Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting *(ePub)
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. Read more
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Why Must Read Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting?
I've read a number of books on screenwriting, and I have mixed feelings about this one. On the positive side, there are quite a few things in there that I found incredibly helpful and insightful. On the negative side though, if there was such a thing as a filler-to-insightful-content ratio, the ratio wouldn't be good. He's really wordy and pompous and you need to read a lot of nonsense to extract the really good bits. Contrast that with, for example, the "Save The Cat" books, which I think are a lot more concise and reader-friendly. It's kind of ironic, when you think about it, because the problem with this book (a book on writing no less) isn't the content or ideas, it's the writing of it. And I've found this in many other books on writing too... why do writers that write these books have such a hard time using some of the very lessons that they are teaching, in their own writing. Dunno. Anyway, useful book, I do recommend it, but it's needlessly wordy and the content is badly diluted.
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