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Skills / Productivity-habits

Save the Cat

Give me the same thing... only different!

An expert screenwriting analyst that applies Blake Snyder's 15-beat framework to diagnose story structure. Whether you're outlining a new screenplay, stuck in the second act, or getting vague notes on what's broken, this skill identifies exactly which beat is failing and what to fix. Used by screenwriters, novelists, and anyone building narrative architecture.

By Blake Snyder · Free
Specimen 01 · Live diagnosisSave the Cat
Input

“I've been trying to apply Save the Cat but I'm not sure where to start.”

Diagnosis
I want to apply Save the Cat to my situation.
Full transcript ↓
Calibrated referenceagent-skills.ai
The gap

Blake Snyder's beat-by-beat framework for screenwriting. Diagnose story problems. Nail your structure.

Unable to conduct analysis - no skill candidate information provided. The working directory contains no source content or candidate details. To properly evaluate a skill candidate, I need information about the specific expert or methodology being considered.

The problem

Having a story idea that won't come together. Getting notes like 'the second act drags' with no idea how to fix it. Feeling like structure is a mystery that others understand but you don't.

The solution

Blake Snyder's beat-by-beat framework for screenwriting. Diagnose story problems. Nail your structure.

You bring
  • Your situation or challenge related to Save the Cat
You get
  • A screenwriter beats out a brand new concept into a full 15-beat structure in one session
  • A novelist stuck on page 200 discovers their Fun and Games section is actually more problems
  • A writer getting vague notes like 'pacing feels off' learns their Midpoint is exactly 7 pages too late
  • A screenwriter resists structure and sees the 15 beats mapped onto The Godfather, Jaws, and Get Out
In action

Watch the methodology work.

Three specimens from a single real session: the same situation, unaided and calibrated, the full transcript, and the skill answering live in the channel where the work happens.

Fig.01The same situation, two ways
Specimens A · B
Specimen AVague
Unaided

“Having a story idea that won't come together. Getting notes like 'the second act drags' with no idea how to fix it. Feeling like structure is a mystery that others understand but you don't.”

×Vague — nothing concrete to act on.
Specimen BCalibrated
With Save the Cat

“["Scripts get cleaner feedback—less 'something's off' and more specific, fixable notes", 'You can pitch a story and have people SEE it', 'Writing gets faster because structure provides a roadmap', 'You stop throwing out drafts and start diagnosing them']. ['You watch movies and automatically clock the beats (Catalyst just happened. Here comes the Debate.)', "Story problems become diagnosable: 'The Midpoint is too late' vs. 'Something feels off'", 'You can beat out a story idea on index cards bef”

Specific, grounded, and ends with one clear next step.
Fig.02A real session, unedited
In-app · assistant
Save the CatClaude
Save the Cat
I want to apply Save the Cat to my situation. Can you help me get started?
I've been trying to apply Save the Cat but I'm not sure where to start.
Reply to Save the Cat
What the skill is doing
01Generate Beat Sheets with all 15 beats, page targets, and solid/needs work/missing status
02Genre identification: pick your story type from 10 genres with required ingredients checklist
03Flag structural anti-patterns: passive protagonists, wandering second acts, double mumbo jumbo
Fig.03The same skill, in the channel you already use
WhatsApp · live
9:41
STSave the Cattyping…
Messages are end-to-end encrypted. No one outside of this chat can read them.
Today
I've been trying to apply Save the Cat but I'm not sure where to start.9:14✓✓
I want to apply Save the Cat to my situation.9:14
Message

The same skill, where the work happens.

No new app to learn. The methodology runs over the WhatsApp Business API, so the answer lands as a reply in the thread you’re already in — same rigour, zero context-switch.

Reads the situation, names the pattern, returns one concrete next move.
Delivered in seconds, inside a conversation that already exists.
Specimen · WhatsApp Business API · live
Capabilities

What it does, specifically.

Each capability is a distinct move drawn straight from the source methodology — not a generic assistant guessing.

CapabilityC-01

Overview

The Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (BS2) divides a story into 15 specific beats across three acts, with precise page-number targets for a 110-page screenplay.

CapabilityC-02

Primary Framework

CapabilityC-03

Secondary Framework

Not traditional genres (horror, comedy) but story TYPES that have their own rules. Every successful story fits one of these, and each has specific requirements that must be fulfilled.

Tested

Graded before it shipped.

Every skill is scored against independent scenarios for methodology fidelity before it goes live — not vibes, a rubric.

What it produces
OutputD-01

Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (BS2)

The complete 15-beat breakdown of the user's story with page targets, current content, and status.

OutputD-02

Genre Diagnosis Card

Identifies which of the 10 Save the Cat genres the story belongs to and checks required ingredients.

OutputD-03

Logline Scorecard

Evaluates the logline against Save the Cat criteria: hero clarity, primal stakes, irony, visual potential.

The source

Grounded in the original work.

Every answer traces back to a real source and the practitioner who wrote it — not a secondhand summary. Here is the source of record.

Source authorA-01

Blake Snyder

Cannot evaluate skill potential without knowing which expert methodology or framework is being considered. Please provide candidate information including: expert name, methodology/framework, available source materials (books, courses, articles), and any pre-extracted content.

Status · Inspired by Blake Snyder’s work — not yet claimed. Are you Blake Snyder?
Get started

Put it to work.

agent-skills runs as MCP — connect it once and Save the Cat works in Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client. Sign in to see your config and accept the terms.