Screenplay Beat Sheet Template

BBC Writers describes a beat sheet as a simple document listing a story's key events¹, a way to map a script before you write it. Snyder's version adds timing: the official Save the Cat guide ties each beat to a percentage of your script².

Scripts vary in length, so find each beat's target page by multiplying its percentage by your page count. Film data researcher Stephen Follows analyzed 12,309 feature scripts scored by professional script readers and found a median length of 106 pages³, with 68.5% between 90 and 120. A Catalyst at 10% falls on page 9 of a 90-page script and page 12 of a 120-page one.

Treat the targets as a check, not a rulebook. Peter Suderman, writing in Slate in 2013, notes that Snyder called his beat sheet a structure, not a formula⁴. Snyder also said the page counts need not be followed strictly, as long as the proportions stay fairly close. Suderman argued that in practice it had become a formula anyway, with films sticking closely to its beats and page counts.

Before you assign a single beat, list your scenes: the ones in your draft, or the ones you plan if the script isn't written yet. Scott Myers, a screenwriter and teacher, runs Go Into the Story, the Black List's screenwriting blog. He says any scene must have a narrative function to justify its presence⁵. Write that function down for every scene, in one clause.

1. 1

   Read it straight through

   Read the whole draft once without taking notes, so you log the early scenes knowing how the story ends.

2. 2

   Log every scene

   Give each scene a number, its first and last page, and one plain line on what happens.

3. 3

   Name its job

   Add one clause on what the scene changes for the plot or a character, something that would not happen without it.

4. 4

   Then match the beats

   Pair each beat with the scene whose job fits it, not the scene nearest its target page.

Write each job as an action. "A scene in the kitchen" is a setting; "Maya agrees to sell the house" is a job you can test. Name the job before you think about beats, because a clause written to fit a beat you have already picked stops telling you anything.

Now give every beat two page numbers: the target from your page count and the page where its scene actually starts. Write both down even when they match, so the sheet shows the check happened. A late turn in the main plot tends to push every turn after it later too, unless a later stretch tightens to make up the time.

Check two beats twice. The B Story is often a love story, friendship or mentorship, so it waits on a second character, and that entrance is easy to postpone. Fun and Games is a range rather than a point, so it can swell one scene at a time.

Next, read every job clause against every other. Scenes that look nothing alike can do the same job. A warning nobody acts on and a briefing that repeats old news can both raise a worry without changing the plan. Group them, keep the one with the most at stake, and mark the rest as cuts.

John August, the screenwriter of Big Fish, puts a blunt test to every scene: imagine a projectionist accidentally lopped it off⁶. If the movie would still make sense, you don't need it. Total the cut pages, since a page count turns a hunch into a decision.

Then count each major character's scenes in every act, from the list rather than memory. A mention in someone else's dialogue is not a scene. If your B Story character has no scenes before the B Story's target page, the late beat and the missing character are one problem. The fix is a new scene, not a cut.

Opened in River, the template on this page does this bookkeeping for you: it builds the scene list, the beat check and the character counts from your draft. When the sheet shows a missing scene, the screenplay scene writer can draft it from your description. Once the structure holds, script coverage gives you a reader's view of the full draft.