Anyone else here using Robert McKee's method?

SwallowFeather · Feb 8, 2015

I'm sure at least some of you have heard of the book Story by Robert McKee. For those who haven't, it's really a book about how to write a screenplay--with emphasis on how to put together a powerful plot--but he claims a lot of it applies to novels too.

... and I think it bears some discussion. I've used his method to some extent for two novels now & am trying to use it more heavily on the third that I'm writing now. But as I reread the book I keep having moments of "OK, yes, but what do you mean by that, dude?" or "Does this part really apply to novels?"

Anybody else read the book? Like it/don't like it? Have thoughts on how much of it applies to writing a novel? Want to share about how you've applied it?

GingerGunlock · Feb 8, 2015

I read the book once, a couple of years ago, and I actually have it home from the library again now in preparation to re-read. It's funny, I don't remember a whole lot of the methods, but I remember enjoying the book (especially when I'd actually heard of/seen the movies he's talking about; as a for-instance, I hadn't seen Chinatown yet when I read it).

Neegh · Feb 8, 2015

As with all writing books you can find a number of ways to apply his “method" though, much depends on the actual novel you are writing at the time. I prefer books on structures because, they focus on patterns stories can take.

jjdebenedictis · Feb 9, 2015

I like that book a lot and have read it twice.

Understanding turning points turned out to be very useful to me -- the idea that every scene is built around a moment of change that no one can take back. I always think about scenes that way now; the scene has to build toward something that forces the plot forward.

I don't try to bounce back and forth between positive and negative turning points the way he suggests, but it often works out that way. I also think it's useful to try to expand the stakes rather than just raising them, i.e. going from a threat that affects just the protagonist to one that affects their loved ones or even their world.

A lot of the stuff he says strikes me as perceptive, but not necessarily practical or concrete, and I have talked to other writers who considered that book a lot of waffle. Personally, I got more inspiration and learned more from his book than I have from other popular writing books, like On Writing by Stephen King or Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.

It depends on whether it 'clicks' with you, I guess.

BethS · Feb 9, 2015

SwallowFeather said:
But as I reread the book I keep having moments of "OK, yes, but what do you mean by that, dude?" or "Does this part really apply to novels?"

For those of us who haven't read it, it might be helpful if you offered some specifics. What is his method? Which parts of it do you find confusing?

SwallowFeather · Feb 9, 2015

BethS said:
For those of us who haven't read it, it might be helpful if you offered some specifics. What is his method? Which parts of it do you find confusing?

Goodness, there's a lot to it, I don't think it would be fruitful for me to try & explain the whole thing here.

One thing I'm trying to apply now that I've always wished I could get him to clarify is the "Controlling Idea." Instead of a theme ("love") you have a Controlling Idea: what are you really saying about love? Maybe it's "Love triumphs when partners take off their masks and are real with each other." You get the Controlling Idea by asking yourself:

- what "value" (that's the word he uses) is added to my protag's life at the end of the story? (positive or negative)
- what caused the change?

Examples of "values" in the book are justice and injustice (often in crime genre), love and hatred, good and evil. I've always wished, 1) I could see a few more examples, and 2) I could ask him how closely this has to be tied to the protagonist. (And 3) I could run some ideas by him of course!)

My situation has a protagonist whose primary motivation is to protect others from danger. It's a WWII novel in France & he has Jewish friends he's trying to help. It's a sequel, and I've previous used values like "maturity" in my Controlling Ideas because I was doing more of a coming-of-age thing... but all my characters have come of age now, and we're getting to 1942 when things are life-and-death so now it's really about "is everyone going to be OK?" and they may not be.

And I'm puzzling over the Controlling Idea. Is it about good and evil? "Goodness prevails over evil when...." The kink in all this is that according to my outlined plot, the protagonist's efforts actually fail, and his Jewish friend is saved in the nick of time through his own efforts. Should the "value" that's added to my protag's life be, instead, what he learned from the failure?

Still puzzling over this.

Jamesaritchie · Feb 9, 2015

I couldn't write a screenplay, or a novel, his way if someone offered me ten million dollars, but that's just me. I've read a bunch of books on screenwriting, and, to me, his seems the most formulaic, and the least fun. For others, it may work well, but not for me.

morngnstar · Feb 9, 2015

I read it. I didn't find in it much of a single systematic method. More like a bunch of tips, some of which I thought were good, some not. For example, his suggestion to phrase your theme as a sentence helped clarify mine. The idea of always playing against expectation seemed like a better idea for movies than books, but I keep it in mind as something to consider. And on the other end of the spectrum, I thought his defense of playing to the formulas of your genre was just a terrible idea.

I think there's also a lot in there that's good but hardly original, such as how to divide your story into beginning, middle, and end.

BethS · Feb 9, 2015

SwallowFeather said:
And I'm puzzling over the Controlling Idea. Is it about good and evil? "Goodness prevails over evil when...." The kink in all this is that according to my outlined plot, the protagonist's efforts actually fail, and his Jewish friend is saved in the nick of time through his own efforts. Should the "value" that's added to my protag's life be, instead, what he learned from the failure?

Wow. OK, well...my instinct is to say that you don't have to know any of that before you write the story. Just write it, see how it turns out, and then you may be able to answer that question.

IOW, don't turn yourself inside-out over this. Trust everything to come clear on its own.

morngnstar · Feb 9, 2015

SwallowFeather said:
Examples of "values" in the book are justice and injustice (often in crime genre), love and hatred, good and evil. I've always wished, 1) I could see a few more examples, and 2) I could ask him how closely this has to be tied to the protagonist. (And 3) I could run some ideas by him of course!)

I found the examples he made up often quite shallow. Examples he gave from hit films were sometimes good. That supports the idea that his method is not actually so good for generating ideas, but maybe is good for getting a grip on ideas you already have, and expanding them.

A different book that has great examples is The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers by John Gardner.

And I'm puzzling over the Controlling Idea. Is it about good and evil? "Goodness prevails over evil when...." The kink in all this is that according to my outlined plot, the protagonist's efforts actually fail, and his Jewish friend is saved in the nick of time through his own efforts. Should the "value" that's added to my protag's life be, instead, what he learned from the failure?

So how about, "Helping people works when you let them help you help them?" Maybe the protagonist tries to take care of everything himself, and fails, but succeeds when he works together with his friend.

Okay, that didn't really have a value. Maybe it's trust or humility. When you trust others to do their part, you can do more than you can alone. Or, when you have the humility to admit what's beyond your abilities, you can succeed by asking for help.

morngnstar · Feb 9, 2015

BethS said:
Wow. OK, well...my instinct is to say that you don't have to know any of that before you write the story. Just write it, see how it turns out, and then you may be able to answer that question.

IOW, don't turn yourself inside-out over this. Trust everything to come clear on its own.

I tend to agree. Work out the basic story based on intuition. You seem to have done fine that way already. McKee's methods may be helpful for filling in the gaps or fixing something that you feel is broken.

SwallowFeather · Feb 9, 2015

Oh yeah, McKee himself doesn't seem to think you need to work out the Controlling Idea ahead of time. But since the ending of the novel came to me last week (I'd been planning to figure it out as I went along b/c I couldn't put my finger on it yet,) I'm working on theme so as to save myself some time. Like "Oops now I have to cut this whole POV/subplot" kind of time. He thinks your subplots should be somehow connected to your main theme, which I think makes some sense & I'm going to try & see if I can do it this time. I have rather a lot of subplots & I'm seeing if I can work out my theme & use it to see if there's any I should think about cutting.

I may not be able to, but I'm giving it a go.

I like your theme idea, morngstar, but it doesn't jive with the actual circumstances which I hadn't told you... they're not working together. In a nutshell: main character (who starts out as a pacifist) aids & abets the murder of an informer to protect his friend. Friend gets arrested anyway & put on a deportation train to Germany, but leaps from the moving train before it passes the border & survives. (Other characters he got arrested with don't make it, though.) In the end, what I'm really trying to say with the arrest, I think, is kind of a subversion of a disillusionment story: you can become cynical and conclude that violence is the only way out of a situation... but it still might not work.

If I'm being honest, the guy leaps from the train & survives mostly because I don't want to kill him. Because a) this is YA, and b) he has a POV. I am not writing a gas chamber scene, nuh-uh.

I'm just sort of running my mouth at this point, but that's something I enjoy about this forum, so hope that's OK.

morngnstar · Feb 9, 2015

SwallowFeather said:
Oh yeah, McKee himself doesn't seem to think you need to work out the Controlling Idea ahead of time. But since the ending of the novel came to me last week (I'd been planning to figure it out as I went along b/c I couldn't put my finger on it yet,) I'm working on theme so as to save myself some time. Like "Oops now I have to cut this whole POV/subplot" kind of time. He thinks your subplots should be somehow connected to your main theme, which I think makes some sense & I'm going to try & see if I can do it this time. I have rather a lot of subplots & I'm seeing if I can work out my theme & use it to see if there's any I should think about cutting.

You have the opposite problem from me. I didn't have enough subplots. After reading McKee and figuring out a controlling idea, it helped my identify subplots I needed to support it. Either way, I think it's good advice that subplots support the controlling idea, not just beef up the page count.

I like your theme idea, morngstar, but it doesn't jive with the actual circumstances which I hadn't told you... they're not working together. In a nutshell: main character (who starts out as a pacifist) aids & abets the murder of an informer to protect his friend. Friend gets arrested anyway & put on a deportation train to Germany, but leaps from the moving train before it passes the border & survives. (Other characters he got arrested with don't make it, though.) In the end, what I'm really trying to say with the arrest, I think, is kind of a subversion of a disillusionment story: you can become cynical and conclude that violence is the only way out of a situation... but it still might not work.

If I'm being honest, the guy leaps from the train & survives mostly because I don't want to kill him. Because a) this is YA, and b) he has a POV. I am not writing a gas chamber scene, nuh-uh.

So, I kind of anticipated that. The reason you are struggling with a controlling idea is because you aren't willing to commit to one. If your controlling idea is that the MC tries, and fails, but ultimately learns something and succeeds, then your MC has to be proactive in the ending. If your controlling idea is that sometimes, despite your best efforts, you fail, then you have to be true to that and the friend dies. The deus ex machina of him jumping off the train doesn't fit with either controlling idea.

Sometimes your controlling idea will tell you how to do your subplots, sometimes it will tell you you need to change your main plot, even your ending.

SwallowFeather · Feb 9, 2015

jjdebenedictis said:
Understanding turning points turned out to be very useful to me -- the idea that every scene is built around a moment of change that no one can take back. I always think about scenes that way now; the scene has to build toward something that forces the plot forward.

.... I also think it's useful to try to expand the stakes rather than just raising them, i.e. going from a threat that affects just the protagonist to one that affects their loved ones or even their world.

Yes, I think those parts are really useful as well. I just revised my planned Act II based on his advice about progression--I had to calibrate it to be (to be simplistic) scarier than Act I but not as scary as Act III...

I also appreciate that he helped me not be wedded to the 3-act structure. He sees it as a minimum (but warns that the more acts you have, the more you have to top yourself, so watch out.) Because of the historical events I'm using I really have to have 4 acts, and it was helpful to have him saying that's a totally viable option.

SwallowFeather · Feb 9, 2015

morngnstar said:
You have the opposite problem from me. I didn't have enough subplots. After reading McKee and figuring out a controlling idea, it helped my identify subplots I needed to support it. Either way, I think it's good advice that subplots support the controlling idea, not just beef up the page count.

Yeah, I have some true stories I'm working with, and also a pretty big cast of major characters because this is the third book in a series, and that gives me a lot of subplots. Some come from parts of the true story that are not strictly part of my main plot but should ideally be included, some are by-products of weaving true events together into a causal chain, etc. It's darned complicated, but that's why I want to get it as clean as I can ahead of time so I don't have to do a hack-and-slash job on the completed rough draft.

morngnstar said:
So, I kind of anticipated that. The reason you are struggling with a controlling idea is because you aren't willing to commit to one. If your controlling idea is that the MC tries, and fails, but ultimately learns something and succeeds, then your MC has to be proactive in the ending. If your controlling idea is that sometimes, despite your best efforts, you fail, then you have to be true to that and the friend dies. The deus ex machina of him jumping off the train doesn't fit with either controlling idea.

Sometimes your controlling idea will tell you how to do your subplots, sometimes it will tell you you need to change your main plot, even your ending.

Mmmm, I will think on your words, as some character in some book has definitely said sometime. But jumping off the train isn't a deus ex machina within David's (Jewish friend's) story. It's told from his point of view and takes character change & courage. As a matter of fact, he and Julien (main character) have had very similar inner dynamics throughout the plot: they both have people they want to protect, and, driven by fear, they're both desperate to find the magic bullet that will make them absolutely safe. (In Julien's case it's, at first, getting them smuggled to Switzerland, but when that goes wrong it turns into eliminating the informer. David's arc is not fully worked out yet.) To make the leap, David has to accept the very real possibility that he'll die in the attempt (he sees other jumpers shot in the act), rather than hoping that there will be some better way to save himself at the other end (it's still 1942 so it's still possible to think this.)

Jamesaritchie · Feb 10, 2015

morngnstar said:
You have the opposite problem from me. I didn't have enough subplots. After reading McKee and figuring out a controlling idea, it helped my identify subplots I needed to support it. Either way, I think it's good advice that subplots support the controlling idea, not just beef up the page count.

.

I like one subplot that grows out of story, and that supports the idea. But only one. Readers/viewers care about the main story, and a subplot that adds to the story can be essential, but I think it's usually a huge mistake to use more than one.

BethS · Feb 11, 2015

Jamesaritchie said:
I like one subplot that grows out of story, and that supports the idea. But only one. Readers/viewers care about the main story, and a subplot that adds to the story can be essential, but I think it's usually a huge mistake to use more than one.

Depends on the story, surely? And I suppose the personal taste of the reader. I've read many a novel with more than one subplot, and I don't have a problem with them. They can add a lot of interest. Admittedly, there's more room for them in the big, epic-type stories.

PandaMan · Feb 11, 2015

BethS said:
Depends on the story, surely? And I suppose the personal taste of the reader. I've read many a novel with more than one subplot, and I don't have a problem with them. They can add a lot of interest. Admittedly, there's more room for them in the big, epic-type stories.

Yes, generally speaking, the longer the story, the more subplots and greater complexity.

BTW, McKee's book is heavy on the structure and design of screenwriting. It's chock full of good points to keep in mind in regards to general storytelling, but difficult to apply for writers who aren't plotters.

Indeed, I find most "How To Write" type books geared for beginning writers who are plotters, and not for pansers. For many people, writing a story is not like designing a building.

I'm a first time novelist struggling with the structure of my story, so I find it helpful in that regards.

SwallowFeather · Feb 11, 2015

PandaMan said:
BTW, McKee's book is heavy on the structure and design of screenwriting. It's chock full of good points to keep in mind in regards to general storytelling, but difficult to apply for writers who aren't plotters.

Although one or two things he's said have led me to think that he's actually talking about really heavy rewriting half of the time. As in, you may have written it all by the seat of your pants... but then you take it apart completely, work out the structure, and put it back together in a better way. (I have a feeling it's easier with screenplays b/c they're made up only of distinct scenes, are mostly dialog, and are shorter. I could, of course, be completely wrong.)

On subplots, I think it definitely depends on the genre. One of my favorite "for fun" books (which is, I guess, technically a space opera romance/comedy... weird, but yeah) has about four subplots and they all come together with the main plot in the climax, all affecting it in various ways. It's perfect for that particular book.

screenscope · Feb 11, 2015

I disliked the book intensely, probably because it's no different than most other half-decent screenwriting books, yet it's talked about as though it's the holy grail of screenwriting tuition.

It's worth reading among a variety of books as part of your screenwriting education, hard going though it is, but it's too script-specific to be of much use to a novelist (I've written both). McKee's general writing pointers are very general and you can work them out yourself as your personal writing ability develops.

jjdebenedictis · Feb 11, 2015

PandaMan said:
BTW, McKee's book is heavy on the structure and design of screenwriting. It's chock full of good points to keep in mind in regards to general storytelling, but difficult to apply for writers who aren't plotters.

That's a good point; McKee is like the anti-Stephen-King.

King says plotting will "kill the scene dead on the page" and advises you just put characters in a situation and see what they do. McKee, however, says you should work out every beat (action-reaction pairing) of the story before you write a word of that story.

McKee's logic is that we're all resistant to killing our darlings, and it's a lot harder to build an excellent story when you're trying really, really hard to not toss out that scene or character you love. Hence, don't write the scene until you've figured out the story. It's good advice, but yes -- it's advice exclusively for plotters, not intuitive writers.

morngnstar · Feb 11, 2015

jjdebenedictis said:
McKee's logic is that we're all resistant to killing our darlings, and it's a lot harder to build an excellent story when you're trying really, really hard to not toss out that scene or character you love. Hence, don't write the scene until you've figured out the story. It's good advice, but yes -- it's advice exclusively for plotters, not intuitive writers.

That was really script-specific advice. His recommendation is to write a 120-page treatment before you write a line of dialogue. You could pants the treatment, although it might not be McKee's preferred method.

The treatment is a little like a novel, so for novelists, at that point you're nearly done. I realized afterward that this is how I'm writing my WIP. I pantsed a novella-length "treatment", now I've got to go back over it with more showing instead of telling.

jjdebenedictis · Feb 11, 2015

morngnstar said:
That was really script-specific advice.

I don't see that it has to be seen as script-specific. The logic still holds for an author who has written a scene they really like and who is now trying to massage the rest of the story to fit that scene.

morngnstar · Feb 12, 2015

jjdebenedictis said:
I don't see that it has to be seen as script-specific. The logic still holds for an author who has written a scene they really like and who is now trying to massage the rest of the story to fit that scene.

But the specifics of the advice are: write a treatment. The treatment will have some form of that scene, and you could already get attached to it. I think McKee is assuming what screenwriters have the most problem with getting attached to is snappy and clever dialogue. So his advice is: dialogue last. It's not clear how to translate that advice to novels. You can still do dialogue last, sure. Maybe description too: you might get attached to that. So write it once with action only?

Fitch · Feb 12, 2015

I'm most definitely not a pantser, at least in part because my engineering career was driven by the need to meet requirements. I ordered the book. I expect it will be an interesting read it if only because it engenders debate.

I spent some time reading scripts for a couple of TV series. They seem like a writing effort that almost can't be done by pantsing. Their are so many constraints on those scripts in terms of time, breaks, continuity product placement, the history and future of the show, actors, network executives, and budget, it would be almost like winning the lottery to pants one and get it right in the very short time constraint between when the show runner knows what he wants and the shooting schedule. I don't know if that sort of writing was what the author had in mind but I'm looking forward to seeing how it might apply to my writing.

Decades ago (long skis, lace up boots), my High School sport was skiing. I was on the varsity ski team. There were all sorts of techniques for skiing at the time from the powerful deep snow German Arlberg to Stein Erikson's reverse shoulder technique and more. I learned them all. It got to be second nature, reflex, to apply what worked in the instant during a slalom or downhill run. The 'right' technique was the one that worked best (lowest elapsed time - there weren't any style points).

I think the same applies to writing.

Anyone else here using Robert McKee's method?

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