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There is something exhausting/deadening about Robert McKee’s storytelling material. It discourages rather than encourages me. He clearly knows his stuff, and it’s all solidly thought through, but I can’t shake the sense that he’s missing the essence of what stories are to me.
One sign is that I have near zero attraction towards 90% of the stories he cites as exemplars, and there’s very low overlap between what he likes/recommends and what I consume. Both screen and page. Not sure what to make of this.
I’ve only watched 11 of the 33 movies he cites a lot in Story (which I read long ago), and none of them is anywhere near my favorites list. https://mrm.ua/uploads/assets/files/RobertMcKeeMovies_en.pdf …
By contrast, I really enjoyed Steve Kaplan’s comedy book, and took his seminar (never took McKee’s much more famous one, though I might try to post-Covid) and more importantly his core example, Groundhog Day, is one of my favorites too.
His new book Dialogue was better for me than Story. Got a lot more out of it and took extensive notes. Still, it was a slog. He’s apparently working in a third book on character.
Yes, I definitely liked Saved by the Cat. I have Vogler’s book, but didn’t get into it (I like the idea of Hero’s Journey sub field of narrative theory, but not the practice of it).https://twitter.com/shloky/status/1346601951933427712 …
I have a shelf full of books on storytelling, and I tend to use them more as a reference source for my thinking/writing about temporality than my own fiction attempts. So I guess I have a double-dip interest in the topic.
What I’d really like in terms of learning fiction writing? Make a list of my own top 50 books/movies/tv shows, then get a teacher who also likes them. But it’s rare for scholars of story to share my tastes. It’s more likely they’d want to murder me for liking the wrong things.
Lol adaptation is one of my favorite movies but 8ve only watched it once and missed the connection in the McKee-satire scenes (I think I didn’t know who McKee was when I watched the movie)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGaRKNY1Efk …
As I think I’ve mentioned before Keith Johnstone/Impro is much easier for me to vibe with, but it is unfortunately a much less complete model of storytelling.
McKee also reminds me of the fictional J. Evans Pritchard whose intro to a book on poetry Robin Williams’ character has his students rip out. That’s probably too harsh a comparison. I’m inclined to be generous re: McKee. I assume there’s more there than I’m able to get out of it.
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