10 Archetypal Film Stories That Sell: Part 5

“The ten genre’s that Blake Snyder identified in the 'Save the Cat' books . . .These are my single favorite tool for screenwriters, and I strongly recommend writers know these types, and seek to write squarely within one of them.” Erik Bork: Screenwriter “Band of Brothers.”

As we noted in Parts 1 through 4, as far as the studios are concerned, they seem to have dropped the word "original" from their vocabulary. You can plainly see by the numbers of prequels, sequels, remakes, reboots, novel and comic book adaptations, that studio films are risk-averse.

For those who still want to try selling a screenplay to the studios (and have a good shot at independent sales, too), here are the next two sub-genres, of archetypal film stories identified in Snyder’s Save the Cat.

According to research by Bork, the trend since 2012 has been that the studios are only buying original spec scripts in these (and Snyder's other 8) genres.

9.Whydunnit

Snyder’s Whydunnit storyline is about creating a hero who will peel the layers of the onion back on a mystery, often a crime, to reveal the evil, or dark flaws that motivate the antagonist to commit the crime, or to amass power, or perpetrate their dark actions against society.

Let’s talk about Silence of the Lambs; Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) is one of the best and the brightest students at the FBI training academy. She is assigned to work with Hannibal Lechter (Anthony Hopkins) a genius-level psychiatrist, murderer and cannibal who is thought to have special insight into the psychology of Buffalo Bill, a serial killer who skins his female victims.

Lechter sends Starling to investigate a former patient of his who may be connected to the case. She finds a human head with a sphinx moth stuck in it’s throat. Hannibal continues to offer Starling obscure clues, with the quid pro quo that she tell him about the murder of her father when she was ten years old.

Using Lechter’s expert profiling of the killer and his notes on the case files, Starling realizes the killer she's after, Buffalo Bill, knew his first victim personally. She flies to the victim’s hometown where she discovers Buffalo Bill was a tailor and conjectures that the serial killer is making a “suit” out of the skins. Starling determines that the serial killer is disturbed man who requested but was denied a sex change.

The “why” now falls into place and all clues point to this would be transsexual named John Gumb. Starling and the FBI track Gumb to his underground basement where Gumb/Buffalo Bill holds a naked female victim at the bottom of a well.  Starling closes in on Gumb, who has her in his cross-hairs and pulls the trigger, just as she turns and unloads her service revolver into the killer.

Other examples in the Whydunnit genre can work a bit differently. Instead of revealing the villian's deep dark human secret at the end of the story, many Whydunnits reveal the secret to the audience first, then to the hero at the end.

Some examples of other films that fit into this sub-genre include;

Zero Dark Thirty, Fargo, Mystic River, Chinatown, The Long Goodbye, Body Heat, Blue Velvet, The French Connection, LA Confidential, The Sixth Sense, and Minority Report.

10. Buddy Love

While virtually all films have a relationship subplot or a love story,  Snyder points out that in this archetypal storyline the love or friendship issue is the crux of the story.  “Will they get along? “ is the question that story addresses.

Let’s take a look at Lethal Weapon, a police drama that pairs up two LA detectives that would rather not be paired up. Martin Riggs (played by Mel Gibson) a detective who recently lost his wife in a car crash an appears to be suicidal, gets partnered up with a sensible police veteran Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover).

Murtaugh is close to retirement and has a decidedly uneasy relationship with the erratic Riggs. The partners are sent to investigate the murder of a banker’s daughter which leads them to a deadly ring of former soldiers-turned heroin smugglers.

When members of this ring find out they’re being investigated by Riggs and Murtaugh, they turn their focus on trying to kill them. The mismatched partners learn to work together and overcome their differences in order to take down the heroin smuggling ring.

As in this example, the “Buddy Love” relationship is often a pairing of opposites.  In 48 Hours, for example it’s a redneck cop (Nick Nolte) paired with a black jailbird (Eddie Murphy). In As Good As It Gets, a crotchety, bigoted, author (Jack Nicholson) falls in love with his opposite, an empathic, good natured waitress (Helen Hunt).   

As with all the other genres, many variations are possible including these examples;

The Producers, Pretty Woman, True Lies, You've Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, Gone With the Wind, Lolita, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, Harold and Maud, and The Notebook.

You'll have to create original characters, story-lines, subplots and plot twists, but the these 10 sub-genres will guide you in a more commercial direction, and increase your odds of selling an original screenplay.

David Silverman, LMFT, treats anxiety and depression, especially in highly sensitive individuals in his LA practice. Having experienced the rejection, stress, creative blocks, paralyzing perfectionism, and career reversals over a 25 year career as a Film/TV writer, he’s uniquely suited to work with gifted, creative, and sensitive clients experiencing anxiety, depression, and addiction. David received training at Stanford and Antioch, is fully EMDR certified, and works with programs treating Victims of Crime and Problem Gamblers. Visit www.DavidSilvermanLMFT.com.