Save the Cat

Save the Cat! is a screenwriting beat sheet popularized by Hollywood screenwriter Blake Snyder. It maps out 15 key story beats, designed to guide the audience’s emotional journey and build empathy for the protagonist.

The name comes from Snyder’s belief that a hero must perform an early, likeable action — “saving a cat” — so the audience roots for them. Snyder first introduced this structure in his 2005 book Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need, which has since become a staple for aspiring screenwriter

Story Beats

1. Opening Image (0%)

The “before” snapshot of the hero’s life. It sets the tone and shows who they are before the change. This image should contrast with the Final Image, showing how far the hero has come.

🎞️

In Legally Blonde →, Elle Woods is thriving as a sorority president, beloved and stylish, pink everywhere, preparing for what she thinks will be a proposal from her boyfriend.

Purpose: Creates contrast with the transformation later — providing the “before” image.
Effect: Gives the audience a baseline. We see who Elle is, so when she changes, we recognize the growth. It also sets the tone of the movie immediately: playful and comedic.

2. Theme Started (5%)

Establishes the story’s core theme.

🎞️

Warner tells Elle she isn’t serious enough for his future. The theme is established as: being true to yourself vs. changing for someone else.

Purpose: Plants the central question.
Effect: Subconsciously primes the audience to watch for this answer. Often, this creates dramatic irony — the audience senses what’s coming before the hero does, and starts anticipating how it will unfold.

3. Set-Up (1-10%)

Establishes the Ordinary World, the hero’s relationships, and their flaw. Plant supporting characters and introduce the stakes.

🎞️

Elle’s friends, wardrobe, optimism, and sorority life are all shown. She seems to “have it all” except for a ring.

Purpose: Establishes exactly what the hero thinks she wants versus what she actually needs.
Effect: Builds empathy. Even if the audience doesn’t share Elle’s world (not all of us can be pink sorority ladies), we feel her heartbreak in the next scene because we see how this dream matters to her.

4. Catalyst (10%)

The inciting incident that disrupts the hero’s world and forces a choice.

🎞️

Instead of having her proposal, Warner dumps her for not being “serious” enough, shattering her happily ever after. Elle decides she’ll go to Harvard Law to win Warner back, shocking everyone.

Purpose: Propels the story into motion.
Effect: Surprise + Curiosity. We laugh at the absurdity but root for her audacity. We want to see how she’ll pull it off.

5. Debate (10-20%)

The hero hesitates, struggles, or questions themselves.

🎞️

Elle studies, makes sacrifices, and faces disbelief from friends, her guidance counsellor, and the Harvard admissions board.

Purpose: Shows the challenge is real, raises the stakes by highlighting dissenters or resistance.
Effect: It builds suspense and deepens our investment in her by showing how steep the climb will be.

6. Break Into Two (20%)

The hero enters the upside-down world, where there are new rules.

🎞️

Elle arrives at Harvard Law, glaringly out of place in pink.

Purpose: Marks the commitment to the adventure.
Effect: Creates humor and empathy — we feel her isolation and anticipate fish-out-of-water comedy.

7. B Story (22%)

A subplot — often a relationship — that supports the theme and adds interest.

🎞️

Elle meets Paulette, the warm-hearted manicurist. In the salon — a space that feels like home — Elle can drop her guard, vent her frustrations, and find genuine empathy.

Purpose: Provides Elle with emotional refuge and connection. The B Story acts as a counterpoint to the A Story conflict, showing Elle what genuine support and self-acceptance look like.
Effect: The B Story lightens the tone (giving the audience breathing room) and deepens the theme by illustrating that true empowerment comes from compassion and solidarity, not external validation.

8. Fun and Games (20-50%)

The “promise of the premise” — what audiences came to see.

🎞️

Fish-out-of-the-water comedy, in a charming pink meets Harvard package. Elle struggles in class, clashes with her classmates, but scores small wins by making friends with the ladies in the salon.

Purpose: Entertains while developing the character and the journey.
Effect: Joy + Investment. This is the most enjoyable part of the story (the feel-good), and we get exactly what the movie trailer promised.

9. Midpoint (50%)

A major shift — false victory or false defeat. Stakes rise dramatically.

🎞️

Elle gets a coveted internship spot on Professor Callahan’s legal team. She feels like she is finally succeeding.

Purpose: Turning point of the story, raising the stakes.
Effect: Relief mixed with tension — Elle is finally taken seriously, but we sense that the other shoe is going to drop.

10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75%)

External antagonists apply pressure and inner doubts tighten their grip.

🎞️

Warner is still dismissive, and the legal team won’t take her seriously.

Purpose: Escalates pressure; the walls close in.
Effect: Unease rises. We feel her progress slipping away, heightening the anticipation for the climax.

11. All is Lost (75%)

The hero hits rock bottom. Something dies — a relationship, dream, or belief.

🎞️

Callahan hits on Elle, crushing her confidence. She thinks she was only chosen for her looks, not her brains.

Purpose: The event that shatters the hero’s trajectory, making success feel impossible.
Effect: Emotional gut punch. Audiences feel betrayed alongside Elle, deepening our desire for her comeback.

12. Dark Night of the Soul (75-85%)

Hero wallows in despair, questioning everything.

🎞️

Elle considers quitting and going back to California. “I don’t belong here.”

Purpose: Shows the hero’s internal collapse.
Effect: Sets aside the comedy for a moment to address the deeper theme. We ache for her and crave her resurgence.

13. Break into Three (85%)

A new idea, often lessons the hero picked up over the course of the journey, pushes the hero into the finale.

🎞️

With encouragement from her nail salon ladies and a strict professor, Elle realizes she doesn’t need Warner’s or anyone’s approval.

Purpose: Launches the climax.
Effect: Satisfaction + Hope. We feel the gears shift — she’s back, stronger than ever.

14. Finale (85-100%)

The climax. The hero applies what they’ve learned, defeating the antagonistic forces.

🎞️

Elle takes charge of the trial, using her fashion expertise to disprove the witness’s alibi. She proves her worth through her authentic strengths.

Purpose: Resolves the central conflict.
Effect: Catharsis. Audiences cheer — Elle wins not by abandoning herself, but by embracing her uniqueness.

15. Final Image (100%)

A mirror of the Opening Image — proof of the hero’s transformation.

🎞️

Elle graduates from Harvard, confident and respected, with her authentic pink flair intact. The Final Image mirrors the Opening — Elle is still Elle, but transformed.

Purpose: Closes the loop; transformation is complete.
Effect: Emotional closure. Audiences feel satisfaction seeing how far she’s come — and that she’s still authentically Elle.

Why It Works

Snyder designed Save the Cat for lean screenplays of about 110 pages, which is why each stage corresponds to a percentage number. This creates a rhythm where something significant happens roughly every 10 minutes of screen time. Rather than rigid mathematics, the framework helps writers ensure their story maintains momentum.

This deliberate pacing produces tight, emotionally engaging, and accessible stories that take audiences through a carefully crafted journey—from initial hope to devastating setback, false victory to despair, and finally to catharsis. Critics might dismiss it as formulaic, but the successful stories that use it speak for themselves.

Examples in Action

Here are some examples of the Save the Cat structure in film.

Story Beats	Toy Story →	Spider-Man (2002) →	The Da Vinci Code →
Opening Image	Woody is Andy’s favorite toy. Andy plays with him constantly, and Woody proudly leads the other toys. He’s secure at the top.	Peter Parker, a nerdy high-school student in Queens, is invisible to the world — bullied, broke, and hopelessly in love with Mary Jane (MJ.)	Lourve curator Jacques Saunière is chased and murdered, leaving mysterious symbols.
Theme Started	At Andy’s birthday, the toys fear being replaced by newer, cooler toys. Woody reassures them: “It doesn’t matter how much we’re played with. What matters is we’re here for Andy.”	Uncle Ben’s wisdom (“With great power comes great responsibility”) plants the moral foundation of the story.	Langdon lectures on symbols: “Symbols can have multiple meanings depending on who reads them.”
Set-Up	Introduces the toy community, where all the other toys see Woody as Andy’s #1.	On a school trip, Peter is bitten by a genetically modified spider while the supporting characters (Harry Osborn and Norman Osborn) are introduced. Peter experiences strange changes — improved speed, strength, agility.	Introduces Langdon (Harvard symbologist), Sophie (cryptologist, Saunière’s granddaugter), police captain Fache (suspicious of Langdon).
Catalyst	Buzz Lightyear arrives. Charismatic, flashy, and oblivious to being a toy, he instantly captures Andy’s and everyone’s attention, disrupting Woody’s world.	Discovering his powers, Peter uses them selfishly — humiliating his bully and entering a wrestling match to earn money to buy a flashy car.	Sophie warns Langdon that he’s the prime suspect in Saunière’s murder.
Debate	Woody wrestles with jealousy as Buzz becomes Andy’s favorite. His composure cracks, exposing his flaw—the fear of being replaced.	When the promoter cheats him out of his winnings, Peter spitefully lets a thief escape. Moments later, that same thief kills Uncle Ben. Confronted with the cost of his inaction, Peter realizes his mistake and internalizes Ben’s words.	Langdon and Sophie weigh whether to trust the police or flee. They choose to follow Saunière’s coded trail themselves.
Break into Two	In a fit of jealously, Woody accidentally knocks Buzz out the window. The toys turn on him, accusing him of betrayal.	Peter embraces his new purpose and becomes Spider-Man — a masked protector of New York. The friendly neighborhood hero is born.	Langdon and Sophie escape the Lourve, beginning the puzzle-chase across Paris.
B Story	Buzz’s delusion that he is an actual Space Ranger and his eventual realization that he is just a toy. This deepens the theme of identity and acceptance—both heroes must redefine what makes them valuable.	Peter’s love for MJ runs parallel to his double life. Even as Spider-Man, he remains isolated — his powers can save lives, but not earn love. Instead of gaining the courage to confess, Peter watches MJ date his friend, Harry.	Langdon & Sophie’s partnership. Sophie’s family backstory of abandonment and distrust.
Fun and Games	The toys venture into the real world and face bizarre human hazards—the movie’s promise fulfilled. Woody and Buzz navigate Pizza Planet, only to get captured by Sid.	Crime-fighting montage: Spider-Man swings through New York, balancing his new role with daily life by selling exclusive photos of himself to the Daily Bugle. Meanwhile, Norman is ousted from his company and experiments on himself, creating the Green Goblin.	Codes and chases: Fibonacci sequence, anagrams, hidden messages in the Da Vinci’s works, cryptex clue.
Midpoint	They land in Sid’s house—a twisted toy graveyard. Stakes rise: Woody and Buzz must cooperate or be destroyed.	At a public event, the Goblin attacks; Spider-Man saves MJ and earns her admiration — later culminating in the iconic upside-down kiss. For a moment, Peter seems to have it all: purpose and romance.	Langdon and Sophie acquire the cryptex, believing they’re close to unlocking the Grail mystery.
Bad Guys Close In	Sid’s cruel experiments and vicious dog close in. Buzz sees a TV commercial and finally realizes the truth: he’s just a toy. Devastated, he rejects Woody’s attempts to work together.	The Goblin offers Spider-Man an alliance to “rule together.” Peter refuses and the Goblin retaliates by targeting Peter’s loved ones, attacking Aunt May.	Silas (the assassin monk) hunts them, police tighten the net, Leigh Teabing joins (and manipulates). Betrayals loom.
All is Lost	Buzz attempts to fly and crashes, breaking his arm and spirit. He loses his sense of identity. Meanwhile, Woody tries to contact Andy’s toys for help but is rejected. Literal and emotional rock bottom.	The Goblin finds out Peter is in love with MJ. He forces Peter to choose between her and a tram full of kids — an impossible lose-lose scenario.	Teabing is revealed as the betrayer. Cryptex stolen.
Dark Night of the Soul	Woody helps Buzz see that being a toy isn’t meaningless — it’s a gift. He admits his own insecurity and fear of being replaced: “You’re the cool toy. As a matter of fact, you’re too cool.” Both confront the truth about themselves.	Peter realizes the truth of Uncle Ben’s words. Being Spider-Man means endless sacrifice — the normal life he wants may never coexist with the duty he’s chosen.	Sophie recalls family tragedy, doubts everything; Langdon questions whether truth should even be revealed.
Break into Three	They reconcile. But Sid straps Buzz to a rocket. Woody rallies the broken toys in Sid’s room to hatch a plan.	Recommitting to responsibility, Peter faces the Goblin in a final confrontation, determined to protect the innocent, whatever the personal cost.	Langdon and Sophie regroup, chase Teabing to Rosslyn Chapel for final confrontation.
Finale	The toys work together to frighten Sid and escape. In a thrilling chase after the moving truck, Woody and Buzz cooperate seamlessly, launching (literally) into partnership and back to Andy.	In a brutal warehouse fight, Peter endures punishing blows from the Green Goblin but refuses to compromise his morality. When Norman tries to manipulate him one last time, Peter steps aside as the Goblin is killed by his own glider — destroyed by his own hubris and unchecked power.	Teabing exposed; final puzzle solved; secret revealed at Rosslyn Chapel.
Final Image	It’s Christmas. Andy gets new toys, but Woody and Buzz exchange a knowing look — no jealousy, no fear. The cycle repeats, but they’ve changed.	At Uncle Ben’s grave, Peter turns away from MJ’s love to protect her from his dangerous world. He accepts isolation as the price of integrity and the responsibility he has taken on.	Langdon kneels at the Lourve, realizing Mary Magdalene’s tomb lies hidden beneath. From scholar to initiate of sacred truth.

Works Mentioned

Based on Save the Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need (2005) by Blake Snyder
Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code (2003) Book / Movie
John Lasseter (dir.), Toy Story (1995)
Sam Raimi (dir.), Spider-Man (2002)
Robert Luketic (dir.), Legally Blonde (2001)

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Legally Blonde