“Anchor Beats” is part six of my series on Plotter-Oriented Writing. The series introduction is here and contains links to my other posts. I’ll post more more articles on this topic soon.

---

A “beat” is simply a moment in your story, and you’ll have lots of these. Dozens. Hundreds.

But five moments in any given story stand at its core, supporting everything else. I call these beats the Anchor Beats. This article explains what these five moments are and why they matter so much.

Saving the Cat, beat-by-beat

Credit where it’s due: most of this post isn’t my own conception.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, I’m a huge fan of the Save the Cat! book series which teaches a method for constructing a solid, well-formed plot for movies and novels. But there are lots of schools of thought on how to approach story structure. You certainly don’t need to agree with me and the Cat – what Save the Cat preaches is orthogonal to Plotter-Oriented writing. However, if you prefer Story Grid or the Story Clock or some other method, that’s fine. What I explain below should be readily translatable to your preferred paradigm.

But a general understanding of the Save the Cat method is useful for the purpose of this and the next few posts, so let’s review it briefly.

Save the Cat describes fifteen “key beats”. These key beats don’t always occur in exactly this order, but they don’t vary far from this order.

Act One

• Opening Image
• Theme Stated
• Setup
• Catalyst
• Debate

Act Two, part one

• Break into (act) Two
• B-story
• Fun & Games
• Midpoint

Act Two, part two

• Bad Guys Close In
• All is Lost
• Dark Night of the Soul

Act Three

• Break into (act) Three
• Finale
• Final Image

These fifteen key moments should happen in nearly every story. Firstly, the story begins (Opening Image), we set up the hero, the world and the crisis that sends that hero on their journey (Theme, Setup, Catalyst, Debate). Secondly, we test the hero and their mettle (Break into Two, B-story, Fun & Games, Midpoint, Bad Guys Close In, All is Lost, Dark Night). Finally, we resolve the crisis (Break into Three, Finale) and come to a close (Final Image).

Now, whole books can (and have) been written on these key beats, and it’s not my job to re-litigate their usefulness. Instead, I want to focus in on just five:

• Catalyst
• Break into Two
• Midpoint
• All is Lost
• Break into Three

Blake Snyder, who developed the Save the Cat series, views the fifteen Key Beats as the critical moments that define a story. While I don’t debate Snyder’s profound wisdom in this matter, I’ve come to believe that the subset posted above represents a story’s true nucleus. While the fifteen beats form a story’s framing, the five are the load-bearing walls.

In fact, I’m not alone in this assertion. In Save the Cat Writes a Novel, Jessica Brody identifies these same beats as “Foundation Beats”. I call them “Anchor Beats”, but the idea is the same: as Brody puts it, “these beats make up the pillars upon which all the other pillars stand.”

From a Plotter-Oriented perspective, we want to resolve these Anchor Beats before we go further in our writing, because these five moments truly anchor your story.

Observational vs. transformational beats

Let’s consider Snyder’s fifteen beats in two groups: observational beats and transformational beats. Look at the beats again, noticing that the five Anchor Beats are all marked as transformational.

Act One

• Opening Image (observational)
• Theme Stated (observational)
• Setup (observational)
• Catalyst (transformational)
• Debate (observational)

Act Two, part one

• Break into Two (transformational)
• B-story (observational)
• Fun & Games (observational)
• Midpoint (transformational)

Act Two, part two

• Bad Guys Close In (observational)
• All is Lost (transformational)
• Dark Night of the Soul (observational)

Act Three

• Break into Three (transformational)
• Finale (observational)
• Final Image (observational)

Observational beats are those were we learn about the world, the story, the character. Within these beats, the story presents information to the audience. The audience observes it. We are shown. In the Opening Image and Final Image, for example, we see how our story begins and ends (and importantly how our hero has changed). In Debate, we understand the forces driving the hero’s decision. Fun & Games demonstrates the hero’s new situation, and how well she copes with it.

By contrast, transformational beats change the direction of the story. Some party – the hero, the villain, another character, maybe fate – takes an active role in shifting gears. Things change, usually profoundly.

The Catalyst begins the story. The Break into Two launches the hero, and so forth.

Anchor Beats mean change

Every Anchor Beat is a transformational beat: an inflection point in the story. As I mentioned in a previous post, stories are about conflict and change, and change equals transformation. Each of the five Anchor Beats are moments when your hero faces their most serious challenges and must decide on a direction.

These decisions obviously carry huge ramifications for the story and our hero’s future. Consider the five Anchor Beats as the roughest of rough cuts because each one tells us something critical about a big chunk of the story.

So let’s briefly explore these Anchor Beats one-by-one:

Anchor Beat 1: The Catalyst

In most stories, you meet the hero and learn a bit about their world before something happens that upsets everything. This upsetting moment is the Catalyst. Another popular term for this is the “Inciting Incident.” Our hero gets a mysterious letter. A handsome stranger moves to town. Our hero witnesses a crime.

The Catalyst needn’t be big. In fact, it might be barely noticeable. Maybe a letter arrives in the post or a tile shifts to reveal a hole in the wall.

However it starts, big or small, the result of this catalytic moment is a series of events which form the bulk of our novel. What immediately follows is usually a debate: will the hero go on the journey (physical, psychological, or metaphorical) demanded by the incident? Will Luke decide to follow Obi-wan? Can Harry really go to Hogwarts? Does Frodo undertake a perilous journey? This debate, however, is merely detail – we all know what must happen: inevitably the hero will accept their call to adventure. Without this there would be no story.

Anchor Beat 2: Break into Two

We sometimes call Act Two of a story “the upside down”. While the hero was safe on a farm in Act One, they’re now in a world of danger and adventure. While they were in a world of Muggles, they transition into a world of witches and wizards. The “Break” is the entry point into this new world.

Your reader shouldn’t need to be an expert in storytelling theory to notice this shift happening. It’s usually pretty obvious. We head out on the open road, or we decide to take the case, or the job (whatever it is) begins.

However this applies to your story, the key is that your hero, challenged by the Catalyst, now heads out. Exactly how and why they head out is the beat you want to resolve here.

Anchor Beat 3: Midpoint

If you look at the fifteen Save the Cat beats above you’ll notice that I break Act Two into parts 1 and 2. Rather than a Save the Cat convention, this is my own. The reason: the popular three act story structure is nonsense.

Yes, it’s easy to talk in terms of beginning (Act One), middle (Act Two), and end (Act Three). But stories don’t work this way and pretending that they do is a disservice to writers. The hardest part of writing any novel or other long story is the second act, because it’s big and difficult to get your arms around. It’s often not hard to see where you want to start and where you want to end. Act two is the big, complicated how we get there.

One reason I like Save the Cat so much is that Snyder’s method finally provided me with clear strategies on dealing with the second act.

But he doesn’t – in my view – go quite far enough.

The second act is two distinct acts and the break between them is the Midpoint.

I maintain that the second act is two distinct acts and the break between them is the Midpoint.

At the Midpoint, your story takes a decisive turn. Perhaps the hero achieves everything they think they want (false victory), only to discover that what they wanted wasn’t what they really needed. Alternatively/additionally, this may be where opposing forces start fighting back in earnest, driving events in a dark direction (false defeat). If your story is episodic television, this might be what’s known as a mid-season finale: a big bomb is dropped, whetting the audience’s appetite to return for the back-half of the season.

This idea has infinite permutations. What matters is that this is where shit gets real (even in a comedy). From here, opposition gets more acute. Problems are harder to solve. The fun and games of the first half of the story are over, and now it’s down to the hard work of facing our true destiny.

Anchor Beat 4: All is Lost

Other writing models may call this a “Dark Moment”. By the time we reach this beat, our bad guys (remembering that these can be physical, psychological, and/or metaphorical bad guys) have been getting properly serious and making our hero miserable. As we reach All is Lost they deal their most devastating blow: one that makes our hero wish she had never taken this journey.

Save the Cat talks about a “whiff of death” at this moment. It may be a literal death if, for example, a mentor, family member, or friend dies. Or it may be a more symbolic death, as when the Editor kills the big story or the Chief of Police shuts down the investigation.

Within the scope of the story, this is the biggest decision point for our hero. They’re often tempted to lick their wounds and go home, to give up on their crazy dream. Now they’re faced with a Dark Night of the Soul where they doubt that they can win, where they come within an inch of losing hope. Sometimes this dark night lasts for many chapters, but it may be quite brief. In Star Wars, Luke mourns Obi-wan’s death for about 30 seconds.

Remember that an All is Lost beat rarely satisfies if it doesn’t confront the hero with the worst possible version of the main theme and conflict. If our hero believes in human virtue, the person she most trusts must betray all virtue. If she’s developed a secret weapon assuring the defeat of an enemy, perhaps she suddenly realizes she’s working for the wrong side. Perhaps this is why mentors – like Obi-wan – so often die at this moment: the hero must carry on without a safety net.

The magnitude of the loss is rocket fuel, propelling us towards…

Anchor Beat 5: Break into Three

The momentum of crossing the All is Lost/Dark Night chasm launches us towards the final act of the story. As we Break into Three, our hero finds the [thing], whatever that is, which inspires them to grasp that momentum and drive towards the final conflict with the Big Bad. Consequently, this moment take us to The End, which, if you’ve followed the Plotter-Oriented model, you already know.

Now, bear in mind that I’m flying over these Anchor Beats. There’s a lot more to be said about each one.

For example, what gets the hero to this break into the third act? Ideally, the B-story plays a decisive role. Something about the lessons learned in the B-story allow the hero to resolve the A-story. In a second, I’ll show an example of how this works.

I cannot stress enough how strongly I recommend getting your hands on Save the Cat!, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, or one of the other Save the Cat texts to fill out your understanding of these ideas.

Anchor Beats are your roughest of drafts

Again, the reason these five Anchor Beats are so important is that they represent the roughest possible outline – the spine – of your story:

• The Catalyst breaks your hero out of their routine. They need this to become a hero, so in a sense this propels everything that follows.
• Break into Two forces the hero to take an affirmative step to choose adventure. This decision, therefore, drives the events of the first half of Act Two.
• The Midpoint advances the forces of opposition, thus driving the second half of Act Two.
• All is Lost destroys the hero’s new world, so that they doubt their ability to prevail.
• Break into Three forces the hero to find one last thread of hope, so that they make a final push towards success.

These five beats are, in essence, the load-bearing supports for your entire story. As such, you want them to feel solid. This is yet another example of the core principle behind Plotter-Oriented writing: the anchors are fundamental to the tale you’re telling, so they’ll be a lot harder to shift later on. (Maybe I should follow Jessica Brody’s example and call these “Foundation Beats”. The analogy is excellent: shifting these beats gets increasingly difficult as the rest of the story gets layered on top of them, just as it’s hard to rebuild a foundation once built upon.)

I recommend doing your best to get the anchors right, before you try to add all the frills of sub-plots, characters, scenes, and dialogue.

Anchor Beats: an example

Just to drive this home, let’s look at the Anchor Beats in the classic Christmas movie It’s a Wonderful Life. The hero, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) has big dreams, but he’s stuck in the tiny town of Bedford Falls with what he sees as a miserable job and an insignificant life.

Catalyst

George plans to travel, to see the world, to build things. To do “something important”. His father tells him that in their small way his little Building & Loan does do something important.

This Catalyst happens so quietly it’s barely noticeable. In essence, after a bit of build-up showing George as a boy, we see him about to head out into the world. His wonderful life begins.

Break into Two

George’s father dies, trapping George in Bedford Falls, looking after the Building & Loan, and by extension all the townsfolk who rely on it.

Midpoint

George turns out to be highly successful at keeping the Building & Loan going, but his nemesis, Henry Potter, plans to bring George down.

The Midpoint occurs in a succession of sub-beats. First, Potter starts to realize that George is a threat. Next, George experiences a “false victory” as he welcomes one of the townsfolk to their new home, which he helped to build.

The real moment though is here: we see that Potter has changed tactics by attempting to corrupt our hero. He offers George everything he knows the young, ambitious man wants.

All is Lost

George’s uncle accidentally hands a huge sum of money to Potter: enough to cause a scandal and probably send George or his uncle to prison. Worse, Potter knows! By now, we know George and Potter and the outcome is clear: it will be George and not his uncle who will take the fall.

Earlier I pointed out that Dark Night beats vary in length. It’s a Wonderful Life devotes a huge chunk of the movie – about 40 minutes – to All is Lost and Dark Night. Of course many sub-beats make up these major beats.

George meets his guardian angel, who shows him what life would have been like had he never been born.

Break into Three

George experiences the alternate-reality version of Bedford Falls. And he witnesses the gap left by his absence. He sees ruined lives, loss of hope, the death of his brother, and the ruination of his family. But what really drives him to his Break into Three is the B-story: his relationship with Mary. Only by confronting her can he find the hope necessary to face his demons.

Moving on from your Anchor Beats

Over the next few posts, we’re going to dress a LOT of important detail around these five Anchor Beats. It will get a lot tougher from this point on to make changes when you need to. And to be clear, you will need to. There is no such thing (at least for me) as a story without revisions. But the whole point of the Plotter-Oriented approach is that we firm up each step before we move to the next. As we progress to greater complexity, as changes get more difficult, we require fewer big changes.

So get those five Anchor Beats in place. In the next step we’ll start to build a storyboard laying out all the remaining beats. Not just the ones named by Save the Cat, but beats which describe every key moment within your story. We’ll be moving from “the roughest of drafts” to a true rough draft. And that will enable you to create a document, the synopsis, to actually show to your readers.

---

I hope you find my description of the Plotter-Oriented approach to novel writing helpful. Please let me know what you think in the comments, and consider subscribing to my blog.