As grandiose as it is polarizing, Robert McKee's Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting is much more than a how-to lesson on screenwriting and although the nuts-and-bolts of the three act structure and dramatic arcs are explained, it's McKee's impassioned plea that writers should learn their craft by seeing story from the inside out that has put Story on the very short list of required reading, not only for any aspiring writer, but for the film industry as a whole.
McKee's argument is an ambitious one that deftly examines the influence that content and form have on each other, how setting and genre effect structure, and how true character is revealed in the choices one makes under pressure, choices that, in the finest writing, come to reveal a change in the character's inner nature over the course of the story.
Drawing on examples across a widespread dramatic spectrum (everything from Greek tragedies to Casablanca to Die Hard), McKee argues that what the novice writer mistakes for craft is simply his unconscious absorption of story elements from everything he's ever encountered -- lots of other movies, books, and television -- which leads to underdeveloped, clichéd stories. A screenwriter's method should be more intrinsic, drawing strength instead from the big-muscle movements like desire, forces of antagonism, turning points, crises and climax -- story seen, as he explains it, from the inside out.
Without craft, McKee asserts, the best a writer can do is snatch the first idea off the top of his head, then sit helpless in front of his own work unable to answer the dreaded question: Is it good? Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting should help writers at any level answer that question for themselves.
McKee's world renowned Story Seminar, which became the basis for this book, has been the world's ultimate writing class for over 50,000 screenwriters, filmmakers, TV writers, novelists, industry executives, actors, producers, directors and playwrights. His former students include 59 Academy Award winners and 170 Emmy Award winners.
A fictionalized version of McKee appeared opposite Nicholas Cage in Adaptation, an Oscar-winning film that was loosely based on Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief.
"This is a terrific book for anyone who is thinking about the elements that make for a good story. McKee speaks largely to screenwriters, but what he has to say about is very relevant for novelists (and certainly to oral storytellers as well). While there are no "rules" for writing, it is essential that writers understand the ways we are hard-wired to find certain patterns moving and exciting. For a writer to ignore such human universals is to close off a powerful storytelling tool."
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Cai (4 out of 5 stars)