Heroes Save Cats

At the beginning of the film "Our Idiot Brother," we meet Ned at an organic fruit stand. A father is buying veggies there, his daughter in tow. Dad pays for the veggies even though Ned looks like he'd just as soon give them away for free. The daughter grabs a strawberry and eats it. Dad scolds her a little bit, saying they didn't pay for the strawberry. Dad walks away, the girl follows, but Ned calls her back to the vegetable stand and gives her an entire bowl of strawberries for free, a smile across both their faces.

I started paying attention to "Save the Cat" scenes after I read a great craft book of the same name. The book's by Blake Snyder and I recommend it for aspiring screenwriters, movie lovers, or anyone who wants to put a few more tools in the storytelling toolbox.

The crux of the "Save the Cat" scene is basically, have your hero do something great to immediately get the audience on board with them. A good save the cat scene creates an immediate connection with the hero. And in my execution of it, I've found it doesn't necessarily mean the hero has to be a likable person, but a good STC scene builds up some capital--the audience will hang with the hero through a few rough patches if they're on board with a good STC scene.

Think Pulp Fiction, where these guys don't necessarily save any cats, but rather, engage in a funny and unique conversation about hamburgers and France and whatnot. Aren't you sort of on board with these guys before they start blowing people away? Don't they seem fun to hang out with before they pull those guns out of the trunk?

Action movies typically start by putting the hero in an action-packed save the cat scene, where we not only get a dose of the action we bought our ticket for, but it establishes the heroes skills and morals. I think of Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance, popping aspirins after a hangover, talking lotto numbers and smalltalk with the cops in the back of the truck with him, even though he's about to put himself in a life-threatening situation.

It works in books as well. In my novel The Samaritan, I didn't set out to create an STC scene, but I recognized where to start the book by asking one simple question--at what point would a reader instantly connect with my narrator? It was the chapter where he lets the cool girls in the grade school put him through a mean prank because it meant he had their attention.

No matter what the story medium, getting your audience to "go along for the ride" with your protagonist is truly an area where actions speak louder than words. And since most films contain a scene like this, usually in the first ten minutes, you can impress the hell out of your friends by keeping an eye out for it.