Genre Beat Calculator — A Cross-Reference for Plotters Who Know Their Beats Already

Six narrative structures. Eight fiction genres. Forty-eight beat sheets, each one tuned for the way your genre quietly rewrites the rules.

You already know what a midpoint is. You know what All Is Lost means and you've drawn the Story Circle on a napkin more than once. What you don't always know is how your genre is going to reshape those beats before you've written the first scene.

This is the reference companion for that gap.

✦ WHAT THIS IS

A single interactive HTML dashboard. No installs, no logins, no subscriptions. You open it in your browser and it works — on your laptop, on your tablet, on your phone, online or offline.

You pick a structure. You pick a genre. The dashboard renders the full beat sheet for that combination, with a short genre-lens note under every beat explaining how that specific beat tends to behave inside that specific genre.

Save the Cat × Dark Romance — Fun and Games becomes the seduction escalation zone. All Is Lost becomes a betrayal of trust, not external defeat. Dark Night of the Soul is sitting in the wreckage of having loved someone who hurt you.

Hero's Journey × Sci-Fi — Ordinary World leans on worldbuilding through lived detail. The Ordeal is loss of a framework, not a battle. The Elixir is knowledge that cannot be put back.

Three Act × Mystery — Act 1 plants the crime and the detective. Act 2 is suspects and red herrings. Act 3 is the reveal where every clue must already have been visible.

Forty-eight combinations total. Every beat carries its canonical position and its genre-specific reframing.

✦ STRUCTURES INCLUDED

— Save the Cat (15 beats — Blake Snyder)
— Hero's Journey (12 stages — Campbell / Vogler)
— Three Act Structure (8 key beats — Field)
— Dan Harmon Story Circle (8 steps)
— Freytag's Pyramid (5 stages — classical drama)
— Kishotenketsu (4 acts — Japanese, no conflict required)

✦ GENRES INCLUDED

Dark Romance · Fantasy · Thriller · Paranormal · Contemporary · Sci-Fi · Romantasy · Mystery

✦ WHAT'S INSIDE THE FILE

— Calculator — pick a structure, pick a genre, see the tailored beat sheet
— Reference — all six structures side by side, canonical beats only, for when you just want to compare frameworks
— About — short description of each structure and each genre's conventions
— Settings — three themes (Dark · Parchment · Slate), three languages (English · Português · Italiano)

✦ WHO THIS IS FOR

Plotters who already know their craft language. Writers planning a new project who want to pressure-test a structure against the genre they're writing in. Authors switching between genres who need to see how their habitual beat sheet behaves in a new register. Writing coaches and developmental editors who want a one-screen reference for client manuscripts.

Not for absolute beginners — this assumes you already know what a midpoint is. If you don't, start with a beat sheet workbook first and come back.

✦ HOW IT WORKS

Single HTML file — open in any modern browser. Works fully offline after the first load. Your selection (structure, genre, theme, language) is saved in your browser — comes back next time you open it. No user-editable content, no notes, no exports — this is a reference, not a planner. Three colour themes and three languages built in. Mobile-friendly layout.

✦ DELIVERY

Instant digital download. After purchase you receive:

— genre-beat-calculator.html — the dashboard
— genre-beat-calculator-guide.pdf — usage guide
— genre-beat-calculator-license.pdf — personal-use license

No physical product is shipped.

✦ LICENSE

Personal use. One writer, unlimited devices. You may use this tool for your own creative work, including commercial novels you write yourself. You may not redistribute, resell, sublicense, or share the file. See the license PDF for full terms.

✦ REFUND POLICY

Because this is a digital download, all sales are final. Please read the description carefully before purchasing and message me with any questions first — I answer fast.

AI-assisted: product content, code and listing images are produced with AI tools. Concept, structure and creative direction are my own.