How the calculator works
Each beat in Save the Cat! has a canonical position in Snyder's 110-page model — the Catalyst on page 12, the Midpoint on 55, All Is Lost on 75. Divide those by 110 and you get the real rule: the Catalyst lands ~11% in, the Midpoint at 50%, All Is Lost at ~68%. This tool applies those percentages to your actual length, which is why it works equally well for a 45-page TV episode or a 90,000-word novel.
The act boundaries fall out automatically: Act One ends at Break into Two (~23%), Act Two ends at Break into Three (~77%) — the classic three-act shape with a midpoint hinge.
Using beats without becoming formulaic
The beat sheet is scaffolding, not architecture. In writers' rooms it earns its keep in two moments: outlining — checking that something actually turns the story at the 25%, 50% and 75% marks before pages get written — and diagnosis — when a draft feels slow, comparing where its events land against the percentages usually locates the sag within minutes. What the events are is your job; the sheet only says when the ground should shift.
Planning length first? Convert between pages and screen time with the screenplay length calculator, then time the actual dialogue with the script timer. Need the one-sentence version of your story? Try the logline generator.
FAQ
What is a Save the Cat beat sheet?
It is the 15-beat story structure from Blake Snyder’s screenwriting book "Save the Cat!" — a map of where key story events (Catalyst, Midpoint, All Is Lost, etc.) should land in a screenplay. Snyder defined the beats against a 110-page script; this calculator rescales them proportionally to your actual page count or word count.
Do the beat page numbers have to be exact?
No — they are targets, not laws. Landing the Catalyst on page 11 instead of 12 changes nothing. The value of the sheet is proportional: if your Midpoint arrives at 70% of the script instead of 50%, the second act will drag, and the numbers make that visible before you write forty pages into a dead end.
Does Save the Cat work for novels and short films?
Yes — the proportions are what matter, not the medium. Switch the calculator to novel mode and enter a word count, and each beat is expressed as a word position. For short films under ~15 minutes, most writers compress to the three-act skeleton (Catalyst, Midpoint, All Is Lost, Finale) rather than all 15 beats.
How is this different from three-act structure?
Save the Cat is a finer-grained version of the same shape: Act One ends at Break into Two (~23% mark), Act Two ends at Break into Three (~77%), and the 15 beats subdivide those acts into concrete story events. The calculator shows the act boundaries alongside the beats.
What page count should my screenplay be?
Feature films: 90–120 pages (comedies shorter, dramas longer). One-hour TV episodes: 45–65 pages. Half-hour comedy: 22–35 pages. Use our screenplay length calculator to convert between page count and screen time before you plan the beats.