Hey guys, What's up? Megan Tennant here and I've got another video for you guys.
Today. Today is very exciting because I'm gonna be talking about one of my
all-time favorite things and that is outlining. When you're building an
outline it's really good to follow a sort of guide. So these guides take the
form of plot beat sheets which I'm sure you've heard of before
and basically they're just kind of a foundations to go off of so you know
where certain types of plot beats should fall. There are two types of plot pacing
structures that I see used most of the time the first one being the save the
cat and that was developed by Blake Snyder. So save the cat was actually
developed for film so if you read it over you're probably gonna
recognize the pacing of a vast majority of Hollywood films and because there
aren't a lot of available plot pacing sheets for writers we tend to default to
using save the cat. The second guide sheet is the hero's journey so basically
the hero's journey is a list compiled by Joseph Campbell. He looked at mythology
across dozens of different cultures and he found the common beats of a hero's
tale. And that is an old one that's from... I believe 1969 was when he first
published it. I used the hero's journey for Aletheia but I found that I really had
to alter it to make it work for current day novels. The hero of this journey is
kind of set up to go along a flat path. There isn't really a clear rise to a
climax and then when it comes to save the cat there are also some flaws in
that save the cat was designed for film. Everything from color grading to
just the main shot can convey so much information because it's a visual medium
that in writing is gonna take you chapters to convey. So the pacing is gonna be
different than a book. So I went to re-outline Red River and I tried save the
cat and I tried the hero's journey and neither we're working and I decided to
combine the two. I slice and diced. I removed pieces. I rearranged pieces. And I
merged them together into something I'm calling the hero's journey to save
the cat and figured I went through the work of making this thing so I
wanted to share it with you guys because maybe you've also encountered the issue
where neither of these methods really worked for you and you wanted something
that kind of pairs the modernis of save the cat with more of the writing based
storytelling structure of the hero's journey. I do have a printed out version
of this much more detailed and more coherent and this is available to
patrons so if you go to patreon.com search Cloud Kitten Chronicles you will find Josh and my Patreon page
moon kittens and above get a kind of writing aid and the sheet for October was this. Right okay so
let's get to it. This is gonna be a long video so I'm gonna try to kind of go
through these fairly quickly. Stage number one is hello world and this is
the opening image of your story so this is gonna be where you first captivate
your readers. This is where your hero's gonna start out in an exciting to them
situation. Now keep in mind that exciting or stressful situation might be
laughable to them at the end of the book but in their current context it should
be stressful and this should be surrounding your hero in their current
ordinary world which brings us very quickly in the stage number two the
calm before the storm and this is where you're going to follow the character
on in their ordinary world for a brief time to get a little more background and
context and character description. You want to keep this stage really short
because right now your reader just picked up the book. They're not sucked in
yet so it's delicate at this stage in time. This is where you should kind of
highlight what your hero is missing in their life so whether they know it or
not they're missing something in this stage by the end they're either going to
have acquired that or realized that they don't truly want it which brings us to
stage number three which I'm sure you're very familiar with which is the call of
the catalyst sometimes known as call to action, call to adventure, and
this is where the plot is going to swoop in and smack your character in the face.
So this is where our readers are gonna get a pretty clear idea of what the book
is really gonna be about. This should come fairly quickly in the first chapter
which brings us to stage number four which is avoiding destiny. No matter who
your character is no matter how brave no matter how bad their current situation
there's gonna be a brief moment where they are filled with fear and doubt and
they don't want to walk into that new extraordinary world because change is
scary and this is a good place to kind of highlight some of our hero's
weaknesses and inner uncertainties which brings us into stage five which is
falling into the upside-down. In some stories a new context or new
information evolve the world around the hero but for the sake of simplicity I'm
going to be referring to the extraordinary world of something located
in a different geographic location. So falling into the unknown is the stage
commonly referred to as crossing the first threshold sometimes it's an
instant transition sometimes it's a very slow one but this is the point where our
hero gets immersed in the new extraordinary and overwhelming world. So
this is where both the reader and the hero have information and new creatures
and new magic and all of that kind of thing thrown their way which brings us
to stage six entering the cocoon where they show their willingness to change
for the sake of the quest and the new world by shedding their skin either
metaphorically or sometimes very literally. This is a generally kind of an
outward appearance type of change like changing into the attire of this new
place but sometimes it can be an internal change and basically this is
just where the hero shows that they're truly committed to changing themselves
for the sake of this new world which brings us to stage number seven a guide
appears. In this stage a guide comes forward who has more context and
knowledge about the extraordinary world than the hero does. They shouldn't be
all-knowing or all-powerful because then we wouldn't need our hero but the guide
should have more context and knowledge than the hero does so they can answer
questions, and provide information that your readers
are going to need to understand the story going forward. In the classical
mythology this guide was generally a magical creature or an old wise man ,
in current day modern literature especially in YA this guide tends to
actually be a love interest. I'm not gonna lie in Aletheia I am guilty of that.
And I should mention here that the guide isn't always a person sometimes it can
be a magical object or a journal. Stage number eight trial and error I'm also
calling this the montage moment. This is the moment where you're gonna take your
character and you're gonna throw them into deep water and you aren't gonna
release the sea creature yet you're gonna save that for the climax this is
the moment where you're going to throw them into deep water and force them to
learn to swim such that when the climax comes they have this swimming ability to
be able to be on almost even ground with that sea creature. This is where you're
going to teach your character a lot of the tools and lessons that they're gonna
need to know to survive the climax and the journey ahead of them. Think of this
as the time where your character trains. Where they learn magic. Where they learn
about the world. And in the beginning they're gonna get their ass handed to
them but they're going to get better and better over time and through their
failures they're going to grow and by the end of this trial phase they should
be starting to grow confidence in themselves and their ability to exist in
this new and extraordinary world which brings us to a very fun stage which is
stage number nine the mushy middle. This is the midpoint of the story where our
hero finally started to succeed and they're starting to fall in love with
this new world and often with another literal person. This is the stage where
everything is rainbows and butterflies our heroes tend to forget about the evil
and dangers of the journey ahead and just enjoy the moment. This is the night
of dancing and drinking under the stars. The first kiss with the love interest.
The night where the hero shirks their duties and escapes for joy ride on the
dragon. In this moment the hero is actually tempted to abandon their quest
to just stay in this blissful moment in this new world. This is the stage where
you as a writer get to really have fun and indulged because you can throw
comedy and cuteness and scenes for the sake of fun at your reader and your reader
is really going to appreciate getting this chance to get a nice deep breath of
air before you swoop in with stage number 10 and punch them right in the
guts because stage number 10 the evil
crashes the party and this is the point where generally unexpected everything
that the hero had been pretending didn't exist comes crashing down on their head.
In the last stage our hero let their guard down. They stopped to enjoy that
blissful moment and in that period of time where they weren't paying attention
evil comes in and strikes a devastating blow. This should be a moment where a
great loss is suffered whether its loss of life loss of resources there should
be some hardcore blow to the overall goal of the book or the quest and it
should hit the hero really hard because it's gonna take us into stage number 11
which is the heroes cliff. This stage follows right on the heel of the last
one and this is gonna be the lofty cliff from which our hero is going to be
falling. This is the moment where a credible character confirms our hero's
worst fears where they hold the body in their own hands where they feel the heat
of the burning village. This is the exact moment where they fall to their knees
and the reality of the loss dealt in stage 10 comes crashing down on their
heads and in their extreme anguish they roll right off of that cliff and they
fall straight in to stage 12 which is the hero's fall and this is where our
hero falls into the deepest pit of depression and despair they will
encounter in this entire book. This is the lowest point where they're at true
risk of giving up not to stay in the mushy middle but giving up on life or
giving up on the extraordinary world entirely
to return to their old world and this stage is often tainted with guilt
because the hero often blames the evil crashing the party stage and the loss
that resulted from that on themselves for letting their guard down which leads
us straight into stage 13, it has two names because I couldn't choose one so
it's either against all odds or a spark in the darkness and this is the stage
where our hero finds the strength to start crawling to get up and stumble
forward and the music starts rising in the background and our hero somehow
finds the will to start running. A very very essential aspect of this step is
that there needs to be a spark the hero can't just randomly find the strength
there needs to be some sort of realization or gem of truth or they need
to look at some information in new light that they gained through the loss of the
recent few stages or sometimes another character comes and gives them a bit of
information or accidentally gives them an epiphany or realization but
there needs to be some sort of switch that flips in our hero's heads that
gives our hero the willpower to walk forward into what is undoubtedly going
to be more pain and suffering. And generally it's a really good idea to
have whatever the spark is tie into the core central theme of your book and that
brings us to stage 14 which is emerging from the pit. Your hero fell a very long
way down and they're not just gonna be instantly back at the top of that cliff
they fell off of there's gonna be a little bit of a climb. This is the stage
where your hero regains the trust of people they might have hurt or betrayed
during their fall when they were distraught. It's the stage where you
gather up the army. Where your hero heals from any injuries they might have
sustained during their fall. And this is the stage that ends in an inspirational
moment. This is where you want to get your readers really riled up because
this is gonna lead straight into the climax and you want your readers to be
pumped for that so of course that leads us to stage 15 which is the final battle
and this is when swords strike each other.
This is when weapons are drawn. So in this stage things are gonna escalate
very quickly. You're gonna have people getting injuries or dropping or dying.
There's gonna be lots of action and everything's gonna be super fast-paced
and this stage is actually gonna culminate in a point where it looks like
our hero has lost where our reader is asking themselves how is the character possibly
going to get out of this situation and then that brings us into stage 16
which is the final blow. This is evil falling either permanently or
temporarily. This moment should be something that the hero achieves by
using something they learned throughout the journey. They should find something
in themselves that they didn't think they had at the beginning of the book or
that they really didn't have at the beginning of the book and earned
throughout the book and they should use that skill or realization or power to
take down the evil. This is a very important moment because this is where
our character truly shows how far they've come so that's the very very top
peak of our story's progress and now we're gonna have a little bit of a
downwards. So that brings us to stage 17 there's too many numbers now I'm getting
confused which is the return so this is the stage where our hero is going to go
back to where the battle started taking with them news of their losses and their
victories and whatever boon they might have gained through the battle often in
this stage allies appear to help carry the hero back over the return
threshold because generally they're gravely injured at this point your
readers are gonna start losing interest now that the climax is over
so you should keep these last few stages kind of snappy. That brings us to stage number
18 which is waking to a better world I called this awakened to a better world
because generally the hero ends the last stage in the state of unconsciousness
and they actually wakes up if the last stage and basically your hero is going
to be back in a safe place in the extraordinary world and they're going to
have their injuries treated and there's going to be a
moment of calm generally this is where there's a heart-to-heart discussion with
the guide or a mentor or someone along those lines and the hero has a brief
moment of introspection where they look at themselves and they for the first
time truly see how they changed throughout the journey. This is also
where our hero and our reader are going to get a little bits of information they
might have lost in the chaos of battle so this is where you would give final
casualties and final information about what happened to the villain if they
fled or if they were captured which brings us straight into stage number 19
which is our final stage this stage is called a brave new world and this is
where you're going to either wrap up all the loose ends or kind of tease at what
the next book is gonna be if your story's gonna be continuing. This is
where you truly reward your readers by showing them that all of the heroes
sacrifices and all of the pain and the death and the hurt was all worth it
because it got us to this point this is where you show your readers the people
that are benefiting from the hero's sacrifices and the way the world is now
a better place so generally if this is a last book or a standalone this is where
you would have an epilogue and jump a bit in the future but if your book is
the first book in the series that this is where you're going to kind of tease
what the next book is gonna be maybe remind them of some still unanswered
questions so that they're ready to open that next book and continue the story
but they still feel satisfied in the context of that current book. And that
was it! That was a long video but those were the 19 stages of the hero's journey
to save the cat so that was my combination of Blake Snyder's save the
cat and Joseph Campbell's the hero's journey. I sliced and diced them again if
you want the printable version with more detail then you can become a patron cloud
kitten Chronicles. This was the print out guide for October. Let me know what you
thought about this pacing structure. If you've written a book in the past
and didn't have a plot pasting structure did yours kind of matchup with these
plot beats? To some people like these plot beats are very intuitive for me that
was not the case and I really needed the hero's journey to follow as a guide for
Aletheia's plot beats. So yeah that was it this for this video. Thank you
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