Save the Cat!

by Blake Snyder

  What goes on your final 40 is very simple. Each card stands for a scene, so where does the scene take place? Is it an INTERIOR or an EXTERIOR? Is it a sequence of scenes like a chase that covers several locations? If you can see it, write it with a magic marker: INT. JOE'S APARTMENT - DAY. Each card should also include the basic action of the scene told in simple declarative sentences. "Mary tells Joe she wants a divorce." More specific information will be noted later. For now, the average beat or scene looks like this:

  In any storytelling venture, the most burning ideas you have for scenes are what must be laid out first. These are scenes you're sure are going to go into your movie. It's what made you want to write this puppy in the first place. For me, most often, these are funny set pieces, followed by that great scene where we introduce the hero, and maybe the finale. Well, write each idea on a card and stick it up on The Board where you think it goes. It may wind up in another place or may be cut out, but damn it feels good to get those scenes off your chest. Yup. They're up there, all right.

  And look at what you have.

  What you have is a whole lot of blank space. Gee, aren't you glad you didn't start writing? All those really great ideas that were

  burning to be written don't feel as big as you thought they were. And the story doesn't seem so likely to write itself once the ideas are written down and put up on The Board. The great way the movie starts or the chase at the middle or the dramatic showdown that felt so full, so easy to execute in your head, isn't all that much stuff when you see it there naked. Up on the board, they're just a small part of the whole. But if you want to see these wonderful scenes come to life — and have a reason to live — work must be done. Now the hard part begins.

  THE MAJOR TURNS

  The next cards you really must nail in there are the hinge points of the story: midpoint, Act Two break, Act One break. Since you have the advantage of the BS2 you know how vital these are. And even though you may come at it a whole other way, I always try to figure out the major turns first.

  I start with the midpoint. As discussed in the previous chapter, it's an "up" or "down. " Either your hero (or heroes) reach a dizzyingly false victory at page 55 or an equally false and dizzying defeat. In most cases, nailing the midpoint will help guide you — and it is the one decision you must make before you can go on. Most people can nail the break into Act Two. The set-up you've got, and the adventure, or at least the beginning of it, is the movie in your head. But where does it go from there? The midpoint tells you. And that's why figuring it out is so important.

  With the midpoint nailed, the All Is Lost is not too hard to figure out. It's the flip of the midpoint. What about the "up" or "down" of the midpoint can be reversed to create its false opposite? And though it may take you some time to adjust both, give it a try. If you nail these two points, the Break into Three is usually cake. Now your board is starting to flesh itself out. It should look more like this:

  OVERLOADED ACTS AND BLACK HOLES

  For me, my biggest problem is mistaking the cards for something other than beats of the story, something other than actual scenes. This is especially true in the early going as I lay out the set-up and the action of the first act. I give myself three or four cards for the first IO pages, that's three or four scenes to get me to the catalyst. But a lot of times what I'll see spread out there are seven or eight cards with things like "the hero is a wrongly accused felon" next to "the hero is a saxophone player." Well, these are not scenes, this is backstory. And these cards will eventually be folded into one card labeled "Meet the Hero" during an actual scene in which he walks into a room and we see him for the first time.

  As stated in the previous chapter, a lot of this backstory, these character tics and set-ups need to be... set up. And all your great ideas will go on cards and just pile up here like BMWs on the 405 at rush hour. Never fear, it will all be pared down eventually. Point is to get it all out. This is the time to try anything, think of everything, and stick it all up there to see what it looks like.

  More confusion comes when scene sequences are laid out up on The Board. Though things like "a chase" involve many scenes and can range through indoor and outdoor set-ups, it's actually only one beat. So what usually happens is you have five, six, seven cards that are a sequence. Well, these will fold into one eventually but for now will look like this:

  One great part about using The Board is the easy way you can identify problem spots. When you have a black hole — a place in your script that you can't figure out how to connect one chunk to another — you know it, 'cause it's staring you right in the face. All you have to do is look at The Board and cry. And believe me, those black holes just sit there and taunt you, hour after hour, day after day. "What's wrong, Blake? Can't figure it out? Got a little... STORY problem?" But at least you know where it is and what has to be done to fill in the blank spots. You've got nine to IO cards per row that you need to fill. And you have to figure it out.

  THE ETERNALLY LIGHT ACT THREE

  The funny part about laying out these cards is: In the early going, you almost always have a light Act Three.

  It's usually two cards. One labeled "the Hero figures out what to do now" and the other labeled "the Showdown."

  Ha! Kills me every time I see it.

  And you always keep putting off fixing this.

  Not to fear.

  Eventually this too will give way. Your mind will flood with ideas and Act Three will begin to fill up. If not, then go back to Act One and look at all your set-ups and the Six Things That Need Fixing. Are these paid off in Act Three?

  If not, they should be.

  What about your B story? Whether it's the true love story or the thematic center of the movie, this must be paid off, too. In fact, the more you think about tying up all the loose ends, the C, D, and E stories, recurring images, themes, etc., the more you realize all the screenplay bookkeeping that has to be accounted for in Act Three. Where else can it be done? (What? You gonna pass out pamphlets at the movie theater?)

  And what about the bad guys? Did you off all the lieutenants on your way to killing the uber-villain? Did all of the hero's detractors get their comeuppance? Has the world been changed by the hero's actions? Soon you will find your Act Three crowded with cards and ideas to fill up the final scenes. Nine or IO cards will be required to do this.

  Guaranteed.

  COLOR-CODING

  Now here's a really cool thing. And it wastes a lot of time! But it's also important. How each character's story unfolds and crosses with others needs to be seen to be successfully worked out. This is where your Pentels come in. Color-code each story. See what Meg's story cards look like written in green ink and Tom's story cards are like written in red. And when you put them up on The Board, you can see at a glance how the stories are woven together — or if they need to be re-worked. This is one instance where you will not know how you lived before you used The Board. And seeing these beats up there makes you realize what a potential nightmare it would be to try to figure this all out while writing. Screenplays are structure. Precisely made Swiss clocks of emotion. And seeing your different colored stories woven together here makes you realize how vital this planning can be. But color-coding can be used for other things too:

  > story points that follow and enhance theme and repeating imagery can be color-coded.

  > minor character arcs can be traced with your Pentels.

  > c, d, and e stories can get the color-code treatment.

  And once you have your multi-colored cards in place, you can step back and see the genius (!) of your design.

  All this is intended, of course, to ultimately save you time. What could be worse than being in the middle of actually writing your screenplay and dealing with these placement questions? It's a lot easier to see and move cards around on a board than chunks of your own writage that you've fallen in love with. It's a lot harder to kill your darlings by then. By organizing first, the writing is more enjoyable.

  STR
IPPING IT DOWN

  Forty cards. That's all I'm going to give you for your finished board. That's roughly IO cards per row. So if you've got 50 or if you've got 2O, you've got problems.

  Most likely you will have more than you need. And this is where the rubber meets the road, when you must examine each beat and see if the action or intent can't be folded into another scene or eliminated altogether. Like I mentioned previously, I usually have problem areas. Set-up is a biggie for me. I have 20 cards sometimes in the first row. I think there is so much to say, so much I'm not getting across that I overcompensate. But then I look at how these beats can be cut out or folded into others. If I'm honest, if I really admit that I can live without some things, it starts to cut down. I get it down to nine cards.

  And that's perfect.

  I will also have a lot of sequences. Like chases or action set pieces that stray all over the place. This is easy to fix. Simply write CHASE on this section, no matter how many scenes, and consider it one beat. Usually that's all it is as far as advancing the plot is concerned.

  In areas where I'm light, like the problem area of Bad Guys Close In, I usually cut myself some slack. And in some spots, where I know I don't have all the answers, I occasionally even leave it blank and hope for a miracle during the writing process. But in the back of my mind, I know these areas will have to be addressed at some point. Laying it out lets me know where the trouble spots are.

  +/- AND ><

  Now that you have your 40 cards up on The Board and you're pretty sure this is how your story goes, you think you're done, but you're not. Here are two really important things you must put on each card and answer to your satisfaction before you can begin writing your screenplay:

  One is the symbol +/-. The other is the symbol ><.

  These two symbols should be written in a color pen you have not used and put at the bottom of each card like this:

  The +/- sign represents the emotional change you must execute in each scene. Think of each scene as a mini-movie. It must have a beginning, middle, and an end. And it must also have something happen that causes the emotional tone to change drastically either from + to — or from — to + just like the opening and final images of a movie. I can't tell you how helpful this is in weeding out weak scenes or nailing down the very real need for something definite to happen in each one. Example: At the beginning of a scene your hero is feeling cocky. He's a lawyer and he's just won a big case. Then his wife enters with news. Now that the case is over, she wants a divorce. Clearly what started as a + emotionally for your lawyer hero is now a — emotionally.

  Believe it or not, an emotional change like this must occur in every scene. And if you don't have it, you don't know what the scene is about. Until you figure out the emotional change for each of the 40 cards using this simple +/- code, don't start. And if you can't figure it out, throw the card away. Odds are it's wrong. And while many, like Robert McKee, believe these +'s and —'s must be strung together +-/-+/+-/-+/+- to butt up against each other in an undulating wave of emotional highs and lows, I think that's taking it a little far. It's enough to know something has to change in each scene and to show it.

  The other symbol, ><, denotes conflict. To understand what the conflict is, I always like to think of a scene like this: As the lights come up, two people walk into a room from opposite doors, meet in the middle, and begin to struggle past each other to reach the door on the other side. They each enter the scene with a goal and standing in their way is an obstacle. That's conflict. And whether it's physical or verbal or simply a guy who really needs to pee and must get to a bathroom soon or else!, that conflict must be foremost on your mind when you conceive each scene. The basic set-ups of Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature, and Man vs. Society that you learned in high-school English class can all be applied here.

  When each scene opens, you must know what the main conflict of that scene is and who is bucking against whom. Each person, or entity, has an agenda. What is it? And ho-, does it collide with the person or entity he or she must get past? The symbol >< on the bottom of each card must be filled in with who each of the players is in each scene of conflict, what the issue is, and who wins by the end. If it's more than one person or issue, you've got a muddy conflict. And your scene is probably muddy, too. Only one conflict per scene, please. One is plenty. And whether it's a large issue or a small one, something physical or something psychological, it must be there. Every scene. Every time. If you can't find a conflict, figure out a way to create one.

  The reason having conflict is so important and must be in every scene is, once again, very primal. (There's that word again.) And thinking primally, by having conflict in every scene, guarantees that you will keep the audience's attention. Why? Well, we like to see people in conflict. Conflict gets our attention. Why is wrestling the longest running drama on TV? It's about as basic an entertainment as you can get: DEATH! Two people trying to kill each other. Why do most movies have a romance? Again, the conflict is eternally primal and fascinating: SEX! Two people trying to bed each other. At its core, every scene in your movie must be as basic as this in order to get and keep the viewer's attention. If you don't have the players in the > vs. < match-up your scene represents, you don't have the scene yet. So...

  Find the conflict... or reassess... or dump it.

  And if you do, don't cry, it's only a card.

  READY TO LET IT FLY...

  By the time you're done, you should have nine cards in row #1, nine in row #2, nine in row #3 and nine in row #4 — wait! That's only 36 cards. Well, I'm giving you four extra for those scenes I know you can't live without. Stick these wherever you like — we don't have to be that precise. But 40 is all that you get... or need.

  You do not get points for having the most perfectly laid out Board. And as much fun as it is to play with these cards, and fantasize about the ebb and flow of your story, there is a point where you must ask yourself, "Am I in the Board-building business or am I a screenwriter?" If your Board is too perfect, or if you spend too much time trying to make it so, then you have left the world of preparation and entered the Procrastination Zone. Well, don't. In fact, I always like to start writing when I'm coming up on the end of

  finishing The Board, just before it gets too perfect. Like a Jell-Omold that's not quite set, you wanna start before it hardens. By then I'm obsessed with pushpins and index cards and I know it's time — to stop.

  To me, always, speed is the key. I want to figure this all out so I can get to the writing. And once I have my 40 beats laid out and my +/- and >< done on each card, I know I've done as much as humanly possible to prepare. And now I'm ready to put away my pushpins and cards and pens... and start typing. (Suddenly typing will feel GREAT!)

  The work on The Board is important. But it's a trick I play on myself, an exercise in storing moments, rhythms, scenes, and scene sequences in my brain. It allows me to play with these elements without commitment to any of them. I must always be willing to throw it all away as I begin the writing process. How many times have I gotten in there and started writing and dumped every preconceived notion of what I had? How many times have I fallen in love with a minor character that has risen to become one of the leads who wasn't even mentioned in the outline of my Board? Well, lots is the answer. That's what happens. What The Board will do for you is prepare the battlefield, allow you to test your theories, grind in certain notions, and minimize others.

  FINAL WORDS ON THE SUBJECT

  Truth is when you write FADE IN: The Board means nothing. But I hope the things I've tried to get across to you will still be burning in your brain and will stick with you. These are: the necessity of hitting your act break on page 25, hitting the midpoint and All Is Lost hard, and the need to have conflict in every scene. Even if these things are all that you remember as you get lost in your story, you'll be in great shape. These islands in a sea of uncertainty are important to keep in sight as you begin to write.

  And it's all designed to get you to THE END.
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  The blessing of having this handy guide up on the wall of your work room is: If you do get lost, if you can't figure out what happens next, you can always go back to The Board and get back on track. The worst thing that can happen in screenwriting is to not finish. Half-written screenplays never sell, that's for sure. And working out The Board in advance is your best guarantee that this won't happen.

  CHECKING IN WITH MY SECRET WEAPON

  Of course when I'm really stuck, I call Mike Cheda.

  "Miiiike," I whine. "I don't know what happens in Bad Guys Close In, can you take a look?" I then e-mail my notes to Mike and go have an expensive lunch up at The Eurotrash Cafe on Sunset Plaza, confident that SOMEONE is working on my project — even if it's not me. Mike is the one person I know in Hollywood who actually reads the material you send him and knows how to fix it! He will even give you detailed notes. And he's a real smart aleck too —which I like (it keeps me on my toes). But you know you're in trouble when you come back from your expensive lunch, having flirted with the Euro-Hostess and feeling very good, and you call Mike and the first thing out of his mouth is: "You're kidding, right?"

  If you too want to reach Mike Cheda for screenwriting advice, you can do so on the Internet at www.mikecheda.com, where for a fee of $500 Mike will read and analyze your screenplay. I think this is the bargain of the century and I am always telling him to up his price. He should be charging $5,000 per script if you ask me. A story about Mike in Creative Screenwriting Magazine referred to him as "The Dr. Phil of screenwriting." Another understatement. To me, he'll always be the guy who taught me everything I know.

  For free.

  SUMMARY

  So now you know everything about your movie that you need to start writing your screenplay. If you have held off long enough on your movie idea to do the steps I have suggested, you're ready to write FADE IN: and begin.