TECH: Save The Cat! (1)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting 6 June 2011

While I was traveling recently, I acquired several books. Among them was a book with the title "Save the Cat!" by Blake Snyder. It's got a subtitle, "The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need." I've seen it mentioned several places as a good book for writers, even if you're not interested in screenwriting. And being something of an omnivorous reader, well, I'm going to read it.

And as I do from time to time, I thought I'd annotate it here on the list. So... Here we go!

Let's start with Chapter 1. This has the title, "What is it?" It starts out with the common experience of a group of friends deciding to see a movie. But which one should we go see? Well, somebody read the choices from the newspaper while the rest of us listen. And you start to read what's in the newspaper.

What your friends want to know is, what's it about?

The key here is one sentence. One line. Tell me, "What is it?" Better, faster, and with more creativity!

Apparently, in Hollywood, these are called loglines. You and I might just call it a one line summary. The key is that it's the short pitch. And Blake Snyder suggests that you start here. Get this right, and everything else follows. But until you get this right, you don't really know what you're doing.

[Now, we might quibble a bit with this. After all, some of us need to do some discovery writing, some free writing, just to get a grip on the idea. Then we can come back and do this one line bit. But I think Blake Snyder may have a real point here, that at some point in your writing, preferably early, you need to be able to clearly and succinctly answer the question, "What is it about?" Until you can answer that question, the writing doesn't really have a direction.]

Now, Blake Snyder suggests that really great loglines all have four components:

1. Isn't it ironic? Irony, also called the hook, is what gets your interest. Unexpected, emotionally intriguing, something that makes you curious.

2. A compelling mental picture. A good logline implies a whole movie. It promises more. Most of them also give a hint of a time frame -- one night, a weekend, a holiday, whatever. So a good logline needs to excite the imagination, to make us imagine what we think will happen.

3. Audience and cost. Blake Snyder points out that good loglines suggest who it's for and what it's going to cost. The cost element may not be as significant for writers (although there is a difference between a short story and a multivolume epic, and researching fifth century Mesopotamia versus your own backyard). However, that audience issue is just as important for a writer. Who's going to read this story?

4. A killer title. The logline and the title go together. It's the combination that really makes them winners. The title needs to have irony and tell the tale. A good title does one thing superbly: it says what it is. It's the headline of the story.

Blake Snyder also recommends a really simple process for test marketing your logline and your titles: talk to people! Talk to people at Starbucks, talk to people at the grocery store, talk to people anywhere and everywhere -- and watch their reaction. When people say, "So tell me more about it..." That's when you know you've got a good idea.

Okay? Pretty simple, right? Put your idea for a story in one line. Add a title. Make sure that the one line has irony, builds a compelling mental picture, and tells us who the audience is. Tinker with the title until it's the perfect headline for your story. And try it out!

Now, Blake Snyder provides two pages of exercises! I'll put the first three here, and the other kickers across a couple of days.

1. Pick up a newspaper, and try to pitch the movies to a friend. Can you think of ways to improve the loglines?
2. Take some of your stories, and write loglines for each one. Try them out on some strangers. Pay attention, when you try this, did you find the loglines changing? Do the changes suggest things you want to change in the story?
3. Look at a TV Guide, and read the loglines from some movies there. Does the logline and title of the movie tell you what it is? Do vague loglines match up with shaky movies? Does the lack of a good "What is it?" always means failure?

 More exercises, coming soon!