Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book On Novel Writing You'll Ever Need Paperback – October 9, 2018

This book is a MUST for any aspiring fiction author.Very engaging and well organized. Easy to follow. Use of popular references and explains them in a way that even if you haven't read those particular books, the references make sense in how she is explaining them.I NEVER write in my books. But this one i have underlined, highlighted, and written notes in the margins. It's an invalid resource if you are writing a novel.It begins by helping you craft your main character and what drives them. Then it has very detailed explanations of the 3 act, 15 beat structure.Following the explanation of the beats, there are 10 chapters that explore the application of those beats in different genres of writing, using specific examples from books in each genre.This book truly helped me figure out how to make my story progress at an engaging pace while still keeping true to the underlying theme. It really is the last book on novel writing you will ever need.

Based on Blake Snyder’s famous (and very useful) SAVE THE CAT! books, Jessica Brody does for novelists what Snyder did for screenwriters. Just as Snyder identified a number of “beats” that every good movie contains, Brody has identified 15 beats that you can find in every good novel. These include:The Opening ImageSetupCatalystB StoryFun and GamesAll Is LostFinaleOf course, there are more but I don’t want to give everything away.She also offers 10 genres that fit any story. That is, any story will fit into at least one of these genres. Brody’s genres aren’t your traditional genre types (Western, Romance, Horror, etc.). Rather, these are templates that might encompass various traditional genres. For example, the “Superhero” is a story type in which an extraordinary hero comes to terms with being special or having a special destiny in an ordinary world. She lists DRACULA, PETER PAN, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, ERAGON, HARRY POTTER, CINDER, and SHADOW AND BONE among the novels that fit this genre. Other Brody genres include:WhydunitRites of PassageInstitutionalizedDude with a ProblemFool TriumphantMonster in the HouseAgain, that’s not all of them. Spoilers, ya know. 🙂You can fit her 15-point beat sheet into each of these genres. Each genre also has three elements that are unique to them but need to be present. The “Superhero” genre, for example, must include a power your hero has, a nemesis who opposes your hero with an equal or greater power, and a curse your hero needs to grapple with.All this may seem to be formulaic, but Brody insists that’s not what the beat sheet is about. Save the Cat! is not a one-size-fits-all technique for writing the perfect story. Rather, the beat sheets give you a structure upon which to hang your story. If you’ve already written your novel but it doesn’t seem to be working, you can use this structure to see if your novel is hitting all the beats. If you’re just starting your novel, you can use the 15 beat structure to make sure you’ve thought through all the elements of your story.What if you’re not a plotter? Brody claims the beat sheet can still be useful to you, providing a loose roadmap as your story develops to keep you on course.To help you see how the beat sheets work, Brody includes a 15-beat breakdown of one popular novel for each of her 10 genres (she uses HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE for the “Superhero” genre). This is extremely beneficial, putting her theory into practice.In short, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL is an excellent book, one that should be in every writer’s library. Brody’s style is engaging and informal making the book very readable. I can see this being a useful resource for many writers. Myself included.The tagline says it is “the last book on novel writing you’ll ever need.” As long as the first three books you have on novel writing are ON WRITING by Stephen King, WRITING WITHOUT RULES by Jeff Somers, and FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK by Barbara Poelle, I would agree.

Great book. So easy to understand. It is exactly what I needed to write a book from it. It is very helpful.

Save the Cat Writes a Novel is a delightful must read for any writer. Within these pages, I found so many of the base rules and ideas of forming a story that I have always known to be true. Jessica Brody- and in relation, Blake Snyder, the original author of Save the Cat (for screenwriting)- gives a wonderful account of why people read the books they read. Not in genres of horror, fantasy, or romance, but in genres of a much more important sort: the genre of storytelling. For any writer, or reader, these tropes will be quite familiar- from the down and out underdog to the love that encourages change. The theory that any writing can fit into these beats is not just a theory, but utter truth. Even stories that are not the norm, that defies any trope, can be seen here in small, subtle connections.While I find this novel to be accurate, and quite helpful in making the writer think about their stories, I’ve given it a four out of five stars for my personal reading experience. I judge writing craft books on two things: Useful information, and enjoyment in reading.Useful information, this novel has in abundance. I find that I will likely use it as a reference book- something to flick open when I write a new story, to answer the questions within as I figure out where my story fits, or to reference the beats. The beat sheet within will work wonders for the hearts of plotters, though it is a little more in depth than my personal writing style, and that’s okay. This novel isn’t a die-hard blueprint to follow, but more of a guide.However, when it comes to enjoyment of reading, I found myself struggling a little bit. A good amount of this book plots the beat-by-beat process of other novels, putting them into the Save the Cat theory format and showing why it appears again and again in our favorite novels. This is a brilliant way to show an example of the process, but I don’t think it is enticing enough to read again unless there is a specific reason. Thus, along with my lack of interest in the beat sheet, the next time I write a story, I will be pulling open the book and reading the specific chapter of the story genre I’m working with, but I don’t see myself rereading this entire book for quite some time.Overall, I think this book is a good start for an inexperienced writer, or someone who wants to see into the mind of those who study stories for a living. Or perhaps, just to study someone who is more well read than they are, as this novel does have lists upon lists of books that are must reads. I would recommend Save the Cat Writes a Novel to anyone with a writing craft shelf in their library, a staple of the genre, but I would caution your expectations. This is a good textbook to make notes of, but the take-away of information will vary on the experience of the reader.