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.
Conversation
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. mrm.ua/uploads/assets
1
1
2
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.
1
6
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.
2
3
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).
Quote Tweet
Replying to @vgr
More of a Save the Cat kinda listicles guy? Maybe a Christopher Vogler mythological approach resonates more?
(I k-holed on this a few years ago and came away with no point of view other than names to drop)
2
2
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.
1
2
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.
3
3
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)
3
1
6
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.
3
8
Replying to
I found Dramatica to be a useful and psychologically rich model of storytelling. Helped me a lot when stuck or when it felt like something was missing. There's an intro comic: dramatica.com/resources/asse
1
3
Replying to
Hmm that comic is pretty cool. I’d heard of the software but have never tried it.
Replying to
the Dramatica theory that underpins the software is where the gold is at. like the difference between mbti underlying jungian theory and the dated mbti test. more updated Dramatica based software (+ updates to the theory) happening at narrativefirst.com by
1
3



