Quotes from Robert McKee

A beautifully told story is a symphonic unity in which structure, setting, character, genre, and idea meld seamlessly. To find their harmony, the writer must study the elements of story as if they were instruments of an orchestra—first separately, then in concert.

We often see films with a cast of excellent characters...except one, who's dreadful. We wonder why until we realize that the writer hates this character. He's trivializing and insulting this role at every opportunity. And I'll never understand this. How can a writer hate his own character? It's his baby. How can he hate what he gave life? Embrace all your creations, especially the bad people. They deserve love like everyone else.

We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us

We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality.

A rule says, "You must do it this way." A principle says, "This works … and has through all remembered time." The difference is crucial. Your work needn't be modeled after the "well-made" play; rather, it must be well made within the principles that shape our art. Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

In 388 B.C. Plato urged the city fathers of Athens to exile all poets and storytellers. They are a threat to society

The material of literary talent is words; the material of story talent is life itself.

we secretly enjoy rush hour; drive-time is the only time most of us are ever alone.

How does anyone know from moment to moment what to say or do next until he senses the reaction to what he just did? He doesn't know. Life is always action/reaction. No monologues. No prepared speeches. An improvisation no matter how we mentally rehearse our big moment.

Fact, no matter how minutely observed, is truth with a small "t." Big "T" Truth is located behind, beyond, inside, below the surface of things, holding reality together or tearing it apart, and cannot be directly observed.

The first draft of anything is shit. — ERNEST HEMINGWAY

You might forget the day you saw a dead body in the street, but the death of Hamlet haunts you forever.

of all genres Fantasy is the most rigid and structurally conventional.

At Crisis the protagonist's willpower is most severely tested. As we know from life, decisions are far more difficult to make than actions are to take. We often put off doing something for as long as possible, then as we finally make the decision and step into the action, we're surprised by its relative ease. We're left to wonder why we dreaded doing it until we realize that most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.

You do not keep the audience's interest by giving it information, but by withholding information

An image system is a strategy of motifs, a category of imagery embedded in the film that repeats in sight and sound from beginning to end with persistence and great variation, but with equally great subtlety, as a subliminal communication to increase the depth and complexity of aesthetic emotion.

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.

For while it's true that the unexamined life is not worth living, it's also the case that the unlived life isn't worth examining.

The only way to know the truth is to witness him make choices under pressure to take one action or another in the pursuit of his desire.

Show, don't tell" means respect the intelligence and sensitivity of your audience.

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

A STORY must obey its own internal laws of probability.

Boy-meets-girl has always been an irreducible convention that occurs early in the telling, to be followed by the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of love.

An honest story is at home in one, and only one, place and time.