I know for myself, the first few scripts I wrote were so poorly thought out they really had no chance of going anywhere and if I had read this book before writing those scripts I think they would have been infinitely better. I think this approach is a great way to go, especially for beginning screenwriters. He doesn’t spend a lot of time teaching you how to develop character or write great dialog, it’s all about coming up with a marketable idea and structuring it properly so it sells.
Save the Cat is all about story structure. It’s not unlike what Syd Field did for screenplay structure years ago, with his paradigm, plot points, act breaks, and three act structure (also terms all screenwriters should have mastery of). If you don’t know what the “fun and games” section of a screenplay is or you have never heard of “the dark night of the soul” you need to pick up a copy of this book right away because it’s quite possible that a producer will ask you about these sections of your screenplay and you better understand what they mean. One of the things that’s happened in Hollywood is that Snyder’s terminology has become standard vernacular for discussing a screenplay. Many people criticize his approach as being overly formulaic, but I personally think that’s non-sense and I dare anyone to think of a great film that doesn’t fit into Snyder’s paradigm. Part of the reason Save the Cat has been so successful, I believe, is because it’s filled with so much great information about writing a marketable commercial screenplay.
But what Snyder does very well is boil it down into a nuts-and-bolts approach to coming up with marketable screenplay ideas and then building your story around those ideas. A lot of what Snyder talks about is not new, he’s building on classic books about story structure like Field’s Screenplay and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces among many others. If you’re a screenwriter or are trying to become a screenwriter and you haven’t read Save The Cat by Blake Snyder click this link immediately and buy a copy from and read it as soon as it comes.īlake Snyder’s Save The Cat has really transformed the way Hollywood looks at scripts in the last few years much the way Syd Field’s Screenplay (also a must read book for any screenwriter) did in the early 80’s.
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