Five acts beat sheet
Rising action to a turning point in the middle, then the fall to the end. The shape of Shakespeare's plays.
Use it with your book's length
How it works
Gustav Freytag, a German writer, drew this shape in 1863 by studying Greek and Shakespeare plays. He saw a pyramid. The story climbs to a turning point in the middle, then falls to the end.
The big difference from three acts: here the climax is the turning point in the middle, not the final fight. After it, things slide toward the ending, which in a tragedy is a disaster. The five acts are each about a fifth of the story.
Good for: Tragedy, literary fiction, historical fiction and stories where the hero's own choices bring them down.
Watch out: The falling action can feel slow to modern readers. Keep something at stake until the last page.
The 7 beats, and where they fall
| Beat | Where | In 80,000 words |
|---|---|---|
| ExpositionThe people, the place and the problem under the surface. | 0% to 20% | 0 to 16,000 |
| Inciting momentThe spark that sets the story moving. | 15% | 12,000 |
| Rising actionThings get more tangled and the stakes go up. | 20% to 45% | 16,000 to 36,000 |
| ClimaxThe turning point. A choice or event that changes the hero's fate. | 50% | 40,000 |
| Falling actionThe results of that choice close in. | 55% to 80% | 44,000 to 64,000 |
| Last chanceA moment of hope that things could still turn out fine. | 80% | 64,000 |
| EndingIn a tragedy, the fall. In other stories, the knots untie. | 85% to 100% | 68,000 to 80,000 |
The places are rough guides, not rules. Plenty of good books move a beat by a chapter or two. Put in your own word count and chapters to see your book's numbers.
Other story shapes
- Three acts beat sheetThe classic shape. Act 1 sets things up, act 2 is the long middle, act 3 is the end.
- Four acts beat sheetThree acts with the long middle cut in two at the midpoint.
- Save the Cat beat sheetBlake Snyder's screenwriting beats, as Jessica Brody laid them out for novels.
- Hero's journeyJoseph Campbell's journey, in Christopher Vogler's 12 steps. A good fit for quests and fantasy.
- Heroine's journeyA journey where the lead wins by building a team, not by fighting alone. After Gail Carriger's book.
- Story CircleDan Harmon's eight steps around a circle: you, need, go, search, find, take, return, change.
- Seven-point story beat sheetDan Wells's plan: decide the ending first, then build back to the start.
- 27-chapter methodThree acts, each cut into three blocks of three chapters. Fill in 27 chapters and you have a plan.
- Fichtean curveStart in trouble and never let up. One crisis after another, climbing to the climax.
- KishōtenketsuA four-part shape from China and Japan with no fight at its center: introduce, develop, twist, bring together.
- Romance beat sheetThe usual shape of a love story, in four parts: meet, fall, pull apart, come back together.
- Mystery beat sheetThe usual shape of a whodunit: crime, clues, a wrong answer, then the truth.
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