Mya Writes Things
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Recommended reading: Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder
This was a book I read in college for my scriptwriting class. I won't spend this blog post summarizing it, because there's a lot of good information to unpack. I will merely say this: it is a concept for filmmaking and novel-writing where you give your main character "A Moment" which binds the audience and character together. The character must do or say something that makes your audience root for them: yes, I want to see them succeed. (Even when they do bad things). The idea is that every main character MUST have a choice to make early on, make the right choice, and the audience identifies with someone for doing a nice thing, and therefore, they want the best for them, even if they do bad things later. I'll give you some examples in film to help explain this concept. Sometimes, people take this very literally, and the main character saves a cat. An actual cat, with whiskers. The Incredibles The important thing about in the Incredibles, if the scene had opened with Mr. Incredible booting Buddy out of his super-car, yelling “you’re not affiliated with me!” and otherwise humiliating this child in front of his hero… No one LIKES Mr. Incredible. He’s horrible. He’s awful. But the movie opens with Mr. Incredible in an interview saying he wants to slow down, and raise a family. Cuts to his first on-screen rescue, which is being a total boy scout to the little old lady and rescuing Squeakers the cat. We’ve already had our hearts won by him, so when Buddy shows up, we’re on Bob’s side. He finds Buddy annoying, so as do we. He jets Buddy out of the car, and we laugh. He’s being a Bully and we only see our protagonist having a kind of bad day and we forgive him. Spiderman Homecoming In Spiderman Homecoming, he literally saves a cat from a burning down sandwich shop. This takes place further along in the movie, it’s almost like they realized not everyone has seen Civil War, Peter Parker’s first appearance, and they threw in the cat rescue and it’s like adding another cherry to the top of a huge cupcake of sweetness. It’s so much easier to spot these moments in superhero movies. What about NON superhero movies, does the main character still have to save something or someone? What about when the stakes aren't that high, and it's just a nice thing? What about when it is a moment of kindness, or sacrificial, without being life-threatening? Here's some examples of Save the Cat when it is still on the nose, but not cat related. Hacksaw Ridge Desmond saves the boy working at the car repair shop when the car falls on him and crushes his leg and he rushes from the church where he’s working across the street and applies first aid and then drives him to the hospital. Aladdin steals a loaf of bread, but then he gives the bread to the starving orphans. Twilight Bella chooses to move back in with her dad so that her newly remarried mother can be full time new wife and travel for Phil’s minor league job. Bella hates Forks, and she doesn't get along with her dad, but she does it because she wants to make her mother happy. Lord of the Rings Gandalf sets off the fireworks for the hobbit children - yes, the rest of Hobbiton frowns at him, and we've heard terrible rumors about him, but he's NICE to the children - therefore we shall love him too. Harry Potter sets the snake free from the zoo, and less subtly, stands up to Draco when he's teasing and mocking Ron for being poor. Star Wars seems like an easy one - hey, Luke totally saves Princess Leia. "I'm Luke Skywalker, and I'm here to rescue you." That is actually not his Save the Cat moment. Save the Cat is strictly supposed to happen close to the beginning of the film, because this is how you bind the audience to your main character for the rest of the story. Halfway or even close to the end of the film is a heroic moment, but it's not Save the Cat. It’s not Luke deciding to save the princess or escaping Tatooine or carrying Princess Leia across the chasm with his grappling hook. Luke shows compassion to C-3PO and R2D2 and treats them like people and confides in them and removes their restraining bolts so that they don’t feel like slaves. Luke treats them with kindness and affection, and despite his whining and his childishness, by the time he gets up to that bluff and watches the binary sunset - we are sold, and we're ready to fight by his side. So, that's how it works with heroes. What about when it's less-than-easy to feel attached to the main character? Maybe they're not that heroic. Maybe they're an antihero. A villain. Too gray to be sorted into either band and too complex to label. Here's some examples. The Departed - the main villain, Frank, played by Jack Nicholson delivers a terrible speech about the rise of the mob in Boston and the use of violence, he even uses the N word and describes how “street people” only have each other to survive. He says there’s no difference between cops or criminals. "Once you are faced with a loaded gun, what's the difference?" Dark stuff, right? How on earth are we, as an audience, supposed to root for this guy? He's the lowest of the low. The movie makes it clear that we're supposed to be feeling conflicted about him; simultaneously holding our breath when we think he's about to get caught by the police, and breathing with relief when he doesn't, and then also feeling disappointed that he still didn't get caught, because we're also rooting for the police. After Frank's opening monologue, his first full scene is when he enters a combo breakfast diner/go mart. He spies a young boy sitting at the counter alone. Frank realizes he’s Colin, the son of a known associate who was killed, and Colin is now living with his grandmother. Frank tells the grocer pack up bread, milk, cans of soup, vegetables, and throws a comic book on top. He gives it to Colin and says that if he ever needs anything, come talk to him. He feeds this poor kid at exactly the moment when he needed it. Colin just lost his dad to violence, Frank steps in. Frank grooms Colin from an early age to be a "rat" in the Boston police, and feed his crime syndicate inside info from the cops, but he fulfilled a NEED for a kid. The whole time you are rooting for Colin to grow up and escape this life, but at the same time, you feel for him and hope he doesn’t get caught by the cops because he couldn’t help this upbringing. When he is nearly caught, you hold your breath and hope he isn't. Colin is the true antihero of the story, but it took another "unlikeable" character to become somewhat likeable and 'save a cat' in order to get there. Sometimes, Save the Cat isn't always your #1 main character, sometimes it's #2 or #3, but maybe #1 is the recipient, the one who benefits. Here's some more examples: Zuko from Avatar The Last Airbender (tv show). There’s a moment in episode 1 (if I remember correctly) where Zuko starts to lose his tough exterior for a second and Uncle Iroh steps in to encourage him. That’s when you know because there’s someone like Uncle Iroh around, Zuko can’t be really ALL bad, right? There’s a brief moment of vulnerability where Zuko says he wants to regain his honor, implying he's been cast out of his family until he can find it. That's something we can relate to. Zuko is the recipient of Iroh's Save the Cat moment. The Punisher Frank Castle, the Punisher. He’s a murderer and a criminal. He murders an entire Irish mob family till the room is full of corpses. He brings a weapon into a hospital of all places and begins to shoot it up, looking for the one Irish man, Grotto, who escaped. Karen Page, the legal assistant for Grotto's defense attorneys, jumps in harms way to protect Grotto. Even though Grotto has done horrible things for the mob, you feel his fear, and because Karen sees him as worth saving, so do we. Turns out, Frank Castle been set up, and his whole family was murdered by a huge gang shoot out participated in by - you guessed it - the Irish mob. We start to see the justification and reasoning behind Frank's actions. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's too lost in grief. We realize he didn't shoot any of the doctors or nurses at the hospital, he just fires his weapon at the walls to get people to leave the hospital as quickly as they can. His Save the Cat Moment: Karen Page jumps between him and Grotto to save Grotto's life, and he doesn't try to hurt Karen. He knows she's a good person. You start discovering Frank is putting down pedophiles, pimps, drug lords, illegal weapon manufacturers... all the bad guys that our other superheroes usually beat up and turn loose. Suddenly it becomes more complicated than just - here's a bad guy, here's a good guy. But what do they ALL have in common? Someone saves the cat at some point. Sometimes it's a strange absence of a bad thing that would otherwise be in-character. Frank Castle may be shooting up a hospital, but he does not shoot Karen. At first, we wonder, why is that? By the end of the series, he's a fan favorite. We're rooting for Frank to succeed. Everyone loves him. He gets his own show. We LIKE it when he takes down drug and gang rings, even though it's the same kind of violence we were rooting against at the beginning. It all starts with a special bond with Karen. Save the Cat! Now that you've seen some examples from the movies, think of BOOKS, either already written or your own writing, where you can employ the concept. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: What does Save the Cat mean for you? How does it apply to your writing, right now? Do you have a moment like that already, or do you need to edit and find a way to put it in? If you haven't written it yet, what are some ideas you might have for the Save the Cat moment? Further resources: https://creativescreenwriting.com/how-to-save-the-cat/ https://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/
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