>it's an 'all stories at the same, muh hero's journey' writing manual
>>7881437
>two thousand and sixteen years since the birth of our lord and saviour jesus christ
>reading writing manuals
>>7881440
I want to be a screenwriter. Anything I write has to at least superficially conform to this shit or some talentless cunt working as a script reader will have a paint-by-numbers critique of my work that makes no sense to any cultivated person but is enough to put the kibosh on anything.
>write clearly
>use simple words
>this is when you properly use a semicolon
Writing manuals are a bunch of bullshit; they only want to make you write like a and for plebs.
>>7881545
>>7881742
Woof. I'm this guy >>7881440
Screenwriting manuals are generally pretty sketch, especially that fraudulent McKee hogwash. A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Who knew?
You should check out Film Crit Hulk's Screenwriting 101. Don't let the name or his style of writing put you off. Honestly, it's the best guide to screenwriting I've ever read, the best guide to story telling I've ever read.
You can find the PDF for free online.
>>7881762
I've read Truby's Anatomy of Story (>muh Tootsie) and Yorke's Into the Woods (>muh Themla & Louise). Both total dreck.
>ALL STORIES FIT THIS PATTERN*
*ignore the thousands that don't. Look, Citizen Kane and [Tootsie/Thelma & Louise] do, so all of them must!
>>7881437
The heroes journey is an extremely general pattern observed in mythologies and translated into practicality. The point of the book where its presented is hardly that all stories are the same
>read something in an robert mckee book
>its like *so* not written with scientifical accuracy
>chgeck this out he says "all movies do x", but clearly A is an exception that he fails to mention
>faulty inductive reasoning which doesn't fit into my PHILOSOPHIA
>THIS CALLS FOR AN EPISTEMIOLOGICAL DEBATE OF WORLD PROPORTIONS
>OH DEAR CREATOR OF THIS WORLD, PROVIDED THAT ONE TRULY DOES EXIST, WHICH WE CANNOT CONFIRM, HOW COULD I POSSIBLY BE EXPECTED TO TAKE SOME COMMON SENSE ADVICE FROM SKILLED PROFESSIONALS OF A GIVEN INDUSTRY IF THEY DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND BASIC ARISTHOTELEIO
>>7881867
>skilled professionals
>wrote one episode of columbo or some shit
>>7881916
>one episode
Well, not quite, but that's missing the point. Idgaf about McKee in particular, I'm defending the entire manual genre here, as something that's very useful as a fast read, but which people here are being nitpicky about from an academic breakthrough literary criticism theory position.
But here, let me indulge you: how many episodes would be good enough? When comparing the advice of a Robert McKee against the advice of a random /lit/izen? On the topic of succeeding in Hollywood?
pic somewhat related; real McKee's credits
>>7882158
Okay he has one film produced and he wrote for a bunch of shit TV shows. I'll definitely bow down to him and chain my writing to his arbitrary rules (>they're principles!!!)
>>7881437
yes hero's journey is abysmal, reductionist. it's popular because most people want to believe that star wars explains human psychology.
for the record, google 5 act structure
look for the post written by the idiot who uses all caps
that is 70% of everything you need to know to plot a technically perfect story
>>7882165
well OK then but point me to a book on being a successful writer, in Hollywood specifically, written by someone more acclaimed than him? (serious query)
do you even have a clearly defined minimum above which you start considering someone's advice? or how else do you decide?
Idk. I'm personally not really that interested in Hollywood screenwriting per se, but if I were, I'd approach it similarly to advertising, genre fiction writing, etc. (Even academic papers for that matter, lel)
If you want to break into a particular group of people, there are simply some rules that you need to keep in mind. And if making money is your end goal, then yeah, your best bet would be to just blindly obey them, or at times, subvert them just slightly.
You can't subvert shit slightly, if you don't have a fucking map of where you even are.
>>7882172
>look for the post written by the idiot who uses all caps
I can't find it.
>>7881762
I still can't tell if talking about how Film Hulk has really good ideas is a meme I'm out of the loop on. Reading that guy's 'style' is like watching a martian with Alzheimer's trying to understand what a joke is.
>there are only four stories
>>7882229
I'm interested in reading Joseph McBride's book because Orson Welles vouched for him and his magnificent book on John Ford makes me believe that he "gets" movies on more than just a superficial level.
Lajos Egri and John Gardners books are the only ones I feel like that give you the real stuff with no frills.
>>7882339
He writes good shit but the all caps is really just a gimmick. I think he said somewhere that it's about playing with the reader's expectations and contrasting the retarded style with the actual substance, but I could be thinking of something else.
Screenwriting 101 is pretty fucking fantastic though. I'm pretty sure there's some segments from it on Badass Digest somewhere if you want to see for yourself.
>>7882242
Same here. Can we get source? It's not like this can be found with reverse image search, so I don't think asking is unreasonable.
dumb frogposter
>>7882158
McKee is a hack.
The protagonist of my book is a bitch who watches the men do all the real work. Its essentially the story of Oblivion but you're more useless.
>>7886879
It's the story of life.
If you can screenplay can you novel and vice versa?
>>7886879
>story of Oblivion
what specifically are you referring to? I'm lost.
>>7888611
It depends on how good your actual prose is I imagine. Screenplays tend to be more truncated so you can get away with fairly simple writing as long as you're good with structure and understand the format and it's rules, but it would be hard transferring that into a novel.
>>7881545
>I want to be a screenwriter
Maybe you should get a real job.
>>7888902
>/Lit/
>Having a job
Wew Lad
>>7888902
>making movie magic isn't a real job
>>7882165
You kinda have to chain your writing to arbitrary rules when it comes to screenwriting though. It's not a creative endeavor, it's a job and all you're putting out is a product meant for consumption. If you don't like it, don't screenwrite.
>>7888625
I assume he meant the DFW short story. Though it's one of his absolute worst so he might've meant the video game which I've never played.
>>7888611
You technically can, but screenwriting is a lot more formulaic and stringent to a stifling degree. I'd say you'd end up being mediocre at both if you tried to do a lot of each. The best novelists make terrible screenwriters and vice versa.
