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 3, Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “The Principles of Story Design”
Part 3, Chapter 11 Summary: “Scene Analysis”
This chapter looks at how to bring a scene to its fullest, beat by beat. The opening section, “Text and Subtext,” defines its titular terms in relation to each other: The text is what we hear and see on the surface, and the subtext is the true understory beneath the text, usually in contrast or contradiction to it. McKee argues that we are incapable of speaking the most direct, honest truth possible, instead filtering our words and actions through a mask—even to ourselves.
“The Technique of Scene Analysis” lists five steps in determining the subtext, and thus the true heart, of a scene:
Define conflict
Note opening value
Break the scene into beats
Note closing value and compare with opening value
Survey beats and locate turning point
These steps ensure that the two or more people in a scene have opposing desires, that each beat of the scene is in pursuit of or in response to those desires, and that the value changes over the course of the scene. McKee discusses scenes from Casablanca and Through a Glass Darkly in detail to illustrate these steps and the contrast between text and subtext.
Part 3, Chapter 12 Summary: “Composition”
McKee looks at different ways to string scenes together, beginning with “Unity and Variety.” A story must have a sense of unity from start to finish; within this unity, a good writer will include as much variety as possible in the genre and tone. “Pacing” enriches this idea of variety with the idea that maintaining the same level of tension in each scene is monotonous and desensitizing. “Rhythm and Tempo” builds on this idea, breaking down pacing further into the length of scenes and their intensity. In general, scenes will grow shorter and more active as they approach the climax. This gives the writer the ability to slow down at the climax, jumping off of the mounting tension they have built in the audience.
“Social Progression” and “Personal Progression” explore two ways in which a story can build upon itself. A story will often begin with just a few characters and a surface-level problem. As the story grows in intensity, the issues the characters are facing will spiral both out into the world around them, affecting others on a community or global scale, as well as inward, burrowing deeper into the characters’ relationships and personalities.
“Symbolic Ascension” and “Ironic Ascension” follow similar patterns of mounting tensions, but on a thematic level. The former gradually instills the story elements with a deeper symbolism, while the latter takes the desires of the central characters and turns them on their heads. The protagonist will find that what they fought for wasn’t what they wanted at all, or that in failing to reach their goal, they gained something even more valuable.
“Principle of Transition” defines the methods of moving from one scene to another based on a “hinge”—a commonality or a counterpoint. McKee gives examples of hinges, including commonalities and contrasts in characterization, repeated or opposite words or phrases, or complementary or opposing ideas.
Part 3, Chapter 13 Summary: “Crisis, Climax, Resolution”
“Crisis” opens this chapter by defining the titular moment as the “ultimate decision” that defines the story (303). The protagonist must make their final choice that will either gain them their heart’s desire or lose it forever. What and how they decide will give the audience its greatest insight into the protagonist’s character. “Crisis Within the Climax” provides examples and explores the relationship between this ultimate decision and the story’s climax.
“Climax” defines the “crowning major reversal” that creates an irreversible change within the story world (309). It’s this change that gives thematic meaning and emotion to your story. Every moment in the story preceding the climax should feed into it and support it in some way, and subplots should experience their climaxes and wrap up before the climax of the central story. The central story’s climax should be unexpected and possess a sense of inevitability at the same time.
“Resolution” explores the final piece of the story's structure, which ties up any remaining threads and explores the effects of the climax in the wider world. This moment shows us how lives have been changed both personally and socially. The resolution also serves as a “courtesy to the audience” (314), allowing them to recuperate from the breakneck events of the plot and gather their thoughts before the story closes.
Part 3, Chapters 11-13 Analysis
Here we begin looking at the topic of subtext, one of the major underlying ideas in the text. McKee puts a lot of emphasis on the undercurrent beneath dialogue and how the contrast between text and subtext powers the story. He argues that when a scene falls flat, very often the problem is that the text and the subtext are too close and therefore indistinct: “If the scene is about what the scene is about, you’re in deep shit” (253). Subtext in a scene serves two purposes. First, it allows us to tell the ultimate truth of a scene in a realistic way; to tell the ultimate truth overtly would not be true to life, forming a paradox. The second is that it establishes tension and conflict on multiple levels: externally, between the characters in the scene, and internally, as a character struggles between what they can give a voice to and what they cannot. The chapter “Scene Analysis” delves into some of the psychology behind subtext to illustrate this point and considers how actors may use this psychology to inform the way they approach a scene. McKee then takes a scene from Casablanca and breaks it down into the text and subtext of each individual beat; here we can see the true story playing out the way the audience would see it on screen, through body language, desire, and words unspoken.
The next two chapters explore the way the pieces of a story fit together, linking the inciting incident through to the crisis, climax, and finally denouement. Chapter 12, “Composition” opens by defining the balance between unity and variety; this balance pairs a sense of coherency with fresh turning points that make each moment feel new and exciting. This juxtaposition and balance parallel the relationship between the text and the subtext, as well as other aspects of story that the text discusses, including character and characterization, central plots and subplots, genre convention and creative limitation, positive and negative values, and the three levels of conflict. This underscores how integrally each aspect of story is connected to each other; one tiny shift in a story element causes a reaction in every other.
