This book, as is clear from the sub-title, is specifically about
screenwriting, but not for the first time I’m struck by the fact that it’s
books about screenwriting that are the most analytical when it comes to
finding out what makes a story tick.
Perhaps it’s simply that on screen, every second has to count – we
see this at its most extreme in animated films such as Chicken Run
where not one moment of time is wasted. And yet, Robert McKee, himself no
slouch in the storytelling department, argues that that the art of
story is in decay as writers no longer learn their craft but rely
entirely on unconscious absorption of story elements, what they call ‘instinct’
but McKee calls ‘habit’, and something he argues is very limiting. As
he sees it, flawed storytelling substitutes spectacle for substance, and
too often that’s what we’re seeing, at the box office and in the
bookstore too.
The story is our most prolific art form; it takes up most of our
waking hours one way or another. Stories are ‘equipment for life’,
according to Kenneth Burke, whom McKee quotes: in other words, they are
about trying to work out how to lead our own lives. Stories may be an
escape but they’re as much an exploration of life too. As McKee puts
it, the art of story is the dominant cultural force in the world, and film
is its dominant medium. Yet the thirst for story is unsatisfied
because writers are no longer learning to write. This book is McKee’s
attempt to redress that balance, and to rescue story from its decline.
McKee’s approach is straightforward. He deals in principles rather
than rules. Principles involve things that work rather than an
insistence on doing things a certain way. He strongly believes that
scripts written with this in mind will be well-made according to the
principles rather than perfectly written according to a set of rules, but
completely unsuccessful.
McKee deals in universal forms rather than paradigms
and foolproof models, arguing that there are many different forms of story
design and that the aim is to excite the audience and ensure the story
lives rather than to make a quick buck at the box office before the film
is consigned to oblivion. And story should be about archetypes, about
universal human experience, rather than about stereotypes. McKee
argues passionately for his art, encouraging thoroughness and respect for
the audience rather than simply trying to second-guess the market.
And to do this he devotes himself to a detailed analysis of story,
in all its component parts. He looks at the elements of story
structure, before moving on to an even more detailed examination of a
story in process. Frequently diagrammatic and packed with examples,
this might at first seem more prescriptive than descriptive, but McKee is
trying to provide a solid framework for the writer to use, over and over
… rather as a musician needs to understand the fundamentals of musical
composition in order to improvise freely. It is an intensive study, but I’ve
no doubt that at the end of it, a reader will be very clear about the
business of story, and, although this is aimed primarily at screenwriters,
anyone who writes stories, fiction or non-fiction would be well advised
to keep this book in their writer’s library and to study it.
