From the Bookshelf of The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club…

Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

Blake Snyder

Start date: April 1, 2018

Finish date: May 31, 2018

Why we're reading this: Learning about other forms of writing can inspire us with our craft.
[close] Learning about other forms of writing can inspire us with our craft.

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Jun 25, 2018 Toi Thomas rated it really liked it

Shelves: rated, educational, reviewed, writing, nonfiction

Here’s what I took away from this book.

Loglines are great for helping screenwriters focus their story. They are apparently a necessity for pitching (which makes good sense). Loglines are cool for authors, but not necessary. Still, coming up with one is a good idea.

Everyone wants the same thing but delivered differently. This makes sense since so many blockbuster movies have the same basic plot only with different characters and settings. Not sure if this is exactly “avoiding clichés” but the aut Here’s what I took away from this book.

Loglines are great for helping screenwriters focus their story. They are apparently a necessity for pitching (which makes good sense). Loglines are cool for authors, but not necessary. Still, coming up with one is a good idea.

Everyone wants the same thing but delivered differently. This makes sense since so many blockbuster movies have the same basic plot only with different characters and settings. Not sure if this is exactly “avoiding clichés” but the author thinks it is.

The beat sheet is awesome. It’s a great tool I plan to tweak and use to my liking. For screenwriters, it seems like a necessity, but I don’t know if it needs to be exactly the one Snyder has it or if there can be tweaks made. For an author, it’s worth looking into and making it your own.

Plot boards or storyboards, whatever you call them are great for story development. As a screenwriter, they seem like must-haves. As an author, it’s a matter of preference. **Caution, don’t ever tell a writer that there is an alternative to writing things by hand. They will hunt you down and tell you why there is no such alternative.** But seriously, this book focuses a lot on story development ideas that are handwritten because it was written before all this modern tech and apps we have now. There is nothing wrong with writing things by hand, I do it all the time, but since there are apps and tech to keep me from doing everything by hand, I also use those. Just keep that in mind.

Snider didn’t offer any concrete information or details on the technical aspects of writing a screenplay, so the how-to aspect of this book was limited. You’ll need to find another book for the technical and semantical stuff.

Lastly, this is a great book to help screenwriters and authors to develop creative ideas and build up solid story structures, however, this is a very mainstream approach. If you have an “out of the box” story idea or method of development, this book may not work out as well for you.

Recommended to aspiring writers, authors, and screenwriters as a beneficial reference tool. ...more

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