Even now that I understand the concepts, I find the terms to be harmful rather than helpful. As a book designed for beginners, this is especially frustrating. However, Snyder confusingly uses the term “break” to describe these changes rather than explaining explicitly what they mean. This is all based on the common three-act structure which has been with storytellers since Artistotle. Now, I realize that the act “breaks” refers to changes in the story based on the character’s arc. Even when I was first reading the book as a teen, this bothered me - what are we breaking into!? What is an act break?! Snyder likes to employ terms like “Break into Two” and “Break into Three” to describe act breaks. Still, if the goal is only to make the character likable, your character might turn out to be shallow, or your audience’s engagement with the character could be shallow - or both. Should your character save the cat? Maybe. The character could perform a noble deed to accomplish this, but it’s not a requirement it’s only one of many possible options to engage the audience with the imaginary person’s inner life and outer journey. The real goal is to get the audience to empathize with your character. There is a slew of stories dedicated to unlikable or morally grey characters: antiheroes. After all, stories are made to have the audience follow a particular protagonist, so if that character does something admirable at the story’s start, we are more likely to be intrigued. On the surface, this seems like warranted advice. “I call it the ‘Save the Cat’ scene. …It’s the scene where we meet the hero and the hero does something - like saving a cat - that defines who he is and makes us, the audience, like him.”

The title of the book comes from a core concept introduced at the start of the book: get a character to be likable to the audience by having him or her perform an act which is morally praiseworthy - like rescuing a cat from a tree. However, it’s not the book I want beginners to read for a multitude of reasons. Snyder’s memory I still keep the book on my shelf and reference it occasionally. Now, however, I’m going to tell you why I actively discourage people from accepting everything without question within the now-infamous Save the Cat. I’ve written before about the book I prefer to recommend: Truby’s Anatomy of Story.

Save the cat screenwriting book