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The expanse books summary6/25/2023 ![]() “So the writer embraces the principle, Tell Story … then freezes. But that’s exactly how many screenwriters begin: “I’ve seen a lot of flicks, some good and some bad … I got A’s in English … vacation time’s coming …” “If your dream were to compose music, would you say to yourself: “I’ve heard a lot of symphonies … I can also play the piano … I think I’ll knock one out this weekend”? No. When talented people write well, it is generally for this reason: They’re moved by a desire to touch the audience.” ![]() “When talented people write badly it’s generally for one of two reasons: Either they’re blinded by an idea they feel compelled to prove or they’re driven by an emotion they must express. The agent you hire will incite a bidding war among story-starved producers, and the winner will pay you an embarrassing amount of money.” If you show a brilliant, original screenplay to agents, they’ll fight for the right to represent you. Rather than agonizing over the odds, put your energies into achieving excellence. If you knock out a knockoff of last summer’s hit, you’ll join the ranks of lesser talents who each year flood Hollywood with thousands of cliché-ridden stories. “The honest, big-city answer to all these fears is that you’ll get an agent, sell your work, and see it realized faithfully on screen when you write with surpassing quality … and not until. “Like Pascal, screenwriters learn that economy is key, that brevity takes time, that excellence means perseverance.” We go to the movies to enter a new, fascinating world, to inhabit vicariously another human being who at first seems so unlike us and yet at heart is like us, to live in a fictional reality that illuminates our daily reality” Deep within these characters and their conflicts we discover our own humanity. ![]() “Second, once inside this alien world, we find ourselves. “A rule says, “You must do it this way.” A principle says, “This works … and has through all remembered time.” Most Important Keywords, Sentences, Quotes: This is where McKee introduces us to the importance of antagonists, handling expositions, and writing out a character and their decisions. We learn how to compose a scene and act in this part, alongside composition and creating an Inciting Event (like Call to Adventure by Joseph Campbell). This is where McKee talks about the essence of stories and screenwriting. This is where McKee explains different elements of story such as genre, character, and meaning of the story. It only has one chapter, The Story Problem, where McKee introduces us to storytelling in general. Each part covers the main elements of storytelling that writers use in different formats, but the main focus in the book is on screenwriting.
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