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

by Blake Snyder

The second most important element that a good logline has is that you must be able to see a whole movie in it.

A hero goes “on the road” in search of one thing and winds up discovering something else — himself.

Thus Wizard Of Oz; Planes, Train and Automobiles; Star Wars; Road Trip; and Back to the Future are all basically the same movie.

The theme of every Golden Fleece movie is internal growth; how the incidents affect the hero is, in fact, the plot.

It’s not the incidents, it’s what the hero learns about himself from those incidents that makes the story work.

These are tales of pain and torment, but usually from an outside force: Life. Sure it’s about the choices we’ve made, but the “monster” attacking us is often unseen, vague, or one which we can’t get a handle on simply because we can’t name it.

Lost Weekend, Days of Wine and Roses, 28 Days starring Sandra Bullock, and When A Man Loves A Woman starring Meg Ryan all tell stories about coming to grips with drugs and alcohol.

In essence, whether the take is comedic or dramatic, the monster sneaks up on the beleaguered hero and the story is that hero’s slow realization of who and what that monster is. In the end, these tales are about surrendering, the victory won by giving up to forces stronger than ourselves.

My theory is that the buddy movie was invented by a screenwriter who realized that his hero had no one to react to. There was just this big, empty space where interior monologue and description is found in fiction. And the screenwriter suddenly thought “what if” his hero had someone to debate important story issues with?

Two guys talking to each other like 48 Hours; two girls talking to each other like Thelma & Louise; two fish talking to each other like Finding Nemo — they all work because stories of “me and my best friend” will always resonate.

At first the “buddies” hate each other. (Where would they have to go if they didn’t?) But their adventure together brings out the fact that they need each other; they are, in essence, incomplete halves of a whole. And realizing this leads to even more conflict. Who can tolerate needing anybody?

Penultimately, the All Is Lost moment (more on this in Chapter Four) which occurs toward the end of each of these stories is: separation, a fight, a goodbye-and-good-riddance! that is, in reality, none of these. It’s just two people who can’t stand the fact that they don’t live as well without each other, who will have to surrender their egos to win.

And see why the investigation into the dark side of humanity is often an investigation into ourselves in an M.C. Escher-kaleidoscopic-reptile-eating-its-own-tail kinda way. That’s what a good Whydunit does — it turns the x-ray machine back on ourselves and asks: “Are we this evil?”

Like Gulliver tied to the beach by the Lilliputians, a Superhero tale asks us to lend human qualities, and our sympathy, to a super being, and identify with what it must be like to have to deal with the likes of us little people. No wonder so many brainy geeks and teens read comic books! They don’t have far to go to get in sync and identify with what it’s like to be so misunderstood.

And let’s be clear, the trick is to create heroes who: > Offer the most conflict in that situation > Have the longest way to go emotionally

It’s because primal urges get our attention. Survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, fear of death grab us.

Make the hero want something real and simple: survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, fear of death.

The first 10 pages is also where we start to plant every character tic, exhibit every behavior that needs to be addressed later on, and show how and why the hero will need to change in order to win.

And Tobey Maguire gets to try out his oddly onanistic super powers in Spider-Man.

And if you want to seriously debate the value of Memento in modern society, please go ahead and contact me at the e-mail address provided in Chapter One. But be ready for one hell of an argument from me!! I know how much Memento made.

Fuck this guy

The basic set-ups of Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Society that you learned in high-school English class can all be applied here.

And try to remember the value of knowing these is so that you can override them. Before Picasso could dabble in Cubism, he had to become a master of basic drawing. It gave him credibility and authority.

It’s awful!!! Characters are flat! Nothing happens or happens so slowly you can’t believe a human being wrote it and not some mental patient. What were you thinking? You’re not done! You haven’t even started! What’s worse, now that you know the awful truth, now that you realize how bad you are at this, you don’t even want to keep going. You’ve gone from the high of mountaintop megalomania to the depths of self-loathing.

Do other characters tell your hero what to do or does he tell them? Here’s a great rule of thumb: A hero never asks questions! The hero knows and others around him look to him for answers, not the other way around.

Movies are stories told in pictures. So why would you resort to telling us when you can show us? It’s so much more economical! You want to make sure the audience knows about a guy’s N.Y. Giants past? Show team pictures on the wall of his apartment, give him a limp (from the accident that ended his career, but only if it’s germane), sneak it in with subtle references.

If your script feels one-note emotionally, go back and flesh it out using all the colors in the palette. Where is your lust scene? Where is your frustration scene? Where is your scary scene? And if you don’t have these, take a scene that’s just funny or just dramatic and try to play it for one of the missing colors.

Every character has to have a unique way of speaking, but also something memorable that will stick him in the reader’s mind. The reader has to have a visual clue, often a running visual reminder, which makes remembering a character easier.

Does your plot hinge on primal drives like survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, or fear of death?

Try to get over the love affair you have with yourself and your work (God knows I’ve been in love with my own a thousand times!!) and do what needs to be done. This is what separates the pros from the wannabes — that nagging voice that says: “It sucks!” And the mature, adult, professional voice that quickly chimes in: “And I know how to fix it!”

Try “talking the plot” in real life. Seriously. Go to a party or meet with a group of friends and say: “I sure am glad I’m a screenwriter who was born in Chicago!” or “Gosh, you’ve been my friend for 20 years ever since we met in High School!” See what reaction you get to this kind of dialogue.

You can contact anyone by letter, you can camp out on doorsteps and stalk your victims, you can produce The Blank Show and get it on L.A. Public Access and wait for the phone to ring, but whatever your method, slowly and surely, you must introduce you and your product to “them.” In