Cinematic Story-Patterns and Genres

Blake Snyder’s ‘save the cat’ books have in recent years become compulsory reading for screen dramatists. What Snyder does so well is, in a concise and functional way, breakdown a broad range of films into their essential elements, providing good analysis that identifies recurring and consistent dramatic structures that serve as a glue and toolset for screenwriters.

  

Synder’s observations are astutely focused and the Save the Cat books serve essentially as anthologies of pattern recognition for screenwriters. Yet, there is both a flaw and an opportunistic discovery in the way Snyder identifies and names particular dramatic structures and themes.

Throughout the books Snyder refers to his identified archetypal stories as ‘Genres’ yet what he calls a ‘Genre’ doesn’t fit any traditional or established understanding of what a Genre is. In fact what Snyder calls a genre simply isn’t a genre by anyone else’s definition but his own. It strikes me as odd that it seems Snyder never bothered during his writing process to check what the actual definition of a Genre is. 

Synder names his ‘Genres’ in a set of 10

• Monster in the House
• Golden Fleece
• Out of the bottle
• Dude with a problem
• Rites of passage
• Buddy love
• Whydunit?
• Fool Triumphant
• Institutionalised
• Superhero

If you stopped the average Joe in the street (or the average filmmaker or the average film scholar for that matter) and asked them to name 3 common genres, that’d be highly unlikely to quote back to you ‘Golden Fleece’ or ‘Dude with a  problem’. Science Fiction, Horror, Film Noir might rate highly but ‘Fool Triumphant” is unlikely to be cited by anyone but a Snyder devotee. 

The more widely accepted understanding of Genre is a set of conventions, motifs, styles that are observed to be consistently present across a body of films over time. More specifically genre identifies (and genre films exploit) expected Feeling States on the part of the viewer. Where the viewer may not know what will happen in the course of the film before viewing, they do know how they want the movie to make them Feel, they will chose the movie they watch according to how they want and expect the movie to make them feel.  

Thus rather than identifying the specific of story structures, Genre more commonly identifies conventions and themes that can exist across story structures - Punch Drunk Love and 50 First Dates are both Romantic Comedies. Both will incite the same romantic feelings in the viewer, but the two have very different story structures. 

But even if Snyder is seriously confused about what a Genre is (or at the very least  singing defiantly to his own tune)  is there, none the less, some method in his madness? Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of Snyder’s ‘Save The Cat’ books. His observations are none the less highly useful and keenly accurate despite the nomenclature.  But it begs the question; if what Synder calls a ‘Genre’ is not in fact a Genre, what is it..? What are these structures he is identifying and, similarly, what connection do they have with ‘real’ Genres?

In the context of the idea of Feeling States mentioned above, Snyder’s ‘Genres’ miss almost entirely but what Snyder has identified is a recognition of Story Patterns - clear recurring patterns of narrative and character that exist across genres.

It is the potential relationship between Genre and Story-Pattern that I find so interesting. Two different films may be wholly different Story-Patterns but yet be clearly of the same Genre; same conventions, same feeling states. Similarly two films may be soundly derived from the same archetypal story pattern and yet conform to distinctly different Genre’s - ie the same story pattern may evoke very different feeling states.

Time for examples… And I’ll use Snyder’s own.

Animal House and The Godfather are the same story pattern - what Snyder calls ‘Institutionalised’. The pattern is to represent the institution (a university college in the former, an Italian family in the later) as both unifying and problematic. Films following this pattern challenge a protagonist to either embrace or reject their ‘institution’ and in doing so the film both honours and confronts the nature of the institution itself. 

It seems absurd on first glance but Snyder is dead right; Animal House and The Godfather follow very similar patterns. But, to suggest they are of the same genre is plainly silly. The former is a gross-out comedy, the later a definitive gangster thriller. The feeling states these two films illicit, and the ‘contract’ of expectation  each has with the viewer, are wildly different. Different genre, same story pattern.

 

Conversely we might look at two Arnie movies; Total Recall and Terminator as two films of the same defining genre - Science Fiction. Both these films depict speculative ‘what if’ scenarios played out with futuristic technology and pose powerful philosophical questions for viewers in the here and now where such technologies, though far off, seem none the less plausible and relevant. Yet these two films are, following Snyder’s structures, decidedly different Story-Patterns. Terminator fits his ‘Dude with a problem’ pattern whereby an ordinary woman (Sarah Conner) is thrust into an extraordinary situation with a HUGE problem that only they can solve. Where as Total Recall is what Synder would call a Golden Fleece quest film; the character must embark on a physical journey to find Treasure and Truth and what they discover along the way is Themselves. Here we have two films absolutely and unquestionably consistent in genre (SciFi) and yet built on divergent story patterns with different agendas and origins. 

 

This recognition of the interplay, divergence and relationship between Genre and Story-Pattern opens up a powerful binary toolset for screenwriters and screen-media makers. Both Genre and Story-Pattern are powerful and useful in their own right and in constructing an effective dramatic experience it may be empowering to be cognisant of, recognise and work with both. Arguably being aware of only one is like tryign to run with one leg. But knowing and exploiting both Genre and Story-Pattern provides a far firmer base to run on. Clear use of Genre speaks to audience emotional connection and expectations - the audience contract of feeling states - whilst a carefully chosen Story-Pattern empowers your narrative with mythology and time-proven structures for catharsis.

Snyder may have had a thoroughly mis-guided interpretation of Genre but the Story-Structures he articulated empowers and elevates Genre far beyond itself. Snyder’s Save the Cat books are all the more useful for their misguided use of the word Genre.

Comments

[RobShaver]

Wow, that was enlightening! I've read Save the Cat and was a bit uncomfortable with his use of genre but kind of ignored it. So now I've got two useful categories to classify stories, instead of one. What do you recommend as the definitive source to taxonomize film genre?

Thanks for sharing your insights.

Peace,

Rob:-]

[Mike Jones]

Thanks Rob. Genre can be both a very tangible tool and a highly slippery subject - all at the same time. However ive just written a chapter for a forth-coming book called "Genre is Not a Dirty Word". This is published as part of Lumina (the Australian journal of screen arts and culture). It may be a good place to start as it brings together a range of perspectives on genre form both writers/diretcors and scholars/critics. The book should be out in a few weeks and can be purchased from the AFTRS Website http://aftrs.edu.au/explore/lumina.aspx

Cheers
Mike