Any medium · 6 beats
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.
Percentages show roughly where each beat lands in the finished story — the midpoint of a 110-page screenplay is page 55.
Establish the protagonist and the world they inhabit at the story's start. Keep it concrete and specific. One sentence.
The routine, the status quo, the pattern that defines life before the story begins. One sentence.
The disruption. Something new happens that breaks the routine and sets the story in motion. One sentence.
The first major consequence of the disruption. Causal, not coincidental. The protagonist's first response cascades into the next beat.
The escalating second consequence. The stakes raise; the protagonist is now committed; turning back is not an option.
The resolution. The protagonist arrives at a new state — for better, for worse, or for ambiguous. The world is changed.
Pixar Pitch is built into One More Draft — pick it in the story wizard and every beat above becomes a slot in your outline, with Quill, your story editor, coaching each one. Free to start.
Start a story with Pixar Pitch
