I’ve been working hard on a new spec script. Action adventure, period, fantasy, all that sort of thing. As a deliberate experiment I’ve been studying Blake Snyder and Save the Cat, all three books, and using the Windows Beta of Scrivener, (as recommended to me by Nick Harkaway who is a very clever novelist and well worth reading when you get the chance).
In the last few weeks, while this has been going on, I’ve been going through seven shades of reaction, from ‘This Cat stuff is genius, surprisingly profound and helpful beyond my wildest dreams; and with Scrivener I can conquer the world before Halloween’ to ‘this process is formulaic, alien, and crippling me and what’s wrong with my trusty old spreadsheet ‘n’ beatsheet methods that have got me so far?’ – and back again
Round and about, and up and down.
Interesting. I really did challenge my own creative process. Open the barn doors to experimentation. Try tossing it all up in the air and see where it all landed.
One thing I didn’t manage was get a lot of writing done.
I’m putting the books down now, stepping away from the Cat books. I’ve got them by my bedside table, and I’ll dip in to them in a more measured way once I’ve got it all back in perspective.
It was actually a great exercise. Blake S had a lot to say I do find very useful – not about the details of building a story, but more about what kind of story to tell. The stuff on loglines and pitches in book 3 is great. And Scrivener is one HELL of a tool – but I do still prefer Excel and Word.
So what did I learn?
I learned:
1. I’ve got a method, my lovely trusty Screenwriting Goldmine method, that I’ve built up over 15 years or so, and it works for me, and once you have a working method then you have to be very careful that when you think you are breaking new ground with new tools and methods, you aren’t actually just enjoying playing with aforesaid shiny new tools like they are toys and actually wasting time and dodging work and calling it research.
2. Sometimes there is just no substitute for getting away from all the formulae and clever analyses and structure charts and just sitting back and letting your imagination go off on its own and tell a story for a while. Just do the ‘this happens, then this happens, then, bloody hell, THIS happens’ thing for a while and see where you get to. It’s amazingly liberating. Just get some wild chaotic fantasy out on the table. You can shape it up later.
3. Without a lead character you can’t really get anywhere. And without a good, deep, properly felt emotional contradiction or three at the heart of your character you haven’t got a lead character.
4. I really, really do work best between 6am and 11am, and trying to create anything in the afternoons is pointless, as my brain has gone into a completely different mode. I’ve known that for years, but there is no longer any point fighting it. I’m going to have to adjust my day to reflect this.
5. Writing is absolutely, without any doubt at all, the best job in the world. So good I’d do it for free any time at all. I can forget that sometimes, but it’s true.
How To Write A Screenplay
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Save The Cat is snakeoil. Blake S’s biggest achievement? ‘Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot’… it won a razzie, and ‘worst screenplay of the year award’. Why on earth people therefore believe him an authority on writing, I’ll never know. He knew how to fool the system back in the 90s when you really could sell crappy screenplays as long as you hit the page beats. the coked up execs fell for it, mostly, but thankfully only two of his scripts ever saw production. He wasn’t a writer, he was an opportunist who learnt to play the system. I respect him for that, and that only.
I think that’s a little harsh actually. Do you really think that every coach of every Olympic gold medallist has been a gold medallist in their own right before they started to coach? Or every physics teacher at school has split their own atom?
And besides, there’s another side to this. I’ve never seen “Stop..”, but without actually having read the actual screenplay he delivered BEFORE the studio got their hands on it, I’d hate to comment on his writing.
Who knows what he submitted, and what happened to it in the production process? Over the years here in British TV I’ve been hit by far too many ‘dialogue tweaks’ and ‘restructurings’ by keen (read “desperate to write but can’t get their own commission”) script editors and producers to EVER trust what’s shown on screen to be a guarantee of what the writer wrote.
I’ve had perfectly fine scripts ruined by directors, script editors, casting agents, producers, line producers, even researchers.
I’ve had some absolutely shocking lines and story rewrites inserted without my knowledge – and certainly without my permission.
Once or twice I’ve switched off half way through some episodes of mine in disgust at the changes that happened after I submitted the script.
All sorts of horrors. And anyone seeing those episodes would no doubt have thought I was responsible.
Have you actually read an early draft of the first script he submitted? That would be interesting.
But look, even so, even assuming that movie was terrible, and Blake was 100% responsible, that’s not really the point. The Cat books were no doubt a simplification, but I think the broad strokes of his process are clearly there, and from my own writing process I recognise a lot of his points he make to be genuinely helpful.
As I said, not about the actual beat by beat business of constructing a story, but at a slightly higher level – “this kind of section might work well here, this kind of section here “- and an even higher level – “if you want to sell your story, you need to pitch it, and this is how you pitch it most effectively. ”
While not particularly enjoying the area of the market he worked in, I do think a lot of what he says is practically very helpful for writers telling any kind of story.
Remember, he had a career as a working writer for quite a few years, even if not much got to screen. You can sustain a year (or three) on good salesmanship, but if you’re going to last any longer you need to be able to deliver on the written page at some point.
You don’t get to be as famous as him without selling some snake oil, but it’s pretty clear to me he also knows a lot about writing.
Hi Phil,
I don’t think I’m being too harsh, actually, no. If anything, I’m being far too kind. The topic of ‘self help’ scriptwriting gurus is already a controversial subject without looking behind the curtain, so to speak, and looking at it all in more detail. I’ve of course read Save The Cat, and I came away the feeling that I was being conned, and, to a point, laughed at. Blake wrote his book AFTER the world he got rich in evaporated, and he knew it — the crazy world of the 90s where a writer could sell a script for a million dollars or more with nothing more than a good pitch gimmick and a bright white smile (lets hire little people and dress them like elves and have them sing in the background as we pitch! kinda thing). Furthermore, nothing in his book is actually his own, though he claims it to be such, it’s other people’s previous hints, tips and tricks, remixed and remastered, and presented by the author to be his own wondrous new formula (and how he likes to keep reminding his readers this). But this just isn’t true. Blake owes Aristotle big royalties, in my opinion. And several other people. If I wanted to learn to fly a plane, I wouldn’t buy a book from a man who achieved the ‘worst pilot of the year’ award. No sir, I wouldn’t. I appreciate what you’re saying about a script being altered, often to the point of being unrecognizable to the original writer, by studio involvement, but I don’t believe this is the case with the movie I’ve exampled. It is obvious from reading what Blake says that he only ever had one interest in mind — getting as rich as possible by selling ‘four quadrant’ spec scripts. He didn’t give a stuff about writing a good story, he cared about writing a script that made greedy execs salivate at the potential for vast profits. He wanted to make films that every demographic would watch — the holy grail of movie money making, ala ‘Home Alone’, because that equalled bigger bucks for him. As I’ve said, I totally respect his opportunist ways, and I applaud his ghost for making so much money out of it all, but lets not pretend that the world he achieved his riches in is still around today, or that a person who genuinely cares about writing good scripts ought to even care much for it anyway. Blake sells a formula which is neither new or his own, and, in my opinion – though I’m far from alone – isn’t going to create good writers. I’d sooner take advice from a writer who genuinely cares about the craft of writing, and who can explain what a good story is in far less infuriating and self serving ways, such as the always approachable Richard Walter. Sure, if you’re looking for that one chance in a billion of writing the next ‘Home Alone’ four quadrant script that execs will pay you squillions for, go ahead and read his book, the formula is there, but the world is gone. Just to say though, there are good pointers in his book, absolutely, I’m not denying that. But the sticking point for me is that he didn’t come up with any of it, yet will remind you every other page that actually, he did! You only have to look at his assessment/put down of the seminal film ‘Memento’ to understand his real motives in the industry. Never mind that he’s completely wrong about the structure of that film when he describes it in his book (Memento is actually quite formulaic, despite it’s non linear story approach). All in all I find him dishonest, self serving, and in many ways potentially a bad influence on writers of today if only for that fact that what you/we think he is selling to you, isn’t what he’s actually selling. Clearly Blake needed a way to make money after the 90s came and went and found him with no more spec sales, and, being the opportunist he is, he found the answer in re-styling himself as a script guru. He’s not the first, and won’t be the last. I’ll close this post with a paraphrased quote from Stallone when asked years later about ‘Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot’… Sly — “Listen, if you want to torture someone, make them watch that movie’.
Shakka,
> If I wanted to learn to fly a plane, I wouldn’t buy a book from a man who achieved the ‘worst pilot of the year’ award. No sir, I wouldn’t.
What a great idea! A movie about the world’s greatest pilot instructor, but who is, ironically, afraid of flying.
I’d say Blake was opportunistic (there’s a bit of an opportunist in everyone who ever did anything for a dollar). But he also had some useful information. All books on screenwriting are valid.
I found Blake way too bullheaded on numbers. Some of his advice was loony. His anecdotes were ridiculously selective.
But by damn, I liked his tone. No, not just the humorous style, but the attitude that screenwriting isn’t sacred. He’s a blockbuster populist, and I love it. There are too many books out there that raise screenwriting to a religion. (Thanks, Campbell!)
Sometimes you just have to set all these books down and pop in Harold and Kumar, which is exactly what I did last night.
Blake’s book will help a lot of writers develop their story instincts for family comedies.