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

by Robert McKee

doubt appearances and seek the opposite of the obvious. Don’t skim the surface, taking things at face value. Rather, peel back the skin of life to find the hidden, the unexpected, the seemingly inappropriate—in other words, the truth. And you will find your truth in the gap. Remember, you are the God of your universe. You know your characters, their minds, bodies, emotions, relationships, world. Once you’ve created an honest moment from one point of view, you move around your universe, even into the inanimate, looking for another point of view so you can invade that, create an unexpected reaction, and splinter open the cleft between expectation and result. Having done this, you then go back into the mind of the first character, and find your way to a new emotional truth by asking again: “If I were this character under these new circumstances, what would I do?” Finding your way to that reaction and action, you then step right out again,