44 pages • 1 hour read
Robert McKeeStory: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
Nonfiction | Reference/Text Book | Adult | Published in 1997A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 2-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Elements of Story”
Part 2, Chapter 2 Summary: “The Structure Spectrum”
This chapter opens with “The Terminology of Story Design,” which explores and defines the key elements of story structure. A “Story Event” is a change in the situation of a story character based on a shifting value between polarities such as freedom and slavery, courage and cowardice, life and death, etc. Every scene in a script should be a Story Event.
The next story element is a “Beat,” which is the smallest structural element. It refers to a moment of action and reaction between two characters. These beats compound one by one to become a Story Event, or a scene. These scenes then compound into the next essential term, “Sequence.” A sequence is a series of story events that leads to a final, impactful change. McKee uses a three-scene sequence to illustrate how these separate scenes work independently and together to culminate in a major change of circumstance for the main character. This takes us to the next story element, which is “Act,” followed by “Story.” Story represents an entire arc made up of beats, scenes, sequences, and acts to arrive at a major, irreversible shift in value from beginning to end.
The next section, “The Story Triangle,” deals in McKee’s proposed pyramid of plot types: the “Archplot,” or the classical story design; the “Miniplot,” which is the Archplot stripped down and internalized; and the “Antiplot,” which is an inversion of the Archplot that exists in nonlinear time. Each has its own distinctive characteristics, including the type of conflict, type of ending, type of protagonist (or protagonists), linear or nonlinear time, the nature of the actions that drive the story, and consistent or inconsistent realities. McKee uses extensive examples of popular films to illustrate each story type. He also briefly examines the fourth story type, the “Nonplot,” in which the story remains in consistent stasis.
In “The Politics of Story Design,” McKee contrasts “Hollywood films” and “Art films,” suggesting that these represent a damaging story polarity. McKee argues that most writers go to one extreme or the other for the wrong reasons and that the writer should instead find their place within the pyramid of story based on the following considerations:
The writer must earn his living writing.
The writer must master classical form.
The writer must believe in what he writes.
The first involves the balance between a lucrative career and a rewarding craft; the second, the need to master the Archplot before attempting either of the other two story types, as they are by nature variations on this oldest universal story; the third, the importance of approaching your chosen story type for the right reasons—because you believe it suits the truth you are trying to communicate and not because it will sell or because it is avant-garde.
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary: Structure and Setting
This chapter’s opening section, “The War on Cliché,” explores a pitfall new writers face: regurgitating all of the stories they have seen before. McKee argues that this happens when a writer doesn’t have an intimate enough knowledge of their story world. This brings us to the next section, “Setting,” and setting’s four dimensions: period, duration, location, and level of conflict. McKee defines each dimension with examples. These four dimensions both confine the possibilities of your story and open up new avenues for creativity by establishing its unique laws of probability.
The next section in the chapter is “The Principles of Creative Limitation.” Here McKee examines the premise that an artist should know their story’s world “in the same depth and detail that God knows the one He created” (71). This requires exploration of memory, imagination, and fact. The section “Creative Choices” explores what it is to include or exclude your story’s multitudinous possibilities until you have refined it to its truest self.
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary: “Structure and Genre”
“The Film Genres” outlines the importance of genre choice in screenwriting and describes some of the systems that classify story types. McKee outlines the 25 genres used by screenwriters as follows:
Love Story (including the subgenre Buddy Salvation)
Horror Film (including the subgenres Uncanny, Supernatural, and Super-Uncanny)
Modern Epic
Western
War (including Pro-war and Antiwar)
Maturation Plot
Redemption Plot
Punitive Plot
Testing Plot
Education Plot
Disillusionment Plot
Comedy (including Parody, Satire, Romantic, Screwball, Farce, and Black Comedy)
Crime (including Murder Mystery, Caper, Detective, Gangster, Thriller, Revenge Tale, Courtroom, Newspaper, Espionage, Prison Drama, and Film Noir)
Social Drama (including Domestic Drama, Woman’s Film, Political Drama, Eco-Drama, Medical Drama, and Psycho-Drama)
Action/Adventure (including High Adventure and Disaster/Survival)
Historical Drama
Biography (including Autobiography)
Docu-Drama
Mockumentary
Musical
Science Fiction
Sports
Fantasy
Animation
Art Film
For each of these, McKee provides a brief definition and examples from popular films.
“The Relationship Between Structure and Genre” explores what genre expectations mean for the writer. Each genre has its own predetermined values and events that the writer must work within. The following section, “Mastery of Genre,” further expands on this idea, advising a deep and thorough study of the writer’s chosen genre so as to stay ahead of the audience’s expectations. McKee gives a cautionary example of a well-written film that mispositioned its genre and, through this, its target audience.
In “Creative Limitations” McKee explores how predetermined genre conventions function as a “rhyme scheme” for the screenwriter and how they can inspire us to new heights of creativity (91). It is through finding new ways to use these conventions that we avoid cliché. The sections “Mixing Genres” and “Reinventing Genres” continue this thread of mastering genre convention and explore how shifting societal perceptions and attitudes reshape creative possibilities. For example, the socially recognized obstacles standing in the way of a 1950s love story would be very different than those facing a contemporary romance, and successful screenwriters will display an awareness of contemporary values and their impact on storytelling.
Finally, “The Gift of Endurance” cautions that writing is demanding, time-consuming, and mentally exhausting, and so it is imperative that the writer choose to write in a genre that they love.
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary: “Structure and Character”
This chapter explores two important dynamics: the relationship between character and plot, and the relationship between character and characterization. The first section, “Character Versus Characterization,” explains that characterization comprises the measurable qualities of a person, such as age, gender, style, occupation, attitude, etc. Character is the true nature of a person as revealed through their choices—particularly choices made when there is something to lose. It’s when characters make these choices, revealing their true natures in contradiction with or in contrast to their characterization, that plot-driving events happen.
The next section, “Character Revelation,” shows why it’s important to show the contrast of character and characterization. McKee cites James Bond as a timeless example of how a man’s true nature doesn’t match the face he shows to the world, and this particular juxtaposition has garnered a devoted audience. “Character Arc” broadens this idea of juxtaposition into a journey where the inner nature of a character changes over time as a result of the choices they make. McKee offers the movie The Verdict as well as Shakespeare’s Hamlet to illustrate this theory.
“Structure and Character Functions” explains that characterization must serve the plot to be realistic and believable. Character, on the other hand, guides the events of the story. As the author says, “structure and character are interlocked” (106). Each one changes in response to changes in the other.
“Climax and Character” culminates in the final sequence of a story, its climax. This is the most challenging and integral piece of the story because it’s the one that audiences will most remember. Character powers this climax, so any characterization that doesn't serve the final climax should be reworked.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “Structure and Meaning”
Opening with “Aesthetic Emotion,” this chapter explores the central guiding idea behind a story, or its theme. A story differs from real life in that in life, ideas and emotional responses happen separately; in a story, they happen simultaneously, creating an effect known as “aesthetic emotion.”
“Premise” establishes the inspirational idea behind a work. “Structure as Rhetoric” explains how to incorporate the premise into the work by “authenticat[ing] its ideas solely within the dynamics of its events” (114)—not by lecturing with reference to supporting data, but by telling a good story.
The next section, “Controlling Idea,” fleshes out how to convey this idea to the audience by using a central theme. Theme is a single sentence expressing the components of value (that which changes over the course of the story) and cause (that which incites the change). This controlling idea should be the guiding force of everything that happens in your story and the basis for the emotional response you want to elicit in your audience. The most effective stories play this controlling idea off a counter-idea to heighten dramatic tension and the impact of the climax. In “Didacticism,” McKee cautions the new writer against preaching their cause through art. It is essential to evenly portray both possible arguments surrounding the controlling idea up until the climactic moment, when one or the other will win out.
The section “Idealist, Pessimist, Ironist” defines and contrasts idealistic, pessimistic, and ironic controlling ideas and what they mean for a story, citing examples from popular films and exploring how cultural views of these three story types have shifted over time. The final section, “Meaning and Society,” takes a philosophic view of the power and social responsibility of the storyteller to tell their truth and share it with the world.
Part 2, Chapters 2-6 Analysis
Part 2 consists of five chapters that all focus on the mechanics of story structure and how it relates to other aspects of storytelling: setting, genre, character, and meaning. To orient the reader, it opens by establishing terminology used in the following chapters. While some of these terms are universal, such as “act,” “scene,” and “sequence,” others are more specific to McKee’s system and usage. “Value,” in particular, is one that McKee frequently uses and to which he has ascribed the meaning of “binary qualities of experience that can reverse their charge at any moment” (34). He also establishes his own system of story archetypes within film: the archplot, miniplot, and antiplot. This section is essential in understanding the core points of the rest of the text. The section “The Politics of Story Design” opens the conversation surrounding a storyteller’s responsibility to their art form, a theme that resonates through most of the broader lessons in the text. This chapter explores how that responsibility precariously balances alongside money, mastery of form, and love for the craft.
After the first chapter, Part 2 takes a closer look at how each of these points interacts with the various facets of story construction. The first chapter, focusing on setting, opens with “The War on Cliché.” This is an interesting choice because clichés are something we usually associate with character and genre rather than setting. Yet setting—in its broadest sense—is where these character and genre clichés originate. Leading into this chapter with a seemingly unrelated heading encourages us to look at what cliché really is, separate from any preconceived notions. Through setting, McKee also explores “The Principle of Creative Limitation,” which again circles back to avoiding clichés in our writing. While the chapter on genre explores creative limitation further, here we see how setting informs all aspects of story and encourages us to stretch our limits as writers. When McKee then revisits “Creative Limitations” in the chapter on structure and genre, he has laid a groundwork for readers to understand how setting, character, and genre are all intertwined and pushed to their maximum by using limitation as a creative tool. The chapter on character reinforces these ideas by contrasting “character” with “characterization.” The chapter looks at the link between story structure and a character’s choices, experiences, and inner being, again prompting us to dive beneath the cliché and into deeper truth about human nature—the ultimate goal of the storyteller.
The final chapter in Part 2, “Structure and Meaning,” coalesces these ideas into a definition of story as “the creative demonstration of truth” (113). Here McKee argues that by stretching our limits through creative limitation and moving beyond clichés and into the deeper recesses of humanity, we can convey a deep and powerful truth to the audience. Part 2 closes with a reiteration of the artist’s social responsibility to tell the truth through their art and to communicate it to the world.
