If you start asking about screenwriting books, it doesn't take long for Save the Cat to come into the conversation. And many screenwriters will swear by it, but I don't know any working professionals who do. And frankly, trying to save the cat is going to slow or perhaps even cripple your progress towards your screenwriting goals.
In fact, you should probably avoid saving the cat, and this is why. The issue with Save the Cat is it is formulaic and conventional. But as a screenwriter, you have to learn how to be adaptive and unpredictable.
And too many aspiring writers read the book and it says things like, all successful movies do this. They don't, by the way. So the writers think they have to just follow the formula and they'll find success.
But that's just not how it works. Now, I would be remiss if I didn't mention some of the good things about Snyder's Save the Cat. And there are several.
There's a lot of wisdom and insight. given about the business and the process of screenwriting. That's not all glamour and fame.
It's a lot of hard work. And there are a lot of expectations about the screenplay. Expectations that you ignore at your own peril. And Snyder gets in. to many of them.
So I don't hate the book. It definitely has its place and there are some things in there that new writers need to hear and to learn. But here's the problem. A lot of aspiring screenwriters swallow the book whole and think that if they want to find success they must follow and track with Snyder's outline and story beats for your own screenplay. Even down to following the page number suggestions that he offers.
And this is where the problems start because, and this is critically important, important, you must understand that there is a difference between writing a film and analyzing a completed film. There are a lot of things that happen between the first draft and the completed film, and that includes several rounds of drafts and notes. The screenplays that are bought are rarely the screenplays that end up on the screen. So trying to write your screenplay to a formula based on something that isn't at all akin to what you're actually writing is not always the best strategy. To be fair, is there some merit in this approach?
Well sure, because you are learning what makes a movie work and what doesn't. But please hear me. What makes a movie work and what makes a screenplay work are not necessarily the same thing.
But to create his formula, and that's what it is, a paint-by-numbers instruction guide for how you should craft any story or screenplay, Snyder analyzed existing movies, found similarities, and came up with a process. and he tells you as much in his book. But the other problem with formulas is they only work for certain things.
If you have different ingredients, even slightly different, it doesn't work, or at least it doesn't work as well. Plus, if you analyze any subsection of stories, whatever, however big or small, you're going to draw your own conclusions about what you think is important. You're only going to see the things that you want to see. And this carries over to other story models, like the hero's...
journey or the story circle in that it doesn't matter how many stories you analyze. The person doing the analyzing is going to draw connections that they decide are important and they're going to look at the stories that they feel are important, whether all those things they find are important or not. Let me give you an example.
Let's say I want to figure out what makes a great chair and I go to a furniture store and I start sitting in chairs and I sit in this one and in this one. in this one and in some like this, and I come to some conclusions about what a good chair actually is. And I decide that a good chair should be of a decent height.
I mean, I'm not super tall, but I'm about six feet tall, so I'm not a fan of short chairs. They just aren't as comfortable. I need something a little taller. And I like some cushions, so I sink into the chair just a little bit, not a lot, so the cushion should be firm but not bounce off hard. And the back of the chair should be high so I can put my feet on it.
And I like to have a little bit of a backrest. prop my head back comfortably. I mean that's what I might think of as a good chair. But I made my conclusions based on one visit to one store. And what you think is a good chair may not mesh with what I think is a good chair.
So which one of us is right? In actuality both of us are right. The audience is who matters.
The person sitting in the chair. But formulas are not for the audience. They are for the creator, the writer. And this is one of the catastrophic mistakes that any story model like Save the Cat makes. Story models ignore the audience's experience by definition.
They are there to help the creator create a thing that some people will enjoy and like, but not everyone. But the trap with formulas is anyone who uses them thinks that if they just use the formula directly, it will work for everyone, that it will fit all of us. And so you start trying to write a screenplay based on a formula you read in a book. And I hope you can tell with just that alone that trying to write a screenplay according to formula is not going to work. is a bad thing, but that's not the worst of it.
What formulas teach you to do is they teach you to not think about the craft as you write. Now, if you imagine a good chef, okay, good chefs, they don't usually follow recipes. They know what goes with what.
They know how much of an ingredient is too much and how much is not enough, and they can just whip things together. They may measure some things, but not others, and their stuff is pretty good. Me, when I try to cook, okay, I have...
have to follow a recipe exactly, and it still doesn't always turn out correctly. But I don't know what specific spices do or how this ingredient reacts with that one. I just, I have no clue because I'm only used to following recipes, to following formulas. If you want to be a good screenwriter, you have to learn to put the recipe away and you have to know, know what ingredients you need for the specific story that you're trying to tell.
This is one reason why I regularly note the importance of understanding the difference between story and storytelling. Story is the ingredients that make the story work, the stuff you gotta have to actually have a dish. The storytelling, that's how you choose to serve the dish, how the audience, the customer, is going to consume what you've made.
And you must know the difference between those two things. But what Save the Cat does is it mixes story and storytelling elements in its form. I mean, you don't know which is which. You're just following the recipe, you're doing what it says. But you have no idea why, or what does what, and if you don't take the time to learn what is story and what is storytelling, you will never learn to be a screenwriter, only a follower of recipes.
The title itself, Save the Cat, refers to a moment that Snyder believes should be in every screenplay. It's a moment where we see the main character do something benevolent, like saving a cat. cat and this act of benevolence will force the audience to engage with the main character and that sounds fine and it works for many stories but here's the thing that's a storytelling element and not all stories require that element to work but you don't know that because you haven't taken the time to learn what a story and what a storytelling and this is why save the cat is ultimately bad for you it teaches you to follow a recipe and not to learn how to cook it gives you a fish instead of teaching you how to fish.
And if you want to be a screenwriter, you have to learn how to fish. Now is Save the Cat a book you should read? Well, yes, many people in Hollywood have read it and they like to reference it.
But you shouldn't follow the recipe. It won't always work, and you will never know the difference between story and storytelling. And without knowing the difference, you're in serious trouble. So if you don't want to find success, then keep following Save the Cat or the Hero's Journey.
journey or the story circle and do what those recipes tell you to do. And you'll occasionally bake a good cake. But if you want to consistently deliver a solid story that is well told, you have to know the difference between story and storytelling.
And if you don't know the difference between those two things, this video will help you get started. Don't forget about all the fun buttons below, and there are some links there if you'd like my help in your screenwriting endeavors. And last, when you tell a story, tell a story that matters. matters.
See you later.