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

by Robert McKee

Story is about principles, not rules. A rule says, “You must do it this way.” A principle says, “This works … and has through all remembered time.” The difference is crucial.

Story urges the creation of works that will excite audiences on the six continents and live in revival for decades.

We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent. No matter where a film is made—Hollywood, Paris, Hong Kong—if it’s of archetypal quality, it triggers a global and perpetual chain reaction of pleasure that carries it from cinema to cinema, generation to generation.

Stereotypical stories stay at home, archetypal stories travel.

First, the discovery of a world we do not know.

Second, once inside this alien world, we find ourselves. Deep within these characters and their conflicts we discover our own humanity.

We do not wish to escape life but to find life, to use our minds in fresh, experimental ways, to flex our emotions, to enjoy, to learn, to add depth to our days.

If a screenwriter fails to move us with the purity of a dramatized scene, he cannot, like a novelist in authorial voice, or the playwright in soliloquy, hide behind his words.

When talented people write badly it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express.

You must shape your story in a way that both expresses your vision and satisfies the audience’s desires.

Content (setting, characters, ideas) and form (selection and arrangement of events) require, inspire, and mutually influence one another.

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We shape the telling to fit the substance, rework the substance to support the design.

A mature artist never calls attention to himself, and a wise artist never does anything merely because it breaks convention.