Craft guides and story frameworks, free to read. The frameworks below are the same beat sheets built into One More Draft - read them here, then plan your story against them in the app.
Tell us what you’re writing and we’ll point you at the structures that fit.
A practical guide to writing a logline that sells your story: the four ingredients, the classic formula, common mistakes, and worked examples.
Script coverage explained: what studio readers actually write, what Pass / Consider / Recommend mean, and how writers use coverage to revise before submitting.
Screenplay format explained: the six core elements, why one page equals one minute, and the formatting rules readers expect before they read a word of your story.
How to write a romance novel readers can't put down: the genre's two unbreakable promises, building a couple with real chemistry and conflict, the beats of falling in love, and the mistakes that lose romance readers.
How to write a TV pilot that sells a series: proving the engine that makes a story every week, premise vs. non-premise pilots, cold opens and act-outs, and the mistakes that keep a pilot from going anywhere.
How to write a mystery novel that plays fair and still surprises: the reader contract, planting clues and red herrings, structuring the investigation from body to reveal, and the mistakes that break a whodunit.
How to write a thriller novel that keeps readers up past midnight: the engine of escalating danger, an antagonist with real teeth, structuring relentless pace and reversals, and the mistakes that let tension go slack.
How to write a fantasy novel with a world that feels real: worldbuilding that serves the story, a magic system with costs and limits, structuring the quest around a character arc, and the mistakes that bury fantasy in its own lore.
How to write a science fiction novel that earns its ideas: starting from one speculative what-if and following it honestly, grounding big concepts in human stakes, weaving exposition without info-dumps, and the mistakes that deflate sci-fi.
How to write a young adult novel that teenagers actually read: an immediate first-person voice, a teen protagonist with real agency, first-time stakes taken seriously, and the mistakes that make young readers close the book.
How to write a memoir that reads like a story, not a diary: choosing one theme instead of your whole life, writing yourself as a character, building scenes from real events, and the mistakes that keep a memoir from landing.
How to write a short story that lands in one sitting: unity of effect around a single change, starting late and ending early, compression through implication, and the mistakes that make a short story read like a squeezed novel.
How to write a romantasy novel that delivers both halves of the promise: braiding the romance arc with the fantasy plot, building a world that pressures the couple, the beats romantasy readers came for, and the mistakes that sink the genre.
How to outline a novel before you draft: choosing the right level of detail for how you write, building the spine from premise to climax, expanding it into a scene list, and keeping the outline alive once the drafting starts.
How to write a query letter that gets a literary agent to request pages: the three-paragraph structure, what goes in the hook, the pitch, and the bio, how to choose comps, the mistakes that earn form rejections, and how to personalize without groveling.
How to write dialogue that sounds real and does work: giving every exchange a goal and a conflict, writing subtext instead of on-the-nose lines, making each character's voice distinct, and handling tags, beats, and exposition without stalling the scene.
How to write a novel synopsis for agents and editors: the one-page rule of thumb, what to include and what to cut, how to handle the ending and character arcs, writing it in present tense with the right voice, and the mistakes that make a synopsis unreadable.
How to write a horror novel that actually frightens: building dread instead of shock, choosing what the monster means, pacing reveals and escalation across the book, using point of view to trap the reader, and landing an ending that honors the fear.
Best for: Hollywood feature films, especially genre and comedy. Blake Snyder's 15-beat structure, popular in film. Paces a two-hour screenplay with clear turning points.
Best for: writers who want both the granularity of Save the Cat and the arc clarity of Harmon's Story Circle. Fifteen Snyder beats nested under nine Harmon segments. Adapted from the community template - write here and view as either framework.
Best for: half-hour TV episodes and short character arcs. An 8-step distillation of the Hero's Journey for episodic storytelling. Used in Community, Rick and Morty, and countless half-hour TV. Protagonist starts comfortable, breaks out, struggles, and returns changed.
Best for: hour-long network/cable drama and procedural TV. The multi-thread episode structure where an A-story (main plot), B-story (emotional thread), and C-story (comic/tertiary) interweave across the act breaks and converge at the climax.
Best for: single-camera 30-minute comedies (The Office, Ted Lasso, Abbott Elementary). Cold open, three acts of interweaving A/B/C stories, and a tag. Runs about 28-34 pages with standard screenplay spacing. For the sound-stage, studio-audience style, use the Multi-Cam Sitcom template with the Multi-cam format instead.
Best for: multi-camera, sound-stage sitcoms shot before a studio audience (The Big Bang Theory, Friends). The classic multi-cam grid - a teaser, two acts, and a tag. Runs longer than single-cam (about 40-55 pages) because dialogue is double-spaced; pair it with the Multi-cam format for that layout.
Best for: 60-minute network and cable drama - procedurals and serialized broadcast hours. The modern act grid nearly every network show now uses: a teaser plus six acts, each ending on a turn strong enough to hold the audience across a commercial break. Runs about 55-65 pages. Writing an older five-act hour? Merge the last two acts. Writing streaming? Use the One-Hour Serialized template for an actless draft.
Best for: premium and streaming hour-long drama written without commercial breaks (most prestige TV). One continuous act - no printed act dividers - with the reveals and reversals mapped to natural turns instead of ad breaks. Runs about 50-65 pages. Think of it as a one-act film for episodic TV; the momentum comes from the turns, not the breaks.
Best for: 11-minute animated episodes - the standard unit for modern kids' and comedy animation, paired two-per-half-hour (Adventure Time, Gravity Falls). A cold open and two tight acts, about 11-16 pages. Writing a 22-minute adult-animation half-hour instead? Those follow sitcom structure - use a half-hour comedy template.
Best for: daytime soaps and telenovelas - daily serialized melodrama built to run and to bring viewers back tomorrow. One episode's grid: a teaser and four acts, each advancing several concurrent storylines and each ending on a hook, closing on the cliffhanger that sells the next episode. Emotion runs high and plots interweave; the long arc matters as much as today's scene.
Best for: novel-length genre fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi. Dan Wells's 7-beat scaffolding, reverse-engineered from Brandon Sanderson and popular among genre-fiction novelists. Tight, prescriptive, and easy to outline in an afternoon.
Best for: romance novels of any heat level and subgenre. Gwen Hayes's beat sheet - the romance plot IS the relationship, structured as two halves: falling in love, then fighting for it. Plot beats serve the emotional arc.
Best for: whodunits, detective novels, and crime fiction where the puzzle drives the plot. A 12-beat scaffold pacing the investigation - clues, suspects, red herrings, and the reveal - while keeping the reader one step behind the detective.
Best for: memoir, travel writing, and personal-essay-length true stories. A 10-beat arc that turns lived experience into narrative - an outer journey carrying an inner transformation.
Best for: commercial and genre novels across every category. Jessica Brody's adaptation of Blake Snyder's 15-beat structure for novelists - the same proven turning points, retuned to novel pacing and interiority.
Best for: novelists who want a chapter-by-chapter outline before drafting. Three acts, nine blocks, twenty-seven chapters - each block a mini-arc of reaction, action, and consequence, with a turn at every block's end.
Best for: genre novelists who want a diagnosable structure. Shawn Coyne's Five Commandments of Storytelling - the five turns that must land in every story (and, fractally, in every act and scene). Pair them with your genre's obligatory scenes.
Best for: novelists who want plot points AND pinch points mapped. K.M. Weiland's structure from Structuring Your Novel - the classic beats plus the two pinch points that keep the antagonist's pressure visible through the middle.
Best for: character-driven and literary novelists. John Truby's 22 building blocks from The Anatomy of Story - an organic structure built from the hero's moral weakness and need rather than a fixed act grid. Deep, and worth the climb.
Best for: thrillers and suspense novels - the ticking-clock cousin of the mystery. Where a mystery hides whodunit, a thriller races to stop what's coming. Escalating danger, a personal stake, and a countdown to the confrontation.
Best for: novellas (roughly 20,000-40,000 words). A tight, single-dramatic-question three-act with no room to wander: one protagonist, one central problem, a fast inciting incident, and a compact, resonant landing.
Best for: planners who want to grow a novel from one sentence outward. Randy Ingermanson's ten-step method - expand a single-sentence summary into a paragraph, then pages, then a scene list, before you draft. A planning checklist, not a chapter outline.
Best for: nonfiction how-to, self-help, and prescriptive books. Open on the reader's pain, promise a transformation, teach a memorable framework one step per chapter, then send them off changed. Each chapter earns its place by moving the reader forward.
Best for: business, leadership, and big-idea nonfiction. Lead with one counterintuitive thesis, prove it with research and story, break it into a framework, then show readers how to apply it. Think one memorable idea, argued and applied.
Best for: literary and genre short stories (roughly 1,500 to 7,500 words). A compact single-arc shape: one central character, one turn, one change. Enter late, leave early, and let a single decisive moment carry the whole piece.
Best for: very short fiction (under about 1,000 words). Maximum compression: one situation, one turn, one resonant ending. Every word earns its place and the power is in what is left unsaid.
Best for: any first draft when you don't yet know what shape your story is. The classic setup / confrontation / resolution. Flexible enough for any medium; light enough to adapt.
Best for: adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, and myth. Christopher Vogler's 12-stage adaptation of Joseph Campbell's monomyth. Star Wars, The Matrix, and Lord of the Rings all walk this path.
Best for: literary fiction and stage plays where the climax is revelation, not action. Gustav Freytag's classical model of dramatic structure, formalized from Shakespeare and Greek tragedy. Lighter scaffolding than Save the Cat.
Best for: any story, in any medium, that wants a clear spine without heavy scaffolding. Nigel Watts's eight-point arc from 'Writing a Novel and Getting Published' - stasis to resolution through a critical choice. A simple, teachable shape taught in countless writing courses.
Best for: slice-of-life, mood pieces, and atmospheric work without antagonists. A Japanese four-act structure that does NOT require conflict. Common in anime, manga, and literary work. The story's engine is contrast and revelation rather than antagonism.
Best for: short stories, treatments, pitches, or gut-checking a longer outline. Emma Coats's six-sentence story spine, popularized as Pixar's internal pitch tool. Tiny but rigorous; forces causality between beats.
Best for: prestige drama and serious feature screenplays. Robert McKee's classical structure from his book Story. Built around the obligatory Crisis scene and the principle that every story is a series of progressive complications driving the protagonist to an unavoidable choice.
Best for: character-driven stories of self-actualization and creative awakening. Kim Hudson's 13-beat arc - a counterpart to the Hero's Journey where the quest is inward: claiming a dream the world told the protagonist to suppress.
Best for: novelists who want a load-bearing structural blueprint. Larry Brooks's 'Story Engineering' model - four parts, each with a distinct mission for the protagonist, separated by five fixed milestones.
Best for: understanding the deep archetypal shape under any story. Christopher Booker argued the seven plot types share one underlying five-stage arc. Use these five beats as the skeleton beneath whichever plot type you are telling.
Best for: thrillers, suspense, and any story that should start fast. The Fichtean Curve drops exposition almost entirely - open near the inciting incident and drive through a chain of escalating crises straight to the climax.
Best for: character-driven and literary fiction about wholeness and reconciliation. Maureen Murdock's 10-stage arc - a psychological counterpart to Campbell's monomyth - moving from achievement toward integration of the inner self.
Every framework on this page is built into One More Draft - pick one in the story wizard and plan beat by beat with Quill, your story editor, coaching along the way. Free to start.
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