A story outline generator turns a premise into an outline you can write from. Pick a structure, such as Save the Cat, the Hero's Journey, the Story Circle, three acts, kishōtenketsu or a vertical drama season, and this tool lays out its beats with where each one lands. Then it writes what happens in each beat from your premise. Every beat stays editable, and the outline opens as a project's beat board.
How to use the story outline generator
- Write your premise: who it is about, what they want and what stands in the way.
- Pick a structure and what you are writing: a feature film, a TV pilot, a short film, a novel or a vertical drama season. Scripts get a page target for every beat.
- Outline. Each beat gets two or three sentences that follow from the beat before.
- Edit any beat in place. Press Keep on the beats you like and outline again: only the others are rewritten, around the ones you kept.
- Open it as a script or a novel. The beats go onto the new project's beat board with their page targets, and you sign up only at that step.
Which structure should you pick?
| Structure | Beats | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Three acts | 7 | Any story; the simplest frame |
| Save the Cat | 15 | Commercial films and genre novels with a clear goal |
| Hero's Journey | 12 | Adventure, fantasy and coming of age |
| Story Circle | 8 | TV episodes and character stories that end where they began, changed |
| Kishōtenketsu | 4 | Stories built on a turn rather than a fight, common in Japanese, Chinese and Korean fiction |
| Vertical drama season | 8 | Short-drama seasons of one- to two-minute episodes, each ending on a hook |
A structure is a lens, not a rule. If your story fights the beats, try another structure or move the beats. The beat sheet calculator shows where beats land for any page count, and the guides to kishōtenketsu, the Story Circle and vertical drama go deeper into each shape.
Plot generator, outline generator or beat sheet calculator?
- The plot generator rolls a random premise when you need an idea to start from.
- The story outline generator starts from your own premise and builds the whole shape of the story.
- The beat sheet calculator tells you which page each beat should land on, without writing anything.
What a good outline does
- Every beat changes something. If a beat could be cut without the next one noticing, it isn't a beat yet.
- It keeps the cast small. The outline uses your characters and describes other roles plainly instead of inventing a crowd of names.
- It is specific about events. "She learns to trust" is a theme; "she hands him the only key" is a beat.
- It is easy to change. Keep the beats that work and rewrite the rest.
Your premise, your story
The AI outlines the premise you give it and keeps your characters and setting; it doesn't write the story for you. Use the beats as scaffolding, rewrite them in your own words and throw out any that don't fit. The story outline guide compares outline formats if you want to go further by hand.
Questions
What is a story outline generator?
A tool that turns a premise into a beat-by-beat outline in a story structure. This one writes each beat from your premise, gives page targets for scripts, and lets you edit and keep beats before you open them as a project.
Which structure should I choose?
Save the Cat for commercial stories with a clear goal, the Hero's Journey for adventure and fantasy, the Story Circle for character stories and TV episodes, three acts as the simplest frame, kishōtenketsu for stories built on a turn, and the vertical drama season for short-drama series.
Does it work for novels, TV and vertical drama?
Yes. Choose a feature film, TV pilot, short film, novel or vertical drama season. Scripts get a page target for each beat; a novel and a vertical season show where each beat falls as a share of the story.
Can I edit the beats and keep some of them?
Yes. Every beat is editable on the page. Press Keep on the beats you like and outline again; only the others are rewritten.
Will the AI write my story?
No. It outlines the premise you give it, beat by beat, and you write the story. You can rewrite or delete any beat.
Where do the beats go when I'm done?
Open as a script or Open as a novel creates a project with the beats on its beat board. You can also copy the outline as text or download it as a CSV file.
Is it free, and is my premise kept?
It is free with no sign-up and a daily allowance per connection. Your premise is used to write the outline and isn't saved to an account. Scenaloom does not use your projects, prompts or AI results to train or fine-tune AI models.