Snyder - Save the Cat!® Strikes Back: More Trouble for Screenwriters to Get Into … and Out Of

from Dean DeBlois
co-writer and co-director of How to Train Your Dragon

Blake's whole approach was used in structuring the story that Chris Sanders and I brought to the project when we took it over. We had just over a year to rewrite, storyboard, edit, animate, and light the entire film. A crazy undertaking and time was of the essence being that the release date was immovable. Our task was to take the world of the source children's book and broaden its audience by giving it a dynamic, fantasy adventure story that would deliver on the promise of the premise. Chris and I also saw an opportunity for strong emotional payoffs within its central relationships, so we made them our primary focus.

Our first step was to lay out our concept according to Blake's Beat Sheet, and from there, we laid out the detailed structure. The Board became our foundation, and we never veered from it as we felt our way through the moments of the story. I'm a big believer in Blake's approach because everything he teaches was proven true in the years of story work I did prior to reading Save the Cat! The theories he touches upon are undeniable, universal truths of human storytelling, and Blake did us all a huge and lasting favor by putting them in a digestible form that people can immediately use and rely upon.

How nice of Blake to write this book just for me. That's what you'll be saying after you read Save the Cat! Strikes Back. No matter if you're a newbie or a produced writer, Blake understands that the struggle never ends. Whether you're rewriting or getting rewritten, looking for representation or leaving your representation, he's got you covered. And on those days when you don't feel like writing and all you want to do is go on the Internet and research, read his chapter on discipline, focus, and positive energy. I guarantee you will be up and writing. I love this book!

Kriss Turner, Writer, Something New;
Writer/Producer, Sherri, Everybody Hates Chris,
The Bernie Mac Show

Written in his signature witty, conversational style, Blake Snyder has given us another gem. As relevant to the novelist as it is to the screenwriter, this is a book no writer should be without. I've read all of Blake's books, and never begin a story without his insanely useful Beat Sheet by my side, but this time, Snyder goes one step further, sharing his own personal transformation from struggling writer to one who's seen great success. From the most generous and genuine writer/teacher of our time, this book will inspire the reader to scale all of those seemingly insurmountable brick walls and keep going to choose getting better over getting bitter. This book is a must read!

Alyson Nol, #1 New York Times
Bestselling Author, Evermore, Blue Moon,
Shadowland

A dazzling expansion on Blake's original insights, this essential screenwriting tool is practical and profound.

Mark Hentemann, Writer/Executive Producer,
Family Guy

Save the Cat! Strikes Back is Blake's best yet. It expands on his principles of storytelling in a breezy, colloquial style and gives us a deeper personal insight to the relentlessly positive mindset that powered his great success and his generous spirit. Blake's life was far, far too short, but his work and his inspiring legacy will remain timeless.

Rick Drew, movieScope Magazine

SAVE THE CAT!

STRIKES

BACK

More Trouble for Screenwriter's to Get Into and Out Of

BLAKE SNYDER

Published by Save the Cat! Press

Cover Design:
Brian Blevins

Interior Book Design:
Gina Mansfield Design

Editor:
Brett Jay Markel

Photos on pages viii and 87, chart on page 47:
Peter Bennett/Ambient Images

Printed by McNaughton & Gunn, Inc.
Saline, Michigan

Estate of Blake Snyder 2009

ISBN 10: 0-9841576-0-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-9841576-0-0

CHAPTER 1:
WOW! WHAT A BAD IDEA!

CHAPTER 2:
IN TROUBLE IN THE CLASSROOM

CHAPTER 3:
ALL LAID OUT AND NOWHERE TO GO

CHAPTER 4:
STRAIGHTENING YOUR SPINE

CHAPTER 5:
REWRITE HELL!

CHAPTER 6:
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE SELLING KIND

CHAPTER 7:
STRIKE BACK U.

CHAPTER 8:
DISCIPLINE, FOCUS, AND POSITIVE ENERGY

Of course, one can't help but begin this foreword with some sort of reference to franchises.

If you're reading this book, you are most likely painfully aware that Hollywood is constantly in search of the perfect, key movie element that connects so well with people and manages to be so relatable and resonant that it leaves the audience wanting more. Discovering the magic formula that creates a movie franchise is tougher than it seems for every Batman, there's an Electra which means a celebration is in order when a filmmaker has successfully cracked the ever-elusive code.

I'm fairly certain that when Blake Snyder started writing his first STC! book, the notion of being at the forefront of creating a screenwriting how-to franchise hadn't crossed his mind. And if it had he was a crafty guy, after all I imagine the idea seemed as far away and inconceivable as Indiana Jones actually finding the Holy Grail.

Yet, here we are.

Before he passed away, Blake heard from so many of his fans, all telling him he had absolutely cracked the elusive code! This outpouring of praise from you encouraged him to press on in his quest. With Save the Cat! Strikes Back, Blake as with any good franchise creator brilliantly found his way to a completely fresh, chock-full-of-new-material, third book in a series. Amazing. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg should take notice!

So let's take a moment to toast what Blake has accomplished in this third go round.

First, inspired by the workshops and lectures he'd held all over the world, Blake realized his audience wanted more more guidance, more tough love, more common-sense advice on navigating and surviving Hollywood. He had his own experiences and anecdotes, to be sure, but he also spent the last few years listening. He heard thousands of questions and stories and woes from you, his loyal readers and students, and now he found the time to officially address them! So answers and reassurances to common screenwriting problems and random what ifs that plague rookie writers are in this book.

Next, he realized many aspiring screenwriters were having great success from the tips and the lessons presented in his first two books and, with their well-received scripts in hand, they were looking for information about what next? So from personal insights about agents and managers to getting and interpreting notes and what to expect in meetings, that information is in here as well.

But Blake also realized that with artistic success comes great pressure screenwriting is a terrifying and exhausting chore on some days, an amazing but challenging career on others so he gathered crazy tales and helpful advice from working, professional writers that present a realistic but uplifting look at the journey that is life as a writer.

That's in here too.

And, most importantly, Blake shares a powerful, heartfelt, and intimate story of the journey that took him from a guy who had lost his creative spirit, had stopped writing and was incredibly lost, to a disciplined, positive, and driven man with a newfound desire to write, write, write. The key to his massive paradigm shift? Blake realized his stubborn, selfish, independent streak was completely ruining whatever positive mojo he might have had, so he dug down deep, reconnected with himself, and began writing from the heart. He started believing in himself again, and hopefully, his story will help you do the same.