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Eight books on writing plots
The maps on this site come from somewhere. These are the books — Save the Cat and Story among them — worth reading beside the ring.
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01 · 2005
Save the Cat!
Blake Snyder
Fifteen beats, with page numbers. The board this atlas hangs Snyder’s map on.
02 · 1997
Story
Robert McKee
Principles, not a template: the value shift inside a scene, and why structure is an argument.
03 · 1992
The Writer’s Journey
Christopher Vogler
Campbell cut for a three-act screenplay. Twelve stages, from the ordinary world to the elixir.
04 · 1949
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Joseph Campbell
The monomyth itself. Seventeen stations, read as myth before they were turned into a beat sheet.
05 · 2013
Into the Woods
John Yorke
Why the same shape repeats in a scene, an act, and a whole story. Five acts, seen from the desk.
06 · 2007
The Anatomy of Story
John Truby
Twenty-two steps that start from moral argument, not from a page count.
07 · 2009
The Virgin’s Promise
Kim Hudson
The other circle: becoming, not battling. Thirteen beats for a story that changes the kingdom by shining.
08 · 2018
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
Jessica Brody
Snyder’s beats retimed for chapters instead of pages. The novel version of the wall board.