Thoughts on Beat Sheets for a Beginner

[MSadiq]

Instead of just fumbling my way through writing my first novel, I decided to be more sensible and learn the technical aspects of writing then practice them, starting with something small. A standalone novel with not many characters and POVs, a simple structure, and focusing mainly on the two protagonists I have in mind. However, while trying to learn the theory, I have run into many conflicting opinions on, call them, formalized methods and the use beat sheets.

Some say they stifle creativity, producing similar stories and often trapping new writers with structures that make no sense for their narratives. Others insist they're essential, and what beats are in a the sheet represent "universal human values." I know the answer is balancing both methods, having a clear structure, in some capacity, while also being mindful of what your story requires, but the balance of each element eludes me.

What are your insights as who've struggled with this?

 

[Mad Swede]

I'm going to be a bit controversial here and tell you to ignore the supposed formalised methods and the use of beat sheets. If I were you I'd simply write your story in the sort of style and structure you're used to from home. Tell it like your grandmother would have told you a great story. This is what I do - and Swedish story telling styles aren't the same as those in the UK or US. There's more than enough stories out there written in those styles. Give us your style and your take on it all.

 

[MSadiq]

I'm going to be a bit controversial here and tell you to ignore the supposed formalised methods and the use of beat sheets. If I were you I'd simply write your story in the sort of style and structure you're used to from home. Tell it like your grandmother would have told you a great story. This is what I do - and Swedish story telling styles aren't the same as those in the UK or US. There's more than enough stories out there written in those styles. Give us your style and your take on it all.

I don't want to write something generic, but at the same time, those formalized methods offer something really alluring. They offer you a path to move along, a nice path, almost free from intimidation. The prospect that you might suck can be put aside or thrown in the garbage. If it goes wrong, it's the method's fault, which is a trap I don't want to fall into. But the prospect of throwing myself at the beast in a tumultuous sea is, indeed, very intimidating. So how did you do it? You seem to have much experience.

 

[Penpilot]

I've found learning structure to be very freeing. Part of learning to write is learning to organize your thoughts and ideas in a way that makes sense. Structure helps with that. It's only limiting if you let it be limiting.

Everything has a basic shape, houses, cars, wheels, computer programs, etc. There are infinite variations on those things, because there are those who didn't accepted that they couldn't take a crack at it and make their own version, or that they didn't have anything to add.

My process is constantly evolving. It started with one methodology and with each new story, I would add things and drop things depending on what the story needed and what I needed. It's about finding what's useful to you and discarding the rest.

I doesn't necessarily matter where you start as long as you're willing to evolve.

 

[skip.knox]

I have tried the path. I try some sort of structured approach with every novel. None of them have helped. Some, like Save the Cat and its kindred (beat sheets fall within the category), I could never get much past just reading them. It felt incredibly constraining and essentially impossible to execute.

I mean, I'm just at the front end of the novel and I'm supposed to know what's happening at 25% through? I don't even know how long it's going to be. I barely know what's going to happen. That approach to me looks like it's most useful if you're writing to a particular target. Like an established author who has said the next one will be 90-100k, call me in six months. That sort of thing. But for someone hacking his way through jungle at night with only a flashlight (and a flashlight is singularly ineffective against jungle), those approaches are very nearly a foreign language.

There are other approaches. And there a good many of us, like myself, whose process consists of working out the process every dang time. But I've got four novels so far and I'm still flailin' and bailin'.

 

[Karlin]

I'm with skip and swede on this. Write it as it feels natural to you. The worse that will happen is that it will come out lousy, but 1) it is likely fixable, 2) you'll have learned, and 3) You'll be way ahead of where you'd be if you'd spent the same time learning "the technical aspects of writing".

read this:

Ursula Le Guin's advice for aspiring writers: 'There are no recipes'

The award-winning science fiction novelist launches an online writing workshop for would-be authors

www.theguardian.com

 

[Zilver]

My take: They are not methods. They're descriptive 'rules'. Good stories often follow similar patterns. When analysed in retrospect, you can distill common elements that work well for stories in general.

These structure are not prescriptive. Stories that follow a certain structure are not automatically good. In fact, if you start with the structure and fill it out like a writing asignment in class, you are making sure you follow the common denominator of good stories. I.e.: the thing that does not make them stand out.

It's more important to feel your way through your unique story. Try anything, do it wrong, learn from your mistakes, and get a true understanding of why structures work the way the do, and when to depart from them.

Because of this, I would never ever recommend especially beginning writers to start with structures and fill them out. The most useful these story structures can be, is in case you're stuck and you find yourself in need of some inspiration or fresh angle on your story. In that case it can help to look at what kind of things generally work in other stories.
But that has little to do with technique and more with just getting out of your own head for a moment.

(Also, a ton of these plot beats are pointless deepities. Like... Joseph Campbell figured out that at about 80% of a hero's journey, the hero typically finds the element that will allow them to acchieve the end goal. Well duh... Whenever anyone finds the thing that allows them to finish their quest, they will then proceed to... finish their quest. That's not a deep understanding of story structure, that's an obvious fact of logic. /end of rant.)

 

[MSadiq]

That's not a deep understanding of story structure, that's an obvious fact of logic

That's what I feel about Save the Cat in retrospect, and really any methods that gives you very specific set things to put in. E.g., "refuse the call." Okay, what if it makes no sense for the character to refuse the call? Or the worse sin is include X thing at X%.

Still, I think learning from all sides can be helpful. I'll take what I think is useful and discard whatever seems unhelpful, even if it's otherwise.

If I've learnt anything from translation that would be the only way to get a good translation is to wrestle with it until you or it tires, then go at a second round, and a third, and a fourth. I think this same mentality would do me good.