The Decline of Story

Summary of "Story" by Robert McKee

C.S.M.

Mar 13, 2024

📚 There are tons of great books that will help you level-up your writing.

🕒 I’m saving you countless hours by summarizing a new one every single month.

✍️ Story by Robert McKee will teach you the eternal principles of crafting compelling narratives. It is one of the most valuable books I’ve ever read.

My summary is broken into four posts:

Part 1: The Writer And The Art Of Story
Part 2: The Elements Of Story
Part 3: A Guide To Creating Protagonists
Part 4: How To Design A Story

Here is Part 1:

“Stories are equipment for living.” - Kenneth Burke

Story is about principles, not rules.

Rebellious and unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.

Story is about eternal, universal forms, not formulas.

We don’t need a recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers.

We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent.

Story is about archetypes, not stereotypes.

If a story is of archetypal quality, it can be carried across the world, from generation to generation.

Master storytellers give use the double-edged encounter we crave:

We discover a new world.
Once inside this new world, we find ourselves.

Story is about thoroughness, not shortcuts.

Pascal once wrote a long, drawn-out letter to a friend, then apologized in the postscript that he didn’t have time to write a short one.

Like Pascal, writers learn that economy is key, that brevity takes time, that excellence means perseverance.

Story is about the realities, not the mysteries of writing.

In the centuries since Aristotle wrote Poetics, the “secrets” of story have been as public as the library down the street.

Story is about respect, not disdain for the audience.

When talented people write well, it’s generally because they’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.

The audience does not defend their emotions, rather they open to the storyteller in ways even their lovers never know.

Story is about originality, not duplication.

If your vision is deep and original, your story design will be unique.

But never mistake eccentricity for originality.

The Decline of Story:

Our appetite for story is a reflection of our need to grasp the patterns of living.

Fiction gives life its form.

Story isn’t an escape from reality but a way for us to search for reality. It’s our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.

Quality stories matter. Society degenerates when it repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories.

The Loss of Craft:

Today’s would-be writers rush to the keyboard without first learning their craft.

Too many struggling writers don’t realize that the creation of a good story is as difficult as the creation of a symphony, and in some ways more so.

A composer scores with the mathematical purity of notes, but we dip into the messy stuff known as human nature.

The novice plunges ahead, counting solely on experience, thinking that the life he’s lived and the stories he’s seen and read give him something to say and the way to say it.

The Story Imperative:

A good story makes a good film or book possible, while failure to make the story work virtually guarantees disaster.

Literary talent is not enough.

If you can’t tell a story, all those beautiful images and subtleties of dialogue that you spent months and months perfecting waste the paper they’re written on.

75% or more of a writer’s labor goes into designing story.

Story demands both vivid imagination and powerful analytical thought.

A writer must grasp story form.

But form doesn’t mean “formula.”

There’s no secret recipe. Story is far too rich in mystery, complexity, and flexibility to be reduced to a formula. Only a fool would try.

Good Story Well Told:

Just as a composer must master the principles of musical composition, you must master the principles of story composition.

Without craft, the best a writer can do is snatch the first idea off the top of his head, then sit helplessly in front of his own writing, unable to answer: Is it good? Or is it sewage?

Master of craft frees the subconscious.

Story and Life:

Story is metaphor for life.

A story must be like life, but not so verbatim that it has no depth or meaning beyond what’s obvious to everyone on the street.

The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: “But it actually happened.” Everything happens. The imaginable and the unimaginable happen.

What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.

Powers and Talents:

Instinctive genius may produce a work of quality once, but perfection and prolificness require knowledge of the craft.

Story and literary talent are not only distinctively different but are unrelated, since stories don’t need to be written to be told.

Craft Maximizes Talent:

Story talent is primary, literary talent is secondary (but essential).

Rare as story talent is, you must have some or you wouldn’t be itching to write.

Talent without craft is like fuel without an engine. It burns wildly but accomplishes nothing.

Continue reading the other parts of the Story summary: