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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay. Hello, everyone. Hello! Hello! Hello!

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I'm Stacy from providing aid. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you can see and hear me, please drop your name and location in the chat.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: See where you all are coming from today.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Colorado! Awesome.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Florida!

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Washington! Hi! Hi! Eva

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Albuquerque! Oh, Austria. That's awesome. Canada.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: new York.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Excellent! Greenville, Texas.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Phoenix, Los Angeles!

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Oh, great, great, great! Well, we are so happy to have all of you here today.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I'm sure you all have been joining us this week, so you know I'll go ahead and get us started with an introduction, and just setting some, setting the tone for our set, our session today.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: this for us.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, so before we get started, we just have a few housekeeping items. First, st you can access your crime writers. Week replays by going to the Hub page replays for Monday do through Thursday. Sessions are available for everyone on the hub as soon as they're done processing by zoom. They will also be posted to our community page for all members to view. By June 28,

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Friday is our premium day for premium and premium pro members. Only. If you are premium or premium pro user, you will receive an email on Friday morning with instructions for accessing those sessions.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: If you're interested in upgrading so that you can attend premium date, we have an offer for attendees this week for 15% off yearly, providing a premium and premium pro subscriptions. You can upgrade by Friday morning to receive access to the Premium Day sessions.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: and if you'd like to keep the crime writing conversation going. We'd love to have you in our private online writing. Community joining is easy. You simply just visit the link below and then log in with your pro writing aid account information. Then you can hop over to the live event, chat to talk to the other attendees.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: and lastly, just a few more reminders for today. If you have a question for our speakers, please use the QA. Box, you can find that button in the center of your zoom screen, and if you'd like to chat with other viewers, please use the chat and be sure to select everyone. Otherwise your messages will just come to the host.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: So our links to your offers for or from providing aid, and our speakers will be available on the crime week. Hub.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, so with that being said.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I believe we are ready to begin today. We're joined by Jessica Brody. Hi, Jessica.

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Jessica Brody: Hey? Everyone! Thanks for joining.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: so Jessica has has written over 20 novels for teens, twins, and adults, which have been translated and published in over 20 languages.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: and has been hired by Disney Press to write several books based on popular Disney franchises, such as descendants, which is my favorite and legal Disney. Princess Jessica is also the author of the Number one best selling plotting guides save the cat, writes a novel, and save the cat, writes a young adult novel.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: she is the founder of the writing Mastery Academy, which is dedicated to helping fiction writers unlock their full potential.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, Jessica, are you ready to take it away.

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Jessica Brody: I am. Thank you so much, Stacey.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Course.

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Jessica Brody: Hello, Hello, everyone! I'm so happy to be here with you. Happy Juneteenth, to all my American friends.

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Jessica Brody: I am going to get started.

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Jessica Brody: So I want to leave enough time to have questions at the end. Let me get this going here.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, here we go plotting the perfect crime with save the cat we are going to be looking at save the save the cat method today through the lens of crime fiction. So today's webinar, we're going to basically learn how the save the cat method can help you outline draft, revise, or fix your crime novel, or pretty much any novel of any genre save the cat is actually very genre agnostic. But we'll be putting the crime writer's lens on it today.

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Jessica Brody: which has been a really really fun for me to pull those crime writing examples. For those of you who are already familiar with save the cat. This will be a really good refresher, or maybe just a new look at some of the beats that you might be already familiar with, and for those of you who are new to save the cat who have never heard of it. Don't worry. I will explain what it is, for. You're not in a webinar about actually rescuing cats, but we'll get to that. This is a really great introduction to the method. It's a great way to kind of dive in with just a

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Jessica Brody: little bit into the shallow end, so you can see what it's all about, and see if it's something you'd like to pursue more.

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Jessica Brody: Alright, hang around until the end. I've got some free downloads links to free downloads for you. And also I'll be sharing one of my favorite resources for fiction writers.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, so save the cat. I think it's appropriate for me to talk about how I found save the cat and how it's basically saved my career. So this was me about I don't know. 20 years ago, trying and failing to sell my 1st novel. It's not really me. It's a stock photo, but I think it looks remarkably like me. So I chose it. So basically, I had this manuscript. I was shopping all over town trying to get an agent, and I kept getting rejected over and over

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Jessica Brody: and over. But, interestingly enough, the rejection letters kind of said similar things. I had similar feedback coming at me, and that feedback was.

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Jessica Brody: You're a good writer, but you don't know how to tell a story or great writing. No story. This feedback made no sense to me, because I was like, what do you mean? I don't know how to tell a story. I have 400 pages of story. I can print it out and stack it on my desk.

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Jessica Brody: What I really didn't understand was that I didn't know what a story was. I didn't know how to structure us a story properly, and that became very evident to me when a screenwriter friend of mine, after hearing about all of my rejections, recommended this screenwriting book for me. Called save the cat the last book on screenwriting you'll ever need. And I read the book because my my writer friend, who recommended

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Jessica Brody: it to me, said, I think this could actually work for novels as well. You might want to give it a give it a read. So I read the book. It made so much sense to me. It unlocked so many mysteries for me, and I really understood not only what story was.

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Jessica Brody: but that yes, the re the rejection letters were right, and I didn't know how to tell one. So I ended up taking the save the cat method, applying it to the novel I was trying to sell rewriting the whole thing. Using this this structure method. And I ended up.

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Jessica Brody: It ended up launching my career. I sold that novel and I've sold 20 novels since to major publishers like Simon and Schuster, Penguin, Random House and Mcmillan and so yes, the method definitely worked for me.

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Jessica Brody: But I didn't know if it would work for everyone. I I sort of thought maybe I just happened to write books that kind of feel like movies. And that's why it worked for me. So I had this question dangling in my mind, which was, Does this method work for all novels, or am I some kind of an exception.

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Jessica Brody: And that's when I started to do some research, I started to look at popular novels throughout time through the lens of this screenwriting method, and I found some really interesting things. So I found that when I would read different novels through this lens and I'm talking about all genres like crime novels like the Girl on the train horror novels like misery, young adult romance, like everything middle, great fantasy like Percy Jackson, and even classics like the grapes of wrath.

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Jessica Brody: I found that they all had very similar things in common.

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Jessica Brody: I found that around 10% of the way through all of these stories there was sort of a life changing event and an inciting incident, if you will. I found that around 20% of the way through all of these novels the hero tried something new, or went somewhere new around. Halfway through all of these novels of all different genres, I found that there was a major turning point that completely twisted the plot.

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Jessica Brody: And then around 75% of the way through all of these novels the hero or the protagonist hit rock bottom and around 85%. Through all of these novels the hero found some type of resolution and enacted some type of new plan.

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Jessica Brody: Now that's either a really really strange coincidence, or I had stumbled upon the same thing that the original, save the cat writer, stumbled upon in screenplays. I had stumbled upon it in books, and I call it the secret storytelling code. It is a template or a blueprint that is buried within all novels

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Jessica Brody: and within all screenplays, which basically means it's buried within all stories. And it's what makes stories work. This was a huge find for me, because it meant that the save the Cap method could work for other novelists. So

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Jessica Brody: these these 5 moments that I found they're not actually call. We don't call them the life changing event, the hero try something new, etc. We call them what what Blake said, or the original author called them, which is the catalyst, the break into 2, the midpoint the all is lost, and the break into 3. These are 5 of the po of the beats

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Jessica Brody: of the save the cat method, and these are actually the 5 that we're going to talk about today. And I'll tell you why in a minute, because they are actually the most important beats

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Jessica Brody: so yes, save the cat does work for novels, and I set out to prove it by writing 2 books save the Cat, writes novel and the most recent release which came out last year. Save the cat, writes a young adult novel, after writing over 15 young adult novels, I felt like it was worth to put this expertise through the lens of young adult.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, so what exactly, is the saved account method for those of you who are new. Here's a little overview of what this is

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Jessica Brody: as we saw. It's a structure blueprint. It's a series of plot points that can be found over and over and over again in all successful stories.

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Jessica Brody: I like to think of it a little differently, though I like to think of the save the cat method as a transformation machine.

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Jessica Brody: Essentially, we've all heard this. We've all heard the advice your character needs to arc, your character needs to change. They need to transform. This is a way that we can actually track that transformation. So what we have is the save the cat method is a machine where an imperfect hero goes into the beginning of the story, and a less imperfect hero comes out. So it's a way for us to track character arcs and character transformations to make sure that our story is worth telling, and that our characters are actually being affected by it.

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Jessica Brody: basically at the heart of the save the cat method, although it is more than that, the very heart of it is this beach sheet that we're going to talk about today.

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Jessica Brody: It breaks down into 3 acts or 15 beats. You can also call them plot points. The move. The word beats is a very movie, a movie term. So we we've kept it from the original method. This. These beats are designed to make your story more compelling. Help with pacing. Hold your readers attention, and leave your readers. See feeling satisfied by the end. And, as I said, it's genre agnostic. It does work for every genre, including crime

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Jessica Brody: crime novels.

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Jessica Brody: When do you use it? Well, the 1st and most obvious way to use the save the cat method, or really any plotting method is when you're outlining a new story, it makes sense. There's a 15 beat blueprint that makes sense for me to do an outline with it.

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Jessica Brody: However, it's actually a really great tool, for in it, revising an existing story, so for those of you who might like to discover the 1st draft all on your own, also called pancers, and you don't want to outline first.st This is a great way to put all your story beats to the test to make sure. Do I have all the right beats? Are they in the right order? Are they coming at the right place? And are they having the in the most maximum impact that they can have? So it's a great revision tool as well.

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Jessica Brody: it's also a great analytic or sorry diagnostic tool to figure out what is broken in your story. Maybe you're halfway through. Or maybe you're you're working on your revision. Something's not working, and you can't figure out what it is. That's when I usually bust out the beat sheet and figure out what beats do I have what's missing and what beats might not be working the way that they should, and that usually will, reveal to me what's broken in my story.

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Jessica Brody: I also love it for test driving new ideas. I will often take the 5 beats that we're talking about today and use them as sort of a testing ground. When I have a brand new idea. Can I come up with these 5 beats that we're gonna call that we're gonna call the foundation beats. Can I come up with those 5 beats if I can? I know that I have an idea that's going to go the distance.

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Jessica Brody: It's also really great for getting back on track after you've wondered about 300 miles off. Of course, in your current story, which

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Jessica Brody: I've never done.

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Jessica Brody: I'm sure none of you have done either.

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Jessica Brody: But no, it's a great way to kind of keep yourself on track.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, but why is it called? Save the cat? This is the question. I probably get more than any other question.

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Jessica Brody: The Save the Save the cat is not actually one of the 15 beats, which is a little bit weird, but it is actually defined as the moment in the story when the hero does something redeeming. And and the audience basically gets behind the story. So the reason it's called Save the Cat, the original author, Blake, Snyder said, because at the beginning of your story your hero should do something redeeming like save a cat

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Jessica Brody: from a burning building or a tree, or a shelter. And then suddenly, we're all like this is a great person. We should get behind this person.

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Jessica Brody: They don't actually have to save a cat, but doing something equally redeeming can be a really great way to get your reader behind your story. So one of my favorite examples of the Save the cat in action is actually from the Disney movie Aladdin. When Aladdin steals a loaf of bread the very beginning, and we're all like, oh, he's not that great of a guy, he's, you know, stealing and running from the authorities and all of that. But then what does he do with the loaf of bread at the end of the big Chase scene? Well, he gives it to a starving mother and child.

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Jessica Brody: That is the essence essence of a save the cat moment.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, so what we're going to do today is we're going to break down the 5 most crucial beats of any novel, and we're going to look at those beats through the lens of some crime novel examples

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Jessica Brody: you'll you'll also, through this analysis you'll be able to see how the beats really form the foundation of your story.

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Jessica Brody: and then we'll have some time at the end to answer questions.

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Jessica Brody: So what are these 5 foundation beats that we're going to talk about?

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Jessica Brody: Well, yes, the the entire save the cap method is based on 15 beats. But what I found is that if you strip away a lot of it, what's left at the kind of foundation of your story is these 5 beats that we're gonna focus on today. So these are the major turning points of the story. It's the. It's the moments of the story when your when your story really pivots the most.

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Jessica Brody: These are the so, therefore they're that. These are the plot points that serve as the foundation of your novel structure. I like to think of them as sort of tent poles that hold up the 10 other beats, because a lot of these beats are actually strung between these 5 foundation beats. So they really do form a solid structure or foundation for your story.

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Jessica Brody: This is also a great starter outline to use these 5 beats like, maybe you're just getting into plotting, or you're just getting trying out outlining, or you are a discovery writer who doesn't want to do a full outline. But you want to have at least some direction before you start. These 5 foundation beats are a great starter outline for you.

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Jessica Brody: They're also really great place to start, because they are the easiest beats to identify when you're reading other stories. So when I when people ask me like, How do I get better at the beats, I usually tell them, read other novels and look for these 5 foundation beats, and that will really get you like tuned in to seeing story in a new way.

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Jessica Brody: Okay? So those beats that we're going to talk about today are the catalyst, the break into 2, the midpoint, the all is lost and the break into 3, and you'll see how they start to form that foundation for your story.

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Jessica Brody: So we'll start with the catalyst. And just to give you a quick overview of this slide. So you understand where we are at all times you can see across the top. Those are all of the 15 beats of the save the cat method. And I've highlighted the 5 that we're gonna talk about today, so you can always see where we are in the grand scheme of things, and you'll see that there's 3 acts that we're gonna work through in the process along the left side of your screen you'll see the name of the beat. You'll also see a percentage mark. Now, this causes a lot of stress for authors. So let's just deal with it right now.

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Jessica Brody: this basically means that around 10% of your novel this is where this beat should fall. Now, it doesn't have to come exactly at 10, as you saw from from that earlier slide. Th, those those beats tend to fall in novels in different spots, but they roughly average out to about the 10% mark. So I tell writers to use these percentage marks as a guideline to, to kind of give you an idea of where the beat should go, and that also really helps you troubleshoot story problems later.

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Jessica Brody: For instance, if your catalyst is coming at 20, you know that you're pretty much off the mark, and you might want to move it up.

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Jessica Brody: Okay? So that's the percentage marks. Let's get into it.

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Jessica Brody: So the catalyst is one of the easiest beats to identify in any story. It is a call to action or an inciting incident. Essentially the mark of a good catalyst is, if you can say, after this moment, my hero's life will never be the same again.

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Jessica Brody: Basically, it's big enough to break through the status quo of Act One and act one is very much a status quo world. It's how what the world looks like before this big event. So we want to make sure that event is big enough.

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Jessica Brody: Popular choices in all novels include tragedies, phone calls with bad news, breakups, divorces, a messenger at the door, or maybe even OP. An opportunity in presented.

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Jessica Brody: However, in crime novels, this is usually where the crime is 1st revealed, the crime that's been committed, or if you've put your crime really early in the story, this might be a new piece of evidence or information that escalates the crime to maybe a murder case or basically puts it front and center. Essentially what we want to get out of this beat is that it's impossible to go back to the way things were

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Jessica Brody: after this moment.

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Jessica Brody: So essentially the catalyst is designed to send the story in a new direction.

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Jessica Brody: Now, the 1st book we're going to be looking at when we look at these beats is the girl on the train by Paula Hawkins. And then, at the end of the presentation, I've actually put all of the beats together.

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Jessica Brody: all of the 5 beats together to show you another example of them in order, so you can kind of put them all together with a different story. So let's look at the girl on the train in the girl on the train. The catalyst comes when Rachel blacks out and wakes up with bruises, a bump on her head and blood in her hair.

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Jessica Brody: She's basically unable to remember what happened the night before

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Jessica Brody: later. It's revealed that a woman named Megan Hipwell is missing.

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Jessica Brody: and we have now broken through Rachel's status quo world. It is impossible for Rachel to go back to the way things were after this happens.

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Jessica Brody: So what was Rachel's status quo world? Just so we can catch up. She was unemployed. She drinks a lot, and she likes to ride the train and spy on a couple who lives near the railroad tracks, who are named Megan and Scott Hipwell. So this event is going to break through that status quo, and it's kind of impossible for Rachel to just pretend this never happened after she wakes up with, you know, blood on her hair and bruises on her bruises and a bump on her head.

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Jessica Brody: Okay, next up is our break into 2, the second beat we're going to talk about today. This comes roughly around the 20% mark.

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Jessica Brody: This is the moment when the hero proactively decides to either accept the call to action, leave their comfort zone, try something new, venture into a new world or new way of thinking.

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Jessica Brody: Now I've underlined proactively for reason, the break into 2 works best when the hero makes a proactive decision that gives them some kind of agency, heroes should not be dragged, forced, coerced, or manipulated into Act 2. It's never as successful as when they actually make a decision to go into Act 2

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Jessica Brody: in crime novels. This is often a beat where the hero or the amateur detective or the

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Jessica Brody: the the real detective takes on the case or launches the investigation. There's a moment of of a threshold, or there's a feeling of a threshold when we break into 2, because we really are breaking from Act one into Act 2. We're going into a whole new world which is usually the world of the investigation.

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Jessica Brody: So yes, this is a threshold between Act One, which we call the status quo world and Act 2, which we call the Upside Down world. We call it the Upside Down World, to remind us that it really needs to feel different from Act One. In order for the reader to to have the feeling that we're going somewhere, that we're moving forward through the story

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Jessica Brody: at this point in the break into 2. Your hero is still motivated by something that they want, not something that they need. What does that mean? Well, when we break it down like this. A want is an external goal that the hero is pursuing. Maybe it's to catch the killer. Maybe it's to solve the crime. Maybe it's something else, but it's something tangible that we know when the hero achieves it, because it's an external thing.

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Jessica Brody: However, a need is an internal change that needs to occur by the end of the story. This is essentially the character transformation. How does your hero need to be transformed by this story? This is not gonna happen at the break into 2, because we're still only 20% of them through way through the novel. The actual need is not going to be realized until the break into 3 coming up later. So at this point, it's really important that we're focusing on what the hero wants and not necessarily what they need.

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Jessica Brody: That's why we call Act 2 fixing things the wrong way. Because this what the hero wants is not really the point of the story. It's what makes the story fun and engaging. And it makes. It's what makes us want to read it, because we all want to read about this external goal that the hero is pursuing. That's usually the whole premise of the book.

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Jessica Brody: But what the hero needs is the point of the story. It's the reason you've put this hero into this story in order for them to be transformed by it. So it really wasn't about what they wanted all along, which we'll get to in a moment. But that's why we call act to fixing things the wrong way. It's not a moral judgment. It's just a a way of saying, this is not really what the story is about, deep down.

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Jessica Brody: but it is the probably the most fun part of the book, and so fixing things. The wrong way ends up being a lot of fun.

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Jessica Brody: So usually, when we break into 2, we have a new or modified goal is introduced. We can call this the Act 2 goal. If your hero is taking on a case, it's probably going to be the goal of solving the case

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Jessica Brody: in the girl on the train. We see this when Rachel decides to insert herself into the case. She's not a professional detective at all, but she decides she's going to take on this case herself. She vows to help solve the murder of, or the mystery of, the missing Megan Hipwell. This is her new goal

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Jessica Brody: now. She's not taking on this goal because she's ready to confront her own dark past and finally face reality. That is what she needs. That is the reason she's in this novel, and that is what she will achieve by the end. But that's not why she's doing it now.

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Jessica Brody: She's doing it because she just wants to figure out what happened to Megan so essentially. She's fixing things the wrong way. She's fixing her life the wrong way. You could say

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Jessica Brody: so. Remember her act. One world she had. She was. She led a life of being a lonely, unemployed alcoholic. Now her upside down world looks very different. She's the exciting world of a missing person. Investigation. She feels purposeful, she feels like she has agency. She loves her act 2 world because it feels very different from her act one world.

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Jessica Brody: Then we reach the midpoint at the 50% mark.

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Jessica Brody: Literally, this is the middle of the novel. It's also a crossroads of the story.

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Jessica Brody: This is where the pursuit of the act 2 goal culminates in either

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Jessica Brody: a false victory, meaning the hero has thus far, since the break into 2 been succeeding, or maybe even has achieved their goal at this point. That's called a false victory midpoint.

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Jessica Brody: Or maybe you're gonna choose to have a false defeat at the midpoint, which is where the hero has thus far in Act 2 been floundering, and has not achieved their goal, and maybe even has seemingly lost to that goal

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Jessica Brody: in crime novels. This is often a new clue uncovered, another crime committed, or a false lead exposed, something that exposes the hero's track as either false or successful.

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Jessica Brody: But something big must happen at the midpoint to raise the stakes of the hero, or raise the stakes of the story and push the hero in a new direction. The midpoint is one of the biggest turning points of the entire novel.

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Jessica Brody: so put some popular choices in order to raise stakes and push the hero in a new direction is plot. Twists, ticking clocks, shocking reveals ramp-ups of the love story are also very popular. Maybe a big public event or a stepping out for the hero. All of these things serve to push the hero forward so that they cannot go backward

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Jessica Brody: now, because we're raising the stakes. And because the Act 2 goal was either a false victory or culminated in either a false victory or a false defeat.

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Jessica Brody: This be usually inspires a new modified, or maybe even a renewed goal for the hero to pursue. Maybe they're now going at it in a different way, because the way that they pursued it before has either failed or succeeded. But it wasn't the answer.

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Jessica Brody: Basically, this new goal should move the hero away from what they want and toward what they need. We're now starting to move toward that need and away from that want. So that's why we often raise the personal stakes or the emotional stakes for the hero at the midpoint, as well to push them further toward that transformation.

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Jessica Brody: In the girl on the train we see a false victory. At the midpoint the mystery is seemingly solved. The main suspect. Megan's therapist is arrested, and we think that's it. That's that's the mystery. We've caught the culprit.

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Jessica Brody: but he's soon after released, and then Megan's body is found upgrading this case to a murder investigation. So right there, right at the right, at the middle. We we get not only a false victory we get, and we we see that it's false because the suspect is actually released, and then boom! The stakes are raised, because now it's no longer a missing person. It's a murder, and that's a great way to raise the stakes.

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Jessica Brody: Now we see desperation fueling Rachel, renewing her goal of solving the mystery, but also gradually pushing her closer toward facing her own demons.

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Jessica Brody: Then at the 75% mark, we reach, the all is lost. So the midpoint changed to the changed. The direction of the story, perhaps gave us a new goal, and now this goal has most likely bit failed at the all is lost. This is an external action beat where something happens to the hero that pushes them to rock, bottom, or the lowest point of the novel.

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Jessica Brody: It often comes in the form of a big defeat, a failure to achieve a goal, the loss of something important to the hero.

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Jessica Brody: and in crime novels we often see this as a failure to solve the case, or maybe even an endangerment of someone close to the hero, or maybe an endangerment of the hero themselves.

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Jessica Brody: the all is lost. Moment typically includes what we call

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Jessica Brody: a whiff of death.

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Jessica Brody: This is essentially

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Jessica Brody: a hint that something has died. Now it can be a literal death like an actual bot. New body is found, or somebody's death. Life is at stake, or it can be a metaphorical death. It can be the death of a relationship, the death of a partnership, the death of a business, the death of an idea. The way. The reason that we include a whiff of death here is because we're trying to symbolically represent the death of the old hero or the old way of thinking

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Jessica Brody: and the upcoming hint to a rebirth or transformed hero. So something has to die in order for the new hero to be reborn in the next beat that we'll talk about.

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Jessica Brody: Essentially, this lowest point will trigger the biggest moment of growth for the story. You've probably heard the phrase before that no one changes until they've hit rock bottom. Well, this is the rock bottom that you are fabricating for your hero to make it believable that they actually would change the right way. Coming up

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Jessica Brody: in the girl on the train we see. This is the moment where Scott, who Rachel has been getting close to, finds out she's been lying to him, and who locks her, and about who she is, and locks her out, threatening to kill her. There's her whiff of death we get a little hint of death. Death is in in the picture.

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Jessica Brody: That's when Rachel discovers that Megan was pregnant when she died, and the baby wasn't Scott's her husband or the therapist so suddenly. Now we have

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Jessica Brody: an open question and a failure to solve the case. The way that she thought it was going to be solved.

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Jessica Brody: because at this point she thought it was either going to be. She thought the culprit was either Scott or the therapist, and she learns that it's neither, so that we have a dead end or or a defeat

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Jessica Brody: or the lot. You can call it the loss of the goal.

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Jessica Brody: All right. The all is lost, as I said, are triggers a huge moment of growth. This is that moment of growth. The All is lost. Triggers, an Aha moment which inspires your hero's biggest proactive decision. Yet

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Jessica Brody: this break into 3 beat which happens around the 80% mark should feel like a solution or a resolution

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Jessica Brody: in crime novels. This is often where the hero solves the case, figuring out a key piece

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Jessica Brody: of the case, or even setting off to catch the culprit that they have now identified.

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Jessica Brody: We get the feeling of a breakthrough. In this moment the hero realizes what they need to do, not only to fix all the problems from Act 2, but also to fix themselves. Remember, this is the moment of ultimate transformation.

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Jessica Brody: The hero discovers what they need usually in the form of a life lesson, learned, a fear conquered, a wound, healed, a worldview transformed, or even a personal flaw overcome. All of this is happening around the the 80% mark at the break into Act 3,

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Jessica Brody: we call Acts 3. The Synthesis World remember, act one was the status quo World Act 2 was the Upside down world. And we call Act 3, the synthesis world. Why? Because basically, we're putting all of the pieces together, we not only in the in the investigation, if there is one. But also we're taking who the hero was in Act One. We're adding what they've learned through their trials and tribulations of Act 2.

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Jessica Brody: And what the result is is who they become in act 3. That's why we call it the Synthesis World

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Jessica Brody: Act 3 is fixing things the right way. Act break into act 2 was fixing things the wrong way. Now that the hero has just gotten to rock bottom, discovered what they really need to do in order to change. We now can see them changing things the right way.

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Jessica Brody: which often results in a new goal.

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Jessica Brody: Act 3 goal.

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Jessica Brody: So on the girl on the train, after confronting a mysterious man from her memories, Rachel gains a key piece of information. This is her Aha! Moment.

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Jessica Brody: It turns out that Megan's murder was much more connected to Rachel's own dark past than she realized. Huh! Interesting! That's a nice synthesis moment.

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Jessica Brody: But the police don't believe her because of all the drinking, so Rachel is forced to confront the murderer herself, which involves confronting her her past and facing up to reality, which is her need

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Jessica Brody: so essentially she's she has a new goal to go after the murder herself, and that goal actually involves her facing her past, which is fixing things the right way.

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Jessica Brody: So that's her act 3 goal, as I said.

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Jessica Brody: Alright, if you'd like to read the full beat sheet of the girl on the train. It's actually included in, save the cat, writes novel in lots more detail, with all 15 beats. But now let's put all of those 5 beats together and look at a different crime novel this time I'm gonna break down. One of us is lying, which is a YA crime novel. I don't worry. There's no, I don't think there's any spoilers in here, at least not any big ones. I've tried to keep all the spoilers out. If you haven't read it.

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Jessica Brody: But I chose this one because actually, this one has 4 points of view or 4 heroes. And so I get the question a lot about, what do we do with multiple points of view? Well, this is one answer of what you can do with multiple points of view in this specific novel by Karen and Mcmanus. The the heroes actually work as sort of a team, so they share beats. This is what I call a team beach or a single track beach sheet, meaning all 4 heroes are actually experiencing the same beats at the same time.

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Jessica Brody: There's other multiple point of view examples which we won't have time to get into today. But then, where the heroes may have different beats, sheets. Essentially, they don't share beats, or maybe they share only a few beats, and they're on separate tracks, having different beach sheets at different times, which I call a multitrack beat sheet.

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Jessica Brody: but the team beat sheet or the single track beach sheet is one of the easier ones to to break down and to write. So let's look at how it works in one of us is lying, which expand, which is includes 4 povs for heroes, one beat sheet.

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Jessica Brody: So we'll look at the 5 foundation beats in the catalyst after a boy named. Oh, that should say, Simon, not Simone. I'm sorry I have a Simone in the novel I'm writing now. That's probably why that ended up in there after a boy named Simon, passes out in detention and is taken away by ambulance. The 4 other students, the 4 heroes who are with him, discover that he's dead. Here's the catalyst. There is a crime that's been committed

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Jessica Brody: at the break into 2. All 4 heroes are dragged in for questioning about Simon's death. They're shown an unpublished post from Simon's app. He runs a gossip app at the school that was supposed to be posted the day he died. It contains secrets about all 4 of them so suddenly. Each one of them has a motive to kill Simon, and becomes a suspect in what is now being treated as a murder case. So at this threshold, beat they are all 4 of them thrust into the investigation which has now been upgraded to murder

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Jessica Brody: at the midpoint, the major turning point of the halfway point. It's revealed that all 4 heroes have been named persons of interest by the press. This raises the stakes, because now the because not only have the secrets been revealed in a newspaper article, the ones that were were mentioned at the break into 2. The mystery has expanded beyond the hallways of Bayview High, which raises personal and external stakes for all of them.

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Jessica Brody: This also serves as a false defeat for all 4 heroes, because they have yet to extricate themselves from the case.

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Jessica Brody: At the all is lost. One of the 4 heroes is arrested for Simon's murder, and the rest believe he is innocent.

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Jessica Brody: They'd be by this point they've bonded, and so this makes it a loss for all 4 of them.

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Jessica Brody: Then, at the break into 3, the remaining 3 heroes decide to investigate this turn of events themselves. Are you noticing a pattern here, investigating themselves and get to the bottom of the murder once and for all. This becomes their act. 3. Goal.

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Jessica Brody: And if you'd like to read that full beat sheet, it is broken down in lots of detail, with all 15 beats in save the cat, writes a young adult.

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Jessica Brody: So those are the 5 foundation beats the ones we just covered. But, as I told you, there are actually 15 beats. These are the beats that hold up the other beats that you can absolutely plot a novel using these 5 beats. But if you would like to dive deeper into the 15 beats, I'll tell you a few ways that you can do that

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Jessica Brody: 1st off we have the Save the cat books which I mentioned before these these dive way into every beat. There's an entire chapter dedicated to the beat sheet that, I think, is about 60 pages long, full of examples. And then each of these books actually has 10 full beat sheet analyses of popular novels where I break down the beach sheet for each of those stories.

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Jessica Brody: If you're more of a visual learner, I also have the official save the cat online course.

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Jessica Brody: which is basically everything you need to master the save the cat method, which includes in-depth explanations of every beat, examples from tons of books and and movies. I've actually broken down a bunch of movies in this class, too.

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Jessica Brody: It includes includes exercises and checklists for each beat so that you can workshop and help apply each beat to your own project.

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Jessica Brody: I guide you through brainstorming sessions where I actually plot my own novel along with you. And this is a self-paced course, so you can go as fast or slow as you want, and you can start it at any time and take it as many times as you want.

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Jessica Brody: so it's sort of like me having me as your on-demand story coach.

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Jessica Brody: It's only a 4 h course, so in less than 4 h. You'll have the knowledge and skills to write a successful novel every single time.

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Jessica Brody: instantly diagnose problems in your own story and other stories. In case you want to be a good critique partner, save hundreds of hours on endless rewrites, because you'll know exactly what's working and what's not working in your plot.

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Jessica Brody: and it will help you finish your 1st drafts faster and your revisions faster.

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Jessica Brody: And you'll be able to write, revise, and polish final drafts with confidence and ease.

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Jessica Brody: So norm. So by the end of this online course, you will walk away with a rock, solid outline, novel, roadmap, or revision plan.

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Jessica Brody: We normally sell this course for $199. But because you're here today I wanted to do something special. If you go to writing mastery.com slash crimewriter, you'll find my writing Mastery Academy. This is my ultimate resource for fiction writers. It includes 14 on demand courses taught by me and some by some guest instructors plus live webinars office hours and our online community and more

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Jessica Brody: with the coupon code. That, I've put on this link. You'll find it at that link you can get your 1st month for only $10, and that expires on June 30.th

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Jessica Brody: Also, at this link I've included some freebies in case you want to download those I have a save the cat starter kit, which is an overview of all 15 beats plus 3 full beachy breakdowns of popular novels. I've also included a you can download my writing routine. Quick, start, guide another popular one, and my novel revision quick start guide. So I'll leave that up there, and if maybe Stacy can get that in the

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Jessica Brody: that link in the in the chat, that would be great. And now it looks like we have plenty of time for questions, so I'm I'm excited to hear what you all have to ask.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay. So I went ahead and added, that link in there in the chat for you, Jessica. This has been so great. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have a question from Eileen Hook. She wants to know. How would you define the difference between all is lost and dark night of the soul.

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Jessica Brody: Great question, Eileen. Thank you for asking that the all is lost. Is a single scene beat. So it really means that it happens at one moment in time, and it's something that happens to the hero.

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Jessica Brody: and the dark night of the soul is the reaction to that. So we we like to give our heroes time to react and reflect, and and maybe stew around and stomp their feet for a while. And so we've actually there's actually a beat that's called the Dark Night of the Soul, which takes place around 5 takes about 5% of the novel, and it's a multi scene beat. So after your hero has hit Rock Bottom in the All is lost. They then have time for that.

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Jessica Brody: all to sink in for the implications to play out for them to react in ever in any way that they need to react. And for all of those epiphanies to happen that we talked about today that will lead into the break into 3. So the all is lost, essentially triggers. The dark night of the soul

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Jessica Brody: welcome.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: So awesome. Awesome. Cool.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay. Let's see.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: I see. Looks like we have some connections going on in the chat.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Don't worry.

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Jessica Brody: Okay.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yeah.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: okay, I have another one from Lisa. This seems to be very character transformation based. But a lot of serialized detective novels do not lean heavily into character transformation.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Could you give an overview for how this would look with something like a

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: okay for for POIR. OT.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Coral Bra, corporate.

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Jessica Brody: But poor.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Row!

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Jessica Brody: Yeah, absolutely.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes, I'm glad.

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Jessica Brody: I bet you. Oh, I'm sorry.

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Jessica Brody: Oh, good! Yeah. I'm glad that you brought this up. Was it Lisa? Lisa?

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Lisa.

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Jessica Brody: Lisa. Thank you so much for bringing this up. Yes, this is an important question to ask and to answer about crime novels. And it's actually one of the with crime novels. It's kind of one of those like little exceptions that, save the cat has and essentially breaks down to this.

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Jessica Brody: The story has to affect someone. If it doesn't affect someone, it's not really worth reading, cause it's not gonna affect the reader either. So even if it's not the detective who is being transformed, somebody needs to be transformed in the story. So the example that I like to I like to use just cause. It's it's 1 that I love is the Da Vinci code and all of the Robert Langdon books. I would argue that Robert Langdon doesn't really change much in any of the novels.

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Jessica Brody: but someone does change, and it's usually his sidekick. So if you look at the Da Vinci code specifically, Sophie Neville is his sidekick, and she's the one that grows and changes. The most of the whole cast of that novel is her transformation front and center in the story. No, because it's a plot driven story. But she does change. She learns about her past, she uncovers secrets about who she really is, and by the end. She's faced with a very big decision that she has to make.

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Jessica Brody: So I would say that she is actually the character that transforms. So when I look at

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Jessica Brody: when I look at those types of serialized fiction through the save the cat lens, I actually put the little hero hat on the character who is transformed by this. And so you'll often see that the detective is sort of an

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Jessica Brody: impetus for change, or someone who helps whoever is being transformed in the story have that transformation and kind of brings. It helps bring it about. They're almost like a support character. Even though it might be detective who is the main character. I would argue that the person who changes is sort of the the one who experiences the arc but I think it's important that we're always having the the

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Jessica Brody: beats and the plot points affect someone personally. Otherwise it's probably not gonna resonate as well with your reader. I hope. I hope that helps.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Yes, thank you. Thank you for that. Okay, this one is from Kim. Is it okay to introduce your B story in Act one.

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Jessica Brody: Oh, yes, so Kim's referencing one of the beats we weren't able to talk about today. So for those of you who don't know, I'll just quickly catch you up. We have a beat called the B story, and essentially, it's a usually like a side character or a love interest or a secondary character, a friendship story. It's the introduction of another plot, another plot thread. And it's usually comes in the form of a side character.

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Jessica Brody: So typically in the world of Save the cat. The B story happens in act 2, meaning the character that character or that thread is introduced in act 2. What I find a lot in novels is that the B story is often introduced in Act one but doesn't really take

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Jessica Brody: any significant form or become really important until we get into Act 2. So yes, I think it's absolutely fine for you to introduce the character in Act One. I think what's important when we look at the B story is to make sure that once we're in Act 2, that they do sort of take on a different role in some way. Otherwise, why did the hero need to leave Act one in order

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Jessica Brody: to have this experience? If they could have basically had this whole experience in act one we wanna make sure that the purpose of them being in Act 2 is clear. And one of the reasons we, one of the ways. We can do that and show, that is, through their interaction with the B story character, who is defined as sort of a product of act 2 or someone the hero only interacts with, or has meaningful interaction with, because they went into

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Jessica Brody: to act 2. But I could talk about the B story character forever. But yes, the quick answer is, you can absolutely introduce them in Act one. Just make sure that their role becomes extra clear in Act 2.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Awesome. Thank you. Okay. The next one is from Valerie. Sometimes I've seen readers complain that the end of this of a novel is rushed. How do we manage that.

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Jessica Brody: Yes, I've I've heard that, too. And it's so. It's so easy for us writers to rush through the end, because, you know, by the end. We're so tired

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Jessica Brody: and we just wanna be done. We just wanna get the book over with and start something new. At least, that's my experience. So the way that we can really make sure that we are not rushing through our ending is by taking our time unfolding this act. 3 goal that we mentioned today. So at the break into 3, there's usually a new plan or a new goal that's being introduced. And that goal really shapes. The final beat which we call the finale is the is the

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Jessica Brody: second to last beat of the beat sheet. The really what the finale is, it is the enactment of the act. 3 goal. But no goal is is interesting. If it's easy, you know, if the hero says I'm gonna sco solve the case, and on the next page they solve the case. We wanna make sure that we're throwing in ample conflict dead ends. You know the the villains not gonna go down easy. All of the things we can do to make that act 3 goal difficult.

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Jessica Brody: That's that's how we can basically amp it up externally, but also internally. Remember this, this end is where the heroes really show. If you're writing more of a traditional character arc

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Jessica Brody: story, this is where the hero is really proving that they have changed. And just because the hero says, Yeah, I've changed. I've learned my life lesson doesn't mean that they actually have. So this is where you're throwing in also emotional obstacles for them to overcome and for them to really prove that they've learned what they need to learn. That's a lot to accomplish in in one beat, which is why, actually, the beat has been broken down into 5 sub beats

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Jessica Brody: that we call the 5 point finale. And again, more information about 5 point finale can be found in the books or in the course, since we can't, really, we don't really have time to go into it in that. In in this presentation, however, what's just important to note is that the 5 point finale, all it really does is it helps you track an engaging play out of the act. 3 goal.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hey? That's wonderful information. Thank you.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Alright. This next one is from Peg? She asked. Does it have to be a positive change, or can it be your detective or sidekick accepting who? What? Where they are? For instance, a woman looking for romance, who decides her life is fine without it. After going through a breakup or disappointment.

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Jessica Brody: Thank you, Peg. Great question. I would say. What you just defined is a positive change. I mean I I look at that as like breaking through social norms. And you know, taking life, the way comes. And I I think that's a positive change. However, to answer your more general question. No, you arcs do not have to be positive. There's a variation on care. The character transformation that we can call the negative arc

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Jessica Brody: or the reverse character transformation. It's something I I dive a little bit deeper into in the Save the cat, writes a young adult novel. But one of my favorite examples, which is not a crime novel. But is the book 1984 where we see, you know, Winston starts out rebellious, and has sort of a rebellious spirit about him, and he's kind of on the verge of of questioning every. His whole is his whole surroundings.

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Jessica Brody: And where does he end up at the end? Absolute 100 dutiful. You know, big brother Supporter, he's been completely cracked and he's lost his humanity, and that's really a great example of a reverse arc. We also see really fun. Reverse arcs in villan origin stories. I I haven't seen the movie, but I break down the book.

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Jessica Brody: A a ballot of songbirds and snakes by Suzanne Collins. I break that down in the Ya book, but that's a great. It's the origin story of President Snow from the Hunger Games trilogy, and it's a fantastic origin story, and it absolutely has a reverse arc and just a quick note about reverse arcs is usually they work very similarly to positive arcs, except that that sort of need or that flaw that you are

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Jessica Brody: trying to get a hero to overcome in a positive arc. It actually gets subverted, and they don't overcome it and it, and they end up being kind of over the the flaw sort of overcomes them instead and turns them into something else. By the end.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, great. I have a question from both Maria and

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Maggie. So they want to know. Do any of these beats shift? If the novel is a part of a series.

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Jessica Brody: Oh, great question, both of you.

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Jessica Brody: yeah, yes and no. No.

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Jessica Brody: because every book needs to have

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Jessica Brody: a story. You know, it needs to have a complete story when you're when you're part of a series, you're usually leaving something open ended. But I think the best way for me to, and the way that I like to understand story in within a series is that you have an overarching conflict in a series. But you also have to have a primary conflict in A, in a novel as well as part of that series. The. If you don't resolve the primary conflict of the 1st book.

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Jessica Brody: Your readers will probably not keep reading because they might be disappointed. However, you can absolutely have an overarching conflict that is not resolved in the 1st book. So again, I sorry I keep coming back to the Hunger Games. It's the series I know the best, but we have, you know, in in the 1st book of the Hunger Games we have. The main conflict is the hunger games. If we ended the book with like halfway through the games, and we don't know if Katnis survives.

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Jessica Brody: That would be pretty disappointing. However, even though she survives the 1st games, we know that the major conflict of the capital in general is not yet dealt with.

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Jessica Brody: So it's important when you're looking at a series versus a number of a standalone book that each book has its own story, with a beginning, middle, and end, and with with a a conflict that gets resolved.

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Jessica Brody: However, you're also gonna wanna look at that series wide conflict and those series wide beats. So absolutely, a series can have its own beats. So if you look at a trilogy you're gonna have. You're gonna have an act. One book, one. Act 2, book 2, act 3, book 3, and those are called series Beats.

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Jessica Brody: So your your break into 2 for the entire series might come at the end of book one but now we're starting to, you know. Talk a little bit more about series, which is a whole other conversation. I do talk about series in both in both of the books. If you wanna check that out but just just know that you will have series beats and individual book beats.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, follow up on that one. What about a story collection where a short story collection, where the stories are interconnected

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: is that kind of the same. Okay.

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Jessica Brody: It it might be, but it's probably gonna be different if you're having different heroes in every story. So usually those are called Anthology Series. Where there's like a central theme, or a central town, or a central you know, sometimes it's a high school that where all the stories take place, or it's

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Jessica Brody: you know, the same family. And you're going into different avenues of that family. And typically with those types of stories. The hero will change with each book, and there, therefore you probably won't have a series. Arc but you might have.

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Jessica Brody: You will have individual arcs through through each of the books, unless maybe you're following the transformation of a world like, let's say, all of your stories take place in a sort of corrupt in just world.

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Jessica Brody: And by the end of the story you want that world to have been, you know, overthrown, or the kingdom to be overthrown. But in each book you're set, you're focusing on a different care main character. Then perhaps the overarching series beats might track the progression or the transformation of the world instead. So lots of fun ways you can play with it. But typically when you have a different main character, they're gonna have their own set of beats

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Jessica Brody: for for that book.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, awesome.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Alright. Angela wants to know in a dual point of view, slash, dual timeline, or the second point of view is anti hero? Or is the anti hero? Do I need to have beats for the anti hero as well? And is it okay? If the anti heroes life is compressed in the novel.

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Jessica Brody: Yeah, I mean, it's really, it depends on. This is a great question. It it depends on the role that you want the anti hero to play in the story. Some writers want to really zoom in on the Anti Heroes Journey and show, you know, maybe, how how they change because of this book. Some people just want, you know, to focus on them as the villain, and they don't change, and they're the villain. And we now we understand. You know their machinations, but we don't really see them arc in any way.

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Jessica Brody: Really, when you have the reason, you would want to use a beach sheet for any character is, if you're wanting to track a transformation.

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Jessica Brody: So like, as I said before, someone's got to be affected by this story, or it's probably not going to resonate. So I think it's perfectly fine to put the antihero in, as maybe

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Jessica Brody: another viewpoint, or to help reveal, you know, clues in a unique way, or to amp up tension because of what they're doing. But if the here, if the anti hero is not going to change by the end. If they're not gonna have sort of an arc whether it reverse or positive or negative, or whatever, then you probably wouldn't need to track a full beach sheet for that character.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hey? Thank you. And we have one more from an anonymous attendee. They would like to know, or they're sharing. I write my 1st draft and scenes. Then you save the cat to structure the novel and chapters I have chapters of different links. Is this a problem.

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Jessica Brody: Great question anonymous. I

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Jessica Brody: I don't think so. I mean I'm not the end. All be all on chapter lengths. But I you know, I would say.

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Jessica Brody: I've I think I've read books that have multiple that have length, different lengths of chapters.

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Jessica Brody: chapter links are such a personal choice. And I get questions about chapter lengths. A lot.

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Jessica Brody: it's it's such a personal choice, because it's very stylistic. And essentially, you know, I like that you write in scenes, too, because I I also write in scenes, and I I usually recommend writers write in scenes instead of in chapters, because scenes are sort of.

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Jessica Brody: They have kind of a beginning, middle, and end chapters are where you want the reader to stop where you want the reader to take a pause, or where you want to emphasize some very specific piece of information by by leaving a cliffhanger there. So I don't think it's a problem to have in different links. Anytime. Anybody asks me a question like this. My, I I usually my response is usually just say.

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Jessica Brody: Make sure you know why, that's all. If you know why you're doing it, and it's purposeful, then I think it's great. If you're doing it sort of haphazardly, and you don't know why you're doing it. That's where you might get. People might get confused. Because if you don't know why, they don't know why either. So I think anytime you make any sort of silly, stylistic choice. There should be a reason sort of a motivation guiding you in it. Maybe some

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Jessica Brody: Povs have longer chapters than others, and there's a very stylistic reason for that. I don't know. So that that would be my answer to you is is.

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Jessica Brody: make sure that there's a good reason, and that it, and that it somehow plays into the story, and that that will come through to the reader when, if if you're clear on that.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay? I have another question from an anonymous attendee. Can you speak to the key elements of a why done it? Genre? That's a new one for me. A. Why done it? Genre.

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Jessica Brody: Yeah. So that's actually referring to a second half of the save the cat books where we break down different genres. So in the 1st half of the book we break down the 15 beats, and then we look at the save the cat genres, which are different than normal genres. They're not like sci fi horror. We have different fun names for them, like why done it? And

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Jessica Brody: breaking out all of them Golden Fleece and buddy love and dude with a problem and all that. So in the y done, it is actually very, very closely related to a crime novel, and I would probably estimate that 95% of crime novels fit into the Y done it. Genre essentially, when you writing a wide done it, you need to have

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Jessica Brody: a detective, whether that be an amateur, a professional, or even the reader who's playing the detective.

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Jessica Brody: And then and then there were none. By Agatha. Christie is a great example of a why done it? Where the reader is the detective, there isn't sort of a lead detective taking on the case, it's it falls into the readers. Hand. You need to have a secret that is basically at the heart of the mystery. And you need to have a dark turn, which is essentially where the hero or one of the characters makes a a decision that goes against their morals, their

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Jessica Brody: safety, or endangers them, or even something that they know is wrong. But their obsession with the case, or obsession with finding the secret is so

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Jessica Brody: is so strong that they can't resist, and those are the 3 elements of why done it? And you, as you can see from what we talked about today, they fit pretty nicely into the the 5 beats. You're probably gonna find that dark turn somewhere before the all is lost moment, and that's probably going to lead to the all is lost moment, and that secret is the the second ingredient is probably gonna get revealed somewhere near the break into 3.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, I learned something new.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Okay, we'll do one more. Then we'll wrap up this is from Kim again on a personal note. Thanks so much for all the advice, wondering if you now enjoy writing more, or teaching more.

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Jessica Brody: Good question, Kim. I like having both it, you know. They both kind of provide

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Jessica Brody: nice relief reliefs from from each other, and I will say, after writing these books and teaching all of these classes.

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Jessica Brody: it's harder for me to write now, because I I'm in my own head, you know, going? Oh, I can't do that. I tell people not to do that. So I I tend to. I have to kind of really shut. Be careful with my inner voice. Particularly when I'm writing first.st Drafts. I have to, you know, kind of shut that down as we all do. But that voice that says, Oh, that's not what you wrote in your book. You can't do that, or or that's not where that beat goes. You shouldn't. You shouldn't write that

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Jessica Brody: so I think, for everyone 1st drafts is the time when really we have to, you know, bound and gag our inner critic in the closet, and just let the draft come out and trust that we can make it work later. But you know I'm I'm human. I'm a writer, just like all of you. I make the same mistakes. I I struggle at the same points as all of you. I have a lot of the same questions. I've just read a lot of books to find the the answers. And I've analyzed a lot of fiction.

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Jessica Brody: And it's been really really helpful in my own writing. So one thing I tell people just as a as a you know. Quick, sign off if you are wanting to dive deeper into this method. If you're wanting to get better at telling stories, read other stories and break them down. Don't read them as a reader, read them as a writer.

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Jessica Brody: See if you can figure out why the author did what they did. See. If you can find those 5 foundation beats, because the more you start to recognize them in fiction in movies. The easier it will be for you to plant those flags in your own story structure and and make sure that they're solid.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Hey? Excellent! Well, thank you so so much, Jessica, or I'm sorry. Thank you for such a great session. Thank you all so much for joining us today. And as always, you can find the replay to this session and the other sessions in the crime writers week. Hub, you can find the links again in the chat now.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: and we hope you join us for our next session. So catch you all next time.

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Jessica Brody: Thank you.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: Thank you. Bye, bye.

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Stacy @ ProWritingAid: bye, everyone.