In the delightful Albert Brooks movie Defending Your Life
(1991), the souls of the dead go to Judgment City, where they must
prove they deserve to break free from the reincarnation cycle and move
to a higher level of existence. During trials, prosecutors and defenders
support their arguments by showing film clips from the dead person's
life. (Yes, your most paranoid fantasies are true: Everything you've
ever done has been filmed and filed, and can eventually be used against
you.) The onward progress of Meryl Streep's character is assured by a
clip from the night her house caught fire. We see her rushing out of the
burning building, leading her two children to safety. Then we see her
rushing back in, flames all around her, to emerge moments later with the
family cat safe in her arms.
I don't know if Blake Snyder had this scene in mind when he wrote his 2005 guide to screenwriting,
Save the Cat! It seems possible. Snyder defines a Save the Cat scene as "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."
True, he admits, not all protagonists are sterling sorts likely to save cats or help old ladies across the street. He cites
Pulp Fiction
as an example of a movie with protagonists who are, to put it mildly,
not very nice. (But even then, he argues, the writers manage to get us
interested in the protagonists, to come close to sympathizing with
them.)
I
think many insights in Snyder's book apply not only to movies but also
to novels and stories. As a writer, I've found his ideas about plot
structure helpful, and I've been careful to include Save the Cat scenes
in the first chapters of my recently released novel (
Interpretation of Murder) and my soon-to-be-released young adult novel (
Fighting Chance).
Much as I'd love to talk about my own books, though, I decided more
authoritative examples would provide more convincing support for
Snyder's ideas. So I pulled some mysteries and thrillers from my
bookshelf, not quite at random, and looked for Save the Cat scenes.
I'll start with an obvious example, Tom Clancy's
Patriot Games. Jack Ryan is strolling down a London street with his wife and daughter when he hears an explosion.
Grenade,
he realizes instantly. He hears a burst of gunfire, sees a Rolls Royce
forced to a halt in the middle of the street, sees one man firing a
rifle at it and another man racing toward its rear.
IRA, Ryan
thinks. He yanks his wife and daughter to the ground to keep them safe.
Then he takes off. He tackles one attacker, grabs his gun, shoots the
other attacker. Ryan gets shot, too, in the shoulder, but he hardly
notices. He's done what he had to do. He's protected his family and
stopped the attack. He's saved the cat.
So now we know, after only a few pages, that Jack
Ryan is observant, courageous, quick, and capable. His first thought is
to keep his wife and daughter safe, but he doesn't hesitate to risk his
own life to rescue the people in the Rolls. His actions match a pattern
we easily recognize as heroic. If we want to keep reading about him, if
we want to see him triumph, no wonder.
The second book I looked at was Dick Francis'
Banker. Even before I read
Save the Cat, I'd noticed how often Francis uses his first chapter to make us like and admire his protagonist.
Banker
begins when one of Tim Ekaterin's co-workers looks out a window at the
bank and sees an executive, Gordon Michaels, standing fully clothed in
the courtyard fountain. The co-worker exclaims about it but does nothing
more. Ekaterin "whisk[s] straight out of the deep-carpeted office,
through the fire doors, down the flights of gritty stone staircase and
across the marbled expanse of entrance hall." He rushes past a
"uniformed man at the security desk," who presumably should know how to
handle unsettling situations but instead stands "staring . . . with his
fillings showing," past two customers who are frozen in place, "looking
stunned." "I went past them at a rush into the open air," Ekaterin says,
"and slowed only in the last few strides before the fountain." He
tries to reason with his boss and learns Michaels is gripped by
hallucinations about "people with white faces," who are following him
and are, presumably, up to no good. The chairman of the bank, a "firm
and longtime" friend of Gordon Michaels, scurries into the courtyard.
"My dear chap," he says to his friend, but evidently can think of
nothing else to say, nothing else to do. He turns to Ekaterin."Do
something, Tim," he says.
"So I stepped into the fountain," Tim Ekaterin says.
He takes his boss by the arm, gently assures him he'll be safe even if
he leaves the fountain, gets him to come into the bank, takes him home,
helps get him into bed. Ekaterin's actions aren't heroic in a
traditional sense--he's never in physical danger--but he's shown himself
to be compassionate, intelligent, and determined. And he's
acted.
When other people are too stunned and stymied to do anything but stare,
Ekaterin runs past them "at a rush" and solves the problem. He saves
the cat.
Then there's Harry Kemelman's
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late,
the Edgar-winning first novel in the Rabbi Small series. David Small
doesn't have much in common with Jack Ryan. He's slight and pale, he'd
trip over his own feet if he tried to tackle a terrorist, and if he
picked up an a bad guy's gun, he wouldn't know how to fire it. But he
takes decisive actions when, in Chapter One, two of his congregants are
locked in a silly dispute about damages to a car one borrowed from the
other. The two men are longtime friends, but neither is willing to admit
he could be at fault, and both are so angry and frustrated they refuse
to talk to each other, or even to pray in the same room. Rabbi Small
persuades them to submit their case to an informal rabbinic court at
which he presides. As he explains his judgment, he applies centuries-old
Talmudic principles to this contemporary situation, displaying deep
knowledge of complicated texts, impressive mental agility, and
penetrating insight into human nature. By the time he's finished, the
two men are friends again, relieved to put their differences behind
them. The dispute about the car has no relevance to the novel's central
mystery, to the murder that hasn't yet been committed. But the scene has
served its purpose. We like and admire Rabbi Small and want to keep
reading about him. And, once again, the cat is safe.
A week or so ago, I bought Daphne Du Maurier's
Rebecca,
embarrassed to realize I'd never read it. It's a mystery classic, I'm a
mystery writer--high time I get down to business and read
Rebecca.
I started reading and felt the pull of that famous first sentence, of
that haunting opening description--the trees, the smokeless chimneys,
the threadlike drive, the nettles, the moonlight. Next comes the second
chapter's account of a couple living in a comfortless hotel, welcoming
boredom as an alternative to fear, waiting impatiently for newspapers
that bring them scores from cricket matches and schoolboy sports--not
because they care about such things, but because trivial news offers
some relief from the "ennui" that otherwise envelopes them. Then Chapter
Two merges into Chapter Three, into memories of a time when the
narrator was dominated by the repellant Mrs. Van Hopper and felt
incapable of fighting back. That's as far as I've gotten.
I'm not saying
Rebecca
isn't good. The quality of the writing impresses me, the situation
beginning to develop in Chapter Three intrigues me, and generations of
readers have loved this novel. There must be wonderful things lying
ahead. But I've got to admit I missed a Save the Cat scene. As I read
the opening chapters of
Rebecca, I kept waiting for the narrator to
do something.She didn't.
That, I think, is the essence of the Save the Cat scene. As Snyder says in his definition, "the hero
does something"--his italics. Or, as the befuddled chairman in
Banker says, "
Do something, Tim"--my italics.
I think readers are drawn to protagonists who
do
things. I'd guess that's probably true of most readers, especially true
of mystery readers. In mysteries, after all, there's always a problem
to be solved, an injustice to be set right. Sitting around and feeling
overwhelmed by circumstances doesn't cut it. Feeling sorry for oneself
definitely doesn't cut it. If we're going to commit ourselves to
spending time with a protagonist, we mystery readers want it to be
someone who responds to a tough situation by taking action. We can
forgive a protagonist who makes mistakes. Passivity, though--that's
harder to forgive.
I fully intend to read the rest of
Rebecca. But not yet. While I was browsing through my bookshelves to find examples for this post, I got hooked by a protagonist who
does things, who knows how to save a cat. I'll finish reading
Rebecca right after I finish re-reading
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late.
1. Critiquing a Grand Master. If you are a fan of the late great Donald E. Westlake you owe it to yourself to take a look at The Westlake Review. The blog's owner, one fredfitch, explains that his mission is simple: "Reviewing every book Donald Westlake ever wrote. Because I can." 
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