The Beat Sheet is a trick I picked up in film school. It covers all the major plot elements (“beats”) of a long form story. Now, Snyder was writing about film, which is much more structurally formulaic than prose, but I firmly believe that taking a good, hard look at structure is essential for any novel, especially if you are writing anything other than hoity toity high-brow experimental literary fiction.
So, if you not in that 0.00001% of writers who are writing hoity toity high brow experimental literary fiction, then the beat sheet is worth your time. At the very least, you’ll notice the formulas and structures that so inescapably pervasive that you probably just took them all for granted. Continue reading “Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet for novels”
