SAVE THE CAT!
Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
offers insights to write screenplays
but also novels. Blake Snyder founds basic to put the ‘Save the Cat’ scene into
movies. 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.
It’s
about a guy who…
“The
perfect hero is the one who offers the most conflict in the situation, has the
longest emotional journey, and has a primal goal we can all root for. Survival,
hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, and fear of death grab us.
When
committing these discoveries to your logline, you must have an adjective to
describe the hero, an adjective to describe the bad guy, and a definite and
primal goal or setting.”
The
first 10 pages
“The
first 10 pages of the script, or first dozen pages at most, is called ‘the
set-up.’ If you are like me, and like most readers in Hollywood, this is the make-or-break section
where you have to grab me or risk losing my interest.
The
set-up is also the place where , if you’re me, the writer, I make sure I’ve
introduced or hinted at introducing every character in the A story.
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.”
The
immutable laws of screenplay physics: Risking the reader’s attention with so
much backstory
“In
‘Along came Polly,’ we find the same problem.
In order to get to risk-averse divorcee Ben Stiller falling in love with
crazy girl Jennifer Anniston, the writer has also a lot of pipe to lay. We have
to see Ben marry his first wife, follow them on their honeymoon, and watch a
Ben catches her in the arms of the scuba instructor.
Sure
it’s funny. And we’ll put up with a lot when it comes to any movie than Ben is
in. We love Mr. S! But the screenwriter and director (same guy—the funny and
talented John Hamburg) risks our attention by laying a ton of story points to
get to the reason we came to see this movie: Ben Stiller dating Jennifer
Anniston.”
Hi,
how are you? I’m fine
“Mike
Cheda showed me this simple Bad Dialogue Test: Take a page of your script and
cover up the names of the people speaking. Now read the repartee as it goes
back and forth between two or more characters. Can you tell who is speaking
without seeing the name above the dialogue?
In
a good script, every character must speak differently. Every character must
have a unique way of saying even the most mundane ‘Hi, how are you? I’m fine’
kind of chat.”
*****
