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.

“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.

If what the movie is about isn’t clear from the poster and the title, what are you going to say to describe

“What is it?”

“What’s the one-line?”

To quote the studio executive who first blurted out this rule to me, Sam Goldwyn-like, during a development meeting: “Give me the same thing… only different!”

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

it’s not the mileage we’re racking up that makes a good Golden Fleece, it’s the way the hero changes as he goes.

And forcing those milestones to mean something to the hero is your job.

Like Monster in the House, this genre also has two very simple working parts: a dude, meaning an average guy or gal just like ourselves. And a problem: something that this average guy must dig deep inside himself to conquer. From these simple components, an infinite number of mix-and-match situations can bloom and grow. The more average the guy, the bigger the challenge, as movies like Breakdown with Kurt Russell demonstrate.

When it feels like a cliché — give it a twist.