I am a sucker for screenwriting books.

At home on my shelf, I must have 40, almost 50 books - all devoted to the art of structuring a screenplay. I’ve learned how to write a movie in 21 days, why the epic journeys of mythical heroes are som important and how not to write a screenplay. And, of course, I’ve learned why great stories are an analogy to a human single mind dealing with an inequity (For those of you who don’t know - that’s the “simple” definition of the Dramatica theory of story).

Lately there seems to have been a dip in the amount of screenwriting books published. Toward the end of the 90s and into this century it seemed like there was a new one every time I went to Borders. Perhaps it was my interest in screenwriting declining, or maybe all those authors were too busy writing screenplays - at any rate, I haven’t purchased one in years.

Until I happened upon Blake Snyder’s wonderfully written, Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need.

I actually had picked up three books, Blake’s included and was flipping through them as my kids searched out for their favorites. The first two were just horrible. Dense, dull and quite obviously, a waste of time. But “Save the Cat!” really stood out.

First there was the copious amount of white space. Read enough how-to books and you’ll find out that readers and producers love white space - the less you write the happier they are and the fatter your checkbook is.

Which is why it is so great that “Save the Cat!” is full of nothing!

Great beautiful wide open spaces of pure white - plenty of room to allow the great ideas and advice to mill around and soak into your subconscious.

It’s a quick entertaining read that you can get through in a night or two.

Now, there aren’t any amazing revelations - most of it you probably already know - but it is the way it is presented and the slight humorous changes he gives to ideas like “high concept” and “genre” that keeps it interesting.

Of course, the reason I was drawn to it in the first place was because of the title. As mentioned before, the constant note I get on my writing is that my Main Character is unlikable. Well, here’s a book with a title that’ll help me overcome that. His advice - have the MC “save a cat,” or some other generous deed, within the first reel or two, so that the audience will have a reason to empathize with him or her.

The book is all about writing a marketable screenplay - something that hits all 4 quadrants (which Mr. Snyder does not refer to as Universe, Physics, Mind, and Psychology - but rather, Men Under 25, Men Over 25, Women Under 25, Women Over 25!). He’s got great ideas about loglines, pitching to complete strangers (which I don’t think I could ever do), and approaching rewrites. And he has an impressive resume (i.e., he’s actually sold something!) to back it all up.

So, although “Save the Cat!” won’t help you encode an Objective Story Prerequisite of Conceiving, it can help to give you a different, almost simpler approach to your screenplay than perhaps Dramatica can.

I enjoyed it throughly.

Of course, if you want the story to work, you’ll still have to learn quad theory!

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