Thursday, July 7, 2011

Story Notes From Hell

"It's missing some tits and guns. That's how you sell a movie: tits and guns."
I'm enjoying the Story Notes from Hell blog. Especially amusing is that I agree with a lot of the notes. Especially the Save the Cat note. As much as writers like to complain about the notes they get, and like to cherry-pick the bad notes they get to use as examples of how they, as writers, know everything, writers frequently turn in pretty useless scripts. I know, because I've read so many of 'em! ;-)
And by the way, you really should read Save the Cat. And you really should put the catalyst on page 12.

Via.

5 comments:

Chance Shirley said...

I don't want to read a script by a screenwriter who complains about a request for tits and guns.

Andrew Bellware said...

!
Your comment made me laugh for a really long time! ;-)

joe said...

i'm with Chance on that one

Anonymous said...

I'm going to respectfully disagree about Save the Cat. There are elements in the book worth knowing and considering but I'm opposed to any book/guru/whathaveyou that professes one true path or formula to writing a script.

It encourages bland and generic storytelling.

Andrew Bellware said...

Ha! I disagree with you, maybe. I think you're right in that there are a gazillion ways to get to a finished screenplay.
But I feel that the underlying structure that Blake uses in Save the Cat is essentially correct. You end up with that structure anyway.
Personally I find it incredibly difficult to write to a beat-sheet. But once I'm done it matches up to a Blake Snyder beat sheet.
The other difference is that the Blake Snyder beat sheet is the most specific of all the beat sheets (that I've seen).
And to me the irony is that having a beat sheet in front of you is, to me, more freeing than restricting.
I should probably go into that in more detail in a future post. ;-)