I am really looking forward to my weekend seminar in Vancouver in a couple of weeks. We’ve had a lot of interest on that event and also a bunch of questions. So on behalf of the fabulous folks at Biz Books who are organizing my appearance, allow me tell you about it. It also gives me the chance to elaborate on what a Save the Cat! seminar is all about — and how it differs from our workshop.

First of all, every STC! event is special and inspiring! You walk into any Cat! -a-ganza and I guarantee you will fly out of there bubbling over with new ideas! We specialize in inspiration — and inside knowledge — that’s what makes us different from them others. I love our workshops, but the seminar is a lot more wide-ranging, answers a broader spectrum of questions about the film business — and how to break in to it — and probably has more immediately useful information crammed into it than any two-day talk you’ve ever attended. We also get to spread the word to a lot more people this way. The workshops are limited to 10 people, the seminar is a much bigger event with a lot more participants to interact with.

And for my seminar appearances this year I will be discussing a lot of new information I have not shared before. Not only will I be talking about everything from the first Save the Cat! including how to come up with a movie idea that really works (which is !THE SECRET!) and discuss how to structure any story using the 15 points found in the BS2, and show film clip examples of “Pope in the Pool” and “Laying Pipe” and “Save the Cat!” — which I love — but I will also be giving you a preview of the new book coming out this fall.

What character, for instance, do many “Monster in the House” movies have in common? Well, there is one I discovered that I’ve dubbed “The Half Man.” These are characters who have had an interaction with the monster before and come away damaged in some way — their souls half-taken — because of it. Quint (Robert Shaw) is the “Half Man” in Jaws, Brian Cox, the father of the little girl is the “Half Man” in The Ring and Randy Quaid, whose character was abducted by aliens, is the “Half Man” in Independence Day, and guess what? They all die on page 75 of those scripts.

Why?

I’ll tell you. Plus a lot more stuff that’s a preview of what I anticipate will be the most breakthrough book on story and genre ever.

And my preview of this historic (I’m not kidding!) new book out this fall is just an added bonus.

In two days you learn so much new stuff about movies, about story, and about the patterns you need to be mindful of to make your script resonate, that you will wonder how you ever sat down to write a script before now. I can’t wait to bring this information to my friends in Vancouver. If you want to sell your script in 2007, start here. But pro or amateur, screenwriter, novelist or creative ad exec, you will be getting information you have never heard anywhere else — including how to think of this job in an whole new way.

See you there!