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adamskiboy528491's review against another edition
5.0
"First of all, you write a screenplay without conflict or crisis, you'll bore your audience to tears. Secondly, 'nothing happens in the world'? Are you out of your f--king mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every f--king day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save somebody else. Every f--king day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches a mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life. And why the f--k are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it! I don't have any bloody use for it!" — McKee, “Adaptation.”
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting is a 1999 book by Robert McKee about the elements at work in stories. Primarily concerned with film and television (McKee was a story analyst for United Artists and NBC back in the 80s), the text claims to apply to all storytelling mediums, such as stage plays and novels. Story borrows heavily from older texts, most specifically Aristotle's Poetics; McKee notes this, but often suggests the older work is essential if a proper understanding of narrative techniques is desired. Rather than defining story structure through rigid paradigms or formulas, Story has a very flexible framework with plenty of deep philosophy into what goes behind storytelling.
To limit the limitless possibilities of a story, you first need creative limitations to act as guard rails, so you don't fall off the road to your best possible story. They are made up of...
Placement on the Story Structure Spectrum: Is the story archetypal/realistic, minimalist, absurdist, or a combination?
Setting: Where does the story occur? When does it take place? For how long? What's the inherent level of conflict?
Genre: What is the story's focus? What are the medium and the limits of that medium? Is there a combination of genres?
Characters: What are my characters like on the surface? What will they do under pressure to get what they want? As McKee writes, "Likability is no guarantee of audience involvement; it's merely an aspect of characterisation" , whilst sometimes "the audience's emotional involvement is held by the glue of empathy."
Value Charge: The lifeblood of a story, as changes in values (life to death or death to life, hope to despair, love to hate, etc.) create the very substances from which we shape pleasurable or painful experiences. What is at stake in my story? How can I express what is at stake in my story? How can I fairly show all sides of the value?
A pattern emerges when you look at how value charges change within stories, resulting in the following five parts...
The Inciting Incident: The protagonist's life is more or less in the balance until something happens to throw a value charge in his/her life out of balance, either positive or negative. This first turning point sends the character on a quest to obtain an object of desire to restore the balance of life. They may have a conscious desire, or they might also have a contradictory unconscious desire.
Rising Conflict: The character will take a small, conservative step based on their experience of life, only to find that it won't work. Taking a risk, they take a more extensive action. It may work for the time being and bring the value back to the positive, but that brings about repercussions and new situations that force the character to take larger and more significant actions.
Crisis: Once the character has exhausted all of his/her options, they're left with one final method to achieve their object of desire to restore the balance of life. This action takes the character to the climax. A crisis can be placed anywhere in the story. When placed within the climax, one final action solves the story. When placed before the climax, it fills the final Act or final Sequence with climatic action. When placed at the very beginning, you get an entire story of relentless pursuit of the object of desire, typical of action films.
Climax: The most meaningful event of the story, expressing the controlling value with one final action. The climax can result in an idealistic ending, ending on the positive and celebrating the good in life. The climax can result in a downbeat ending, ending on the negative and reminding us of the horrors and perils of life. The climax can also end on two opposite charges, creative and Ironic Ending, which can be mostly good or bad.
Resolution: The after-effects of the story, which can be used to clear up any remaining loose ends.
The rest of the book goes into detail about the designing philosophies of each of these parts, how to use them, how to avoid pitfalls and other problems, and more.
The "Controlling Idea" is the story's main lesson, illustrated through how the different scenes play it straight, why it doesn't, why both sides are wrong, and who is worse than all sides combined. Discussed in the epilogue how writers who understand the principles of a story should not worry about how they write but continue doing what they've been doing with more excellent skill and insight.
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting is a 1999 book by Robert McKee about the elements at work in stories. Primarily concerned with film and television (McKee was a story analyst for United Artists and NBC back in the 80s), the text claims to apply to all storytelling mediums, such as stage plays and novels. Story borrows heavily from older texts, most specifically Aristotle's Poetics; McKee notes this, but often suggests the older work is essential if a proper understanding of narrative techniques is desired. Rather than defining story structure through rigid paradigms or formulas, Story has a very flexible framework with plenty of deep philosophy into what goes behind storytelling.
To limit the limitless possibilities of a story, you first need creative limitations to act as guard rails, so you don't fall off the road to your best possible story. They are made up of...
Placement on the Story Structure Spectrum: Is the story archetypal/realistic, minimalist, absurdist, or a combination?
Setting: Where does the story occur? When does it take place? For how long? What's the inherent level of conflict?
Genre: What is the story's focus? What are the medium and the limits of that medium? Is there a combination of genres?
Characters: What are my characters like on the surface? What will they do under pressure to get what they want? As McKee writes, "Likability is no guarantee of audience involvement; it's merely an aspect of characterisation" , whilst sometimes "the audience's emotional involvement is held by the glue of empathy."
Value Charge: The lifeblood of a story, as changes in values (life to death or death to life, hope to despair, love to hate, etc.) create the very substances from which we shape pleasurable or painful experiences. What is at stake in my story? How can I express what is at stake in my story? How can I fairly show all sides of the value?
A pattern emerges when you look at how value charges change within stories, resulting in the following five parts...
The Inciting Incident: The protagonist's life is more or less in the balance until something happens to throw a value charge in his/her life out of balance, either positive or negative. This first turning point sends the character on a quest to obtain an object of desire to restore the balance of life. They may have a conscious desire, or they might also have a contradictory unconscious desire.
Rising Conflict: The character will take a small, conservative step based on their experience of life, only to find that it won't work. Taking a risk, they take a more extensive action. It may work for the time being and bring the value back to the positive, but that brings about repercussions and new situations that force the character to take larger and more significant actions.
Crisis: Once the character has exhausted all of his/her options, they're left with one final method to achieve their object of desire to restore the balance of life. This action takes the character to the climax. A crisis can be placed anywhere in the story. When placed within the climax, one final action solves the story. When placed before the climax, it fills the final Act or final Sequence with climatic action. When placed at the very beginning, you get an entire story of relentless pursuit of the object of desire, typical of action films.
Climax: The most meaningful event of the story, expressing the controlling value with one final action. The climax can result in an idealistic ending, ending on the positive and celebrating the good in life. The climax can result in a downbeat ending, ending on the negative and reminding us of the horrors and perils of life. The climax can also end on two opposite charges, creative and Ironic Ending, which can be mostly good or bad.
Resolution: The after-effects of the story, which can be used to clear up any remaining loose ends.
The rest of the book goes into detail about the designing philosophies of each of these parts, how to use them, how to avoid pitfalls and other problems, and more.
The "Controlling Idea" is the story's main lesson, illustrated through how the different scenes play it straight, why it doesn't, why both sides are wrong, and who is worse than all sides combined. Discussed in the epilogue how writers who understand the principles of a story should not worry about how they write but continue doing what they've been doing with more excellent skill and insight.
laurenstrick's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.5
Anyone anyone telling any type of story can learn from this!
ladyk23's review against another edition
3.0
It’s not an exaggeration to say it took me two years to read this book. I added it to my ‘currently reading’ list on November 9th 2019 and I finished it in September this year. Now, I hope it goes without saying that I was not constantly reading this every day of those almost two years, but it’s also fair to say that when I did pick it up in those intervening years, it was a real slog to get through.
In part that's because of the subject matter. You do really want to take in what McKee is teaching you about the craft of screenwriting, but he really doesn't make it easy for you to do that.
There’s no synopsis for this as it’s a book that basically teaches you the dos and don’ts of writing a screenplay. And I can definitely see lots of merits with this book, so I’m in no way saying it’s bad or not to read it. Especially if you have an interest in screenwriting. But it is quite outdated in both its approach, and in what it has to say on the subject too.
Some of the recommendations contained within its pages are still relevant and pretty solid advice, but a lot of it goes into too much detail, is overly wordy, and if I am honest, as a woman, I found the authors decision to use “He/Him” pronouns whenever he was talking about “the writer” really sexist. It made it that much harder for me to relate to being the person who might be submitting said screenplay because I am not a “he/him”. How difficult would it have been to just write “they”? And how much more inclusive to your audience Mr McKee?
Around a year after I was kindly given this book by my brother (I am grateful – it was a thoughtful gift), I was gifted another writing tome, ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. I didn’t want to start that one until I finished this book however, but now I am really keen to compare the two.
I suspect as ‘On Writing’ is more of a memoir that I will prefer that anyway. And as a fan of Mr King’s work I will be interested to find out more about him personally too. But I think I will especially prefer his book, over a book that seems to think the only writers in this world are men. *eyeroll*
It’s absolutely fascinating to me that both people I’ve heard say wonderful things about this book are men. And it also makes me wonder if other women/non-binary people who have read this (if there are any) have also struggled with it on the simple basis of the decision to use only masculine pronouns throughout (unless McKee is specifically talking about a woman in a scene that is).
It’s a shame as I think otherwise I’d have absorbed this book like a sponge, but instead I just found it seemed more like it was trying to mansplain to me, and rather archaic.
In part that's because of the subject matter. You do really want to take in what McKee is teaching you about the craft of screenwriting, but he really doesn't make it easy for you to do that.
There’s no synopsis for this as it’s a book that basically teaches you the dos and don’ts of writing a screenplay. And I can definitely see lots of merits with this book, so I’m in no way saying it’s bad or not to read it. Especially if you have an interest in screenwriting. But it is quite outdated in both its approach, and in what it has to say on the subject too.
Some of the recommendations contained within its pages are still relevant and pretty solid advice, but a lot of it goes into too much detail, is overly wordy, and if I am honest, as a woman, I found the authors decision to use “He/Him” pronouns whenever he was talking about “the writer” really sexist. It made it that much harder for me to relate to being the person who might be submitting said screenplay because I am not a “he/him”. How difficult would it have been to just write “they”? And how much more inclusive to your audience Mr McKee?
Around a year after I was kindly given this book by my brother (I am grateful – it was a thoughtful gift), I was gifted another writing tome, ‘On Writing’ by Stephen King. I didn’t want to start that one until I finished this book however, but now I am really keen to compare the two.
I suspect as ‘On Writing’ is more of a memoir that I will prefer that anyway. And as a fan of Mr King’s work I will be interested to find out more about him personally too. But I think I will especially prefer his book, over a book that seems to think the only writers in this world are men. *eyeroll*
It’s absolutely fascinating to me that both people I’ve heard say wonderful things about this book are men. And it also makes me wonder if other women/non-binary people who have read this (if there are any) have also struggled with it on the simple basis of the decision to use only masculine pronouns throughout (unless McKee is specifically talking about a woman in a scene that is).
It’s a shame as I think otherwise I’d have absorbed this book like a sponge, but instead I just found it seemed more like it was trying to mansplain to me, and rather archaic.
mrswythe89's review against another edition
3.0
This was OK lor. Oddly enough for a book that goes on about picking the best scenes to include in your movie and cutting out the crap to get to the PURE MATTER OF STORY, it was kind of repetitive! And tended to make big claims about HUMANITY and the NATURE OF STORY that made me roll my eyes. The writing was so Hollywood lah. Still, it was useful to bone up on all this Inciting Incident jargon and whatnot. I am trying to improve my plotting/outlining skills and it was useful to read McKee's conception of storytelling. It might have been even more useful if I had recognised any of the films he dissected!
qkjgrubb's review against another edition
5.0
An absolute must read for creative writers! One of my very favorite resources for story tellers.
rdmathison's review against another edition
5.0
When the art of storytelling is discussed, few names shine as brightly as Robert McKee. For anyone familiar with the movie Adaptation, it’s almost surreal to dive into Story and recognize the very tenets Brian Cox's character—a portrayal of McKee himself—passionately expounds to Nicholas Cage's fictionalized version of Charlie Kaufman. But this is not just a cinematic gem—it is a veritable bible for storytellers.
McKee's profound understanding of story structure and character development is on full display here. The book is not just a guide but an expedition into the heart and soul of what makes stories resonate with us. From the intricate details of crafting a compelling protagonist to the broad strokes of ensuring an engaging narrative, McKee leaves no stone unturned. Highly recommended for aspiring storytellers.
McKee's profound understanding of story structure and character development is on full display here. The book is not just a guide but an expedition into the heart and soul of what makes stories resonate with us. From the intricate details of crafting a compelling protagonist to the broad strokes of ensuring an engaging narrative, McKee leaves no stone unturned. Highly recommended for aspiring storytellers.
beecycling's review against another edition
5.0
Amazing book with so much to teach all writers of fiction, not only screenwriters.
alex_buurman's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Incredibly good book that gave me an entirely different view on storytelling and the process of writing. I highly recommend the book to every writer, whether you write for the screen, the stage or the page. Or any other form of storytelling. I do think some things McKee writes should be taken as a suggestion, not an absolute truth, even though he presents them as such.