Weekend Writer: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel Chapters Six and Seven by Jessica Brody

Hey all, Sam here.

Originally last week’s Weekend Writer post was going to cover Chapters 4-6, and then Chapter 7 was going to be put with this month’s prompt share. But then I thought that last week’s post would be too long, so I decided to push Chapter 6 to this week, and then I just decided to put Chapter 7 with it and leave the prompt sharing as its own post.

Which is why you get two Weekend Writer posts this week. That’s exciting. But it also makes sense because this is a long weekend here in the US, so why not spend the long weekend focused on books and creative writing. I promise, I have normal book reviews coming for the next couple weeks because of my long weekend reading challenge. But with the writing craft books, I like doing an overall deep dive review that takes multiple posts to get through. It’s honestly kind of fun for me.

But, for the most part, I believe that this post should be very similar to last week’s post where I went over the story genres covered in Chapters Four and Five. So, without further ado, let’s jump into these chapter breakdowns.

SAVE THE CAT!® by Blake Snyder is a popular screenwriting book series and storytelling methodology used by screenwriters, directors, and studio execs across Hollywood. Now, for the first time ever, bestselling author and writing teacher, Jessica Brody, takes the beloved Save the Cat! plotting principals and applies them to the craft of novel writing in this exciting new “workshop style” guide, featuring over 20 full beat sheets from popular novels throughout time.

Whether you’re writing your first novel or your seventeenth, Save the Cat! breaks down plot in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step method so you can write stories that resonate! This book can help you with any of the following:

Outlining a new novel
Revising an existing novel
Breaking out of the dreaded “writer’s block”
Fixing a “broken” novel
Reviewing a completed novel
Fleshing out/test driving a new idea to see if it “has legs”
Implementing feedback from agents and/or editors
Helping give constructive feedback to other writers

But above all else, SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL will help you better understand the fundamentals and mechanics of plot, character transformation, and what makes a story work!

Chapter Six: Institutionalized – Join ‘Em, Leave ‘Em, or Take ‘Em Down!

All right, as with all of the other chapters of this book, we begin with the inclusion of the books that Jessica Brody will talk about within the chapter, so that you can avoid spoilers if it is something you haven’t read and don’t wish to be spoiled for. I still think this is one of the coolest parts of the book.

This story genre basically focuses on the fundamental question of do you join or do you not join a specific group. This group could be a family or a sports team or a town or a group of rebels…whatever. These groups can be real ones or ones made up for the story/world. The institution/group could be based around an issue, an event, a theme, a belief.

Basically an Institutionalized story will be about the many, not necessarily the one. Brody points out that this is even true when we are only given one narrator. Take the classic novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Our narrator is Nick Carroway, but the main focus is on the lives of the other people around him, especially Jay Gatsby, and Daisy and Tom Buchanan. The story has Nick being drawn into this group, this world, that had otherwise been basically foreign to him.

Anyway, as with the other story genres, an Institutionalized story has three basic ingredients for making this type of story successful: 1) a group, 2) a choice, and 3) a sacrifice.

So the group. This can be a group that the characters are born into, one they’re invited into, or one they’re forced into. So what are the pros and cons of being part of the group. What are the rules of the group? What about the world the group exists in? And does being part of this group mean losing yourself or is there still room for individuality?

It is a part of life to be a part of a group, and so it is a story that readers will recognize. We go to school, we have jobs, we may join clubs or community programs. People are basically meant to flock together, sort of a safety in numbers sort of feeling, not wanting to be isolated.

Institutionalized stories are primal because biologically we’re programmed to flock together. As primitive humans, we died if we tried to venture out to face the woolly mammoth alone. But as we evolved as a species, we began to wonder whether venturing out alone and forging our own path is the better option.

Which is why, when we read Institutionalized stories, we start asking ourselves questions that lie at the very heart of being human:

Can we really trust others to have our best interests at heart? Or does there come a point when we must rely on ourselves?

And which one is crazier? The group? Or me for leaving it?

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Basically, as we learn more about the Institution and honor what the group means and is, we also expose the issues that come from losing yourself to the identity of the group. You reveal what makes the Institution tick, and make the reader question what they would do if they were in the position that the hero is in.

And that is the choice element of the story. As part of the choice, there are a few standard character types that tend to be used for the hero: the naif, the brando, and the company man. The naif is the newcomer and they are introduced to someone more experienced who shows them the ropes, making the naif the eyes of the reader for learning about the Institution and the rules within. Then you have the brando, a character who has been entrenched within the organization, but finds themselves starting to doubt it, and are wondering if they are stuck or if they could rebel. The third character type is the company man, who buys into the system and defends it. They believe in the system and have in essence traded in part of their soul in order to have the safety provided by being part of the system.

Ultimately, whether the hero’s loyalty or resolve is tested through this type of story, it all comes down to some sort of sacrifice. Either they join the Institution, they burn it to the ground, or they escape. In the end the deeper message is about listening to your own inner voice.

The chapter then includes a list of popular Institutionalized novels, and then does a story beat breakdown of a novel that fits into this story genre (pages 124-139), and I won’t spoil any of that for you, but I will say that I really like that we have these extensive examples. For me, it makes the book extremely educational and useful.

Chapter Seven: Superhero – Being Extraordinary in an Ordinary World

The block with bookish spoilers is shorter in this chapter than any other chapter so far. There’s actually only three books in it.

This chapter covers the “Chosen One” stories. This is the chapter for heroes who are in some way superior to the rest of the characters in the world, who overcome the greatest of obstacles and defeat the greatest of evils. More than likely, they save the world too.

Obviously this does not just mean that the hero has to be some sort of comic book superhero. It is for any hero who is destined for greatness, whether they want it or not.

Your Superhero hero should be a bit different, because being bestowed with greatness also comes with a price, and that price is usually being misunderstood in some way, shape, or form. Because, you know, the world isn’t always so accepting of folks who are different.

Whether your hero has magical powers or just breaks the mold of average society, there is an adventure for them to be found in the Superhero story genre. So Percy Jackson from the Percy Jackson series, or Tris from the Divergent series, or Superman from the Superman comics, or even a real life historical character, such as Elizabeth of York from Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen, they all count as Superhero figures.

All of these stories are essentially the same. They all tell the tale of a chosen one who is misunderstood by the rest of society, gets very little respect (at least at first!), and ultimately is different from the rest of us.

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Again, here we are given the three ingredients for mastering this story genre: 1) a hero with a special power, 2) a nemesis who stands opposed to our hero, and 3) a curse that our hero must suffer as the price for their greatness.

Now, Brody makes it clear here that just because she said a hero with a special power, that doesn’t mean that the hero has to actually have some sort of superpower. They could just have a mission to do good, or be faithful to a certain cause. Perhaps the hero does have some sort of power and it is charged up by their belief in what they’re doing, the faith that they are on the right path.

But whether you have a hero with actually magic or superpowers, or just a deeper conviction than most…with the kind of position that comes from wielding such power or privilege or whatever, they are of course going to attract great enemies.

This is your nemesis, someone directly opposed to the hero. And while the nemesis will have abilities that rival the hero’s, the nemesis has had to rely on themselves and their plots and manipulations to achieve the same result. The nemesis has to put up a facade of being special, and then they will do whatever they have to in order to maintain that facade. It’s like they have to work so much harder in order to convince people that they are the true hero and to ignore the actual hero.

The nemesis has a lack of faith, and it is that lack that drives them into a collision course with the hero, ultimately making it so the nemesis believes they must eliminate the hero. Because certainly, as soon as the hero is gone, it will prove that they were the true hero, the destined or chosen one, all along.

And there, in that very rationality, lies the nemesis’s problem.

If they really were the rightful “chosen one,” they wouldn’t need to kill or prove it. The world would already know–just as they (usually) know with the superhero.

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The third ingredient in a successful Superhero story is a curse, which Brody points out might be the most important of the ingredients. The curse balances out the superhero’s power so we don’t end up despising the protagonist. For example, with Roald Dahl’s Matilda, we love and respect Matilda because she is the outcast in a family of dimwits and is forced to put up with all their ridicule and taunting. If Matilda had had a caring, supportive, adoring family who worshiped and respected her for intelligence, we probably wouldn’t have liked her as much.

Having some flaw or handicap helps the reader to relate to the superhero. You don’t want them to pity the hero to the point of giving up, but you also don’t want them to dislike the hero and give up for something else. The curse, the flaw, the misunderstandings and ridicule, it gives the reader something relatable, because while the reader may not have superpowers, they might understand what it is to feel misunderstood or ridiculed.

Other parts of the Superhero genre that might show up in stories (but aren’t always there): a name change — either for the hero to better fit in or to disguise themselves, and the mascot — a companion or sidekick who is loyal to the superhero, and while they usually don’t have powers or they have much weaker powers, they are the person who has seen the hero’s greatness the whole time.

Again, we are given a list of popular Superhero novels towards the end of the chapter, and then a story beat breakdown….and I’ll be completely honest, I did not read this beat breakdown, because it is for the first Harry Potter book. Now this book came out a number of years ago, before all of the more recent bullshittery of J.K. Rowling, but honestly, I try to avoid HP stuff anymore. Social media accounts that still idolize and promote HP stuff are accounts that I unfollow or block. Merchants who sign new deals announcing upcoming releases of official HP merch…I stop buying their products. There are just so many other magic school stories out there, and I’d rather support someone less bigoted.

But the story beat breakdown is Pages 150-157 for anyone who wants to read it.

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Well, that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.