The shape of the tale
Story structure planner
Choose a structure and a target length to see where every beat should fall, in words and chapters. Add your notes beat by beat and take the outline away as Markdown.
Three-act structure · 80,000 words · 24 chapters of about 3,333 words
Act One: Setup
Words 1–20,000 · 20,000 words
- 1
Opening and setup
Words 1–8,000 (8,000 words) · chapters 1–3
Show your protagonist’s everyday life, what they want and what is missing. Introduce the people and places the story will lean on.
- 2
Inciting incident
Words 8,001–9,600 (1,600 words) · chapter 3
Something happens that the protagonist can’t ignore. It raises the question the rest of the story will answer.
- 3
Reaction and resistance
Words 9,601–18,400 (8,800 words) · chapters 3–6
The protagonist weighs the cost, tries the easy fixes or refuses outright. The stakes become clear.
- 4
Plot point one
Words 18,401–20,000 (1,600 words) · chapter 6
A choice or an event locks the protagonist in. There’s no way back to the old life, and Act Two begins.
Act Two: Confrontation
Words 20,001–60,800 · 40,800 words
- 5
Rising action
Words 20,001–38,400 (18,400 words) · chapters 7–12
New ground, new allies and enemies, early wins and losses. The protagonist chases the goal with the wrong tools or the wrong idea.
- 6
Midpoint
Words 38,401–41,600 (3,200 words) · chapters 12–13
A reversal or a revelation changes the shape of the story: a false victory, a false defeat, or a truth that reframes the goal.
- 7
Complications deepen
Words 41,601–58,400 (16,800 words) · chapters 13–18
The opposition pushes back harder. Plans fail, relationships strain and the protagonist’s flaw starts doing real damage.
- 8
Plot point two: the low point
Words 58,401–60,800 (2,400 words) · chapters 18–19
The worst moment. The plan collapses or something precious is lost, and success looks impossible.
Act Three: Resolution
Words 60,801–80,000 · 19,200 words
- 9
Regroup and final push
Words 60,801–70,400 (9,600 words) · chapters 19–22
From the low point the protagonist reaches a new understanding, gathers what is left and heads for the last confrontation.
- 10
Climax
Words 70,401–76,000 (5,600 words) · chapters 22–23
The decisive confrontation, where the protagonist’s choices answer the story’s question.
- 11
Resolution
Words 76,001–80,000 (4,000 words) · chapters 23–24
Show the new normal. Tie up the threads and let the reader feel how far everyone has come.
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Three ways to shape a story
The three-act structure splits a story into setup, confrontation and resolution, roughly a quarter, a half and a quarter, with turning points where one act becomes the next. The 15-beat sheet is a finer version popular with screenwriters and novelists, naming the key moments from the opening image to the final one. The hero’s journey follows a hero who leaves home, is tested and returns changed.
Enter a target length and the planner turns each beat’s place in the story into word numbers. The ranges add up exactly to your total, and single moments such as Theme Stated, starred on the bar, happen inside a longer beat. Add a chapter count to see which chapters each beat covers. Treat the numbers as guides rather than rules: plenty of good stories wander from them.
Sources
Beat names and positions follow these books; the descriptions and questions are Fresh Fable’s own. Save the Cat! is a trademark of its owners, and Fresh Fable is not connected with them.
- Syd Field, Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (1979): the three acts and their plot points.
- Blake Snyder, Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005), and Jessica Brody, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel (2018): the 15 beats and their approximate percentages.
- Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), and Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey (3rd edition, 2007): the 12 stages of the hero’s journey. The percentages for those stages are our estimate.
Questions
Which structure should I choose?
Three acts if you want a light frame, the beat sheet if you like knowing exactly what each stretch should do, and the hero’s journey for quests and coming-of-age stories. Switching keeps the notes you wrote for each one.
Does this work for short stories?
Yes, though short stories often merge beats. At 5,000 words a single scene may hold the catalyst and the debate.
Where are my notes stored?
In your browser’s local storage on this device, never on a server. Clearing your browser data or pressing Clear notes removes them.