Takedown of Screenwriting Guru Robert McKee

11Nov/091

Takedown of Screenwriting Guru Robert McKee

Jason Zinoman writing in Vanity Fair:

The emperor here is not naked, but he is showing some skin through his loosely tied robe, and when the subject turns to horror, the silky-smooth garment collapses around his ankles.

--November 2009: Jason Zinoman on Robert Mckee | vanityfair.com

I've read a lot of the screenwriting books. I think McKee's Story is better than most. He's more flexible, less rule-based than Syd Field, for sure. There's a story I heard from a screenwriting teacher at NYU about McKee, maybe it isn't true, but there's a kernel of truth in it. The prof took McKee's course, and when McKee realized he was a working writer, he asked him out to lunch. The prof shows up at lunch and McKee has brought a black duffel bag with him. The whole lunch, McKee is pulling out screenplays -- screenplays that McKee has written -- from the duffel bag, trying to pitch the prof. The prof's conclusion: for all his bluster, McKee is just another screenwriter who can't get produced.

I believe someone can teach something and teach it well without having first gotten acclaim in that field. I believe McKee provides a genuine service if he only gets you thinking about story structure, or what you would do differently from what he recommends. That's valuable.

Zinoman is right. McKee probably doesn't really understand horror as well as he does. But you should never trust a guru all the way, of course. It's not McKee's screenplay, Mr. Zinoman, it's yours.