STORY by Robert McKee
New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1997
A book review by Tera and J.K. Mason

Spinning a good tale requires a bit of magic, so rather than present a recipe or stock method for story construction, Robert McKee outlines the key components shared by all good stories. While this book is primarily aimed at screenwriters, the points it makes apply equally well to novelists. A former Fulbright Scholar, McKee has been teaching classes on this subject to packed halls around the world. His students producing such works as The Color Purple, You’ve Got Mail, The Deer Hunter and Forrest Gump.

McKee outlines the different story forms, but points out that if you want to write fiction for a living you should avoid the avant-garde and follow the classical design structure emphasized in this book; it more closely mirrors the human mind, and other story forms just don’t sell as well. He believes that most of what Hollywood produces is mediocre or worse, and he challenges the seemingly insurmountable odds of getting a screenplay produced. People intrinsically recognize a good story and if you build one you will beat the Hollywood odds; it’s a seller’s market when the product is a well-structured story.

According to McKee, there is only one true story, the quest, and all stories take this form:

‘For better or worse, an event throws a character’s life out of balance, arousing in him the conscious or unconscious desire for that which he feels will restore balance, launching him on a quest for his object of desire against forces of antagonism.’

Five key elements are required in a well-constructed story: the Inciting Incident, or the event that launches the protagonist on his quest; the Progressive Complications encountered on the quest; the Crisis Scene, or final choice that completes the quest; the Climax Scene, or last action beyond which the reader cannot imagine another; and the Resolution, or tying up of lose ends.

McKee believes that the phrase “character-driven story” is redundant as all stories are essentially character-driven. True character is concealed behind a façade of traits and revealed only when real pressure—brought on by increasingly difficult plot choices—peels away that façade. Plot and character mirror one another and when you change character, you must change plot accordingly.

A well-constructed story leads us into expectation, makes us think we understand, then cracks open reality, creating surprise and curiosity and insight, sending us back repeatedly. On each trip, we gain a deeper understanding of the characters and their world.

In McKee’s words, “The protagonist can only be as intellectually fascinating and emotionally compelling as the forces of antagonism make him.” Fully realized and satisfying antagonism only occurs when the primary value at stake in the story progresses through the limits of human experience. For example, in a story about injustice, the protagonist should not simply be the victim of a crime; he should also undergo tyranny. The antagonism should be powerful enough to make a legal action illegal, prosecute and punish the protagonist for it, and then declare the action legal again. This would be injustice masquerading as justice. McKee terms this extreme “negation of the negation” (a phrase borrowed from dialectics). If, on the other hand, love is the value at stake in the story, the negation of the negation would be “hatred masquerading as love,” a far more interesting antagonistic force than simple hatred (as exemplified by the mother character, played by Mary Tyler Moore, in the movie Ordinary People).

To date, Story has sold more than 100,000 copies, underscoring its popularity, and it would be a valuable addition to the library of any serious novelist or screenwriter.

© J.K. and Tera Mason 2004

J.K. Mason and his daughter, Tera, live in Montana. J.K.'s work appears in various literary journals, online and in print. He is working on his second novel.

Tera is a published fiction writer who is at work on her first novel, a mystery set in South America.

J.K. Mason (jkmason@mtonline.net)

Tera Mason (tera@mtonline.net)

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