Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... (6 page)

The results have been nothing short of breathtaking!

What has developed are two separate weekend workshops for small groups of writers that do something amazing: take you from movie idea to a fully fleshed-out 40 scene outline that's ready to write.

Yet whether you attend class or not, the challenge is always the same: Can a writer hear “criticism” and respond?

I always go into these workshops knowing there will be many moments that qualify as a “throwdown.” Like in my first
Cat!
group, there will come a time when one of us has to give up our old ideas and abandon everything we think we know about a story. You pitch an idea, or work out the 15 beats of your movie and think you have it down, and I'm here to say you might not. Not yet! I always want to shout:

Resistance is futile!

But I hold back.

It's a little too
Revenge of the Sith
.

Thank heaven for the group! If it were just me working one-on-one with you in that room, you might not believe me when I tell you your pitch, plot point, or theme doesn't work. There have been many times when I've stared at a writer and can tell by his silence he's digging in. But when others who are listening share my lack of enthusiasm, when “crickets” are heard, it soon begins to dawn on the writer, too. You can cling to a bad idea; you can re-pitch it six different ways, or go get a bigger hammer in hopes of pounding your story into place. But sooner or later it's clear you either have to re-think it… or let it go.

Our discussion of concept, logline, and poster that begins each class soon segues into hearing actual pitches — and the most common experience is the following:

A writer, beaming brightly, lets loose with “the one.” It's why she came in; it's the idea that's sure-fire! And of course when she pitches it out, the awful silence tells all. Second pitch: same result. And that's when the panic sets in. It isn't until we prod the writer to tell us her third idea that's “nothing,” the one she thought up on the way to class, that we hit pay dirt. This is what happened when Ben Frahm pitched
Dr. Sensitive
(a success story we'll be discussing in detail later in this book) or my favorite example, when a writer hit the wall in class, then out of desperation said: “I have this other thing, it's ‘
Private Benjamin
joins the police’ and it's called
L.A.P.Diva
.”

She even had a poster line she'd been kicking around:

“You have the right to remain gorgeous!”

The booming cheers that erupted are what I remember.

You can spend weeks and months massaging your logline, and should, but in our classroom we go right to the next step. And it starts with the 15 beats of the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet (the BS2), the one-page document you can print off our website that has become the go-to tool for so many.

By now, this handy template may be known to you. Since penning
Save the Cat!
I've even met writers I worked with years ago who still have a yellowed copy hanging on their wall or laminated and sitting in a top desk drawer.

If you don't know the Beat Sheet, don't worry. It's an intuitive and easy tool — and that's the point. It's the next step to start fleshing out your idea.

It looks like this:

PROJECT TITLE:

GENRE:

DATE:

1. Opening Image (1):

2. Theme Stated (5):

3. Set-Up (1-10):

4. Catalyst (12):

5. Debate (12-25):

6. Break into Two (25):

7. B Story (30):

8. Fun and Games (30-55):

9. Midpoint (55):

10. Bad Guys Close In (55-75):

11. All Is Lost (75):

12. Dark Night of the Soul (75-85):

13. Break into Three (85):

14. Finale (85-110):

15. Final Image (110):

As I talk about the BS2 in class, and how each beat corresponds to a suggested page where it appears in an average, 110-page script, each writer is already filling in theirs, and their newly vetted concept begins to bloom. And so can yours.

What is the Opening Image and the Final Image, the “Before” and “After” that shows change in their story? What are the Midpoint and the Breaks into Act Two and Act Three? What is the “Fun and Games,” the “poster” of the movie, the place where
the “set-pieces” go because it's where we find the “promise of the premise”? In class — and in this chapter — I get to point out new facets of the BS2 that are only mentioned in my books.

One story element that doesn't appear on the Beat Sheet is called
Stasis = Death
, which can be found between Set-Up and Catalyst and is part of a larger conversation about “change.” Stasis means “things staying the same.” Death means “death.” And it's the point in the story where we reveal that this hero's life isn't all it's cracked up to be — and may stay that way. After we've figured out the Set-Up and introduced all the characters in the A Story in the first 10 pages — or 10 minutes — of a movie, there is often this “sigh moment” for the hero, where we see that if things “stay the same,” our poor protag is doomed.

You can see this beat in
Galaxy Quest
; it's the part where a relatively happy Tim Allen, star of a faux
Star Trek
series, overhears kids at a Comic-Con belittle and deride him. Tim snaps at fans in the next scene, and his fellow cast members worry for their “leader.” But its “S=D” purpose is to show the need for change is over-whelming — and will be worth the pain of the adventure. And, of course, the most famous Stasis = Death moment is in
Star Wars
when Luke Skywalker looks at two setting suns on his home planet, and we know something's gotta give — not “next season,” but now! And it sets up the Catalyst, moments later, as Luke is cleaning droids (just another day on Tatooine) when a loose screw results in a holographic Princess's plea: “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.”

Another great Beat Sheet supercharger, and one that my class in Seattle insisted I put into this book, comes directly from this Catalyst discussion: the always-handy
Double Bump
. This doesn't have to be in every story, but often twin Catalysts are required to kick a stubborn tale into motion. In
Star Wars
, it's not enough for Luke to be summoned by a Princess; he'll need one more push that comes when he finds his aunt and uncle dead. It's the second “bump” at the end of Act One that kicks him into Two.

The Double Bump is one of many tricks to put the pieces of a story into place that comes directly from the classroom. And it points out how, when we get good at “beating it out,” story problems get solved faster.

Usually at the end of the first day of my workshop, everyone is feeling a tad brain-dead. I warn the class about this first thing. I say you will be dizzy with having your ideas shot down — and over-whelmed by other pitches. It's something I only wish on a studio executive — because that's his job. But, I also say, if you go home, have a nice meal, and get a good sleep, by the time you wake up, the birds will be singing, the sun will be shining, and the Beat Sheet Fairy will have come in the middle of the night.

And he will bring a new appreciation of how story works using the BS2. Suddenly, all those notes and suggestions that seemed so horrible the day before, so not what you wanted to do with your story, make sense, or at least start to sink in. And by the second day of class, most of the participants have a handle on their beats.

What I especially love about this class is that no matter how confusing it gets for a writer working out a story, another writer listening to your plight has a solution. Indeed, if you really take the time and push yourself, surround yourself with a writers group who will tell you the truth, then your head might explode for a day or two but in the long run your story will work.

Sometimes it's easier to see
your
blind spot in another writer's story, and many will confess as much after class:
I didn't get that I was doing the same thing as that other guy was doing… until I heard him pitch
his
story
.

I've stressed from the beginning the importance of the Star-bucks pitch, and what you can learn from telling your story again and again, adding to it, massaging it, discovering what it really is. And the exercise of writers doing just that in our workshop proves how well this works. It's truly amazing to see a writer start with a simple “What if…”, and end up with a solid, well-told tale.

That's the moment it all pays off. When your little colt of an idea struggles to its feet and stands up strong.

There's no better feeling.

And all of it is the trial and error of communication.

You
think
you're telling us, but you're not. You're certain we should get it, but we don't. But if you want to win, if you want to hit a
real
home run, you have to listen, and respond. We are like every other audience you will face from here to your Oscar® speech. There are a thousand dark nights, for a thousand different details.

You might as well get used to it.

Some of the most frequent trouble areas that come up in class revolve around fear. A writer pitches an idea, and even creates a decent logline, but then just can't manage to take his foot off the bottom of the pool and trust that he'll actually float.

He clings to the small dream, and even wonders if he can have that. He has his idea, but he fears expanding it.

Bigger!
I'm always saying.

Let's hear the story!
I'm always saying.

You aren't saying what you think you're saying!
I'm always saying. Yet he refuses to believe he has a winner.

Fear leads to common problems when we extrapolate from an acorn of a logline to the young sapling of a story. Hesitancy, lack of confidence — and faith — appear in three unique ways:
Spidering
,
Half-Stepping
, and
Blurry Beats
.

What are these bad habits — which you might have too?

“Spidering” occurs when a writer doesn't stick to his premise. He has a story, but is afraid of it, or afraid he won't be able to find enough story
in
it, so he starts writing a soap opera. Suddenly, all kinds of secondary tales take hold of his imagination. The hero has a brother who has an interesting problem, let's get into that! Oh! And did I tell you about his Aunt Fern and her stuffed cabbage business? Well, let's talk about that, too. Suddenly the major highway of the
story expands — sideways — with errant joyrides that lead us off the main vein of the plot.

In a recent class, one wonderful writer had a blimp in his story — that had nothing to do with the plot! But by movie's end by golly, there it was… the blimp! He even had a back story for the blimp's pilot and his crew! What he didn't have was any reason to include it. From then on in class “Blimp!” became our new battle cry whenever anyone else began to stray from his story.

And trust me, we all do it!

If any of this sounds familiar, what you are doing is Spidering. You are taking the plot from the hero and giving it to minor players — and blimps — we don't care about. You're spinning webs that lead us away from the main event.

Well, don't.

One story at a time, please. It's plenty.

“Half-Stepping” is a similar delaying tactic that comes in a new form. My favorite example is what happened to a writer in my Seattle class. This writer had a sweeping historic saga, the true story of an Irish indentured servant who is brought to pre-Revolutionary America and eventually helps rally others like himself against their masters. It's “
Spartacus
in the Colonies.”

So would you be surprised to learn that the writer of this amazing tale had his hero arrive in America… and do nothing?! The “Fun and Games” of the writer's early beat sheet found his protagonist in his daily duties at his master's farm. There was a scene of him plowing, a scene with the chickens, a scene where he looks around in town.

So of course I stopped the writer mid-pitch to say:

Dude!

This is
Spartacus
! And you've confined him to the world's tiniest plotline: Spartacus goes to breakfast; Spartacus takes a shower; Spartacus does some sightseeing?

This is not a story; it's an itinerary!

What this writer had fallen victim to is what I have dubbed Half-Stepping. We think we're moving the story forward with each scene, and we kinda are, but the steps are so small and insignificant, it doesn't mean much. The listener wants to grab you by the lapels and shout:

What happens?!

The writer had a stallion, and was giving us a poodle.