Published Work Review: Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder

Can the tips and tricks in this lauded screenwriting bible be applied to the art of playwriting?

Happy New Year! I hope you all had a fun and restful holiday season.

I, for one, don’t know the meaning of the word “relax”, and devoured the entire book, Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder on Boxing Day while my parents played pickleball next to me in their friends’ new indoor facility.

Yes, I highlighted and annotated it. Yes, I found this activity very entertaining. And yes, I know, I’m kind of ridiculous.

If you’ve never heard of this highly acclaimed guide to screenwriting, let me tell you a little backstory. Originally published in 2005, Save the Cat! breaks down all the elements of a movie script, from writing a logline to genres to character archetypes. The book references many well known movies as examples, such as Legally Blonde and Die Hard, and provides multiple exercises for the budding screenwriter to try their hand at at the end of each chapter. All in all, it’s pretty straightforward.

But why read this as a playwright? Well, there are a couple reasons.

One, as I have elucidated previously, we can learn a lot about playwriting from any books about the art of writing. Good storytelling is good storytelling, regardless of the medium. Two, and perhaps more importantly in some capacities, is this: most, if not all, playwrights don’t make their money from playwriting. They make it from screenwriting. Therefore, if one wishes to be a playwright as a large part of their career, one must also be at least a serviceable screenwriter.

I know, I know, most of us would rather focus on the world of the stage that we are so enamored with. But we all gotta eat, and screenwriting is one way to make sure that happens. And hey, it’s not like TV and movies aren’t fun! Think of your favorite shows and films; do you hold them in less regard than your favorite plays and musicals? Probably not. So, I encourage all of us to expand our love and devotion to the stage to encompass at least a little bit of the film world.

What I really loved about this book, especially in comparison to other writing guides, was how straightforward it was. Snyder makes a point not to use overly academic language or too much industry slang, making it easy to understand for anybody at any level in their career. There is also a glossary at the back of the book that defines anything in regards to filmmaking and screenwriting as well, and all these words are also bolded within the text. This is an easy book to use on your own without the assistance of a teacher or course because of these things.

Also provided within the text are multiple exercises that the reader can use to practice the skills discussed within the previous chapter. These vary in time commitment and difficulty, so you can pick and choose depending on what works for you. This makes “breaking in” to doing the tasks discussed in the chapter simple.

But what I found even more valuable than these exercises was the BS2 Beat Sheet. This is Snyder’s own personal format for an outline, or beat sheet, of a movie script. He spends a whole chapter diving into each of the fifteen “beats”, telling you exactly how each functions within the larger scope of the movie and what page of the script they should occur on. As someone who’s never written any type of script for the screen, this was much appreciated. I also feel that this could be used for onstage and audio dramas, though my approach to writing such things tends to be a liiiittle bit more loosey goosey (ie no outlines). I’m going to try and use it to write an audio drama mini series situation and see if I find it helpful or not (let me know if you would like me to report back on that!).

While this book does cover a few things that are most likely “basic knowledge” to the emerging playwright or screenwriter, I appreciated how Snyder phrased things. I found myself feeling as I read that I already knew what he was telling me, but I never would have thought to phrase it the way he did. I’ve said it already, but I can’t emphasize enough how accessible this book is language wise. I find a lot of books on art of any kind can sometimes take a pretentious approach, or an infantilizing approach. But this book truly does neither.

Snyder does put a large emphasis on marketability within the text. The indie playwright/theatre maker inside of me hissed a little every time I read that word, “marketability”, but it’s worth noting that your screenplay will most likely only get bought, noticed, or made if it is marketable. And unfortunately, the same tends to apply to theater, although what is considered marketable there is far different and honestly less capitalistic in some capacities…But I digress. Snyder’s goal here is to help you write a script that at the very least gets bought, if not made. And to do that, the script needs to appeal to a large audience. I did appreciate that Snyder doesn’t make a case for becoming a complete “sell-out” here. He emphasizes making what you want to make, making it authentically yours so that nobody can take those royalties away from you. But he wants to help you make that thing sellable.

All in all, I definitely recommend this book for fellow playwrights. It does a great job explaining story elements and structure as it applies to movies, which is information I believe can be easily extrapolated to theatre. Also, again, most playwrights make their living where? That’s right— screenwriting. So, we better get familiar with it! And this seems like a great place to start.

Have a published play, book, performance, or piece of theater media you want me to review? Let me know by replying to this email or sending me a message on SubStack!

Happy playmaking!

~Brynn