Blake Snyder

First off, let me thank everyone at Screenwriting Expo for the fantastic job this past weekend.  My speech, “Supercharged,” was just that! A packed-to-capacity crowd was on hand to hear a little bit about my third book in progress, Save the Cat! Strikes Back, including a preview of its final chapter, “Discipline. Focus. And Positive Energy,” which details my turning point as a screenwriter.  I was so pleased with the results of my talk, and even got more ideas to include in the book thanks to your feedback. Mostly it was just great to see so many screenwriters all gathered to improve their stories and careers. Thanks one and all!

As part of my talk, I also revealed my plans to fly to China next week — that’s right, Save the Cat! is going to The Great Wall, thanks to an invitation from the Beijing Film Academy. Seems Cat! has been discovered by filmmakers everywhere and I am so pleased. I will be missing Thanksgiving — again! — but happy to volunteer my time and grateful for the opportunity to spread the word about STC! I hope to be posting my blog from China next week and look forward to the many new friends I will be meeting.

I will be back in time for my talk to Chapman University film students December 4 at 7 pm, and for our final L.A. Beats workshop for the year to be held at the Writer’s Store the weekend of the 6th and 7th. It may be our last class in L.A. for a while, so for all you who are “supercharged” about the opportunities of 2009, let’s get you started right.  

These and other events — including next January’s Screenwriter’s Summit here in North Hollywood – will kick off the best year ever. 2009 promises to include the launching of our online school, the publication of the third Save the Cat! book, our continuing outreach to high school and college students, and the news of, yes! a 14th spec screenplay sale for the Save the Cat! author himself.

Stay tuned; if you email me while I am away I will do my best to get back to you.  If not, I will catch up as soon as I come home on December 1. Thanks for your patience!

I have received a ton of email lately about an important topic: the query letter.

Whether it’s an email query or an actual letter sent via snail mail, should we bother sending them, and what actually do we send when we do? Well, the short answer is “Yes!” you should definitely send these out. But what actually do we put into those communiques to elicit the best possible response?

One of my all-time favorite writers is Kathy Hepinstall, a successful novelist, and now a successful screenwriter with a very bright future. She wrote recently to offer her opinion on the subject:

“I think it’s extremely important how query letters are written. For example, when I was peddling my first novel, I sent around a query letter that began something like this:

Dear ____

I have written a literary novel, about 80,000 words, set in Louisiana in 1941, about a very peculiar bordello, run by men….(blah blah blah)

Not a bad query letter.  I got 10 percent response. Then I really started thinking about query letters.  They are really small pieces of advertising.  As such, they must get the agent’s attention in the first sentence in the most compelling way possible, or you’ve lost them, because literary agents receive buckets full of query letters.

So I rewrote it.  Second query letter began: What happens when a woman finds out her own rapist has been put in charge of her spiritual recovery?

Got triple the response rate from that query letter: 30 percent. From those responses, I sent my manuscript to a very respected agent, who sold my novel in three days. So that’s the advice I’d offer - make the query letter as compelling as you can in the very first sentence.”

Screenwriter Ben Frahm connected with his current representatives through email query; he got about 4 to 5 responses from over 100 he sent. It sounds like a small number, but he had a good hook. As a result of this and a lot of hard work, Ben sold Dr. Sensitive to Universal and Tom Shadyac last year in a spec sale. 

Point is: it works.  But I’d like to hear more tips from writers who’ve sent these email and letter queries out to the Hollywood community — and even agents, managers and producers who’ve received them — to learn what approach works best, and what actual words and sentences get the best results. Please chime in!

Looking forward to my Screenwriting Expo appearance next Friday morning at 11.  It’s called “Supercharged!” and I am supercharging my speech as we speak. Have a great weekend everyone!