Writing Craft

I recently finished reading Black Snyder’s Save the Cat! It’s a craft book written for screenwriters that gets recommended all the time, but as it seemed focused on a pretty strict plotting formula I avoided it until now. 

I’ve become more of a plotter as time goes on. Not a super tight plotter, but I find that when I’m working from at least a loose outline the first draft is much cleaner and goes a lot faster. 

Save the Cat! did have a lot of solid plotting advice. It convinced me to try using a storyboard for my next project. I’m pretty excited to get started on that.

What I really loved about the book is the idea of seeing your story as a complete package from the get go. My usual process is to write what I want and then figure out how to market the thing after the fact. Save the Cat! flips that and recommends that you start with the end in sight. What exactly is this story about? Who’s your audience? What’s the logline?

And then only once you have a story idea that will sell, do you start plotting. I’m not convinced that the beats will work as well for romance as action/adventure, but there are definitely some good points about story structure.

Anyway, I liked it a lot and highly recommend it even if you’re more of a pantser than a plotter. 

Do you have a favorite book on writing craft? I’d love to hear your recommendations!