I want my books to do more than tell a good story.
I want my books to help my readers live better lives.
Tag: teaching
In Praise of Robert McKee’s “Story”
In the past few years I have started, but not finished:
- A coming of age story with a strong musical element
- The first mystery in a new series with a rather artistic protagonist
- The first mystery in a new series with a female protagonist
- A Jeeves & Wooster/P. G. Wodehouse-inspired light comedy with a mysterious twist.
They are unfinished, not because they aren’t good, but because I didn’t know how to make the last 1/3 (or 1/2 or 2/3) as good as what was already written.
Not because I don’t know how to use words. Never been a problem. I was reading at college level when I started Kindergarten back in the Jurassic Era.
What I didn’t know was, once you start building a bridge of story from over here and it spans half the chasm, how do you keep it from collapsing into the ravine until you can make it land over there?
In other words, what is the structure of a story?