got to go see about a girl

Robert McKee wrote a book called 'Story', recommended by Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen. You may have seen a brief clip in Adaptation which gives his tirade in response to Nick Cage's characters question...

'What if a writer is attempting to create a story where nothing much happens. Where people don't change. They don't have any epiphanies. They struggle and are frustrated, and nothing is resolved. More a reflection of the real world.'

I have just started McKee's book where he tries to relight the fire of real story telling. The first chapter has me hooked, and wanting to write more.

He talks about how the truth isn't in writing about the facts and descriptively explaining everything that happened. The stuff that makes a story is the stuff beneath those facts, the stuff behind the words that comes to life a resonates because of the changes that happen in people's lives. Because things matter.

Though he laments some of the loss of story telling ability, I had the pleasure of watching Good Will Hunting again tonight, and what an awesome story it is. The great stories, even though they aren't your own pull on our ability to empathize. To feel things maybe we haven't felt before, but even better that we have felt in spades. I think the great stories are all about finding the thing that matters.

And when Will Hunting figured it out... he had to go see about a girl.