Twenty-Four Steps
A detailed approach, presented here in eight larger movements.
A detailed outline can help track how a character responds as circumstances become harder to manage. This presentation groups the model into eight larger movements, allowing you to begin with the broad progression and examine the smaller steps when needed.
How it works
Steve Duncan set out twenty-four steps in A Guide to Screenwriting Success (2006). Carlson’s chart groups them as eight movements of three beats each, and the labels here are the chart’s, so they may not match the book word for word. It is the most granular row on the timeline, built to track the hero’s inner change closely.
Each movement takes an eighth of the story, 12.5%. Premise sets up the hero’s goals and obstacles and lands the inciting incident, and in Deliberation the hero weighs the change until a turning point decides it at 25%. Brave New World finds them resisting and floundering, and Gaining New Skills brings harder obstacles that start to give way. Pushed to the Limit begins at 50%, with the hero seeking the truth and failing. On the Run builds urgency toward 75%, where Epiphany brings realization and recommitment. Final Confrontation (87.5–100%) holds the showdown and the dénouement, ending on a glimpse of the future.
Its turns sit exactly on the quarter marks, 25%, 50% and 75%, the common three-act frame. Paul Joseph Gulino’s Sequence Approach also cuts a story into eight equal blocks, and its labels name what each sequence does for the plot. Duncan’s name the hero’s state of mind instead: resisting, floundering, failing, running, realizing. The midpoint brings failure, and the stretch where most models put the lowest point is spent in flight, which gives the second half a restless, pursued feel.
Duncan’s map pays off when a script depends on the precision of its hero’s inner change. A first pass works best at the level of the eight movements, one sentence each; the three beats inside each can wait, because two dozen beats leave little room in a short script. For revision, note at each eighth what the hero believes and how they’re coping. A movement where nothing in the hero has shifted is usually the one to rework.
The framework, part by part
Positions are illustrative comparison references, not universal timing rules.
- Premise (0%–12.5%, Ordinary world): Set the premise, show the hero’s goals and obstacles, and land the inciting incident.
- Deliberation (12.5%–25%, Hesitation): The hero weighs the change and questions it until a turning point decides it.
- Brave New World (25%–37.5%, New world): In a new world the hero resists change and flounders.
- Gaining New Skills (37.5%–50%, New world): New skills meet harder obstacles, and the hero starts to overcome them.
- Pushed to the Limit (50%–62.5%, Midpoint): Pushed to the limit, the hero seeks the truth and fails.
- On the Run (62.5%–75%, Lowest point): Off-balance and on the run, urgency builds.
- Epiphany (75%–87.5%, Final push): An epiphany leads to realization and recommitment.
- Final Confrontation (87.5%–100%, Climax): The final confrontation, the dénouement and a glimpse of the future.
Use it for
Character-driven scripts where the inner change has to be precise.
Watch for
Twenty-four beats can crowd a short story; work in eights first.
See how your story works.
Explore 30 approaches to story structure through short films and illustrated guides. Bring an idea or a draft, build your outline, and compare how different frameworks organize its events.
Free to use. No account needed to write. Save a backup to keep your work.
A short film on every structure
Each of the 30 structures has a 90-second animation that draws its shape beat by beat, and a page with every beat, how its parts work, questions to try, and when it can help. Start with one you’ve heard of.
All 30 structures on one timeline
Each row is one structure. The story runs left to right, from the first page (0%) to the last (100%). Bars are beats that last a while; diamonds are single moments. Drag the red line to any point, and the list below shows the nearby beats in each structure.
- Bar: a beat that lasts a while
- Diamond: a beat at one moment
- Red line: the point you’re reading
- A blank stretch: that structure names no beat there
- Act II-A and II-B are the two halves of Act Two, split at the midpoint.
Rows 1 to 13 follow Robert Carlson’s Ultimate Story Structure Chart (2015). Rows 14 to 21 are the structures readers of that thread asked him to add, and rows 22 to 30 are nine more we added. Positions combine source conventions and editorial estimates. Use them to compare approaches; they are not universal timing rules.
† Credited on Carlson’s chart. We found no primary source; the tree line is also credited to George Abbott and George M. Cohan.
Outline your story in any structure
Choose a framework and give its prompts a few sentences. Compare suggested placements in other frameworks to find a useful question or a different way to develop an event.
Pick a structure you know
Not sure? Try one of these, or any of the 30.
Write a sentence for each beat
A beat is one turn in the story, like the Catalyst that knocks your hero’s life off course. Each beat comes with a question to help you answer it.
Compare another framework
The comparison suggests where your notes could fit. Review each match. You decide which prompts matter to your story.
We wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a Save the Cat! outline. These excerpts from our outline of Baum’s 1900 novel show how suggested placements change between frameworks. Unmapped prompts describe this partial outline, not a flaw in Oz. Pick any structure you know and try it with your own story.
Sketch your story’s ups and downs
Kurt Vonnegut drew stories as a line that rises when things go well for the main character and falls when they go badly. Draw yours from left to right and we’ll name the classic shape it’s closest to.
Take it to the page
The free 91-page guide has the full chart, a chapter on each structure, printable worksheets and beat calculators for films, episodes and novels.