That means we can plan for about 14 scenes to make up the second half of this middle section. Now, let’s also say that on average, you write about 1,500-word scenes. For now, we're going to focus on half of those words, so about 20,000 of them. Let’s say the average novel is about 80,000-words, and the middle section is about 50% of those 80,000-words, that means we’re looking at about 40,000-words spread across each of the beats in the middle section of your story. We're also going to look at how these beats show up in two popular young adult novels- The Hunger Games and Everything, Everything. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at how to plot the second half of the middle section of your novel with Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! Beat Sheet. Combine this with a character who needs to change-and does change-and you've got a recipe for writing a story that works. The great thing about this plotting method (and story structure in general) is that it helps you determine the order in which the events of your plot happen and, maybe even more importantly, the timing of when they should happen. Each of these beats has a specific purpose and serves a particular function within your over-arching, global story. Now, if you aren’t familiar with Blake Snyder’s work, the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet is a popular story structure template that subdivides the beginning, middle, and end of a story into 15 “beats” or plot points. If you need help plotting out the first half of the middle section of your story, check out this blog post and podcast episode. Specifically, we’re going to focus on the beats that make up the second half of act two, or the second half of the middle section of your story. In today’s post, we’re going to continue going through the 15 “beats” of Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! Story structure template.

The cat writes a novel