Book review

Save the Cat
Blake Snyder
Michael Wiese Productions
2005

Have you ever found yourself reading a book that was good, but that you didn’t like? Save the Cat is about screenwriting for Hollywood. It’s good because the author clearly knows the formulas for cranking out saleable scripts. It’s disagreeable to me because the recipes result, for the most part, in the kind of product Hollywood puts out.

I am not in the target group, so fair enough. The author himself reveals a certain disdain for the business, reminding us that the results are “just movies”. He reports realistically on the kind of people one must cope with in the industry. Not flattering, but completely convincing.

And yet, there is a curious respect for the difficulty of coming up with new twists on the same old routines. It’s not easy to do.

The question is, is it worth doing? As long as somebody will pay for the stuff, the answer is yes. And a lot of people agree, to judge by the number waiting for a library copy.

BTW, the title refers to a kind of scene where we are made to like the hero because he ‘saved the cat’ or did some other endearing thing.