Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need (Paperback)

by Blake Snyder (Author)
Key Phrases: golden fleece, black vet, good logline, The Board, All Is Lost, Act Two (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This ultimate insider's guide reveals the secrets that none dare admit, told by a show biz Veteran who's proven that you can sell your script if you can save the cat!

Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions; illustrated edition edition (May 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932907009
• ISBN-13: 978-1932907001
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (248 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #1 in	Books > Entertainment > Movies > Screenplays
  #2 in	Books > Entertainment > Movies > Screenwriting

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marie Jones, AbsoluteWrite.com book reviewer, states:, June 19, 2005

By	Rev. Marie (Rev. Marie Jones) - See all my reviews

OK, maybe not the last book you'll ever need, but if you are a screenwriter or play one on TV, this just may be the BEST book you'll ever need, or read, on the subject of how to break into the big screen big time as a writer of tall tales.

Blake Snyder is a working, selling writer himself, so that gives the reader a true inside glimpse into what it's like, what it takes, and what to expect on the long road to screenwriting stardom. Many screenwriting how-to tomes are written by guys and gals who have few or no real studio credits, so with this book you can be sure you are getting the info direct from the source of a successful member of the Hollywood elite.

Snyder starts out with a bang, describing how important a good title, pitch and concept are, and giving tons of useful advise for whipping those log lines into shape, the best shape ever in fact, for as the author points out, many industry powerbrokers won't even look beyond a log line...so it better be good. Damned good. He then discusses how to make your story like everything else out there, only different, and if you can come to understand that paradox, you will be a success indeed.

We also learn about the importance of creating characters that fit certain archetypes, like the hero and the villain, and how the use of Jungian archetypes can help you shape and mold real people that resonate with the audience. Also covered is the importance of knowing your genre and how to best amplify the style of that genre.

Another chapter deals with the author's own system of breaking a script down to 15 beats, and how every successful movie fits this same beat system. We also learn the art of building scenes and the use of those wonderful index cards for moving and changing scene progression, as well as following the basic rules of a great story, rewriting and reshaping the script, and of course, what the heck to do with the darned thing once you've finished. I really appreciated the glossary of screenwriting and industry terminology, something every writer should know (or at least pretend to know in meetings).

Although this book does follow the mold of many other screenwriting books before it, focusing both on writing and marketing the script and including summaries and exercises for the reader to expand their understanding, the difference that makes this book stand out is the honesty and directness of the author in giving the reader every best chance to comprehend and conquer the inner and outer workings of screenwriting. "Save the Cat" (I'll let you find out what the title means on your own!) doesn't hold back on doling out the solid advise, and presents it in a way that will not only inspire screenwriters, but also make them more aware of just how hard it really is to succeed. No sugar-coating here, but plenty of motivation and great info packed into one book.

So, "Save the Cat" may not be the final screenwriting book you will ever need, should for some reason the entire industry change and adopt some bizarro new standard of screenwriting that will require you to learn the metric system and Pig-Latin. But barring a drastic reshaping of the industry standard (I think most execs are too lazy to change much of anything), this is no doubt the one book that will do more to help you achieve success and get your two-brad-bound puppy through the door than any other I've read so far. And believe me, folks, I've read them all.

FADE OUT.

97 of 112 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbeatable, August 25, 2005

By	Jenna Glatzer "www.jennaglatzer.com" (NY, United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A fast-paced and entertaining read, this book could help you look at your craft in a whole new way.

This is a book that doesn't get bogged down in rules and formulas. The funny thing about it is that it all feels like common sense... except it's "common sense" that most of us haven't thought about before! How do you make a "tough guy" character likeable? How do you paint mental pictures when pitching a script? Practical answers abound in this book.

Blake is a guy who really, seriously walks up to total strangers and says, "Hi. I have an idea for a movie. Can I tell you about it and you tell me what you think of it?" He does this even though he's already sold million-dollar scripts to Disney and Spielberg. It's this never-ending quest to learn more about the audience and more about what makes movies work that is so clear in Blake's book.

He does an excellent job of explaining things in ways that'll stick in your mind-- funny little phrases and lists that are off-beat enough, yet simple enough to remember while you're plotting out your next script. I felt like I was in the hands of a very capable teacher, and a real pro.

No matter how many (or how few) screenwriting books you've read, this one is worth buying. It offers a valuable perspective from a writer who is eager to share, never condescending, and knows his stuff. I give it two thumbs up!

42 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Aptly titled and Aptly Subtitled, October 11, 2006

By	Jacqueline Lichtenberg "sf/f writer" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The "Save The Cat!" title refers to a method of presenting your protagonist that draws the reader into the protagonist's personal story, even if the protagonist isn't actually very likeable!

It is, simply put, have him do something viewers feel a nice person would do -- i.e. "save a cat."

I just saw a jeans commercial where a bunch of guys go out on a clothesline to save a dog in order to impress some girls. It's as if the writer of that commercial had just read this book and spoofed it. It works.

The method for finding the correct action to introduce a particular protagonist is explained in spare and direct detail in this book, as is every other point in this book.

And that brings us to the sub-title. It is indeed the LAST book you will need (and you do need it) to create saleable screenplays.

That means it isn't the first one. This book summarizes and organizes, rearranges emphasis, and illuminates all the myriad other techniques taught in other books.

This book won't do you any good if you can't read a novel or watch a movie and identify the protagonist, antagonist, theme, Conflict, climax, resolution, denoument, and trace the plot, differentiating it from the story, and identify sub-plots, B-story, & C-story.

It won't do you much good if you can't write a story smoothly incorporating those basic elements, most especially conflict. (not necessarily a script, but a STORY. This book doesn't teach storycraft.)

You have to master all that storycraft first -- including spelling, punctuation and grammar (both common English grammar and script-ese.)

But this book will draw a picture in your mind -- give you the image of exactly what it is you are trying to learn from all those other books on crafting a story for the screen, and save you lots of time as it points you to exactly what you must learn.

Once you've mastered what all the other books have to teach you, and then you read this book again -- WOWWWWW!!!

SAVE THE CAT! is the AHA! book at the end of the learning cycle.

But it's more than that. This is actually a thumb-reference book, a volume you keep on your desk and refer to over and over as you are laying out the structure of your screenplay from basic concept to blocked scenes.

This slender volume, in ultra-condensed form, delineates most of the criteria that you must meet in order to produce a saleable screenplay.

It's a checklist reminding you of everything you already know about story telling -- but keep forgetting when you write. Keeping it on your desk and referring to it often can cut your production time in half by saving you many mistakes at the conceptual level.

This is the book you will keep after you've thrown all the others into the recycle bin or given them to the library.

But this is not the place to start if you haven't yet learned to turn a story on a clean conflict.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg