Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... by Blake Snyder Page B

desire to do something and be proactive about it throughout. In addition, that hero has a lesson to learn, a change to experience that is the subterranean story, and in truth the real reason for the tale. In most writing classes, you'll hear this described as the “wants and needs” of the hero. A baseball star
wants
to win the big game; what he
needs
is a lesson in teamwork. But to me, it's more than that, and these two types of goals touch on a more important aspect of storytelling: the reason we do this job!
    I prefer to think of “wants and needs” as the tangible and the spiritual . Both the “tangible” (wants) and the “spiritual” (needs) are important and must be shown in your hero's story — and I want to know both, even with the very briefest of pitches. That's because these two very distinct goals work together and have to be tracked throughout. One without the other is an empty experience, and so we must knit hard to weave them together.
    “What is the hero's actual goal?” “What concrete thing is he after?” is usually what I ask when the tangible isn't clear. I cite the Little League trophy Walther Matthau chases in
The Bad News Bears
(1976), the job promotion Mel Gibson seeks in
What Women Want
, the missing soldier Tom Hanks searches for in
Saving Private Ryan
.
    And btw, the hero has to pursue these things with vigor.
    The goal has to be tangible because if you tell me that your hero wants “peace on earth” or “to make the world a better place,” I will ask you: When does he know he can stop? To be a “tangible” goal, it has to be something you can actually quantify, a thing, something we can know for sure when he's won or lost. If that isn't the case, you are blurring the goals.
    Because the point of the story involves more.
    The “spiritual” goal is why we're really going on this trip. Just like in life, you may want all kinds of things — a better job, a bigger house, the right mate, admittance to the cool clubs — but what we're looking for is much deeper. What we seek is a spiritual connection, the sense of something important happening in our lives, the proof that whether we get what we want or not, there is a point to being here. And whether yours is a silly comedy, big action piece, slasher flick, or musical, the invisible underpinning of why we go along on your trip must be known by you and constantly reinforced throughout your story.
    It's all about showing a hero with twin goals — seen and unseen, concrete and invisible, actively sought and conferred.
    Take
Maria Full of Grace
, a wonderful Indie I dissect in my second book, about a pregnant girl in a small South American town who takes on a dangerous mission by becoming a drug mule. Like the hero of the movie I cite at the start of this chapter,
The Wages of Fear
, Maria is stuck in a South American town, facing a lifeless future. Both movies begin their protagonist's journey all the way back behind the eight ball of life. In both cases, the tangible goal of each character is palpable: to earn the money to get out! It's why each decides to risk his or her life.
    Yet beneath the tangible goal that drives the plot is a spiritual one that's the real story. In
Maria Full of Grace
, to change her world, Maria thinks she has to leave it. In fact, she just has to see the world in a different way. By movie's end, the money she risked all to earn has been lost; she's adrift in America, homeless, friendless, back to square one. The difference is: She's proud. And happy! Thetangible goal she thought she really wanted has been replaced by something divine. Love, hope, friendship, gratitude, new ways of thinking — and, yes, grace — are divine. And like the problem that is solved in all good stories, in Maria's case… the solution is the last thing she expected!
    When I ask about the tangible and spiritual goals of your hero, that's what I mean. On the surface, what actual goal is driving your hero? And below the surface, at