performing arts

This book is by far the best book on narrative writing that I've ever read, and is also more useful to me than the many writing courses I've taken over the years. I'm a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop (MFA) and also took many writing courses as an undergraduate -- this single book beats them all put together.

It's truly extraordinary how McKee is able to distill universal forms and principles from a huge variety of narrative writing (primarily screenplays, of course, but his insight extends beyond screenplays). One would think such an approach would be limiting and reductive, but the reverse is true: by helping the reader understand why and how effective narratives work, and how a writer should approach the creation of a screenplay, a universe of possibilities emerges.

The main problem with writing workshops is that they focus on a student's work and what's wrong with it -- it's a very negative approach, the opposite of a support group, that rarely results in genuine improvement. As McKee notes, a lot of writers go through endless revision cycles in the hope of salvaging what's good in their work. But the problem with most narrative writing seems to be in its elemental structure -- the story and its progression -- which occurs on a "pre-writing" level. Once a story is committed to novel or screenplay form, the battle to forge this elemental structure is almost lost. McKee teaches the principles that writers should follow in this critical pre-writing stage as they develop the progression of their narrative.

There's a lot of baloney being spewed in academia and elsewhere that creative writing can't be taught and that plot is relatively unimportant. McKee shows the lie in all this -- that narrative writing *can* be taught and that well-developed plot is critical. Save your money and time, skip the MFA programs, read this book and dedicate yourself to learning from it.

I bought this book at the suggestion of a friend who recently signed a six figure book contract. He told me he's taken McKee's workshop three times. I've made my living as a full time writer for national publications, and now write part time. This book is a world treasure. McKee should get a combination Nobel and Pulitzer-- a Nobel, because he has elucidated a science of story creation. A Pulitzer, because it is a literary work with the potential to influence so many. It not only serves as a tremendous help to the story teller, but I detect in it deep insights into the human condition that could be used as the foundations for new models of psychology and philosophy. This man is deep, yet so plain speaking, the book reads very smoothly. My copy is marked up with tons of notes, underlines and asterisks in the columns. It's one book I know I will be referring back to again and again. I bought it with the hopes of moving past a plateau I had reached on a novel I started 10 years ago. As I read on, page after page, chapter after chapter I kept saying to myself "Omigod," as his observations and rules led me to new insights into how to improve my story, my characters, my scenes, settings, and so much more. By the time I'd finished the book I knew I could finish my story. I don't have the story climax yet, but I know, that by using his techniques, it will come to me. And I know that my story, which already passed his most important test, is 1000% better.

I have now ploughed through seven different books on screenwriting. Robert McKee's "Story" distinguishes itself as the best in one significant way: It provides real insight into the strucure of story-telling, the techniques that make stories work and the traps that many writers fall into. This is not a paint-by-numbers approach. This book challenges you to think about the ways that people really behave, and how that can be translated in a meaningful way to the silver screen.

If you are going to read just one book on screenwriting, this is the one. I am not sure I will mention Robert McKee in my acceptance speech when I receive my Academy Award for best screenplay , but I might send him a case of champagne ;-)