Screenplay Beat Sheet Template
Three documents and three sheets that log every scene's job against the beats, then flag the scenes repeating a job another scene already did.
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Beat Sheet
[Project Title] — Beat Sheet
One entry per beat: the job it does, the scene that fills it, and target page against actual.
1. Opening Image — target 0-1%
Target page: ___ Actual page: ___ Scene: ___
[What the scene's function clause shows.]
4. Catalyst — target 10%
Target page: ___ Actual page: ___ Scene: ___
[What the scene's function clause shows.]
7. B Story — target 22%
Target page: ___ Actual page: ___ Scene: ___
[What the scene's function clause shows.]
9. Midpoint — target 50%
Target page: ___ Actual page: ___ Scene: ___
[What the scene's function clause shows.]
Every free beat sheet builder, including Save the Cat's own mapper, maps a story that does not exist yet. Enter a page count and it places fifteen beats at their published percentages on a blank grid, useful before a draft exists and the wrong tool once one does. A beat sheet built from percentages alone cannot tell you that three of your scenes do the identical job, or that your second lead has not appeared in fifty pages despite three calls implying he exists.
This pack runs the check a blank mapper cannot. Scott Myers, who writes the screenwriting blog Go Into the Story for the Black List, states the test plainly: a scene needs a narrative function to justify its presence, or it has no business being in the story. The Scene Register, Structural Map and Arc Tracking by Character sheets log that function for every scene, place your draft's real beats against Snyder's published percentages, and count who is on the page each act.
On a worked 112-page draft, that check finds four functions repeated three times each, eight of twelve scenes cuttable at sixteen pages. The same check finds a B Story beat landing 33 pages later than its 22% target, because the character it belongs to has zero scenes across the draft's first 57 pages. Open the pack in River and the agent builds all three sheets from your draft directly. Once the register exists, script coverage can cite scene numbers against it, and a producer notes response prices a rewrite against the same numbers.
What is in the pack
Scene Register
One row per scene: page range, length, and the one-clause function that catches a repeat before any beat gets assigned.
Structural Map
Blake Snyder's fifteen beats scaled to your draft's real page count, checked against the scene that actually fills each one.
Arc Tracking by Character
Scene and page counts per act for every major character, so a fifty-page absence shows up as a number.
Beat Sheet
The fifteen beats in order, each with its target page, its actual page, and the scene that fills it.
Structural Assessment
The register's findings priced in cuttable pages, ordered by which fix costs the least to make first.
Character Arc Note
Every character's presence by act, and what stood in for them during the stretch where they weren't on the page.
How it works
- 1
Open in River, or download it
Open the pack in River and let the agent build the register from your draft, or download the blank Word and CSV files instantly.
- 2
Send your draft or treatment
In River, the agent reads your draft directly and logs page ranges, functions and beats into the register itself. Working from the files, log each scene by hand.
- 3
Find the repeats and the gaps
The completed register groups scenes sharing a function and flags every instance but the highest-stakes one, then checks the beats and every character's presence against it.
- 4
Write up what it means
Fill in the Beat Sheet, Structural Assessment and Character Arc Note from what the sheets found. In River, the agent drafts all three and prices every cut in pages, the same arithmetic a manuscript revision plan applies to prose notes.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes, the whole pack downloads free as Word documents and CSV sheets, no signup and no card required. "Edit with AI" is a separate, optional path for writers who want River to build the register directly from a draft they send in. Every other pack lives in the template library.
Does this grade my prose or my dialogue?
No, and it never rates the writing itself. It tests whether a scene's function repeats another scene's, and whether the beats Snyder's own percentages predict actually land where your draft puts them. Line notes on the prose are a different job than this one, and coverage or an edit letter is the better tool for that.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents (.docx) for the Beat Sheet, Structural Assessment and Character Arc Note, and CSV (.csv) for the three tracking sheets, zipped into one file. They open natively in Word, Pages, Google Docs, Excel, Numbers and Sheets with no conversion step.
How is this different from a blank beat sheet template?
Save the Cat's own mapper, plus calculators like ScreenWeaver's, place fifteen beats on a page count you type in. None of them reads an existing draft's own scenes against each other, so none can catch a function repeating or a character's fifty-page absence the way this register does.
What does 'Edit with AI' actually do?
It creates a free River account and installs this exact pack as a private workspace. It opens with the agent ready to read whatever draft or treatment you send, log the register scene by scene, and write up what it finds. Nothing is written until you send something.
Does this work from a treatment, or only a finished draft?
It needs scenes to compare, not just a premise. A treatment or outline with scene-level beats works the same way a finished draft does. A logline alone has nothing yet to check function against; a pitch and treatment pack tests whether that concept sustains before scenes exist to register.
Find out which of your scenes are doing the same job
Send the draft or treatment. The register comes back with every scene's function, the beats checked against real pages, and who was missing from them.
Edit with AI