Twenty-five years ago a failed screenwriter penned what could have been his latest flop. But in the course of two years, this script and his next — Blank Check and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot! — fetched $1 million each from Hollywood studios. His success wasn’t a fluke, but the result of a last-ditch effort for success, with a new carefully plotted approach to storytelling. Since then Blake Snyder has co-authored and sold several other projects, including Nuclear Family, bought outright by Steven Spielberg. Snyder doesn’t keep his approach to screenwriting secret. He’s distilled his approach into 15 points and wrote at length about them in his book, Save The Cat. Snyder has gone on to write a follow up entitled Save The Cat Goes To The Movies, while yet another is now in the works. For some, Snyder has demystified the craft of screenwriting, clearing the way for writers to focus instead on original concepts and artistic vision. For others, however, Snyder has published a disastrously successful road map to formulaic storytelling.
MovieSet.com’s Quinn Bender called Snyder to talk about his influence on today’s films, and question him about his critics’ charges.
MovieSet: Thanks for taking the time to talk to MovieSet, Blake. Let’s start briefly at the beginning. Where did you get your start in the business?
Blake Snyder: My father was a producer, a real pioneer in children’s TV with shows like Sesame Street, The Blue Marble and Roger Ramjet.
So really, you followed in your fathers footsteps?
Blake: Indeed. He put me to work because I was cheap labor in providing kids’ voices. [Laughs.] And then my voice changed and I was fired. You know, so what are you going to do?
Well that’s my next question. When did you start writing?
Blake: I’ve always been a writer from a very young age. I don’t know what made me think I would have this job that I do, I always kind of knew. I was editor of my high school and my college paper. But I always wanted to write movies. So after College when I came to Hollywood that’s what I pursued.
Let’s jump right into that. Tell me about the first screenplay you wrote. What happened to it — where did it eventually end up?
Blake: Well, you know, the road I took to actually selling screenplays was long. I did what they liked to call “experimenting” with all kinds of short movie scripts and fake documentaries. What I learned was how to have a character enter a room, confront somebody and then walk out. It was good practice, but it really didn’t lead anywhere. I must have written 20 scripts on trial and error before I finally learned how to sell one. And that’s really why I wrote Save the Cat, to save others who are following this path some time, perhaps, in getting to the promised land of a sale.
I read that you became a millionaire after writing and selling two screenplays in just 18 months. Is that accurate?
Blake: I’ll tell you what happened. I was in the Writers Guild, living in Los Angeles when the ‘88 writers’ strike came along. I was pretty much done. I had only written some things for TV… And then my father passed away. I really had to take a hard look at myself. I was 31 years old and I had to examine what I was doing. I was doing all that experimentation and that was fine, but was I a professional writer? Was I offering a service for something that someone would be interested in buying? And by taking that hard look at myself — setting certain goals and trying my hardest to achieve them: I’m going to write a script, I’m going to sell a script for $1 million, I’m going to get a multi-picture deal with a studio and have an office on the lot — this was my goal, and indeed, within a couple years all that stuff happened. It was because I just hit a point with all that experimentation. It was enough. I was at a crossroads where I could be a writer, or a dental assistant — or whatever it is you do after that.
So you strapped yourself down and developed this writing structure. The result was Blank Check and Stop, Or My Mom Will Shoot! Is that right?
Blake: A lot of scripts came out of it. Some got made some didn’t. My favorite script, which didn’t get made, is called Nuclear Family. We sold that to Steven Spielberg.
But this isn’t about getting rich quick. It makes the hair on the back of my next stand up when I feel that’s what the story is about me: do this and win the lottery. That’s not what my books are about. What they are about, literally, is identifying the service you offer. Why would anybody be interested in you?
Speaking from my own experience as a writer, I get very self-involved with who I am and what my work is and what I think I’m doing with it. Sometimes writers get lost — all for legitimate reasons.
I have my detractors too out there. I have this little thing in my book about Memento and it’s hilarious how much huge criticism I’ve received for poking fun at that film. But the reason I love these guys who are coming at me angrily about this is because I was one of them. I was absolutely furious at what Hollywood was about. My favorite term at the time was “manipulated”. ‘Oh, I feel so manipulated by ET. I feel so manipulated by Back to the Future.’ It wasn’t until I got a little more mature that I realized that that’s just entertainment. It is about manipulation, it is about an emotional machine that pulls out all your stops.
And yet some people have gone so far as to accuse you of perpetuating formulaic writing. How do you respond to that?
Blake: Frankly, it exhausts me. Whenever I hear,” your approach is a formula,” I think, ‘Okay, go ahead and good luck to you. What ever works for you is great. But I can tell you that good story telling is not a formula. Good story telling is good story telling. The reason you walk out of a film feeling it was a good one is because you’ve been moved. There’s certain things we expect to find in a movie — whether it’s an indie or a big-budget blockbuster — that move us. I am forever trying to explore what that is. By being blunt I’ve been honest with people. Don’t kill the messenger, I’m just telling you how it is.
Of course story structure has been in existence for thousands of years. What you’re selling is not new.
Blake: Absolutely. For me, knowing how stories are put together is just the introduction to the conversation. Now that we know these things, now we can have a conversation. Now we can extrapolate out and find ways to make things more interesting–break the pattern, bend it and try it six different ways. But until we have the tools to discuss it, it’s a pointless conversation. You won’t be able to pinpoint anything. And that’s what I think Save the Cat is so good at. When I tell you about the Fun and Games section of a script, you know what I’m talking about, you know what the character has to deliver at that section. In any story. Any story. Don’t tell me that Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless mind isn’t formula. It is. I break it down in my second book, Save the Cat Goes to the Movies. It’s about as formulaic as it gets.
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Click here to read part II of our exclusive interview with screenwriter Blake Snyder. For workshop dates with Blake Snyder in Los Angeles, Portland and Vancouver, visit www.blakesnyder.com.
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