I vowed some time ago that I would never ever read Save the Cat. It's nothing personal, it's just that so many of the people I know have become little Save the Cat automatons, refusing to write anything unless it was Blake Snyder approved. That's not really his fault. He became kind of an accidental cult leader, but one who is really nice and right about a lot of stuff.
I just got so sick of hearing about what Save the Cat thinks that I never ever wanted to hear it again.
And that's why his death has dismayed so many. The man had an impact. He changed the way people write. He gave new writers a method that they swear by, to the point where if you give them five minutes of your time they will do their level best to convert you, like the Jehovah's Witnesses of screenwriting.
That's why even though I didn't follow the man's method, or actually know what his method was, I'm still bummed by his early departure. Everybody says he was really nice. And he wrote Stop! or My Mom Will Shoot! and we've all heard of that movie even if we didn't see it. Most writers would take their success and run. He took it back to the ton of baby writers trying to work it all out. I'm still not reading his book, but he was a good dude and he will be missed.
Now we'll see how long it takes for people to turn his writings into a religion.
