Hey you guys, welcome back to my channel. I am so excited about the videos that I have coming up for you guys this month because it's all about Nana Rimo. I know a lot of you are participating and even if you're not participating in Nana Rimo, if you writing a book, I think you're going to benefit a lot from the content that I have coming up. Over the following weeks, I'm going to be going over all the beats listed and save the cat rights and novel. If you guys don't know anything about this book, you have to go get this book right now before you even start writing your book. Because this is the best book I'm writing I have ever ever read. And you guys, I've read a lot of books. I have a degree in English with an emphasis on creative writing. So I went to college for it and still this book taught me more about writing than anything I ever learned in college. So go get this book. But in the meantime, what I'm going to do is help you out by giving you some of the takeaways that I got from this book, especially I'm going to go scene by scene. I have a lot of notes written down. So without further ado, let's jump into the very first beat, which is the opening image. So what is the opening image? The open image is that part of the story where you show your character as they are before you get in there and start messing things up before you get in there and start writing the story. It's also a snapshot of how your character is before you get in there and start writing your story. In essence, their life before the story takes place. This is where you get to set the tone, the style, and the mood of the story. For instance, if it's a suspense story, this is where you're going to show a little bit of suspense. If it's a romcom, you're going to show a little bit of romcom. Meaning it's your style of writing. This is where you get to show up your style of writing by creating an open image showing the pre-life of your character and their life before the story takes off. What else is the opening image? This is a visual image, an action image. So you're not going to dump a lot of information or dump a lot of dialogue. This should be an active. You should show the character doing something, not just talking or thinking or giving us a ton of information. This is where you're going to show them actually doing something. The opening image is a place where you're going to show your character's flaws. You're going to show one, two, or three as creatively as you can in action without giving us again too much information, dump or too much dialogue or too much thought. I did a video on Save the Cat. It's called My Writing Process Save the Cat, where I answer a ton of the questions that are listed in Save the Cat right to novel. I will leave it in the description box below for you guys to check out. Because in that video, I show you how you answer some of the questions before you actually sit down to write your opening image or your book or the first chapter, your first draft. You go and answer all these questions about your protagonist. For example, one of the questions is what are some of your characters' flaws? So you're going to start listing some of their flaws. So by the time you get to the opening image of your writing process, you can pick. Okay, so my character is high-strong. Let's say you think that is a flaw in your story. Well, maybe in the opening image, you're going to show your character acting high-strong in something that's obviously going to impact the story going forward. So make sure you check out that video because I think it's going to help you get started and answer some of the questions that you need to know before you actually sit down to write. And the final thing about the opening image is that it is a mirror image to that final image. One of the things that I didn't realize this before I started writing, but in the last novel that I wrote, I went step by step and did everything that I had that I'd learned from Save the Cat. That book is all written, is going to be going to the editor at the first of the year and it will be released next year. But aside from that, what I wanted to say about the opening image is that the opening image and the final image are mirrors of each other. However, they are as far apart from each other as possible because if your protagonist didn't go on a journey and her life didn't change, then what was the point of writing and reading the story, right? So you want to make sure they are mirror to each other, but they are very different. So let me just give you a quick example of what that might look like. Let's say you have a person who is single and they are very unhappy in their life and they just want to feel more fulfilled with their overall life and they are just keeping doing things. The opening image is maybe showing them doing something that they feel is destructive in their life, whether it's drinking too much or drugs or I don't know, whatever it is that you feel destructive in your story. You show them doing this and then the very last scene is going to be the mirror image of this, maybe showing them how fulfilled they are now in action. Again, you're not going to dump information or a lot of thought. You're going to show them actually doing something that's completely opposite of how the story opened up. They're mirrors to each other, but completely different if that makes sense. Alright, you guys, that is it for the opening image. Next, we're going to tackle theme stated. So I wanted to keep it one video per beat so that you could have a place to return to time. And again, if you want to go over just the opening image, you can just come and watch this video. If you want to talk about theme stated, you can just watch that video. So make sure you're subscribed to the channel because there are 15 beats in total and I'm going to do a video on each to help you guys get through nano-rimo or maybe your first book or your fifth book, whatever it is, I'm here to help. Remember to subscribe on your way out. If you liked this video, remember to give it a thumbs up and I'll see you guys in a few days again with a brand new video. Until then, stay safe.