Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... (3 page)

A best-selling author, I might add.

You're probably ahead of me: My script never got off the ground. After stalling my manager with promises I was working on “the one,” I agreed to share my idea before I started writing, and it's funny, because as soon as the words formed on my lips — the moment my thoughts took shape there in the ether above our heads — I knew I was in trouble.

The logline for my can't-miss, perfect movie?

TWINKLE – Bereft by the death of his wife, Santa Claus has 48 hours to go to New York City, find love, and save Xmas.

Don't say it!

Everyone else did.

Did I know, asked my manager, that Tim Allen already did
Santa Clause 2
? The
right
way! Did I see any problem starting my nice family film with Mrs. Claus, one of the most beloved figures in all of literature, lying dead in a snowy graveyard up at the North Pole? And what, pray tell, were we going to do about the fact Santa Claus is a jolly, 600-year-old fat man? “Oh that's easy,” I said. “He can go through a magic machine that will turn him into Tom Hanks for 48 hours. That way he can fall in love with someone like Annette Bening. I have it all worked out!”

“And when Tom turns
back
into Santa Claus at the end? Will Annette get turned into a jolly, 600-year-old fat
woman
?”

My manager and I just kind of stared at each other.

“Great title though,” I said to break the chill.

What no one was saying was suddenly clear:

Wow! What a bad idea!

I bring this up not to tell on myself, or even to judge what's good or bad, but to identify the indicating psychological features attached to the creation, and nurturing, of a stinker. Something about the whole process was suspicious, but there were indicators I chose to ignore — it turns out, to my peril.

The Seven Warning Signs I Might Have a Bad Idea:

► Fear of telling anyone about it

► Fear it might be stolen (by NPR listeners, no less)

► Fear that saying it out loud might spoil the “magic”

► Fear that if I don't write it fast, I'll lose it

► Lack of basic logic points — which I ignore!

► Lots of great “scenes,” but no story

► Not researching to see if someone already did this

I had committed every one.

Yes, some day, in some way, Santa may get lucky. But for now,
Twinkle
is in my drawer. And that's part of the moral of the story, too:
Twinkle
might have been saved. It could have gotten worked out. But by keeping it to myself, by not involving others in my “process” like I usually do, by demonstrating gobs of hubris about my skills as a storyteller, I wrecked it.

And you do this, too. How do I know?

Because you're a writer….

“And I
dig
that about you!”

Did I commit hari-kari when I learned my idea was a non-starter? Did I cry? Stamp my foot? Throw a hissy fit?

Of course.

But when it was over I did what I always do with ideas that are yet to… gel. I went to Staples to buy more yellow pads, and started from the top.

That's also what we steely pros do.

We put a nice raw steak on that black eye, and we try again.

Getting through the exquisite pain of whether or not we have a good idea for a movie begins by being able to state that idea. I may not have had a sale in
Twinkle
(Jeesh, what was I thinking?), but when it came time to confess, I at least knew how to tell the tale to my manager. After years of working as a screenwriter, and knowing what lights up
the eyes of my agents and others, I had condensed my story into a form that anyone could understand.

That can't be said of every writer.

Pro, amateur, or in between, we scribes find amazing ways to mislead ourselves and slip the surly bonds of practicality.

One of the inspirations for writing
Save the Cat!
was a visit to a friend of mine, a successful Disney writer with many sales and assignments to his credit. I had just stopped by to say “hi” and catch up, and then made the mistake of asking: “Watcha working on?”, whereupon he excitedly said those two horrible words no one in or out of the business ever wants to hear:

“Sit down!”

I sat.

“Fade in,” he began. “A dark and stormy night…” (I'm not kidding.) And 20 minutes later, he was still pitching. Scene followed tortured scene, and yes the story was logical — to a point. But the reason he couldn't tell me what his story was about was the fact that he didn't
have
a story. He too had tricked himself into thinking he didn't need to take the first step and get permission from a listener who “got it.”

He'd said: “It's different this time. This is special.”

Whether it's an idea we cling to that doesn't work, or scene after scene that we spill out onto the page, we are forever falling in love with ourselves, and our inspiration. I call it
The Smell of the Rain on the Road at Dawn
, that flash of scent, sight, and sound that makes us think we're onto something — and we might well be! It's the very best reason to be a writer, to find meaning where others don't, to see things the rest of the world can't. It charges our lives with a sense of the divine. It tells us that, yes, in fact we are special — we are at least especially sensitive. But unless we can figure out a way to forge that gossamer into something that makes sense to others…

We are the only ones who will ever know.

All I know is when my pal put that stinker away in
his
drawer,
after writing about 50 pages of it, he called me up to complain: “Why didn't you stop me?” I will give him this: At least he had a lot more pages than I had, which is nice.

But together we were still 0 for 2.

And 0 for 2 is the kind of trouble I want to avoid.

How do we get our ideas across? The answer is simple: pithily. From the initial inspiration in our brain, from that first moment we sit up in bed and say “I got it!” and scramble to find a pen and try to get down what “it” is, we are looking for a way to shape that flash of brilliance into a sentence or two.

And we must!

You will get many different opinions on this, but there are two ways to describe the movie idea in our imaginations. One is to come up with a
pitch
; the second is to formalize that pitch into a
logline
. What's the difference? Well, here's my take:

The “pitch” to me is the most sales-y way to say it.

It is the most concise, easiest-to-see, fastest-to-be-able-to-tell version that still captures the crux of what it is.

Yes, pitches are hard, but essential.

For want of a better term, the pitch is best seen as
the elevator pitch
, so called because when I get into an elevator with Jerry Bruck-heimer, producer of
Pirates of the Caribbean
and
CSI
, and Jerry says: “Hey Blake, watcha working on?” I don't want to have to pull the EMERGENCY STOP and say to poor Jerry:

“Fade in! A dark and stormy night!”

You have two, maybe three, floors to make an impression.

There you are. And there's Jerry. So say something!

And make it short and sweet.

One of my best pitches is for a movie I sold in 2006 called
Granny
. It sold primarily because my co-writer, David Stephens, and I delivered on the premise, but the pitch can't be denied. And though it took time to hone it down to this, it never fails. So if I
ever find myself in an elevator with Jerry Bruckheimer and he asks about my latest film, I won't hesitate, I'll say:

“
Granny
is a PG-13 horror movie. It's about a senior serial killer who kills teenagers who violate the rules of etiquette. And here's the poster line, Jerry: Granny. She's off her rocker.”

DING!

Jerry may not like that movie. I doubt it's one he would make, or even be interested in seeing. But he knows what it is.

And he found out in two floors.

In truth, there is no elevator, no mythic moment where it's just you and a higher-up who can change your life with 30 seconds worth of… “You're on!” But pitching is an important skill. Because at some point an audience must also be lured into seeing
Granny
, and has about the same time to figure out what it is. So the fact I can tell Jerry is good. It means Jerry can tell you…

Eventually.

As indicated, the rule on the pitch is: It's the fastest way to say it. As far as I'm concerned, anything is fair game. The best pitches include a title that tells us everything we need to know — talk about the fewest number of words! But check out:

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Snakes on a Plane

Legally Blonde

Jaws

Each of these titles pretty much says it.

And saying it fast, grabbing us in a primal way, being a good communicator, is what you want to accomplish — for doing this work up front helps everything else that follows.

I still think it's even fair game to say: “It's reverse
Big
,” the pitch that I heard from writer Robert Henny for a movie he called
Pee-Wee
, which he went on to option. I also think “It's
Fargo
in the Southwest” helps explain the 2007 Best Picture
No Country for Old Men
, because the title really doesn't.

If this feels too “sales-y” to you, too Hollywood, too artificial for your sensibilities, I hear ya, brother! But I look at it more like a service, and that takes the sting out. Part of communication is the simple idea of putting yourself in the place of the person who
isn't
in your head, who doesn't get The Smell of the Rain on the Road at Dawn. That's just good manners.

And you know how I feel about good manners.

The “logline” is the next step up, and it's a different mindset completely. This is the formal one-or-two sentence sketch that tells us, in brief, what the story is. You may be lured by the pitch for
Granny
when you hear it, but does it say enough?

Well, that's why we need the logline.

Granny
is really about Amber, a 16-year-old high school girl whose mother has just died. Her widowed father has his own troubles, her asthmatic brother his, and the girls at her school are putting pressure on Amber to go over to the dark side of sex and drugs. So when a woman claiming to be her mom's estranged mother appears at her door… Amber lets the crazy lady in.

What's the logline that says all that?

GRANNY – Saddened by her mother's death, a lonely teen must confront a woman claiming to be her grandmother, whose strict rules lead to a psychotic murder spree.

From this simple sentence an entire plot springs forth. A hero we are rooting for, an implied “transformation” she will undergo in the course of this adventure, irony galore, and a life-or-death conflict are inherent in this mini-story.

And I said it all in one line.

I flirt with you with my pitch for
Granny
, and eventually I must deliver the goods, both in the logline and in the script. But it is from this little acorn, which takes time to work out, that a glorious oak of a movie blooms. Often the pitch is easier — and easily misleading — and that's why we must nail the logline, too — a process that leads to its own trouble…

We've all had that flash of joy, that OMG! when a great concept falls into our laps from the sky. It's like finding money in the street. But eventually we have to take a moment.

And calmly, patiently, claim it.

I put my email address into both my books and on my website
www.blakesnyder.com
for that very purpose. And I get a lot of loglines. It's the I-Found-Money-in-the-Street-Can-I-Keep-It? Hotline. It's like the
Antiques Roadshow
series on TV where people bring things they discovered in their attics to an expert and he tells them if what they have is a cute little
chotchke
best left dusty, or a treasure that belongs in the Smithsonian.

I get chills when a story grabs me. Even the ones that don't can be inspiring. Oddly, these tend to fall into three categories. They are either:
Too Plain
,
Too Complicated
, or my favorite…
Hiding the Ball
.

As proof, these three slightly reconstituted (but not much) loglines I received via email show what I mean:

QUICKIE – An up-and-coming banker, engaged to his boss's daughter, goes on a stag weekend in Las Vegas, and in a drunken haze marries a penniless waitress.

PARTLY CLOUDY – A bored TV weatherman signs up for reverse 911 emergency notification service — and trouble — when it begins to micromanage all aspects of his life.