This is a fun & easy to read book- and is truly the last you'll need on screenwriting. Blake makes it easy to understand, and helps identify the importance of structure. Not only is writing fun - but much faster. If you create a strong log line, follow his beat sheet, and lay out your forty cards on the board - you'll be amazed at how quickly things come together. I stumbled across "save the cat" on amazon and after reading all the reviews I thought I'd give it a try and was totally blown away!! Finally something I could incorporate into my writing that truly made a difference.

I've written seven screenplays, and this book has helped so much with my last I'm going to apply the techniques with the previous seven. It's simple to understand, although painful from slapping the forehead so many times with the "EUREKA"'s that he unveils. Blake has a great gift for conveying a lot of information in ways that are easy to apply whether you're on your first draft of your first script, or the final draft on your optioned script.

Thanks for the help, and if you don't have this book yet, get it, and throw out any other "HOW TO" books. This is the only one you'll need.

I purchased "Save the Cat" while attending a pitch event in LA. I started reading the book while I waited for my meetings. My first two meetings went well but no requests for my screenplay. After I read the first chapter I modified my logline and my pitch following Blake's advice in chapter one. The difference was immediate, the producers I pitched to "got it" quickly. I had four requests for my screenplay during the rest of day and I believe the difference was the practical advice I found in this book.
The rest of the book is just as good. I have purchased seven books on screenplay writing but this is the book that is on my desk while I write. Everything in the book is clearly written with great examples. I was skeptical about some of Blake's statements concerning screenplay structure so I read several screenplays and applied the principles in the book and they all fit.
This may not be the only book you will ever need on writing screenplays but after you've read it you will come back to it first when you need some advice.
Buy this book first.

Do you want to read about writing screenplays, or do you want to learn to WRITE screenplays?

When it comes to finding resources that will help you write a screenplay, the choices are endless. Type the word "screenwriting" in Google or Amazon and you'll see what I mean. There are an abundance of highly qualified and generally helpful books to choose from. While I gained a measure of knowledge from each of them, none gave me what I ultimately needed: a solid foundation of structure - the backbone of EVERY solid screenplay. Enter Save The Cat!

Structure is more than a chalk outline or generic template, it's a way to ensure that your screenplay works! This isn't just important if you want to write, pitch and SELL your screenplay in Hollywood, it's absolutely indispensable! Save The Cat! clarified the screenwriting process and showed me how to actually write a structurally-sound screenplay. What this did was free my mind of all of the cluttered questions I had regarding HOW I was going to take this awesome idea from my head and put it in the proper form in which it needs to be.

In Save The Cat! The Last Book On Screenwriting You'll Ever Need, Blake Snyder leads you through the process with clarity and a sense of humor. He helps you develop a killer logline which, when done properly, is like discovering buried treasure in your front yard. He also helps you understand genre and helps you create the type of hero that serves your story well. When you're ready to write, he guides you with a beat sheet that...well...can't be...uh...beat! Seriously, it guides you through your whole story. It lets you know where holes are and confirms when you have nailed that beat.

To tie the whole thing together, Blake explains the reality that studios can - and will - take your story, change or add characters, move scenes around, even change the dialogue; but if your structure is tight, it's still YOUR story. After all of your hard work, isn't that what you want?

Let me quickly address the couple of nay-sayers that have described Save The Cat! as "formulaic" or as a "short-cut" to writing a movie. Blake doesn't provide a short cut or a formula; he provides a firm structure on which to build a story - YOUR story. The idea is up to you; the dialogue is up to you; the characters are up to you. So, if you have that great idea, go out and buy this book, read it, use it to build your story and develop a great screenplay. Let me say from experience that if you have an idea, it's not a fill-in-the-blanks process. Save The Cat! will get you to think about your idea - and that first logline attempt kicked my butt! When I finally felt good about my first logline though, it was a true feeling of accomplishment and well worth the effort!

The best part of all this is that there's an awesome companion to the book. Now there's a Save The Cat! Story Structure Software that I just got and it is a huge help. I think it will be available on Amazon pretty soon, so look for it! On top of all of this, He's a great guy and he's actually SOLD screenplays. Wait, a screenwriting author who has sold screenplays? Go figure!