Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

The premise of this book has merit, and there is some useful information in it, but it is also based on a borrowed premise and, as such, there was not much in it that I had not heard elsewhere.

There are hundreds of spoilers in this book. If you have an extensive or diverse TBR, you may find yourself needing to skip paragraphs or even multiple pages of content to avoid spoiling a story you want to read. This might make it less than useful for some readers. Additionally, while the author???s analyses are insightful, they are also sometimes ???fluffy,??? and the book does contain some editing errors / typos.

I think this book best serves as a beginner???s introduction to storytelling. It???s limited in scope but does give the reader a jumping off point.

This book will make you a better writer. I've used her tools to restructure my memoir, and it improved it beyond measure. Granted, it went from a 1/10 to a 3/10, but that is a 200% improvement. ;)

This book has helped me flesh out my NaNoWriMo project so well. I have a pretty clear idea of how to proceed and have so many ideas that just came from the beats.

I'm kind of obsessed with figuring out beats and theme genres in all I read and watch now.

I do also highly recommend subscribing to her Writing Mastery Academy. It's worth price and invaluable to a new writer and especially for NaNoWriMo writers!

This is how you write an effective book on plotting.

There's a lot to love about this, not the least of which is that it is not at all prescriptivist. Brody understands that no one method will work perfectly for everyone, and that there are many ways to approach building a book, even using the same tools. Chock full of loads of examples of various structures and a helpful final chapter to give you an idea of where to begin, I found SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL to be incredibly useful. I know I'll be going back to page through this one again and again as I plot and revise my work.

Outstanding. The best instructional on “structure” that I have read thus far. Take notes. Highlight. And then implement. The book has a nice conversational tone, but so much meat. And maybe most importantly, copious examples. At times the layering upon layer of detail, nuance, and all the different spins of the beat-sheet can feel repetitive, but it's necessary for an instructional book of this type. And, man, oh man, the examples! I can't imagine the amount of work that went into developing this book.