Blake Snyder, scriptwriter and the author of the screenwriting manual “Save the Cat,”
died recently apparently of a heart attack. His book was one of the most
popular on the topic and although I never met him, a few times I showed up to teach at
some conference or film school shortly after he’d presented his workshop and
people had only good things to say about him.
The point of the title of his book is that if you want the
audience to like your protagonist, early on in the script have him do something
good (even if he’s an anti-hero) -- and you can’t get much nicer than saving a
kitten or a puppy.
I think this advice applies to villains as well. Nobody
wakes up and says, “Ah, another day in which to be irredeemably evil,
mwahhahahahahah!” – unless they’re in a comic book.
It may be trite to point out that even the worst villains in
real life, say Hitler or Stalin, were nice to their mothers or kind to their
secretaries but it does heighten the tension in our desire to understand them.
Certainly one of the great mysteries of life is how people can be good in one
way and so evil in another, and any work of fiction is stronger for acknowledging that.
If you’re looking for a good book about screenwriting,
one that’s fun and easy to read as well as full of good advice, “Save the Cat”
is a good bet even though the author, sadly, has left the set.
(There's also information about writing scripts, novels, non-fiction books in my book, "Your Writing Coach," published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon and other online and offline retailers.)
