Amazon.com
Writing for the screen is quirky business. A writer must labor meticulously over his or her prose, yet very little of that prose is ever heard by filmgoers. The few words that do reach the audience, in the form of the characters' dialogue, are, according to Robert McKee, best left to last in the writing process. ("As Alfred Hitchcock once remarked, 'When the screenplay has been written and the dialogue has been added, we're ready to shoot.' ") In Story, McKee puts into book form what he has been teaching screenwriters for years in his seminar on story structure, which is considered by many to be a prerequisite to the film biz. (The long list of film and television projects that McKee's students have written, directed, or produced includes Air Force One, The Deer Hunter, E.R., A Fish Called Wanda, Forrest Gump, NYPD Blue, and Sleepless in Seattle.) Legions of writers flock to Hollywood in search of easy money, calculating the best way to get rich quick. This book is not for them. McKee is passionate about the art of screenwriting. "No one needs yet another recipe book on how to reheat Hollywood leftovers," he writes. "We need a rediscovery of the underlying tenets of our art, the guiding principles that liberate talent." Story is a true path to just such a rediscovery. In it, McKee offers so much sound advice, drawing from sources as wide ranging as Aristotle and Casablanca, Stanislavski and Chinatown, that it is impossible not to come away feeling immeasurably better equipped to write a screenplay and infinitely more inspired to write a brilliant one.--Jane Steinberg
Book Description
Robert McKee's screenwriting workshops have earned him an international reputation for inspiring novices, refining works in progress and putting major screenwriting careers back on track. Quincy Jones, Diane Keaton, Gloria Steinem, Julia Roberts, John Cleese and David Bowie are just a few of his celebrity alumni. Writers, producers, development executives and agents all flock to his lecture series, praising it as a mesmerizing and intense learning experience.
In Story, McKee expands on the concepts he teaches in his $450 seminars (considered a must by industry insiders), providing readers with the most comprehensive, integrated explanation of the craft of writing for the screen. No one better understands how all the elements of a screenplay fit together, and no one is better qualified to explain the "magic" of story construction and the relationship between structure and character than Robert McKee.
Customer Reviews:
Recommended by son, to mom and now you.......2007-09-23
Transforming a lifetime of short stories to screenplays has become my focus. Struggling with story, my son told me he had a teacher in film school suggest this book. It helped him. Now its helping me. Hopefully, you'll be next. Screenplays are perplexing if you've always written in short story or book form. McKee assists in making the necessary thought revisions you must in order to succeed.
A must read book.......2007-08-02
I bought this book three years ago, I keep referring to it whenever I am stuck in a script problem.I like the scene structure part very much, it is very focused, easy and helpful.
This is not a kind of book that you would read in the bus station or in one session.It is a lifetime friend once you decided to be a screenwriter.I am strongly convinced that "Story"is most useful for film and TV writers and not for any other writing genre.
Buy it, read it, re-read it and start writing knowing that it is a long journey.
There is only one way and that is McKee's way because he says so.......2007-07-30
If you can look past the contradictions, McKee's enormous ego, and writing as coherent and clear as that in Dianetics, you will occasionally find a helpful insight in this book.
Write the truth..........2007-06-26
In my experience books tested and proven before being written tend to be the best. A prime example - Angela's Ashes, won the Pulitzer Prize, fine tuned by the author McCourt doing a one man show talking about his wicked cruel childhood, growing up in Limerick, Ireland.
In the same way, Story evolved out of McKee giving lectures, and now, he continues to spread the word.
McKee is definitely an antagonist as opposed to a protagonist, and in person a funny and engaging fellow, and an excellent teacher. As you might expect, he does know how to tell a funny story, and he had a little fun at the expense of some of the sacred cows in the industry. I particularly liked his rant about Roger Ebert, who took his name in vain once but never again.
Anyway, the book shines a bright light on the elements of story. Conflict is to story what sound is to music. Story trumps dialogue in importance. Setups, payoffs, turning points, structure, inciting incident, protagonist vs antagonist, resonating and contrasting subplot, negation of the negation. Emotional value of scenes. Arc of the character. Act structure, rhythm and pacing. Text and subtext, beats, exposition. Character, dimension, step outline. All this and so much more.
Perhaps the most important single thing I learned from McKee is..treatment. The character treatment may be twice as long as the screenplay. This is the key difference between aspiring screenwriters, and successful ones.
I open my book, and look at his personal inscription to me, which I am sure he has written to many others... "Write the truth." I will, Mr McKee, I will.
If you were to find this review helpful, please click yes.
THE book for understanding story.......2007-06-24
If one were to read Joseph Campbell's, A Hero With a Thousand Faces, and Story, you would have the foundations (not formula) for understanding why story telling is such a powerful medium for communicating eternal truths. McKee says all people have an insatiable appetite for story. We can't get enough of them.
Amazon.com
At the beginning of The Writer's Journey, Christopher Vogler asserts that "all stories consist of a few common structural elements found universally in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and movies." Some may be hard-pressed to accept this idea (and will wonder how storytellers from Homer to Shakespeare to Robert Altman might respond to the proposition). Others may imagine that since Vogler uses movies like the Star Wars trilogy and The Lion King to defend his mythological philosophy, he is, unwittingly, listing the reasons why Hollywood films of the last 20 years have been so unimaginative. But there's no doubt that Vogler's notion, based on psychological writings by Carl Jung and the mythmaking philosophy of Joseph Campbell, has been profoundly influential. Many screenwriters have used Vogler's volume to understand why certain scenarios sell, and to discover a blueprint for creating mythic stories of their own.
Now in its second edition, The Writer's Journey sets forth archetypes common in what Vogler calls "the hero's journey," the mythic structure that he claims all stories follow. In the book's first section, he lists the different kinds of typological characters who appear in stories. In the second, he discusses the stages of the journey through which the hero generally passes. The final, supplementary portion of the book explains in detail how films like Titanic and The Full Monty follow the patterns he has outlined. --Raphael Shargel
Book Description
Provides new insights and observations from Vogler's pioneering work in mythic structure for writers.
Customer Reviews:
Prettily printed, pretentious, poorly written yet remains standard textbook in American film schools.......2007-10-04
This author might have followed his own best advice rather than "trusting the path" and written clearly, concisely, and most vital for cinema, seeing not saying.
Instead he fears fuddling the formula of the first two successful editions and merely adds a new introduction.
Please, future film writers of America, do not write as he writes. See, do not hear this labyrinthine excess of verbiage. The cover illustration is quite appropriate. Avoid the trap of the Minotaur, and read the originals.
See Joseph Conrad, Jack London, Robert Bly's Iron John, or even Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. Read the Book of Job, and especially the Book of Ruth for a truly epic journey of women which demands to be updated to Dafur or to Detroit. Avoid Vogler, who will trap you within his turgid prose.
He tells us less is more and then tells us more than more.
Why not read the original Homeric epic, or Dante (instead of Vogler's poorly translated citation), or our semi-modern urban epic Ulysses by Mr. James Joyce. Read if you must Joseph Campbell on Joyce, but not Vogler's lukewarm and fuzzy interpretation.
For filmcraft basics visit not Vogler but Whitcomb's The Writer's Guide to Writing Your Screenplay: How to Write Great Screenplays for Movies and Television and the rest of the more meaty fare, down to earth. Vogler remains a bit in the clouds and unclear. His introduction leaves us feeling he was rather out of his depths at top level production meetings where he found no room for whiners but people taking responsibility for their jobs. His ending personal epic of hiking in a state park at sunset makes us wonder if he has ever been out of the house; Jack London it is not, and it is not even well written. Check out this mixed metaphor which reads unintentionally funnily:
"As I looked back at the mountains and forest that had just held me in their jaws, I realized I'd been given a gift with that phrase, Trust the Path, and I pass it on to you. It means that when you are lost and confused, you can trust the journey that you have chosen, or that has chosen you. It means others have been on the journey before you, the writer's journey, the storyteller's journey. You're not the first, (sic) you're not the last. ( . . . more of same p.266)"
The carniverous mountains and forests released this wisdom unto him. It means, Christopher, that when you are in a production meeting you better deliver your assignment well written with no whining because you are not the only one writing right now. You won't be the last. Another will replace you.
I regret not finding this book recommendable. Read the originals. Avoid the suggested filmography as there are better examples of epic writing than King Kong or Roger Rabbit, etc. In fact the sins of omission such as the truly epic Grand Illusion glare painfully, replaced by its dim shadow the Great Escape, which is not a great source of dialogue models. I see none of Kurasowa's epics here suggested either, simply US pop cine.
There is a lot of valuable material there . . . .......2007-10-03
. . . . . . but what is more noticeable is what has been left out.
It is obvious that the author is very knowledgeable in his field, namely, literary and psychological understandings of mythology over the last 50 years or so. Much of the advice he gives to new writers about the concept of "story" and "journey" is of value, as are some (not all) of the examples he gives. "The Heroic Quest" has been in the past, and remains an extremely significant literary motif. I also appreciated some of the stories he told about his own experience, especially his recounting of some of the "behind the scenes" in the Disney movie "The Lion King". I was pleased to see that some of my perceptions about this film were correct.
Why then only two stars?
Imagine someone writing the history of 16th and 17th century English theater -- and forgetting to mention William Shakespeare. Imagine someone writing an anthology of classical music -- and omitting Bach or Beethoven.
In my view, this is what the author has done. While the author has given Joseph Campbell, and his seminal work on mythology proper due; and while he has given Carl Jung his proper due (and arguably more than his due), he has completely ignored the writing, both fiction and non-fiction of JRR Tolkien, who besides being the best-selling author of "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" was a professor of English at Oxford University for more than 30 years -- and was the foremost expert on the literary genre of myth and fairy-story in probably the past two hundred years. Tolkien's work on Beowulf? Ignored. "Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight"? Ignored. His essay "On Fairy Stories" (which is THE definitive word on the subject)? Ignored. And that's just the non-fiction. Tolkien's fiction, especially "The Lord of the Rings" re-defined the genre of the Heroic Quest. Yet both the book and the movies are excluded from his discussion.
Honestly, I don't know why this is. Perhaps the author is not familiar with Tolkien's non-fiction work on the subject -- but I find this difficult to believe. Perhaps he just didn't care for the books of for the films. Still not a good excuse. Perhaps the author is uncomfortable with Tolkien's philosophical and religious pre-suppositions. I just don't know.
All I can say is that a book of this sort which excludes a widely recognized expert in the field is a very incomplete book, and one that I can only recommend with serious caveat.
Invaluable Resource.......2007-10-03
This book is wonderful. I enjoyed every minute spent reading it.
Its a great resource for writers and for readers alike. It reminds me a great deal of another book that i have read called "The power of Myth" by Joseph Campbell.
After reading this book, which is written in a great style that is easy to pick up and tumb through, I was amazed at the clarity that "clicked" while reading other books. Its great to have this information in the back of your head and see the patterns that are apparent in other works. The Heroe's journey, the mentor figure, the threshold, the call to adventure, and many other classic elements are discussed and elaborated on.
The author has worked in film, and brings that experience to bear with neat little tidbits, questions, and observations. Proof that the process works just as well in print as it does on the big screen.
While not really a practical step by step guide, I do agree with the author that it can be used as a great "jogger" if you are stuck or feeling blocked in your writing.
All in all, this is a solid work and should be required reading for any writer, aspiring novelist, or literature major. A wonderful read that will bring insights to life and change the way you read stories forever. Bravo!
Let the Journey Begin.......2007-10-01
The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler is a pleasure to read as well as a fine travel guide for the serious writer. It lays out the map through mystical and mythical lands so that the hero (you) will ultimately arrive at the center of the labyrinth with a tale that is worthy of telling. Written in a way that is understandable, Vogler is the Joseph Campbell of penwrights, melding the mythic story into our modern and post-modern psyche. The artwork scattered throughout the book is very good and lends itself to the process and the journey. This book is especially applicable to those whose interest is in screenwriting, but also has great value to anyone pursuing creative writing.
Term Paper Heaven or Writer's Guide.......2007-09-30
While "The Writers Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers" is aimed towards authors to give them structure for their fiction, the book could easily be used by college English students to write better term papers.
The author outlines how certain features of mythical tales (for example, The Mentor, a wise man who guides the Hero, the Test on the journey), and the stages of a quest become a framework for much of fiction that we love and cherish. For example, The Wizard of Oz is used as an example of contemporary age fiction that follows the precepts of mythical development. (Glenda the Witch mentors Dorothy, who finds companions for a journey that includes more than one test of courage, and ultimately completes the Hero's Journey.)
Based on the works of Joseph Campbell, the author diagrams how various works fit the mythical or epic tale and how writers can utilize this to make for more sound novel structure. Some people criticize this as old-fashioned and restrictive, but I've held the belief for a long time that good fiction follows the principles of Greek Tragedy or Mythical tale because we are programmed in our brains to respond to the archetypes--accepting some of Carl Jung's ideas.
Anyone who aims to write their version of "Lord of the Rings", who perhaps writes graphic novels or who has to study fiction or literature would benefit from reading this book. I found the writing style somewhat pedantic, but if I were back in school studying literature, I would have treasured this book on my reference shelf, for sure.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
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History: Fiction or Science? Astronomical methods as applied to chronology. Ptolemy's Almagest. Chronology III
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ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Amazon.com
For many years, Lajos Egri's highly opinionated but very enjoyable The Art of Dramatic Writing has been a well-guarded secret of playwrights, scriptwriters, and writers for television. Unlike many other books on playwrighting (several of which Egri criticizes during the course of this one), the author's systematic breakdown of the essentials for creating successful realistic plays and screenplays effectively demystifies the process of creative writing. Egri, who formulated his thoughts about "a well-made play" during its heyday (the 1940s and '50s), places a premium on an exhaustive analysis of characters and discussion of their psychological motivations. The writer is exhorted to find a premise to explore and to discover which characters will most effectively demonstrate this thesis, then is shown how most effectively to place them into conflict with each other. Conflict itself is also discussed, particularly how to create scenarios in which the crisis develops at a pace that feels unforced and natural. While Egri's view of the well-made play has little space for either the spare musings of Beckett and Pinter or the conscious excesses of non-narrative and other experimental writing, it nonetheless remains an essential text for writers drawn to realistic drama, and to any writer interested in the fundamental motivations of human behavior. --John Longenbaugh
Book Description
Learn the basic techniques every successful playwright knows
Among the many "how-to" playwriting books that have appeared over the years, there have been few that attempt to analyze the mysteries of play construction. Lajos Egri's classic, The Art of Dramatic Writing, does just that, with instruction that can be applied equally well to a short story, novel, or screenplay.
Examining a play from the inside out, Egri starts with the heart of any drama: its characters. All good dramatic writing hinges on people and their relationships, which serve to move the story forward and give it life, as well as an understanding of human motives -- why people act the way that they do. Using examples from everything from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, Egri shows how it is essential for the author to have a basic premise -- a thesis, demonstrated in terms of human behavior -- and to develop the dramatic conflict on the basis of that behavior.
Using Egri's ABCs of premise, character, and conflict, The Art of Dramatic Writing is a direct, jargon-free approach to the problem of achieving
truth in writing.
Customer Reviews:
Received.......2007-09-17
Got book for Stepson, he hasn't complained about it, so I guess it was good.
Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!!.......2007-08-09
This novel is the perfect place to start for beginners. Although it references mostly plays and screenwriting, the guidelines set forth by Egri can be applied to any type of writing. Be sure to take plenty of notes!
The master piece that competes with Howard Lawsons' work.......2007-05-18
This book is a classic.
One of the things that makes this book a classic is its simplicity. The book start exploring how you as a dramatic writer can use Premise as the guiding sign through out the whole process of writing a story.
Once you have a premise you can work on creating your characters (using the premise to do that). To do this you'll have to know your character's physiology, sociology, pshychology, etc.
Once you have your characters you can work on creating the story using the principle of contradiction, thesis, antithesis and synthesis. You'll have to use clashing forces... (again, you use the premise as explained at the beginning of the book).
Then the author covers some of the most important elements in writing dramatic material of quality.
In my case I found the chapter of "Jumping" quite enlightening. Once you read this chapter you'll understand why many, many stories just don't work. The characters jump and then... they fall to their death... and to the apaty of the audience.
What is it that I like about this book? Well, I read it... time passes... come back to it again... time passes... and I come back again to read it!
Where as most books make you feel like writing is extremely difficult, this one always makes me feel like I'm in command and that great story telling is within my grasp.
The "Rosetta Stone" of creative writing........2007-05-07
I've read several books about screenwriting to aid me in my capacity as a story consultant, and this book far surpasses them all. You'll hear the age-old question of what's more important to story: action or character? What I got from this book is that the question is - in the end - moot. You need both - well drawn characters to the sell the action, and compelling action to reveal character. The process is tricky, but Egri lays it out with such precision and wit, you'll wonder how you ever got along without his insights. Even though this book was written over half a century ago, it applies now more than ever - especially for the cinema where writers are increasingly relying more on formula and less on the construction of truly memorable, believable characters. Originality must begin with a thorough understanding of who your characters are, how and why they come together, and what ultimate premise their interactions serve to reveal. Egri explains this process with depth and panache. If you want to improve your narrative and give the world fresh new characters that tell "your story" this is THE place to start!
Eminently Clear and Immediately Memorable.......2006-12-12
I've easily read more than 100 books on creating fiction (my focus is primarily short stories and novels), and I've done so because I'm always interested in learning what others have to say about the craft that I might find ways to improve my own.
I disagree with the reviewer who pishaws Egri's recommendation to create character biographies, saying that the "audience will never see them". The fact is, every short story, novel, play, movie is like an iceberg: what the audience reads/sees is only 10% of the whole. The rest is hidden. If a writer hasn't done her homework on a story's setting, background or, more importantly, on her characters' backgrounds, it will show, and in the worst way possible. Even if a writer is of the sort who develops her characters as she creates the story, there is still much about those characters which doesn't make it into the tale. It's rather like when you tell a cousin about a friend of yours. You don't give your cousin all the details, only those details which are relevant to giving your cousin an accurate, yet true, representation of your friend, but you can only accomplish this if you know your friend very well. The same is -- HAS TO BE! -- true of your story characters: you MUST know them very well (more than what you reveal) if you are to represent them to your audience accurately and truthfully (but not exhaustively), and that's precisely Egri's point.
Regarding Egri and his agreements/disagreements with Aristotle, his disagreement with regard to a story's beginning has more to do with modern readers' interpretations of what constitutes a beginning. Every story must have a beginning, even if it doesn't appear on the page, on the screen, or on the stage. All the consituent parts of a story, even if they aren't put plainly before the audience, must be implied in what is. (Algis Budrys' WRITING TO THE POINT demonstrates this quite well.) Egri's disagreement with regard to Aristotle's views on plot/character, however, are, I believe, on the mark. In this case, however, the disagreement has more to do with historical/cultural/religious context. Aristotle's putting plot primary is due largely to the prevalent beliefs of his time, just as our putting character primary is due to the prevalent beliefs of ours. This, too, is a point which Egri recognizes.
After reading Egri's book, my writing will never be the same again, I'll never read another novel or short story the same way again, and I'll never see a movie or play in the same way again, either. I dare say that I'll appreciate a good novel/short story/movie/play even more with the tools that Egri provides in this book, and will now be able to elucidate far more clearly than before why I didn't like a particular novel/short story/movie/play. In like manner, I now believe that I'm better equipped, after reading Egri's book, to recognize what is wrong with any story that I've written and will, therefore, be better able to fix the problem.
After reading all the books I've read on story/character creation, I'd have to say that Egri's book is easily the best book I've ever read on the subject. While other authors of such books may have said much the same thing, Egri presents the same material in a way that makes it eminently clear and immediately memorable.
POSTSCRIPT: In defense of novels (since that is my preferred medium), unlike what was stated in one review on Egri's book, pacing is just as important in a novel as it is in a stage play. If you have one high-paced scene after another in a novel, your reader will be breathless before she's half-done with the book. Conversely, if your pacing is constantly slow, you're very likely to lose reader interest. There are all sorts of tricks to controlling pacing in a novel, from word, sentence, and paragraph length, and even down to specific word choice. There are other ways to control pacing, as well, but I shan't get into that here. It's a shame that very few books have covered this aspect of novel creation.
Average customer rating:
- THE BEST!!
- Practical Phrases For Real Life
- Not for beginners or young children
- For the daily caregiver
- Not what I expected
|
Play and Learn Spanish (Book + Audio CD) (Play and Learn Language)
Ana Lomba , and
Marcela Summerville
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
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Beth Manners' Fun Spanish for Kids: ages 2-6
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Hop, Skip, and Sing Spanish (Book + Audio CD) (Hop Skip & Sing)
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Let's Sing and Learn in Spanish, Book and CD Edition
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Easy Spanish Storybook: Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Book + Audio CD) (McGraw-Hill's Easy Spanish Storybook)
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Beth Manners' Magic Spanish for Kids: ages 2-6 (Beth Manners)
ASIN: 0071441484 |
Book Description
Over 50 fun songs, games and everyday activities to get started in Spanish!
From taking a bath to going shopping, books in the Play and Learn Language series turn everyday routines into fun language-learning activities for parents and children. Packed with lively four-color illustrations, each package features:
- Fun songs, games, and activities
- Key word illustrations
- Engaging comic strips
- Sidebars with fun cultural information
- English translations for all activities
Packaged inside each book is an audio CD that includes all the songs, games, and expressions in the course.
Customer Reviews:
THE BEST!! .......2007-08-09
WOW. This is an awesome program and an awesome deal.
If you are like me, tired of wasting money on dictionaries, grammar books, travel guides, contrived music programs....
You will not regret buying this. Not only is it inexpensive, and usable for all ages, you will have usable spanish vocabulary immediately.
Practical Phrases For Real Life .......2007-05-12
I'm using this book to help expose my son to Spanish at a young age. It's full of very useful phrases that you just don't learn in Spanish class in high school or college. I have not listened to the cd much, but hope to get more use of it down the road. I would recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn common phrases that you really can use with your children. It's probably best for someone who has had a few years of Spanish study.
Not for beginners or young children.......2007-04-07
It's touted as the fun way to get kids started, but it's a book on tape without even signals after each page. The dialogue was too fast and there's no explanation or instruction, just spanish dialogue printed next to English translation. If your child isn't a fluent reader, forget it.
It'd be good for an older child or adult already learning Spanish who wanted to work on pronunication.
For the daily caregiver.......2007-02-06
This is an excellent tool but it is not the most useful if you are NOT the basic caregiver of the student. It is set up to wake the child, wash him, have breakfast, get dressed, etc. all done with Spanish songs and expressions, as you would do as the parent in English. But as a teacher, you would have to "act out" these scenarios- if you are not the one who oversees his daily activities. I am teaching my grandsons. It was fun for them to pretend they were waking up or dressing to go outside in the hot/cold weather, but it was not frequently repeated (and therefore reinforced) because I am not part of these routines. Accordingly, this is most useful for a parent who wants to introduce Spanish smoothly into a child's daily life, raising them "as if" bilingual.
Not what I expected.......2007-01-31
The "songs" are not really songs. It is more like a book on tape. The students can't sing along. It would be nice to have to read to a child one-on-one, but not for group singing and playing.
Book Description
This comprehensive and balanced anthology offers a collection of 25 works of modern and contemporary drama from the 1870s through the early 1990s. Features twenty-five plays that often demonstrate a
significant breakthrough in maturity of expression and style for each playwright — important leaders in the development of modern and contemporary drama.
Customer Reviews:
Good, but odd selection.......2007-03-20
A good collection, but why O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms rather than one of the big three (Iceman, Moon, Long Day's)? Why All My Sons by Miller rather than Death or Crucible? Why Glaspell's Verge at all, when Inge and Rice, much better playwrights, are left out entirely?
A Complete Selection!.......2000-06-04
This book is essencial to anyone who is willing to start studies on modern drama. It brings a wonderful selection of 25 plays, from Ibsen's "A Doll's House" (1879) to Wasserstein's "The Sisters Rosenweig" (1992), and featuring other authors such as Wilde, Shaw, Pirandello, Brecht and Ionesco. It also includes a second part of critical essays by the main drama authors and critics from the XX century.
Book Description
Max’s brothers have grand collections that everyone makes a big fuss over. Benjamin collects stamps and Karl collects coins, and neither one will share with their little brother. So Max decides to start a collection of his own. He’s going to collect words. He starts with small words that he cuts out of newspapers and magazines, but soon his collection has spilled out into the hall. All the while, his brothers are watching. Benjamin brags that he has one thousand stamps. Karl is just a few coins short of five hundred. But a thousand stamps is really just a bunch of stamps, and a lot of coins is only a heap of money. A pile of words, however, can make a story.
Bright, bold pictures incorporating clever wordplay accompany this highly original tale about a younger brother’s ingenuity.
Customer Reviews:
Recipe to become a writer.......2007-09-10
I find Max's Words to be an excellent tool for children on how to learn the principles of the structure of a language. The power of this book is that the idea can be adapted to any language. That makes me think that any child using it frequently may become, if not a writer, at least, an avid reader.
Max's Words.......2007-08-12
I find this to be a delightful story of a little boy that is looking for something to 'collect' just like his older siblings. They have their coin and stamp collections which they refuse to share, so it's up to the youngster to go out and find something of his own. What better collection is there than words?! As a primary, elementary school teacher, I think Max is right on the money, and hopefully my students will think so, too, when I introduce Writer's Workshop to them with a read aloud of 'Max's Words'.
Great Book!.......2007-07-16
I love the idea of this book. It's a great way to get early reader's excited about words and even fun for an adult to read too! My son loves this book.
The Word is Mightier than the Reptile.......2007-07-04
Most adults buyers of kids' books are book lovers themselves. I can't help but believe that they hope their little ones will internalize their love fo words and reading. IT's a laudable goal, but not an easy one. Kates Banks, however, succeeds magnificently in this imaginative book that transforms the metaphorical power of words into something much more literal!
Banks and the very talented illustrator, Boris Kulikov, begin with three friends: Karl the coin enthusuiast, Benjamin the stamp collector, and Max--who can;t think of anything to collect. TO make matters worse, Neb and Karl refuse to share. Suddenly, and to the derision of his two friends, Max decides to colect words. IT's not cleat what spawns this choice, but x proceeds systematically; proceeds sustematically, never reading words bigger than he can digesy. With a little confidence, Max moves on to bigger and bigger words, and then to words he doesn;t even know! As he embellishes his vocabulary, Kulikov throws in some clever visual puns, depicting the words to reflect their meaning: THe written worf "Baseball" is in the shape of a bat, the "O" in the word "dogs" is a collar, "hungry" is written on paper that has a big bight in it! "Alligator" and "crocodile" are long words with spikey teeth along their edges, together they from the upper and lower jaws of something one might call a "crocogator."
THrough Max's testing of words and word order, Banks and Kulikov go beyond vocabulary to tackle the possibilities of syntax: word order can make a big difference! Max discovers (and we share this through the pictures), that "A Blue Crocodile Ate the Green Iguana," has a different meaning than "The Blue Iguana Ate the Green Crocodile," a difference particularly significant to the iguana and the Croc!
But, there's more! The increasing energy and scope of the words' power seems like it could have been inspired by a combination of the old Monsanto "Shrinking Person" ride at Disbeyland, the runaway power of "The Sorcerer's Apprectice," and the dream-becomes-nightmare of "Alice in Wonderland." Max discovers that with enough words he can write a stoty. Eventually, a story emerges about a young worm (looking, not coincidentally, something like MAx. As Karl and Bemjamin discover that the word can be mightier than the pen or the sword, they try to steal it ftom Maxye otiginal authot. (This is defintely a book that adults as well as kids ca nrelate to.) "Karl scrambled for more words. He wanted the crocodleto eat the womrn." FOrtunately, Max is quicker--the worm (and MAx alingwith it--narrowly escapes through a hole, signifying Max's newly won confidence and se;f-acceptance.
This is a great book for kids!.......2007-05-23
I really liked this book. As a teacher, I see lots of instructional posibilities in the classroom with this book. The pictures are great too!
Book Description
RHETORICAL THEORY: AN INTRODUCTION (WITH INFOTRAC) blends coverage of classic and contemporary approaches to this intriguing subject! Using this textbook, you'll explore theories and examine your own use of rhetoric as you encounter the leadeing rhetorical theorist from the past to the present.
Average customer rating:
- Required reading for directors
- Landmark Work
- What All Beginning Directors Cannot Be Without
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Fundamentals of Play Directing
Alexander Dean
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
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On Directing
ASIN: 003014843X |
Book Description
This thorough, detailed introduction to modern stage directing focuses on fundamentals, with an emphasis on the director's interaction with actors. The material is organized in a clear, step-by-step teaching format, from explanations to demonstrations and exercises.
Customer Reviews:
Required reading for directors.......2007-06-14
This textbook is the standard work for student directors. It is a dense, dry read (as are most textbooks) but it contains invaluable information about how to stage plays.
Get a used copy at a reasonable price, but definitely read this book if you want to be a director.
Landmark Work.......2004-07-12
Arguably the most significant text on directing for the stage, originally published after Alexander Dean's death (1893-1939) in 1941 from his posthumous class notes and revised several times. Alexander Dean was a professor at Yale in the 1930s. Lawrence Carra, now in his 90s, was his student and then went on to head the Drama Department at Carnegie Mellon University, the oldest degree-conferring school of theatre in the United States.
This book has influenced generations of stage directors and is considered by many the most influential book of its kind. It is both theoretical and practical. Although the prose style is somewhat dry, the content and information is invaluable. The book presents five basic "fundamentals" of directing: composition, picturization, movement, rhythm and pantomimic dramatization. Carra's follow-up book, Controls in Stage Directing, although out of print, is a worthy companion which explains how the five fundamentals may applied to plays of various genres and styles.
The book presents a true method of how to approach the staging of plays. It is not just an outline of basic principles but also gives insight into the art of directing. The basic principles provide working techniques for the realization of the values of a play onstage. The book begins with an excellent essay on "Drama as Art," continues with a chapter on basic technique for the actor and then the heart and soul of the book are the five major chapters covering the basic fundamentals of directing. It ends with a chapter on Production Procedures.
An excellent and important book. I am biased, however, as I was a student of Professor Carra.
What All Beginning Directors Cannot Be Without.......2000-04-25
Dean and Carra's FUNDAMENTALS OF PLAY DIRECTING is a step-by-step manual which deciphers the major technical and visual issues of stage directing. It includes specific "tricks of the trade" which remind all directors, beginning or advanced, of the mechanics of stage work. While the authors discuss dramatic theory, the book corrects examines technique, addressing the key concepts of stage focus, framing, stage pictures, and the creation of dynamism on the stage. It allows current students of directing to understand the "fundamentals" first in order to create new and exciting works later. Though expensive, it is the definitive text for directing students. FUNDAMENTALS OF PLAY DIRECTING is an important investment in a young director's theatrical future.
Average customer rating:
- excellent analysis tool for actors
- . . . and Hamlet too.
- Required reading for anyone working on the stage!!
- Valuable advice
- A great book to teach the art of reading and writing a play
|
Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays
David Ball
Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0809311100 |
Book Description
This guide to playreading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather then contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts.
Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, motivation/obstacle/conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. He includes guides for discovering what the playwright considers the play’s most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details.
Using Hamlet as illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for illustrating script-reading techniques as well as examples of the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists) Backwards and Forwards is also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.
Customer Reviews:
excellent analysis tool for actors.......2007-03-12
This book may have been primarily written for directors and writers, but it is a great tool for actors to get to real active meanings in a script.
. . . and Hamlet too........2006-06-28
I agreee wholeheartedly with those below. But Mr Ball is not merely a theorist, he supplies a chapter in which he takes us on a brief journey backward through Hamlet for a distance, and through this method shows how single and specific Hamlet's action is. I can't approach a script now without setting up my dominoes and charting it backward. It seemes foolish not to.
Required reading for anyone working on the stage!!.......2006-01-21
I had a conversation yesterday in which the other theatre artist asked what approach this book advocated to script analysis:
"is it feminist theory? queer theory? Marxist?"
"No, it's the one where you read the script."
Seriously, I don't know what I was doing in the theatre prior to reading this book, and I am so excited to begin my next project now because I feel that I have so much improved in my grasp of how to read a play. Why I wasn't required to read this book in Intro to Theatre or one of my first design classes I don't know, but I am so happy that I did now.
Valuable advice.......2004-12-04
The scope of BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS is narrow, but its ambition is important. This is a book about how to read a play. More specifically, it's about how to read a play whose production you are planning. There are 96 pages in this book and many of them are only partially filled. Some of them are blank. So in very few pages, author David Ball gives some valuable and (I would say, essential) advice. So many bad productions are bad simply because of a basic misreading of the script. Ball tells prospective directors what's important and how to recognize what's important. His advice is very straightforward and concise. He does not pad the book by going off on tangents or use long anecdotes to illustrate a point. He makes a point and then moves on to the next one. I think this book should be compulsory reading for the director, but it is also valuable to the playwright, the actor and the designer. This book is basic. There is a great need to get back to basics. David Ball has done the theatre a great service by writing this valuable book.
A great book to teach the art of reading and writing a play.......2001-04-06
I have used this book as the basis of several theatre and playwriting classes that I have taught. Ball's language is simple, though the words he creates to explain his theories, such as "trigger" and "heap" (a trigger is the moment when people's motivations are exposed, while a heap is the result of that action) make it it easy for any non-theatre person to grasp the clever concepts.
By having a person read a play backwards, Ball shows how to grasp the playwright's intentions, and the character's movements. It's a basic theatrical literary theatre that is surprisingly effective, especially in trying to teach young writers how to create a play.
I highly recommend this book to the theatre neophyte as well as the theatre professional.
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