The story has always been the first must-read classic for screenwriters all over the world, and it is still one of the best sellers of Amazon in the United States. This book is a collection of 30 years' teaching experience of robert mckee. The teaching principles are not only instructive to film and television works, but also applicable to novel creation, advertising planning and copywriting.
This is my initial superficial understanding of the story. In order to master more knowledge, I have the impulse to write reading notes. After reading the story for more than 20 days and updating 22 reading notes, I have a deeper understanding of the book "Story is a metaphor of life" and "Story comes from life".
After reading the story, I realized that this book not only taught writers how to be screenwriters and how to create novels, but also made writers understand the practical significance of "stories are metaphors of life" and "to experience life outside our lives, to pursue and struggle, and to feel the different depths of our living conditions in various worlds and times".
Robert mckee, the author of the story, is a mature writer, director, playwright and writing tutor. Over the past 25 years, his "Story" training course has become the largest story writing institution in the world, with more than 60,000 students, including screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, film and television workers, actors, producers and directors.
Many top screenwriters, novelists and journalists have shown that robert mckee is an inspiration for their career and an important source of their career success.
The graduates of robert mckee's "Story Club" training class won 35 Oscar Awards, 165 Oscar nominations, 170 Emmy Awards, 500 Emmy Awards, 30 American Writers Association Awards, 180 American Writers Association nominations and 25 Directors Association Awards. The participants of the "Story" training course are all over China and more than 20 countries.
Robert mckee screenwriter director The Lord of the Rings's "The Hobbit" Peter? Jackson, known as the "master", has been a professional consultant for Disney, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Pixar Studio and other institutions for a long time, and his achievements can be seen.
Robert mckee's classic works include Story is a Metaphor of Life, Story Thinking and Story Rhythm. Let's explain how he expounded these views.
First of all, this story is a metaphor for life.
1. Make a difference based on life.
Life is full of stories, and a good creation is to show the stories in a traditional and primitive way, which is original, colorful and full of life breath, so that readers have an immersive feeling and unlimited surprises.
Reality, imagination, reflection and feeling, so that readers can accept and like from the inner world, can achieve the original intention of the author's creation.
Therefore, robert mckee said in his book: The story is not an escape from reality, but a carrier to explore the true meaning of chaotic life.
Stories exist imperceptibly in every corner of our lives. Robert mckee, with a keen eye, saw literary forms closely related to stories in real life, such as novels, plays and movies. In the story, in his profound description of the literary form, he asked the writer to enlighten the writer's story thinking with refined language and the story history of Hollywood drama, and warned the writer to write purposefully based on life.
Bai Juyi: "When the article is written in time, the songs and poems are well written." The ancients advocated "writing to carry Tao" and stressed that articles must play an active role in social life. Mao Zedong also pointed out that writing articles or giving speeches is to "influence others' thoughts and actions", while writers write stories in the hope that their works can arouse people's feelings, which is consistent with what robert mckee advocated.
2. Writing is a reflection of life and a profound reflection on life.
In writing, what we need is to discover life in a brand-new way and explore the depth of life. How to strengthen the thickness of the article requires writers to go deep into life and observe life at close range.
Robert mckee said: "We must dig deep into life, find out the value and significance of new ideas and new versions, and then create a story carrier to express our interpretation to an increasingly unknowable world."
Through in-depth analysis, writers deeply understand that writers need to study writing theory, go deep into life practice and analyze the meaning of life in order to integrate their knowledge into their creation, because we are exposed to "a vague thing called human nature."
Writing must have a rich knowledge structure, because the object of writing is as small as marble, as large as everything in the universe, thousands of years of history and hundreds of poems, all of which the author wants to understand and reflect.
Therefore, the author has rich cultural knowledge, profound life accumulation, dabbling in astronomical geography and other fields, and has a deep understanding of philosophy, science, political economy, ancient and modern masterpieces, Chinese and foreign masterpieces, writing principles, writing skills and so on. , all need writers to learn, in order to have the skills to improve and interpret various arts.
"Everything is learned when things are clear, and articles are written when people are clear". Without a great understanding of the society at that time and a profound understanding of the society at that time, it is impossible to understand that life is the source of writing. Only those who care about life can write good articles with profound thoughts.
3. Stories are metaphors of life.
"All writers must understand the relationship between story and life: story is a metaphor of life; The story must be abstracted from life and its essence extracted; The story must be like life, but it cannot be copied invariably. " Our story must be more profound and meaningful than real life, which is robert mckee's best interpretation of the story.
Life is the creative source of literature, which originates from life and is higher than life. Works divorced from life can't stand the scrutiny of readers, can't be recognized by readers, and literature without life and lack of taste can't hear the voices of readers.
From ancient times to the present, China's traditional literary creation theory advocates the unity of subject and object, the unity of things and me, the combination of emotion and scenery, and the combination of form and spirit. This excellent traditional culture has been guiding excellent literary works since ancient times. No literary works exist independently without life, and no writer creates independently without life.
In short, the material of the story is life itself, and the writer is the creator. He can turn life into a more powerful and meaningful story presentation, even richer than life.
"Literature is a study of human beings", and the author must have rich social experience, experience life in time, observe life, sum up life and write about life. This is also very important to us.
Second, the importance of cultivating story thinking
Everyone who is committed to writing must cultivate story thinking. Only by looking at the world from the perspective of stories can we construct a story completely and complete the creation.
Stories originate from life, and writers create stories to metaphor life, but stories are not simple narratives without turning points. Only by putting life in risks and difficulties can meaningful life be promoted to a new height and valuable creation be achieved.
Another point of robert mckee's story is:
"The story gives us an opportunity to experience life outside our own life, to be in various worlds and times, to pursue, to fight, and to feel the different depths of our living conditions."
Life teaches us that everyone has desires and pursuits. In this process, people will sacrifice time and money to realize the value of life with ambition in order to achieve the goals set in their hearts. Of course, the risks they take are absolutely accompanied by the waiters.
So, how much pursuit, how much frustration the protagonist of the story has in fighting and experiencing and feeling life under various harsh living conditions, and how the story was born in these conditions and various worlds and eras will be explained by another sentence of Jack Hart:
"Many times, what we lack is not a story, but a pair of eyes to find the story. These eyes can help us find extraordinary places in ordinary stories and learn the theme of HTC from ordinary experiences. "
Countless life stories must be told. To design a story, you should put the story you have told into the life story. Every life in the story can choose the most important plot and moment from its own life to show its life.
Of course, risks and dilemmas are the source of story energy and the seemingly insurmountable gap between plots. If a writer wants readers to empathize with the characters, he should put himself in the position of pursuing their psychology, actions and emotional desires, so that readers can see what you dream, feel what you feel and understand what you understand like you.
Only in the gap of continuous experience can we feel the process of energy accumulation from one beat to another, until the reader is integrated with the characters, scenes and emotions in the work, which really touches the readers' hearts. This is also the significance of the author's writing.
Story thinking can be described in detail from each section of "structure-event-scene-beat-sequence-behavior-story" to understand how stories are presented to readers in various creative processes, among which the story plot is the most important.
Story is the life of a work. The plot requires the screenwriter to have rich life experiences, fully feel and understand life, and capture the meaning of life from ordinary life.
The plot of the work should be reasonable and in line with the times. In the process of writing, the writer should revise the works repeatedly, enrich them many times, cut and connect them properly, increase the plot effect of art, and make readers understand, be inspired and educated. For example, after ten years of reading, five additions and deletions, Cao Xueqin's intention and artistic accomplishment made a great masterpiece.
At the same time, the climax of the plot should be the ultimate strength of the plot development, which is irresistible to readers. Until the end of the novel, readers are still dominated by artistic thoughts and feelings, which is the ultimate success of the work.
Third, life is conflict. Conflict is not only the rhythm of life, but also the essence of life in the story.
"Because the story is a metaphor for life, we expect it to have the feeling of life and the rhythm of life. This rhythm pulsates between two contradictory desires: on the one hand, we want peace, harmony, peace and relaxation; On the other hand, we also want challenges, nervousness, danger and even fear. The rhythm of life is to swing between these two extremes. "
Therefore, writers must deeply realize that things have two levels and keep in mind the two sides of life. Writers use words to describe the surface of life, such as senses, scenes, activities and words, but the most important thing is to lead readers beyond the appearance of things, to create the inner world and true thoughts of characters, to explore the truth of things, and to inspire and think.
Because in life, our eyes often stay on superficial things, and we can only see the faces of the characters, with little action performance. Because our hearts are occupied by our own needs, setbacks in real society, conflicts with others or some unrealistic desires, it is difficult to project the emotional changes that have taken place in others' hearts from ourselves.
Therefore, in the story, we should not only express our inner feelings through language, but also cultivate ourselves to see through the inner spiritual world of the characters from the superficial behavior and language of others, so as to continuously explore their unspeakable and unknown deep-seated inner needs and deep levels.
"The alternation of tension and relaxation is the pulse of life. No matter big plot, small plot or counter plot, all excellent stories are stirring the rhythm of life. "
How a story disrupts the protagonist's life order, how to make it better or worse, how to reverse it again, how to destroy or regenerate it, and finally extend the story between these cycles. But we can't stay in the ambiguity of experiencing life, we can only create an explosion opportunity and reach the limit of life, and the story can become a wonderful sentence that attracts people's attention.
So if there is no conflict in the works, there will be no ups and downs. Things are impermanent, and writers should grasp the core of their works according to this universal law and use the law of conflict to constantly push the story forward.
In a word, the story written by robert mckee not only makes us understand the origin of the story, but also makes us understand that the story comes from life and is higher than life. Successful literary works can not be separated from the perfect presentation of stories and the careful shaping of characters, but they can not be separated from the profound understanding and thinking of life.
Opening books is beneficial. From the book Story, we have a new understanding of novel creation, and understand that a good story lies not only in its charm of shaping the characters themselves, but also in the thinking brought by the characters and their time, background, society and life, as well as the reflection on life itself. Therefore, only by writing attentively can a novel with a deep understanding of society and life be presented to readers. This story is really a good book, which is enlightening and helpful to our life and writing.