Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Having laid a foundation, McKee reaches the nitty-gritty application of the craft in “The Text” and “A Writer’s Method.” The first section explores dialogue, description, and camera direction, as well as what to include and what not to include. This is another place where truth and fact start to diverge, as McKee tells us that “dialogue is not conversation” (388). It is not literal fact, but something deeper and truer than fact. The section “Image Systems” compares the screenwriter to a poet (here McKee knowingly contradicts an earlier statement where he says they are mutually exclusive, admitting that was a lie) and the system of visual symbols and motifs in a film to rhyme schemes and other poetic devices. It is worth noting that McKee drew another parallel between film and poetry earlier in the text when considering the idea of “creative limitation”: Story suggested that a poet working within the confines of poetic structure mirrors the screenwriter working within the confines of genre convention. This suggests yet again that all art exists within the same sphere of human need (and communication of that need) and that the boundaries between art forms are perhaps less tangible than we may think.

In the final chapter, “A Writer’s Method,” the author displays his own personal method for developing an idea “from the outside in” (410). Mirroring the very first chapter, this works as a parallel call to action—showing the place where story theory becomes material reality and giving the student the tools to transform their craft and their ideas into a real product. This chapter and the introduction work as “bookends” for the entire screenwriting journey, bringing to mind the sense of unity between the inciting incident and the climax of a story. Here we see that each call to action binds together the work with its very own story “spine,” carrying the reader to the “end of the line” and to a new beginning.