Robert McKee Quotes

Personally, I avoid deus ex machina like the plague - if you have to use one, it means you failed to set up the universe and the plot properly. It's like a whodunnit where there's no actual way for the reader to identify the perpetrator before the climactic reveal: there's no sense of closure for the reader.

Make the audience wonder what's going on by putting them in the same position as the protagonist.

I don't care if it's a mystery story, a Western, or the story of Julius Caesar. To me it's the emotion, the lies, the double-cross, whether it's Brutus doing it to Caesar or Bob Stack doing it to Robert Ryan that defines what kind of drama it is.

I need some kind of... like... last minute, poorly-set-up deus ex machina!!

The concept is to weave in some emotion.

There are three types of actions : purposeful, habitual, and gratuitous. Characters , to be immediate and apprehensible, must be presented by all three.

One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.

There is a rule for fantasy writers: The more truth you mix in with a lie, the stronger it gets.

The world was more than a place. Life was more than an event. It was all one thing, and that thing was: story.

Drama is based on the Mistake.

You do not characterize by telling the reader about the character. You do it by showing the character thinking, speaking and acting in a characteristic way. You simply show it and shut up.

When you know your not going to die, you have to ask yourself... What's the highest and best use for myself.

Do you serve a purpose, or purposely serve?

I never knew a man could tell so many lies, he had a different story for every set of eyes. How can he remember who he's talking to?

This world of ours has been constructed like a superbly written novel: we pursue the tale with avidity, hoping to discover the plot.

Don't tell readers what to think. Let the action speak for itself.

Be sure not to discuss your hero's state of mind. Make it clear from his actions.

It's astonishing how many people who direct action don't know how to tell a story.

Suspense is one of the ways you persuade a reader to become engaged and stay engaged with your work.

You discarded most of the lies along the way but held on to the one that said life mattered.

Narrative tension is primarily about withholding information.

I think the good stories are those where the character decides to break away and do something different.

fiction is the great lie that tells the truth

Why, thou deboshed fish thou...Wilt thou tell a monstrous lie, being but half a fish and half a monster?

If there is a gun hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.