Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

by Robert McKee

if a story can’t work in ten minutes, how will it work in 110 minutes? It won’t get better when it gets bigger. Everything that’s wrong with it in a ten-minute pitch is ten times worse onscreen. Until a good majority of listeners respond with enthusiasm, there’s no point going forward. “With enthusiasm” doesn’t mean people leap up and kiss you on both cheeks, rather they whisper “Wow” and fall silent. A fine work of art—music, dance, painting, story—has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place. When a story, pitched from a step-outline, is so strong it brings silence—no comments, no criticism, just a look of pleasure—that’s a hell of a thing and time is too precious to waste on a story that hasn’t that power. Now the writer’s ready to move to the next stage—the treatment.