Story Quotes

“Generally, great writers are not eclectic. Each tightly focuses his oeuvre on one idea, a single subject that ignites his passion, a subject he pursues with beautiful variation through a lifetime of work.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Tradicionalmente la humanidad ha buscado la respuesta a la pregunta planteada por Aristóteles en las cuatro sabidurías –la filosofía, las ciencias, la religión, el arte–, tomando de cada una alguna intuición para componer con ellas un significado que se pueda experimentar. Sin embargo, ¿quién que no tenga que aprobar un examen lee hoy a Hegel o a Kant? La ciencia, antiguamente la gran encargada de dar explicaciones, tergiversa la vida con complejidades y perplejidad. ¿Quién es capaz de escuchar sin cinismo a los economistas, a los sociólogos, a los políticos? La religión se ha convertido par muchos en un ritual vacío que enmascara la hipocresía. Al reducirse nuestra fe en las ideologías tradicionales, nos dirigimos hacia la fuente en la que todavía creemos: el arte de contar historias.
El mundo consume hoy películas, novelas, obras de teatro y televisión en tal cantidad y con un apetito tan desmedido, que las artes narrativas se han convertido en la principal fuente de inspiración de la humanidad en su búsqueda del orden en el caos y de la coherencia interna en la vida. Nuestro deseo de historias refleja la profunda necesidad humana por comprender la pauta de la vida, no solamente como ejercicio intelectual, sino dentro de una experiencia muy personal y emotiva. En palabras del dramaturgo Jean Anouilh: «La ficción da forma a la vida».”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Generally, progressions run from the Positive to the Contrary in Act One, to the Contradictory in later acts, and finally to the Negation of the Negation in the last act, either ending tragically or going back to the Positive with a profound difference.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“But I know that if you can't play all the instruments in the orchestra of story, no matter what music may be in your imagination, you're condemned to hum the same old tune.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“What is the worst possible thing that could happen to my protagonist? How could that turn out to be the best possible thing that could happen to him?”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“...story is first, last, and always the experience of aesthetic emotion - the simultaneous encounter of thought and feeling.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules.
Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Un ACONTECIMIENTO NARRATIVO crea un cambio en la situación de vida de un personaje, tiene significado y se expresa y experimenta en términos de VALOR.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“The Law of Diminishing Returns, true in life as well as in story, is this: The more often we experience something, the less effect it has. Emotional experience, in other words, cannot be repeated back-to-back with effect. […] The first time we experience an emotion or sensation it has full effect. If we try repeat this experience immediately, it has half or less than half of its full effect. If we go straight to the same emotion for the third time, it not only doesn’t have the original effect, it delivers the opposite effect”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“The latter are tedious portraits written in reaction against conflict itself. These writers take the Pollyanna view that life would really be nice… if it weren’t for conflict”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Henry James wrote brilliantly about story art in the prefaces to his novels, and once asked: “What, after all, is an event?” An event, he said, could be as little as a woman putting her hand on the table and looking at you “that certain way.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Love relationships are political. An old Gypsy expression goes: “He who confesses first loses.” The first person to say “I love you” has lost because the other, upon hearing it, immediately smiles a knowing smile, realizing that he’s the one loved, so he now controls the relationship.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“What is the “substance” of story?”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“...in truth there’s only one story. In essence we have told one another the same tale, one way or another, since the dawn of humanity, and that story could be usefully called the Quest. All stories take the form of a Quest.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“La ignorancia es una estupidez temporal debida a una falta de información, mientras que la estupidez es decidida, independientemente de cuánta información se transmita.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“La vida es conflicto. Ésa es su naturaleza. El escritor debe decidir dónde y cómo orquestar su lucha.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“INVESTIGACIÓN La clave para ganar esta guerra es la investigación, dedicar tiempo y esfuerzo a adquirir conocimiento. Yo sugiero algunos métodos específicos: la investigación en nuestra memoria, la investigación de la imaginación y la investigación de los hechos. Habitualmente, toda historia necesita utilizar las tres.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“Todo ocurre; todo lo imaginable ocurre. De hecho, también ocurre lo inimaginable.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“«Esto funciona…”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“chutzpah”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Story Event creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value and ACHIEVED THROUGH CONFLICT.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“When society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society. If not, as Yeats warned, "...the centre can not hold.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“When society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a cean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society. If not, as Yeats warned, "...the centre can not hold.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Aristotle wrote The Poetics, the “secrets” of story have been as public as the library down the street. Nothing in the craft of storytelling is abstruse. In fact, at first glance telling story for the screen looks deceptively easy. But moving closer and closer to the center, trying scene by scene to make the story work, the task becomes increasingly difficult, as we realize that on the screen there’s no place to hide.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Cualquier teoría sobre los paradigmas y los modelos infalibles de redacción que sirven para alcanzar el éxito comercial es un disparate.”
― Robert McKee, El guion. Sustancia, estructura, estilo y principios de la escritura de guiones

“Posicionar o público não é algo novo. Shakespeare não chamou sua peça de Hamlet, chamou-a de A Tragédia de Hamlet, Príncipe da Dinamarca. Ele deu a comédias títulos como Muito Barulho Por Nada e A Comédia dos Erros, de modo que, a cada tarde no Teatro Globe, o público elisabetano estava psicologicamente preparado para chorar ou rir.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“O público quer saber como é estar vivo na ponta da faca do agora. O que significa ser um ser humano hoje?”
― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“Do I bludgeon my brains against this wall or do I find some way to get through my days with value?”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“You do not keep the audience’s interest by giving it information, but by withholding information,”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting

“we secretly enjoy rush hour; drive-time is the only time most of us are ever alone.”
― Robert McKee, Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting