Sramana Mitra interviewed Robert McKee, a well known hollywood script writing guru from USC, where she asks him about the philosophy of storytelling. He does an excellent job of summarizing the essence of hollywood script writing technique followed by most of the writers.
SM: Can you synthesize your philosophy of storytelling in brief for the reader?
RM: I will do my best. I get asked that question all the time. Reducing story down to its simplest underlying element, it is the underlying form of all stories everywhere. A story begins when an event, which is caused either by human decision or random coincidence, radically upsets the balance of forces in a character’s life. This event causes the character to need to restore the balance of life, and to do that the protagonist character will conceive the object of desire.
An object of desire can be anything imaginable. It is what the protagonist feels they need to put life back into balance. It can be something physical. In a crime story it might be a dead villain. It could be something like a happy marriage. It could be something metaphysical like the meaning for life. The protagonist then goes off into their world into their own heart and soul as human beings and into the various dimensions of their existence seeking their object of desire, trying to restore the equilibrium of life.
As they do this, they will struggle against forces of antagonism that will arise from their own inner natures, from their personal relationships with other human beings or from the physical environment. Forces of antagonism will rise up and try to block them from achieving their object of desire. They will struggle towards that and may or may not achieve it. The story may or may not end up with a satisfying balance of life for the protagonist.
To go even further, we could reduce it down to five fundamental elements of any event. The protagonists desire to restore life’s equilibrium, the object of desire the protagonist either consciously or subconsciously believes is the key to life’s balance, the protagonist’s constant struggle to achieve that object of desire, and the forces of antagonism from all of their aspects of life to prevent them from doing that. It is really very simple universal form.
I have been called on occasion from people all over the world who have asked me that exact question. I get professors and teachers of philosophy asking that question after reading my book because they think that there is some profound philosophy. I am always touched when people think that there are profound implications of life.