After the introduction of Save the Cat, in which Blake Snyder tips us off about the importance of an early scene that will build empathy for our main character, no matter how anti-hero-ish he or she may be, the first chapter asks the deceptively simple question, "What is it?"
What is it that will invite me into a movie theatre, to the rental store or kiosk, to a listing on television or Hulu? Even if I'm not spending any hard-earned cash on the unit of entertainment, what will entice me to spend my time, which is scarce, with a set of characters? What is there about this story that leaps off a page and into my imagination. What will snag my interest? What will make me care?
Here's the real kicker. How is it possible to distill all the delicious stuff--images, sounds, scraps of dialog--swirling in a writer's mind into one solid sentence?
Loglines. Deceptively simple. Good thing Snyder gives us some benchmarks.
