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

by Blake Snyder

Because liking the person we go on a journey with is the single most important element in drawing us into the story.

I call it the “Save the Cat” scene. They don’t put it into movies anymore. And it’s basic. It’s the scene where we meet the hero and the hero does something — like saving a cat — that defines who he is and makes us, the audience, like him.

“What is it?” is the name of the game. “What is it?” is the movie. A good “What is it?” is the coin of the realm.

In Hollywood parlance it’s called a logline or a one-line. And the difference between a good one and a bad one is simple. When I pick up the trades and read the logline of a spec or a pitch that’s sold and my first reaction is “Why didn’t I think of that?!”

The number one thing a good logline must have, the single most important element, is: irony.