What is the Difference Between Didacticism and Meaning in a Story?
Robert McKee explains the difference between lecturing your audience and creating a meaningful work of art.
What Is the Difference Between Mood and Emotion?
Robert McKee teaches the difference between mood and emotion, and which is more important in the telling of a story.
How Do You Position Your Audience When Combining Genres?
Robert McKee teaches the key to positioning your audience when combining multiples styles of storytelling, with reference to THE FISHER KING.
Do Writers Need Conflict In Their Lives In Order To Be Creative?
Robert McKee teaches the necessity of “staying hungry” as a writer, and discusses the dangers of being too comfortable.
What Is the Negation of the Negation?
Robert McKee teaches how to work out the Negation of the Negation from your story’s core value.
Why Should Writers Express Meaning Through Story?
Robert McKee teaches the function of a Controlling Idea, and the writer’s task of communicating meaning through the climax of your story.
Should Risk Escalate as You Progress through a Scene?
Robert McKee explains risk and value in relation to building a scene beat by beat.
What Do I Call It? Tips on Titles
When titling your work, name something that’s actually in the story, so that your audience or reader buys a ticket or a copy with an excited sense of what’s to come. You have a choice of three elements: Setting, Character, Theme/Genre.
What To Do If Your Writing Veers Away From Your Inspiration
McKee teaches the importance of listening to your subconscious when writing, and how for talented writers the real story is already written; their job is to get out of its way.
Is the Market Finally Opening Up to Original Stories?
Robert McKee on the folly of following trends, and how writers need to stay true to the story they are trying to tell.
Why Is Education Necessary for a Talented Writer?
Robert McKee discusses the difference between copying and creativity, and why writers who don’t study the form risk unconscious...Must a Protagonist be in Conflict with Every Other Character?
Robert McKee discusses the potential conflicts a character may experience, and the nature of story principles versus rules.
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