but then they did an update on Plottr and added 3-4 more templates. I was looking through them and decided THIS was the one.

If you want a pretty comprehensive look at beat sheets, check out Save the Cat by, I think it's Jessica Brody. She's got a book and a website (and webinars). She's actually pretty famous and is the one that got me into beat sheets...even though I'm not using hers. But I think she was the one who went step by step through some movies and books and pointed out each of the beats. Also, she taught me that scenes also have beat sheets.

You can't fit every beat from the whole book into every scene, but if you have some of the main things like a problem (the phone rings), a debate (the character is in a hurry and wonders if they should answer), some danger (it's the bad guys calling), some stakes (they threaten his daughter), the hero has doubts (he thinks he can't do anything to save her), then he builds resolution (he decides to hunt them down), etc. it makes for a much more complete and interesting scene.

Perhaps the writer would have left out the part where the character debates answering the phone or maybe they leave out the part where he thinks his daughter is lost to him. Yes, it's still a fine scene, but it's a better scene with the extra bits. Note that those beats I described are not the official names. I can't recall them at this time. Go to her Save the Cat website, read the book, or listen to it on Audible.

In conclusion, beat sheets are fabulous!