Early on in my journey to publication I held to the belief that the art of writing is an endeavor of pure creativity. Come to find out, it’s actually governed by a surprisingly rigid set of “storytelling” rules and tropes.
Oddly enough, one of the most famous of these involves a kitty.
In “Last Bridge to Memphis,” Tom adopts a cute kitty like this one.
If you research how to write a novel or a screenplay, you’ll no doubt encounter the so-called three-act structure and a related system of “beats” required in a story. This is commonly associated with movie plotting, but as I discovered, novels (and their marketability) are also judged by how assiduously an author adheres to these guidelines.
Enter the cat
Perhaps you’ve heard of the notion of “save the cat.” It’s a formula devised some years ago, and about the best I can say for it is, it encourages the opposite of creativity. Conformity would be the correct way to describe what “save the cat” has done to the industry. Once you’re aware of this concept, you won’t be able to miss its placement in just about every movie of recent vintage.
The idea started out simply enough. “Save the cat” refers to injecting into your story early on an action or move by your main character that will immediately endear them to the reader or audience. In other words, make sure your protagonist does something likeable or relatable at the beginning of the film or novel. Like say, saving a cat.
Now, some would argue that a protagonist doesn’t always have to be likeable, and I’m not sure that Tom, the narrator and main character in my story, is particularly likeable–at the beginning, anyway. And yet he tries. He really does.
Taking it literally
If you have the opportunity to read Last Bridge to Memphis, you may get a chuckle, seeing what I do with this popular trope. Tom literally saves a cat. In this case, a kitten. It’s right there at the beginning. Chapter 2, to be exact. Astute readers will note there’s even a dog earlier in this pivotal chapter!
Anyway, here’s the cat scene:
At first, I didn’t see it. Didn’t hear the stirring from within the blue-purple Wisteria hugging the old house. The thing was the size of a half-starved squirrel and it was mewing and dragging its emaciated backbones across my Reeboks.
“Where’s your mommy, little one?” I pulled back the vines expecting to see a litter of kittens. No sign of nest nor mom. An outcast.
I can relate, my friend.
He was an odd sort, in white and black fur, a circle of white for a face, a crescent of black crowning his head, extending like sideburns. Catburns, perhaps.
For a second I smiled, my first of the day. Until the blast of an air horn shattered it. On the boulevard, a cement truck thundered past, rocking my Honda as those squad cars had done. The sound propelled the kitten off the ground, all fours splaying in unison.
This was no place for a stray. I couldn’t leave him here. He’d end up under the wheel of a car. Just like my—
The kitten followed me to the Honda, straining on his hind legs against the door frame. I scooped him up and set him on the floor boards in the back.
I was gonna need some cat food. And a litter box.
Not wanting this scene to be a throwaway, I made sure this isn’t the last you hear of the adorable sideburned kitty. Let’s just say, over the course of the book, the kitty eventually grows to cat-hood, expends one of her nine lives, and even plays a subtly important role in the pivotal showdown at the end of the novel.
So the cat in this case isn’t just a gimmick. Still, it’s my little way of saying, take your acts and your beats and go climb a tree. Figuratively speaking, of course.
Interested in finding out what happens next? Take care of business below.