Story Beats
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Overview
In ACT 3 AI, Story Beats are the key narrative moments that define your project’s structure. They represent the pivotal actions, emotional turns, and plot events that move your story forward. Story Beats form the bridge between your AI Wizard-generated outline and the detailed scene breakdown in the Editor Workspace.
By mapping your beats early, you ensure a consistent flow, pacing, and thematic coherence across your entire project.
Purpose
- Breaks your story into digestible, meaningful moments
- Helps align creative vision across writers, directors, and editors
- Guides the scene creation and shot design process
- Makes it easier to spot pacing issues before production
How to Create Story Beats
- Launch the AI Wizard from the sidebar.
- Select your genre, tone, and narrative structure.
- Provide your logline, theme, and core story elements.
- Review AI-generated beats and adjust to your vision.
- Save the beats so they feed directly into scene creation.
Editing Beats
- In the AI Wizard or Editor, click on any beat to open its detail panel.
- Modify description, emotional tone, or order.
- Merge or split beats to adjust pacing.
- Link beats to specific scenes or acts.
Beat Types
| Beat Type | Purpose | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Opening Image | Sets tone, theme, and mood | A lone astronaut drifts toward a glowing planet |
| Catalyst | Inciting incident that starts the main story | The astronaut discovers a distress signal |
| Midpoint | Major turn or reveal | AI companion betrays the mission |
| Climax | Emotional or action peak | The astronaut confronts the rogue AI |
| Resolution | Wraps up narrative threads | Earth receives the final transmission |
AI Assistance
- The AI Wizard can auto-generate beats from a short project description.
- Modify AI suggestions for tone, pacing, and detail.
- Save multiple beat versions for comparison.
Best Practices
- Keep each beat concise (1–2 sentences)
- Maintain thematic consistency across beats
- Include emotional stakes to keep viewers engaged
- Use beats as a checklist for scene production
See Also
Contact Us if you have any problems using our product, or if you have questions.