by Erik Bork | Oct 29, 2016
One of the most frequent and important types of notes I give on scripts is to question whether something seems REAL. Another way of saying it is this: “Does the situation and what people are doing and saying seem BELIEVABLE? Would this happen in the real world?...
by Erik Bork | Apr 17, 2016
What makes an audience root for two people to be together? The Save the Cat books have a name for the type of story where the primary external conflict is that two people who are “perfect counterparts” have something big in the way of “living happily ever after.” It’s...
by Erik Bork | Oct 31, 2015
I’ve consistently found that most of the notes I have on any script I read — and certainly all of the most important ones — are notes I would have had on the basic idea behind the story, if it had been pitched to me before it was written. And so, the #1 piece of...
by Erik Bork | Jun 27, 2015
The main character in a movie generally has a big problem that it takes the whole movie to solve. And this is what a professional reader of a script is generally focused on understanding first. What is that problem? Why will it be so difficult to solve that it takes...
by Erik Bork | Jun 6, 2015
If I could sum up the number one most common overall weakness in screenplays I read, it would be that the main character does not have a big enough overall problem, and a high enough level of difficulty and complications as they try to solve it. When you get the...
by Erik Bork | May 5, 2015
My UCLA Extension class on “Finding the Story in True Stories” is now taking students for Summer Quarter starting July 1. It’s an all online class that can be taken from anywhere. The 15 slots have historically filled up very quickly, so if...
by Erik Bork | Jun 23, 2014
With the rise of somewhat unlikable main characters in cable dramas like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and True Detective, anti-heroes are everywhere. We don’t need to “sympathize” or even “root for” the main character(s) in a story anymore, it seems — as long as...
by Erik Bork | Feb 6, 2014
SCRIPT MAGAZINE has published my online article where I break down the SAVE THE CAT “genres”, as I see them, of most of the big movies vying for Awards this season. Check it out!
by Erik Bork | Jul 31, 2013
On Wednesday August 7 at 1 PM PDT, I’ll be teaching my fifth webinar for The Writers Store — on one of my favorite topics: Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat “genres.” Blake believed pretty much every great and successful movie falls into one...
by Erik Bork | Jun 15, 2013
SCRIPT Magazine has published my article analyzing the common elements of screenplays that sold in 2012. One of the key things that I noticed was the pretty obvious SAVE THE CAT genres of each. Here’s how the article begins: We screenwriters want to...
