STORY.

Substance, structure, style, and the principles of screenwriting Robert McKee,

1998. Leesverslag van Patrick van Es.

Robert McKee,
die de auteur van Story zijt,
uw naam worde geheiligd,
uw soort films kome,
uw boek worde gelezen,
gelijk in het Oude Europa alzo ook in de Verenigde Staten.
Geef ons heden onze dagelijkse les,
en vergeef ons onze blunders,
gelijk ook wij vergeven de scenaristen die blunders maakten.
Verleid ons niet tot arrogantie,
maar verlos ons van de auteursfilm.
Want u staat voor inhoud,
en structuur, en stijl,
en de principes
van het scenarioschrijven.
Amen.

Het epistel voor dit verslag voorgeschreven is het evangelie van McKee, deel 1 t/m 4, de
pocketversie:

---PART 1: THE WRITER AND THE ART OF STORY---

Introduction

Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

Story is about archetypes, not stereotypes.
Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts.
Story is about the realities, not the mysteries of writing.
Story is about mastering the art, not second-guessing the marketplace.
Story is about respect, not disdain, for the audience.
Story is about originality, not duplication.

1. The story problem

THE DECLINE OF THE STORY
Flawed and false storytelling is forced to substitute spectacle for substance, trickery for
truth.
THE LOSS OF CRAFT
This erosion of values has brought with it a corresponding erosion of story.
THE STORY IMPERATIVE
Designing story tests the maturity and insight of the writer, his knowledge of society,
nature, and the human heart.
GOOD STORY WELL TOLD
All that and, as Hallie and Whit Burnett reveal in their excellent little book, a lot of
love.
STORY AND LIFE
Story is metaphor for life.
POWER AND TALENTS
The material of story talent is life itself.
CRAFT MAXIMIZES TALENT
And thats how I got the little nosepickers on the bus this morning.
 ---PART 2: THE ELEMENTS OF STORY---

2. The structure spectrum

THE TERMINOLOGY OF STORY DESIGN
From an instant to eternity, from the intracranial to the intergalactic, the life story of
each and every character offers encyclopedic possibilities. The mark of a master is to
select only a few moments but give us a lifetime.

STRUCTURE is a selection of events from the characters life stories that is composed
into e strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view
of life.
A STORY EVENT creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is
expressed and experienced in terms of value.
STORY VALUES are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from
positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next.
A Story event creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is
expressed and experienced in terms of a value and ACHIEVED THROUGH
CONFLICT.
A SCENE is an action through conflict in more or less continuous time and space
that turns the value-charged condition of a characters life on at least one value
with a degree of perceptible significance. Ideally, every scene is a STORY EVENT.
A BEAT is an exchange of behaviour in action/reaction. Beat by Beat these changing
behaviours shape the turning of a scene.
A SEQUENCE is a series of scenes-generally two to five-that culminates with greater
impact than any previous scene.
An ACT is a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major
reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequence or
scene.
A STORY is a series of acts that build to a last act climax or story climax which
brings about absolute and irreversible change.
THE STORY TRIANGLE
To PLOT means to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story and when
confronted by a dozen branching possibilities tot choose the correct path. Plot is
the writers choice of events and their design in time.
Archplot, Miniplot, Antiplot.
CLASSICAL DESIGN means a story built around an active protagonist who struggles
against primarily external forces of antagonism tot pursue his or her desire,
through continuous time, within a consistent and causally connected fictional
reality, to a closed ending of absolute irreversible change.
FORMAL DIFFERENCES WITHIN THE STORY TRIANGLE
Closed versus open endings
A Story Climax of absolute, irreversible change that answers all questions raised
by the telling and satisfies all audience emotion is a CLOSED ENDING.
A Story Climax that leaves a question or two unanswered and some emotion
unfulfilled is an OPEN ENDING.
External versus Internal Conflict.
The archplot puts emphasis on external conflict.
Single versus Multiple Protagonists
The classically told story usually places a single protagonist at the heart of the
telling.
Active versus Passive Protagonist
An ACTIVE PROTAGONIST, in the pursuit of desire, takes action in direct conflict
with the people an d the world around him.
A PASSIVE PROTAGONIST is outwardly inactive while pursuing desire inwardly, in
conflict with aspects of his or her own nature.
 Linear versus Nonlinear time
A story with or without flashbacks and arranged into a temporal order of events
that the audience can follow is told in LINEAR TIME.
A story that either skips helter-skelter through time or so blurs temporal
continuity that the audience cannot sort out what happens before and after
what is told in NONLINEAR TIME.
Causality versus coincidence
CAUSALITY drives a story in which motivated actions cause effects that in turn
become the causes of yet other effects, thereby interlinking the various levels
of conflict in a chain reaction of episodes to the Story Climax, expressing the
interconnectedness of reality.
COINCIDENCE drives a fictional world in which unmotivated actions trigger
events that do not cause further effects, and therefore fragment the story into
divergent episodes and an open ending, expressing the disconnectedness of
existence.
Consistent versus Inconsistent Realities
CONSISTENT REALITIES are fictional settings that establish modes of interaction
between characters and their world that are kept consistently throughout the
telling to create meaning.
INCONSISTENT REALITIES are settings that mix modes of interaction so that the
storys episodes jump inconsistently from one reality to another tot create a
sense of absurdity.
Change versus stasis
Although nothing changes within the universe of a Nonplot, we gain a sobering
insight and hopefully something changes within us.
THE POLITICS OF STORY DESIGN
The writer must earn his living writing.
The writer must master classical form.
The writer must believe in what he writes.

3. Structure and setting

THE WAR ON CLICH

The writer does not know the world of his story.
SETTING: A storys setting is four-dimensional:
PERIOD is a storys place in time
LOCATION is a storys place in space
DURATION is a storys length in time
LEVEL OF CONFLICT is the storys position on the hierarchy of human struggles.

The relationship between structure and setting

A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability. The event choices of the
writer, therefore, are limited to the possibilities and probabilities within the world he
creates.
THE PRINCIPLE OF CREATIVE LIMITATION
Limitation is vital.
RESEARCH
Memory
Imagination
Fact
CREATIVE CHOICES
CREATIVITY means creative choices of inclusion and exclusion
 4. Structure and genre
THE FILM GENRES
Love Story, Horror film, Modern Epic, Western, War Genre, Maturation Plot, Redemption
Plot, Punitive Plot, Testing Plot, Education Plot, Disillusionment Plot, Biography, Docu-
drama, Mockumentary, Musical, Science Fiction, Sports Genre, Fantasy, Animation, Art
Film.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN STRUCTURE AND GENRE
GENRE CONVENTIONS are specific settings, roles, events, and values that define
individual genres and their subgenres.
MASTERY OF GENRE
To anticipate the anticipations of the audience you must master your genre and its
conventions.
CREATIVE LIMITATIONS
Genre limitations are the rhyme scheme of a storytellers poem.
MIXING GENRES
Given over two dozen principal genres, possibilities fir inventive cross-breeding are
endless.
REINVENTING GENRES
The Western
The Psycho-drama
The Love Story
THE GIFT OF ENDURANCE
Screenwriting is not for sprinters, but for long-distance runners.

5. Structure and character

CHARACTER VERSUS CHARCTERIZATION

TRUE CHARACTER is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure-the
greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the characters
essential nature.
CHARACTER REVELATION
The revelation of deep character in contrast to characterization is fundamental in major
characters.
CHARACTER ARC
Taking the principle further yet: The finest writing not only reveals true character, but
arcs or changes that inner nature, for better or worse, over the course of the telling.
STRUCTURE AND CHARACTER FUNCTIONS
The function of STRUCTURE is to provide progressively building pressures that force
characters into more and more difficult dilemmas where they must make more and
more difficult risk-taking choices and actions, gradually revealing their true
natures, even down to the unconscious self.
The function of CHARACTER is to bring to the story the qualities necessary tot
convincingly act out choices. Put simply, a character must be credible: young
enough or old enough, strong or weak, worldly or nave, educated or ignorant,
generous or selfish, witty or dull, in the right proportions. Each must bring to the
story the combination of qualities that allow an audience to believe that the
character could and would do what he does.
CLIMAX AND CHARACTER
Movies are about their last twenty minutes.
 6. Structure and meaning
AESTHETIC EMOTION
In life, experiences become meaningful with reflection in time. In art, they are
meaningful now, at the instant they happen.
PREMISE
A premise is not precious.
STRUCTURE AS RHETORIC
STORYTELLING is the creative demonstration of truth. A story is the living proof of an
idea, the conversion of idea to action. A storys event structure is the means by which
you first express, then prove your idea without explanation.
CONTROLLING IDEA
A CONTROLLING IDEA may be expressed in a single sentence describing how and why
life undergoes change from one condition of existence at the beginning tot another at the
end.
Meaning and the Creative Process
Your story should surprise you again and again.

Idea versus Counter-Idea

PROGRESSIONS build by moving dynamically between the positive and negative
charges of the values at stake in the story.
DIDACTISM
The trick is not to be a slave to your ideas, but to immerse yourself in life.
IDEALIST, PESSIMIST, IRONIST
Idealistic controlling ideas
Pessimistic controlling ideas
Ironic controlling ideas
o The compulsive pursuit of contemporary values-success, fortune, fame,
sex, power-will destroy you, but if you see this truth in time and throw
away your obsession, you can redeem yourself.
o If you cling to your obsession, your ruthless pursuit will achieve your
desire, then destroy you.
On irony
Ah, life is just like that.
MEANING AND SOCIETY
Once you discover your Controlling Idea, respect it.

---PART 3: THE PRINCIPLES OF STORYDESIGN---

7. The substance of story

THE PROTAGONIST
A PROTAGONIST is a wilful character.
The PROTAGONIST has a conscious desire.
The PROTAGONIST may also have a self-contradictory unconscious desire.
The PROTAGONIST has the capacities to pursue the Object of Desire convincingly.
The PROTAGONIST must have at least a chance tot attain his desire.
The PROTAGONIST has the will and the capacity to pursue the object of his
conscious and/or unconscious desire to the end of the line, to the human limit
established by setting and genre.
A STORY must build to a final action beyond which the audience cannot imagine
another.
The PROTAGONIST must be empathetic; he may or may not be sympathetic.
THE AUDIENCE BOND
The audiences emotional involvement is held by the glue of empathy.
THE FIRST STEP
In story, we concentrate on that moment, and only on that moment, in which a character
takes action expecting a useful reaction from his world, but instead the effect of his
action is to provoke forces of antagonism. The world reacts differently than expected,
more powerfully than expected, or both.
THE WORLD OF CHARACTER
The inner circle or level is his own self and conflicts arising from the elements of his
nature: mind, body, emotion.
THE THREE LEVELS OF CONFLICT
Extra-personal
Personal
Inner
THE GAP
STORY is born in that place where the subjective and objective realms touch.
ON RISK
The measure of the value of a characters desire is in direct proportion to the risk hes
willing to take to achieve it; the greater the value, the greater the risk.
THE GAP IN PROGRESSION
On one side is the world as we believe it to be, on the other is reality as it actually is.
WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
The only reliable source of emotional truth is yourself.
CREATING WITHIN THE GAP
Fine writing emphasizes reactions.
THE SUBSTANCE AND ENERGY OF STORY
Every time the gap splits open for character, it opens for audience.

8. The inciting incident

THE WORLD OF THE STORY
Questions we ask of all stories.
AUTHORSHIP
Originality lies in the struggle for authenticity, not eccentricity.
THE INCITING INCIDENT
The INCITING INCIDENT radically upsets the balance of forces in the protagonists
life.
The protagonist must react to the inciting incident.
THE SPINE OF THE STORY
The spine is the deep desire in and effort by the protagonist to restore the balance of life.
THE QUEST
For better or for worse, an event throws a characters life out of balance, arousing in him
the conscious and/or unconscious desire for that which he feels will restore balance,
launching him on a Quest for his Object of Desire against forces of antagonism (inner,
personal, extra-personal). He may or may not achieve it. This is story in a nutshell.
DESIGN OF THE INCITING INCIDENT
The inciting incident of the Central Plot must happen onscreen-not in the backstory, not
between scenes offscreen.
First, when the audience experiences an Inciting Incident, the films Major Dramatic
Question, a variation on How will this turn out? is provoked to mind.
 Second, witnessing the Inciting Incident projects an image of the Obligatory Scene
into the audiences imagination.
LOCATING THE INCITING INCIDENT
Bring in the Central Plots Inciting Incident as soon as possible but not until the moment
is ripe.
THE QUALITY OF THE INCITING INCIDENT
What, after all, is an event?
CREATING THE INCITING INCIDENT
What is the worst thing that could happen to my protagonist? How could that turn out to
be the best possible thing that could happen to him?

9. Act design
PROGESSIVE COMPLICATIONS
Points of no return
A story must not retreat tot actions of lesser quality or magnitude, but
move progressively forward to a final action beyond which the audience
cannot imagine another.
The law of conflict
The music of story is conflict.
Complication versus Complexity
Complexity: conflict at all three levels.
Act Design
First, the multiplication of act climaxes invites clichs.
Second, the ,multiplication of acts reduces the impact of climaxes and results
in repetitiousness.
Design Variations
First, stories vary according to the number of major reversals in the telling.
Second, the shapes of stories vary according to the placement of the Inciting
Incident.
False ending
For most films, however, the False Ending is inappropriate.
Act Rhythm
Repetitiousness is the enemy of rhythm.
Subplots and Multiple Plots
A subplot may be used to contradict the Controlling Idea of the Central Plot
and thus enrich the film with irony.
Subplot may be used to resonate the Controlling Idea of the Central Plot and
enrich the film with variations on a theme.
When the Central Plots Inciting Incident must be delayed, a setup subplot
may be needed to open the storytelling.
A subplot may be used to complicate the Central Plot.

10. Scene design

TURNING POINTS
The effects of Turning Points are fourfold: surprise, increased curiosity, insight, and new
direction.
The Question of Self-Expression
Our most powerful means of self-expression is the unique way we turn the
story.
SETUPS/PAYOFFS
Turning Points fail when we overprepare the obvious and underprepare the unusual.
EMOTIONAL TRANSITIONS
As audience, we experience an emotion when the telling takes us through a transition of
values.
THE NATURE OF CHOICE
The choice between good and evil or between right and wrong is no choice at all.

11. Scene analysis

TEXT AND SUBTEXT
If the scene is about what its about, youre in deep shit.
THE TECHINIQUE OF SCENE ANALYSES
Step one: Define Conflict
Step Two: Note Opening Value
Step Three: Break the Scene into Beats
Step four: Note Closing Value an Compare with Opening Value
Step Five: Survey Beats and Locate Turning Point

12. Composition
UNITY AND VARIETY
Within this unity, we must induce as much variety as possible.
PACING
Its just like sex.
RHYTHM AND TEMPO
Rhythm is set by the length of the scenes. Tempo is the level of activity within a scene
via dialogue, action, or a combination.
EXPRESSING PROGRESSION
There a four primary techniques.
SOCIAL PROGRESSION
Widen the impact of character actions into society
PERSONAL PROGRESSION
Drive actions deeply into the intimate relationships and inner lives of the characters.
SYMBOLIC ASCENSION
Build the symbolic charge of the storys imagery from the particular to the universal, the
specific to the archetypal.
IRONIC ASCENSION
Turn progression on irony.
He gets at last what hes always wanted but too late to have it.
Hes pushed further and further from his goal only to discover that in fact hes been
led right to it.
He throws away what he later finds is indispensable to his happiness.
To reach a goal he unwittingly takes the precise steps to lead him away.
The action he takes to destroy something becomes exactly what is needed to be
destroyed by it.
He comes into possession of something hes certain will make him miserable, does
everything possible to get rid of it only to discover its the gift of happiness.
PRINCIPLE OF TRANSITION
The third element is the hinge for a transition; something held in common by two scenes
or counterpointed between them.
 13. Crisis, climax, resolution
CRISIS
This dilemma confronts the protagonist who, when face-to-face with the most powerful
and focused forces of antagonism in his life, must make a decision to take one action or
another in a last effort to achieve his Object of Desire.
CRISIS WITHIN THE CLIMAX
For a Climax built around a Turning Point is the satisfying of all.

Placement of the Crisis

The location of the Crisis is determined by the length of the climactic action.

Design of the Crisis

The Crisis must be a deliberately static moment.
CLIMAX
MEANING: A revolution in values from positive to negative or negative to positive with or
without irony-a value swing at maximum charge thats absolute and irreversible. The
meaning of that change moves the heart of the audience.
RESOLUTION
A film needs what the theatre calls a slow curtain.

---PART 4: THE WRITER AT WORK---

14. The principle of antagonism

THE PRINCIPLE OF ANTAGONISM

A protagonist and his story can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally
compelling as the forces of antagonism make them.
TAKING STORY AND CHARACTER TO THE END OF THE LINE
A story that progresses to the limit of human experience in depth and breath of conflict
must move through a pattern that includes the Contrary, the Contradictory, and the
Negation of the Negation.

15. Exposition
SHOW, DONT TELL
Dramatize exposition.
THE USE OF BACKSTORY
Powerful revelations come from the BACKSTORY-previous significant events in the lives
of the characters that the writer can reveal at critical moments to create Turning Points.
FLASHBACKS
First, dramatize flashbacks.
Second, do not bring in a flashback until you have created in the audience the need
and desire to know.
DREAM SEQUENCES
The Dream Sequence is exposition in a ball gown.
MONTAGE
Like the Dream Sequence, the montage is an effort to make undramatized exposition less
boring by keeping the audiences eye busy.
VOICE-OVER NARRATION
Voice-over narration is yet another way to divulge exposition.
 16. Problems and solutions
THE PROBLEM OF INTEREST
Curiosity is the intellectual need to answer questions and close open patterns. Concern,
on the other hand, is the emotional need for the positive values of life: strength, survival,
love, truth, courage.

Mystery, Suspense, Dramatic Irony

In Mystery the audience knows less than the characters.
In Suspense the audience and characters know the same information.
In Dramatic Irony the audience knows more than the characters.
THE PROBLEM OF SURPRISE
There are two kinds of surprise: cheap and true.
THE PROBLEM OF COINCIDENCE
First, bring coincidence in early to allow time to build meaning out of it.
Second, never use coincidence to turn an ending. This is deus e machina, the
writers greatest sin.
THE PROBLEM OF COMEDY
Comedy points out that in the best of circumstances human beings find some way to
screw up.
Comic Design
First, the audience is made to feel that the comic protagonist suffered
enormously.
Second, that he never despairs, never loses hope.
THE PROBLEM OF POINT OF VIEW
For the screenwriter Point of View has two meanings.
First, we occasionally call for POV shots.
The second meaning, however, applies to the writers vision.
POV WITHIN A SCENE
One, put Jack exclusively at the centre of your imagination.
Two, do the same with Tony.
Three, alternate between Jacks POV and Tonys POV.
Four, take a natural POV.
POV WITHIN THE STORY
The more time spent with a character, the more opportunity to witness his choices. The
result is more empathy and emotional involvement between audience and character.
THE PROBLEM OF ADAPTATION
The purer the novel, the purer the play, the worse the film.
THE PROBLEM OF MELODRAMA
Melodrama is not the result of overexpression, but of undermotivation; not writing to big,
but writing with too little desire.
THE PROBLEM OF HOLES
If you can forge a link between illogical events and close the hole, do so.

17. Character
THE MIND WORM
The writer is a Mind Worm.
Characters are not human beings
TRUE CHARACTER can only be expressed through choice in dilemma. How the
person chooses to act under pressure is who he is-the greater the pressure, the
truer and deeper the choice to character.
 Character Dimension
Dimension means contradiction: either within deep character (guilt-ridden
ambition) or between characterization and deep character (a charming thief).
Cast Design
In essence, the protagonist creates the rest of the cast.
The Comic Character
The comic character is marked by a blind obsession.
Three tips on writing characters for the screen
Leave room for the actor
Fall in love with all your characters
Character is self-knowledge

18. The text

DIALOGUE
Dialogue is not conversation.
Short Speeches
The essence of screen dialogue is what was known in Classical Greek theatre as
stikomythia-the rapid exchange of short speeches.
The Suspense Sentence
The periodic sentence is the suspense sentence.
The Silent Screenplay
Never write a line of dialogue when you can create a visual expression.
DESCRIPTION
Ninety percent of all verbal expression has no filmic equivalent.
Putting a film in the readers head
The first step is to recognize exactly what it is we describe-the sensation of
looking at the screen.
Then describe only what is photographic.
Vivid action in the now
The ontology of the screen is an absolute present tense in constant vivid
movement.
IMAGE SYSTEMS
Pity the poor screenwriter, for he cannot be a poet is not in fact true.
The screenwriter a poet
An IMAGE SYSTEM is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the
film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and
great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication tot
increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion.
TITLES
A films title is the marketing centrepiece that positions the audience, preparing it for
the experience ahead.

19. A Writers Method

WRITING FROM THE OUTSIDE IN
PASS ON IT.
WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT
These writers typically spend the first four of those six months writing on stacks of three-
by-five cards.
Step-Outline
For example: He enters expecting to find her at home, but instead discovers her note
saying shes left for good.
Treatment
To treat the step-outline, the writer expands each scene from its one or two sentences
to a paragraph or more double-spaced, present-tense, moment by moment description.
SCREENPLAY
Writing a screenplay from a thorough treatment is a joy and often runs at a clip of five to
ten pages per day.

Fade out
Write every day, line by line, page by page, hour by hour. Keep Story at hand. Use what
you learn from it as a guide, until command of its principles becomes as natural as the
talent you were born with.

We eindigen met Psalm 151:

STO-ORY i-is hei-ilig

Ja, n is heer
Ro-o-o-o-bert McKee
In wie wij zijn
Tot eer van be-etere films
A-a-mn