Weekend Writer: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel Chapters Nine and Ten by Jessica Brody
Hey all, Sam here.
Well…it has been a while since we’ve had to load up a vehicle, set up a booth for an event, work the event, and then tear everything back down and load the vehicle up again. The Downtown Summer Market was really nice…but it’s the next day and we’re feeling quite tired and sore. It was a great time, and we enjoyed getting to do this community event and meet and hang out with more people from the area.
And then today I had to go in and complete my orientation so I can start training and working for the new job. It was easy enough, just the standard benefits information, videos on things such as policies and handling harassment and such, and safety spiels. But even that little bit, after the hectic nature of yesterday, has left me quite drained. I think I’m going to try and take it easy this weekend, as much as I can anyway.
Hopefully I’ll still be able to keep up with our blog schedule as I adjust to having a full-time job outside of the house again.
Anyway, welcome back to Weekend Writer, the series where I focus on the craft of writing. On the first Friday of the month, I share a bunch of different prompts using some cool creativity aids to help spark ideas for writing or other creative works, and on the final Friday of the month, I share snippets of the writing I worked on through the month. For every Friday aside from those, we have these posts that focus on a section of a book about writing or creativity, or focus on some lecture or video or just general concept about the craft of writing.
These posts are a lot of work, but I like them, and find them to be useful. If even one other person finds a benefit to them, then I’m happy. And…let’s go ahead and get started with today’s content.
Chapter Nine: Fool Triumphant – Victory of the Underdog
SAVE THE CAT!® by Blake Snyder is a popular screenwriting book series and storytelling methodology used by screenwriters, directors, and studio execs across Hollywood. Now, for the first time ever, bestselling author and writing teacher, Jessica Brody, takes the beloved Save the Cat! plotting principals and applies them to the craft of novel writing in this exciting new “workshop style” guide, featuring over 20 full beat sheets from popular novels throughout time.
Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:
Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block”
Fixing a “broken” novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs”
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers
But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!
To state it once more, this chapter begins with a small block that lists what books are under a spoiler warning for this chapter, and I’ll keep saying how much I enjoy this particular inclusion. It’s really nice.
Okay, the Fool Triumphant, the underdog story, it’s a classic story genre/trope/theme.
Who doesn’t love a story about a victorious underdog? A poor, overlooked, cast-aside sap who rises up against those who have discounted them and proves to everyone (especially themselves) that they are worth something, dang it! They are valuable. They can and will make a difference.
page 178
So these types of stories follow an overlooked underdog whose greatest disadvantage and greatest strength is exactly because they are disregarded. That’s what sets this style of story apart from the Superhero, because the Superhero is known to be special, but our underdog, our Fool Triumphant, might not even realize their own greatness or potential.
To craft a great Fool Triumphant story, there are three necessary and important elements: 1) a fool, someone who is overlooked by society and might not even realize their own potential, 2) an establishment that the fool is in some way pitted against, and 3) a transmutation where the hero becomes someone else, adopts a new name, or gets a new mission.
Oh, and it has been mentioned a couple times already that our hero, our fool, probably doesn’t realize their own potential, and likely nobody takes them seriously or considers them to be a threat. That is not wholly true…because there is usually one person within the establishment who does recognize the threat posed by the fool and works to keep that hidden. This person is called the jealous insider, and they feel threatened by the fool and try whatever they can to sabotage the fool’s journey.
The Fool Triumphant story also features some sort of establishment…but don’t get it confused with the Institutionalized story, because the point of this story isn’t for the hero to set out to either join or destroy a group. No, the fool is just living their life, not really looking to destroy anything. Just by being themselves, the fool ends up poking holes in the system/establishment and exposing its flaws.
The final element is the transmutation, and that is the moment where the fool becomes someone else. Sometimes this is on accident and sometimes it is a disguise. They might change their name, put on a disguise, change their mission, dress up, or become a new person, even if it is only temporary. This is a key moment in the story because it is when the establishment sees the fool as less foolish than they originally thought.
The hero is essentially hiding their true identity in order to fool the people who have been disregarding them! But don’t worry; the transmutation mask never stays on for long, because in the end, all Fool Triumphant stories celebrate the idea that regardless of what others think of us, we are our strongest when we are ourselves.
page 180
Brody says that these Fool Triumphant stories resonate with readers because we have been there. At some point in our lives we’ve struggled to fit in or been the victim of doubt. Most of all we want to believe deep down that we can make a difference.
Finally, as with the rest of these story genre chapters, we are given a list of popular Fool Triumphant novels (page 181), and then pages 182-189 gives us the story beat breakdown of one of the novels.
Chapter Ten: Buddy Love – The Transformative Power of Love (or Friendship)Again, we begin the chapter with the inclusion of the block with the books being discussed/spoiled within the chapter.
Welcome to the Buddy Love story. While it would be easy to think that this chapter covers romance stories (and it does a little bit), that is only the surface of the story genre.
But love stories don’t always deal with romance. Yes, more romance novels do fit into this category, but our genre dubbed Buddy Love goes beyond just romantic love and, in fact, umbrellas every kind of love, from romance to friendship to even the love of a pet.
This genre is defined by its key characteristic: stories in which our hero is changed by someone else.
page 192
Brody says that Buddy Love stories are about completion, one person being made whole by another, or one person bringing about a change that the hero desperately needs.
Now, that doesn’t mean that all stories with kissing in them automatically fit into this genre. What decides that is the distinction between your A Story and B Story. (Remember those from a previous chapter?) In Buddy Love stories, the A Story IS the love story, and the B Story is often the side story or side characters who represent the journey the hero is on. For non-Buddy Love stories, the love story/friendship is the B Story instead.
Okay, so what three elements do we need for a successful Buddy Love story? 1) an incomplete hero, 2) a counterpart, and 3) a complication.
First up, the incomplete hero. So, while most Buddy Love stories will have a focus on two people and their relationship, there is usually one of the pair that needs more work to get on track with everything, and will require the most change and growth.
If the Buddy Love story is in first person, then more than likely that person is your primary hero, and you’ve probably gone this way because you want the readers to get inside the character to experience this journey. For a third person story, your primary hero is the one you focus on just a little bit more.
Now, Brody does point out that there can be exceptions. If both sides of the pairing are equally changed by the story then it is considered a two-hander, and the author usually gives two perspectives to match that two-handed concept.
No matter who the main focus is, the point is that they are in need of change, and the other half of the pairing is what will help them make that change happen. That is your counterpart, the second aspect of making a great Buddy Love story.
Often the counterpart or buddy is a little quirky, a little unique. There has to be something about this exciting new person that’s going to shake things up for our hero, which means they can’t be dull or ordinary. They have to be worth an entire Catalyst! The introduction of this other has got to rip our hero right out of their stasis = death slump and into the second act!
page 196
Finally, the third element, a complication. This is something that keeps the pair apart, at least for now. This could be a love triangle situation, which Brody refers to as a three-hander. Or it could be some sort of physical or emotional complication. Or it could be some sort of misunderstanding or a clash of character.
The important thing is that this complication is the primary conflict of the story, because without conflict, there is nothing to stop your friendship/romance/partnership from running off into the sunset of happy-ever-after.
That complication can be a tricky thing. It can pull buddies together and drive them apart. And often the complication leads to an All Is Lost beat in which the two lovers or friends actually do break up, separate, or have some kind of huge fight. Since the All Is Lost is defined as the lowest point of the story, this separation beat is often found in Buddy Love novels, because what’s lower than losing the one you’ve grown to love? Buddies need this beat so that they can realize what they truly have and figure out how to fix their flaws (that is, learn the theme!) in order to save the relationship (or themselves!).
page 197-198
Have I ever talked about how much I dislike the breakup portion of romance stories? Sometimes I just want to read about the couple growing closer together while facing complications and issues from outside the relationship, instead of there almost always being some misunderstanding or fight that makes the couple breakup for a short period of time. But I do see and understand that this beat in the story makes them realize their true feelings for each other and they come back together a bit stronger and more understanding.
Whether romantic in nature or not, Buddy Love stories are about how a life is changed because of having known another.
Pages 198-199 include a list of popular Buddy Love novels, and Pages 199-207 gives the story beat breakdown of one of them.
Well, that’s all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
