"I love writers" - Blake Snyder
Blake Snyder, enthusiastic screen writing guru, loving teacher and practical structure genius, died yesterday.
His seminars and his most popular book "Save the Cat" (and the only one I've read, by the way) are said to have inspired and enlightened both budding writers and established professionals. Personally, I learnt a great deal from his approach and found his words extremely useful: an excellent starting point and a light to follow when lost in the dark corridors of your own writing.
Snyder had a blind faith in writers, and an unnatural respect for an audience that, as we all should know, expects to enjoy the film they go to see. He wasn't as popular as Michael Jackson, however, so media coverage have been somewhat moderate. And so I felt I needed to do my bit by posting something here and updating wikipedia (and sobbing a little when no one was looking...). After all, he was in fact "a lot of people's Michael Jackson", and his work means a lot to quite a few of us.
I feel the best way of explaining who he was is to leave a few relevant lines directly extracted from the messages on his blog after his passing.
"We'll never know how many bad movies he saved us from"
"I am starting production this month on my feature film that wouldn’t be happening if not for Blake’s book"
"This is very sad. Blake was one of the good guys. Shared his knowledge with everyone and anyone. He’d actually email you back if you had a question"
"Blake was a great writing teacher and the first person who really got me to understand structure, but more importantly he was a really nice man and seemed genuinely interested in his students"
"Blake, you saved more than just a cat my friend. I will truly miss you"
"This reminds me that there is no tomorrow. Only today. Make the most of it"
Which takes me to the end of this post. Whatever and however small it may be, let our work on stories be the best ongoing tribute to his life we could possibly offer.
Damn, Blake, I miss you too, and I never even met you.
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