“Opening Image/Final Image” is part eight in my ongoing series about Plotter-Oriented writing. To learn more about Plotter-Oriented writing, check out this post.

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In my previous posts, I began laying out a storyboard, both by explaining Figma, the tool I use, and by examining the five Anchor Beats in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Following up on this over the next few posts, we’ll continue this exercise by filling out the fifteen Key Beats used in the Save the Cat model.

Let’s begin by discussing Opening and Final Images. In another recent post I wrote about the importance of “show don’t tell”, of demonstrating what your story is about. Opening and Final Images should be a concrete example to demonstrate change, particularly how this journey has changed your protagonist.

Once again, we’ll be discussing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone as an example.

Save the Cat & “formula”

Some writers look at models like Save the Cat and see it as “merely formula”, and by following the formula their work will be inherently “formulaic”. Let me assure you that this is nonsense.

The beats described here weren’t invented by Hollywood or Big Publishing. Rather, they are the results of observation. Successful stories have followed this structure from antiquity to the present day, and the revelation isn’t that “you must it this way”, but rather that – at least in Western literature – most stories do work this way.  One might as well say that baking needn’t involve heat: you’re welcome to try, but I’d be surprised if you came away with a tasty cake.

A friend put it to me very well the other day: think of this model – and indeed all writing models – not as a formula to follow but as a lens through which to see structure. For a writer, understanding structure is akin to an artist understanding perspective or a musician understanding keys. If your story varies off these ideas, that’s OK. You might be exploring something new. But most of the time, you’re better off staying on the brightly-lit path.

Our objective

The objective of this stage of the Plotter-Oriented writing approach is to ensure that your plot is rock solid before proceeding. If the Anchor Beats laid the foundation of your story, the fifteen Key Beats form the framing. Notably:

• We’ll figure out where our story begins, and how this relates to The End.
• We’ll identify the key Theme of the story.
• Finally, we’ll begin to sketch out critical details: what’s this world like? What’s the B-story? How does the B-story relate to the A-story? Who is the protagonist and who is their antagonist?

To remind you:

• A beat is simply a moment in the story…a moment that may be as short as a single instant (“June realizes that Posey has been cheating on her”), or as sweeping as a large section (“Avinda enters the Academy and learns that riding wasp-lizards isn’t going to be so easy”). Beats often contain other beats.
• Anchor Beats are the five most crucial beats. These define the fundamental turning points of the story.
• Key Beats, which include the Anchor Beats, are the fifteen moments defined by the Save the Cat model that (nearly) every story has.

Fifteen Key Beats

Here again are the fifteen Key Beats.

Act One

• Opening Image
• Theme Stated
• Setup
• Catalyst (Anchor)
• Debate

Act Two, part one

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

Act Two, part two

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

Act Three

• Break into Three (Anchor)
• Finale (often broken down into…)
  • Gathering the Team
  • Storming the Castle
  • Hightower Surprise
  • Dig Deep Down
  • Executing the New Plan
• Final Image

Firstly, note that I’ve called out the five Anchor Beats. Since I’ve now gone over these in not just one but two previous posts, so I’ll merely nod in their direction here.

Also, note that I’ve broken down the Finale into five sub-beats. This is in no way my own invention; Save the Cat has long recognized these five sub-beats as key moments in many finales, so I’ll explain them when I get to the post which explains the Finale.

Finally, note that the fifteen beats allow for a degree of fluidity. Obviously Opening Image and Final Image are pretty well fixed, but Theme Stated, for example, can really occur anywhere in Act One (though earlier is better in most cases).

Are we sitting comfortably? Ok then, let’s go.

Opening Image/Final Image

Remember how, several posts ago, I had you start with The End?

The End tells us loads about the main character and the journey they take. I made the point that “No story ever starts at the beginning. Stories start in the middle.” Because every good story has a history that precedes it, the beginning is really just an arbitrary moment in time, the moment when the author invites the reader to join the story.

However, it’s not entirely arbitrary. A good beginning retrospectively mirrors or accents the end: often by highlighting just how much the hero and/or her world have changed over the course of the story. One common technique is to “bookend”, i.e., supply two scenes that are very similar. For example:

Example: Opening Image

Miranda sits down to breakfast at a formally-set table. The servant brings coffee and the morning paper. She observes John, already reading his paper. He doesn’t meet her gaze. We feel the palpable frigidity of their loveless marriage, reflected by the crunching of snow outside. A knock comes on the door: post is here.

Example: Final Image

Miranda moves about the kitchen, cooking her eggs, her toast. She sits at a small kitchen table with a single chair, remembers that the coffee is still on the stove and goes to get it. For a moment, she stares out the window in the chill light of a spring morning. She smiles. A knock comes on the door: post is here.

Having just made that up, I have no idea who Miranda is or what transpired between those moments, but several things are clear: she has moved from winter to spring, from a loveless marriage to freedom, from being waited on to self-reliance, and likely from affluence to reduced circumstances. Her life has a new normal, but she has grown, and we see it by comparing and contrasting the start and end points of the story.

Harry Potter: Opening Image

As an illustration, let’s look at the Opening Image in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and compare it to the Final Image.

When we join the story, Voldemort has just been defeated. We see this mostly through Uncle Vernon’s eyes as we progressively experience stranger and stranger happenings: a profusion of owls, a cat reading a map, strangely dressed people, folks whispering about his estranged relatives, the Potters, people using bizarre language, unexpected showers of shooting stars.

But Vernon, not being a member of the wizarding world, doesn’t appreciate what any of it means. Indeed, Rowling sets up Act One very creditably by constantly reminding us that Vernon is expressly hostile to understanding the wizarding world. 

The reader – probably far more willing than Uncle Vernon to soak up all this detail – receives a lot of useful world-building and setup: there’s a hidden world of magic just out of sight of the world we know; but Harry’s aunt and uncle are not very nice and hate magic. They’re also hugely insecure. All of this whets our appetite to learn more.

In the Opening Image, we stand outside the wizarding world, looking in.

Harry Potter: a second Opening Image

Further, I would argue that in a sense, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone has two Opening Images. In addition to the one described above, we also get the Opening Image of Chapter Two, in which we first see Harry on the cusp of turning thirteen years old, the age at which we’ll know him throughout the rest of the story.

This secondary Opening Image reveals the huge contrast between Harry – thin, sleeping in a spider-infested cupboard, ignored and unloved – and his overfed, spoiled cousin Dudley. Harry lives under the stairs. Dudley has not one but two bedrooms. Vernon and Petunia have not changed: they still hate magic and, by extension, they hate Harry. Emphasizing the disparity between Harry and his cousin, Rowling sets this secondary opening on Dudley’s birthday: he has everything, but he nearly throws a temper tantrum when he realizes that he’s not getting the requisite number of birthday presents.

Harry Potter: Final Image

Contrast these two Opening Images to the final scene, where Harry returns home after a year at Hogwarts.

Whereas the first image had us outside looking in, we’ve now been to Hogwarts with Harry and shared in his adventure. We’re in the know. We’re inside now, looking out at all those poor muggles. We’ve changed through the arc of this story.

Moreover, with regards to the second image, we see just how far Harry himself has come. Where he was once sickly and abused, he’s now confident and in control. His final words:

“They don’t know we’re not allowed to use magic at home. I’m going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer…”

The balance of power has shifted. Having defeated Voldemort and escaped from his dismal, soul-destroying beginning, Harry can now step back to where he started (a bookend) with the assurance that he has bigger fish to fry than his petty, insecure adopted family.

In the next installment, we’ll look at the Key Beats making up the remainder of Act One: Theme Stated, Setup, and Debate.

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This post is part of an ongoing series on Plotter-Oriented writing. I post about this and other subjects of interest, including writing, etymology, and my upcoming novel. If you find this material interesting, I’d be honored to have you subscribe to my blog.