Save the Cat!

Screenwriter Blake Snyder sets out his method for structuring mainstream films, starting with the logline, a one or two sentence pitch that he says needs irony, a vivid mental picture, a sense of audience and cost, and a strong title. He sorts movies by story type rather than genre, into ten categories such as Monster in the House, Golden Fleece and Dude with a Problem, with examples from Jaws to Die Hard. The best-known part is his beat sheet, which breaks a script into fifteen beats, along with the Board for mapping 40 scenes and rules for repairing a stalled script. The approach has been widely adopted in the film industry, though critics have called it formulaic and sexist.

It appears among the books SOSV general partner Bill Liao named in a book talk.