Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
 | By Robert Mckee HarperEntertainment, 1997, Hardcover Customer Rating: 176 reviews Recommend |
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Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni.Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.
In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
Writing for the screen is quirky business. A writer must labor meticulously over his or her prose, yet very little of that prose is ever heard by filmgoers. The few words that do reach the audience, in the form of the characters' dialogue, are, according to Robert McKee, best left to last in the writing process. ("As Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, 'When the screenplay has been written and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot.' ") In Story, McKee puts into book form what he has been teaching screenwriters for years in his seminar on story structure, which is considered by many to be a prerequisite to the film biz. (The long list of film and television projects that McKee's students have written, directed, or produced includes Air Force One, The Deer Hunter, E.R., A Fish Called Wanda, Forrest Gump, NYPD Blue, and Sleepless in Seattle.) Legions of writers flock to Hollywood in search of easy money, calculating the best way to get rich quick. This book is not for them. McKee is passionate about the art of screenwriting. "No one needs yet another recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers," he writes. "We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent." Story is a true path to just such a rediscovery. In it, McKee offers so much sound advice, drawing from sources as wide ranging as Aristotle and Casablanca, Stanislavski and Chinatown, that it is impossible not to come away feeling immeasurably better equipped to write a screenplay and infinitely more inspired to write a brilliant one. — Jane Steinberg
Title: Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting
Sales Rank: 3252 in Books
Author: Robert Mckee
Publisher: HarperEntertainment, 1 edition, 1997-12-17, Hardcover, 480 pages, ISBN: 0060391685
Package Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches, 1.6 pounds
- Great book
- I've been to his seminar and this book covers everything he talks about at the seminar in good detail. The seminar is still well worth it as it drives everything home with real world examples.
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- I think it is great
- Can't compare it to other books as I have not read many. I liked 'Save The Cat! a lot - but that is more of an outline to work from. This is the underlying theory.
Should be helpful to writers in any genre.… More reviews
- story
- very good book with very interesting tips even for writers. i learned a lot. thnak you. More reviews
- Essential reading for any writer
- I've read a lot of fiction help books, but most of them are geared at the mechanics and tricks of fiction. None of them, in my opinion, philosophically tackles the concept of story telling and how stories work. Instead, they give tips and techniques like "put in rising conflict" or "make your characters likeable"
In STORY, Rob McKee tells us,… More reviews
- Invaluable Resource
- This is the only book on screenwriting I have read thus far, and, frankly, it would take a lot for me to read another. I have gained invaluable understanding of the screenwriting process with this book. I reference it continuously and am not disappointed. I find McKee's advice to be straight forward, easy to understand, and adapt. More reviews
- The Screenwriter's Bible: A Complete Guide to Writing, Formatting, and Selling Your Script
- Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting
- Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
- The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd Edition
- The Art Of Dramatic Writing: Its Basis in the Creative Interpretation of Human Motives
