World, Writing, Wealth discussion

Robert McKee introduces his book and makes a number of points with regard to the topics. This thread is to discuss his opening remarks, and ensure we have clarified precisely what he is writing about and his approach to the topic.

Note that during discussions, it is entirely ok for a member to contribute a snippet of their story to demonstrate a point, or to ask a question.

The intent of these threads are to illuminate the principles and techniques that underlie effective story-telling in ways that help people to internalize the skills and bring them into their storytelling.

We're workshopping.

Target start date is June the 10th 2018.

Ordered my copy through interlibrary loan.

Excellent Alex.

Hi all, one of the things I'm going to do with this read is build another project.

What I'm looking at is creating a three book mini-series built within the Metaframe War universe with the following features.

[1] Set during the second world war.
[2] Fully conclusive, i.e. all the main threads opened in the story are fully closed by the end.
[3] Books are novella sized. Approx 50K words, approx 125 pages.
[4] Define the work within a Scrivener project during the read and use the read to 'work,' the story content.

What I recommend for all participants is to bring a project to the read. I believe strongly that you'll get the most out of the process by working with a story during it.

McKee begins with several aphorisms, which I think make a reasonable start point for this read, and understanding McKee's approach to the subject.

[1] Story is about principles, not rules ... Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

[2] Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

[3] Story is about archetypes, not stereotypes.

[4] Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts.

[5] Story is about the realities, not the mysteries of writing.

[6] Story is about mastering the art, not second-guessing the marketplace.

[7] Story is about respect, not disdain, for the audience.

[8] Story is about originality, not duplication

What is your experience with these concepts within your own writing?

Since I read this book several times before I wrote my first book, I've taken a lot of these views on (for better or worse).

My attitude is that there are forms to master, that story is form of communication and that awareness of the archetypes, genre conventions, tropes, elements and most importantly the audience is essential to being an effective communicator - an effective story teller.

There are no shortcuts, embarking on the project of writing a novel is a marathon, not a sprint, (even though 'sprints,' may be involved as part of the process). Hard work, blood, sweat, and tears, will be part of the journey, and hopefully joy as well, otherwise - why do it?

I'm not a fan of mystery, and I seek to establish clarity of understanding of all elements, parts, and characteristics of the creative and professional aspects of writing and marketing stories.

At the end of the day, if you can bring an authentic voice to your writing, then it seems to me that originality will follow.

I have the book in hand, but haven't broken it open yet. This week sometime.

Cool Alex, I've started putting together a new project in Scrivener that I will work on during this read.

I always recommend bringing your current projects to these reads.

I am not sure how useful those points are Graeme. in detail:
[1] A principle is a fundamental truth or a general law (according to my Concise Oxford) whereas rule is a principle to which action conforms. Um, if you follow the Oxford dictionary definitions, this is not a lot of help!
[2] What is an "eternal form"? A formula is a set form. Umm . . .?
[3] Agreed, because a larger Oxford dictionary classifies stereotype as an unjustified rigid form. (The original meaning is not applicable.)
The rest, to my view are somewhat platitudinal. Of course one should try to be original - or should one? Look at the best sellers. How original are they? Most of them actually follow a reasonably well-trodden path, with some cosmetic changes. What does everyone else think?

They can be seen as platitudes, or "motherhood," statements and provide a preliminary view.

Primarily, I think they tell us where McKee is coming from.

The meat of this book is still in front of us.

McKee, finishes the first part of his book by outlining what he sees as the core "Story Problem," of our time.

We crave stories, and they are an essential part of our life, but we are swamped with narratives that lack quality, that are hollow of meaning, that substitute spectacle for substance and trickery for truth.

The Art of the Story is dying - what to do?

This thread remains open to discuss anything from "Part 1," of the book, which is largely introduction and the outline of current problems of "Story," in our civilization.

I'll be working Part 2 "The Elements of Story," of the book on our companion thread at https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

For me an important quote from the 1st chapter of this book is as follows (my bold).

"Flawed and false storytelling is forced to substitute spectacle for substance, trickery for truth. Weak stories, desperate to hold audience attention, degenerate into multimillion-dollar razzle-dazzle demo reels. In Hollywood imagery becomes more and more extravagant, in Europe more and more decorative. The behavior of actors becomes more and more histrionic, more and more lewd, more and more violent. Music and sound effects become increasingly tumultuous. The total effect transudes into the grotesque. A culture cannot evolve without honest, powerful storytelling. When society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. ..."

[1] Is this a valid criticism of story telling today? If so, why? If not, why not?

[2] McKee positions storytelling as central to the human condition, and the quality of story telling as reflective of the health of the broader community. Is this correct? If so, why? If not, why not?

[3] As authors, do you see your work as participating in the cultural life of society?

[4] What would be examples of the substitution of spectacle for substance, and trickery for truth? (noting that truth here is a 'human truth,' i.e. the sort of thing that knocks your socks off when you experience it).

Spectacle and trickery - um, richly there in "The Epic of Gilgamesh", which is probably the nearest we have to an immortal story, and is richly there in "The Odyssey", where Odysseus has to live up to his name as a "Man of Wrath". Now obviously it depends on how well it is done, but I do not want to downplay either. Norse mythology fits in well too, and what would Loki be without trickery?

I am unsure abut truth too - many good stories work by analogy. We don't really see Odysseus as having truly experienced those adventures, we don't, or shouldn't admire what he does, but the story is powerful. I agree that weak hollowed-out pseudo-stories are bad, but isn't that simply based writing, rather than an inherently bad story? I am unsure on this one. (As an aside, as you may be starting to gather, whenever someone asserts something, you will notice I try to question it, to convince myself whether it is true or false. Nullius in Verba!)

I am not sure about [2]. It reflects the health of the story tellers, but I am not convinced it reflects the health of the wider community. If it does, then "serious literature" is getting very introspective, and I refuse to believe that Finnegan's Wake reflects anything at all abut the wider community. Curious to know what others think.

As for me as a writer, I do try to put messages there but with the number of readers I have, I am not thinking that I am influencing very many, so "participating in the cultural life of society" is probably outside my readership range :-(

Hi Ian, it's the 'truth,' of authentic emotional responses driven by a deep engagement with the characters and the specific narrative, as opposed to the "TRUTH."

If you get my drift.

I think that 'Finnegan's Wake,' is too esoteric to reach a wide audience and hence unreflective of the culture at large.

I've read your writing, it's definitely approachable by a mass audience without being dumbed down to the lowest common denominator. Which is what I aim for too.

For me, mass culture is primarily - 'the culture,' regardless of what the elites specifically value or aim for.

Where the 'mass,' goes, society follows.

As it turns out, I've read the Iliad, but not the Odyssey, and I still haven't read the epic of Gilgamesh, but I'm aware of its existence and basic concept. Too many books, too little time...

The Epic of Gilgamesh is a story written on clay tablets in a sort of skeleton form. I think the idea was that a reader would elaborate and expand it for the audience. I have read a literal translation from the tablets (or at least it claimed to be,) In the version i read, it has by far the best ending any story will ever have. The last part of the story is where Gilgamesh seeks eternal life, he finds a piece of magic, but in a moment of carelessness, and the message is he didn't really value it enough, he loses it and it is unrecoverable. So he is teased about this. Too put the whole thing in perspective, the story is when people are starting to build "cities", but many of them are still hunter gatherers, and it involves the great flood, which, if you assume that was the flooding of the Black Sea, puts the original story at about 10,000 BC, and would be carried down by word of mouth. Anyway, the ending: Gilgamesh is teased about having he has lost his chance at immortality, and he responds:

"But I am immortal. My name will live forever because I have invented writing."

Beat that for an ending!

LOL. Excellent.

Thanks Regina, much appreciated. It's a great contribution.

Graeme wrote: "McKee begins with several aphorisms, which I think make a reasonable start point for this read...
[1] Story is about principles, not rules..."

This is a meaningless distinction; principles, rules and the form are all mental structures and all in the same ball park. I would vary my answer if the form meant the final form of a specific written piece – clearly from the context it doesn’t but follow this divergent thought. What shape do you, the artist, want your completed piece to have? If you know, fine. Fine applies whether you are imitating well known fictional structures, shakings things up a bit, or just branching out on a frolic of your own. The art is the shape you show – I think of this as sculpture where you might say, show a finely worked piece where the nose and arms have been hacked off, or where ambiguous elements give the viewer pause for thought.
For the sake of argument I can inhabit 'the unschooled writer breaking the rules' and take a dip into my first long work, A Guide to First Contact. The point of this was to take in: riddles in the phenomena, evolution and man’s ascent (in which evolution gets matched off against by-design) [Cradle Hood]. It looks at secret contact with aliens, technological conspiracy and uncertainty theory [Peer Pressure] and moves on to the consequences of contact with aliens and the reality of everlasting life [Rapture], with more than a peek at what comes after human.
The rule is trim off surplus story. It should give both the well-read and the jaundiced plenty to digest, and as a take-away, a sense of unease. The work is, however, a challenge the for the casual reader.
By Design :-)

Graeme wrote: "McKee begins with several aphorisms, which I think make a reasonable start point for this read, and understanding McKee's approach to the subject.

[2] Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.


A form is a form regardless of how it is followed. If it leads to formulaic writing and that’s where you want to go, fine. Question: are you creating a narrative that imitates, or does it live and breathe to its own rhythms?
The original literary bun-fight between Plato and Aristotle involved Form and Formulaic writing (no novels then) but not versus each other. Plato’s immutable forms were the basis of a perfect state – any type of artistic endeavour was suspect (for the same reasons as the Soviets who based their playbook on Plato’s critique). Aristotle’s argument in favour of poetry and plays was that their art could be improved. He offered remedies to correct defective writing. Some of these still have relevance, even to formulaic fiction.
My spectrum goes from formulaic to realistic. With the former, you can take short cuts and the reader understands. Expectations build from the predictable, but do it to excess and it ends up a mess. I tend to wrestle with the latter; how much should I say? A big task is deciding if characters are consistent to themselves, or to the plot. Realism can be tough. Back to plots; a plot is a dead end; if I’m going to stick my protagonists there – a cul-de-plot to go all neologistic – I’ve to make sure that that’s a place they would naturally gravitate to… or rethink character / plot.

I believe characters should be fit for purpose from the beginning, and that means they don't suddenly change dramatically (although of course they can evolve, particularly if they change allegiance or something like that but the plot should give reasons for the change), and in particular, if you give them physical limitations at the start, they stay through the story. A guy with a prosthetic leg shouldn't suddenly become a kick-boxer. To avoid less dramatic inconsistencies, I find it preferable to plan the basic plot before I even think about details of the characters.

Hi Regina, for me talent for story telling comes down to a capacity to think of/imagine/emote the characters and narrative.

Not everyone has that, and the capacity varies from person to person, and I'm not convinced that it's static, i.e. I think it can be honed with practice, i.e. a use it or lose it feature.

The other side of the coin is Craft, which goes to the capacity to express a story in a way that is engaging for readers, and can be instructed/taught/learned by anyone willing to put in the work.

Hi All, I put up multiple threads to allow for concurrent conversations as I expect people will move through the book at different paces.

The next thread is https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

R. wrote: "I just finished rereading Part One,

Here's my latest video on the topic..."

Hi Regina

My circumstances have afforded me the opportunity to reflect on the condition of man and his direction of travel. Skipping through my back story, I've studied current writing theory in conjunction with the respective views of Plato and Aristotle. Key issues for the practising author are innovation, command of language, grasp of relevant literature, writing traps, and voice.
My tip is: much can be conveyed by bearing in mind that man is both pragmatist and opportunist.

Literary talent >><< Story telling talent
The former is intelligent use of a professional editor.
The latter starts with: have you anything to say?