This post first ran on Friday, March 22, 2013. I've been making use of Elizabeth Davis's spreadsheet for nine months now and have found it extremely useful and effective. If you haven't explored this tool yet, give it a go as you edit your NaNo novel. Save the Cat by Blake Snyder is one of the quintessential writing craft books used not only by screenwriters, for whom it was written, but by fiction writers of all flavours and varieties. Snyder's system of working a screenplay into specific story beats has been a particularly useful tool for screenwriters. Elizabeth Davis has kindly done the necessary calculations to convert the screenplay beat sheet into a beat sheet for novels, available as an Excel spreadsheet (don't be put off by that - it is the easiest spreadsheet you'll ever use: you type in one number and hit Enter). You can download a copy of Elizabeth's Save the Cat Beat Sheet for Novels here . Jami Gold has written an excellent post on ...