Rating: 
Summary: Very impressed
Review: This is a genuinely great book. I was expecting a summary of writing techniques and of the most common types of story and how to write and sell them, but instead McKee starts at the beginning - why we write, what it means to have something to say, how to add depth and layers of meaning to a story - and then moves on to technical advice such as dialogue and scene structure. But don't read this if you want to read an easy paperback and daydream about Hollywood. It's not an easy (or short) book and needs to be read several times to be fully absorbed and thus effective. It makes it clear that writing a screenplay isn't as easy as it looks! Buy it if you're serious and willing to put the effort into understanding it and improving your writing - otherwise, what's the point?
Rating:
Summary: How important is this book?
Review: I actually own TWO copies of "Story" and keep them in different places in my home - just in case something happens to one of them. Crazy? Absolutely. But I think it says it all.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Book On Writing Screenplays
Review: If you've browsed a fraction of the books on writing fiction, then you already know that most of them, frankly, are crap. Only a few are worth investing your money and, more importantly, your time and thought in. STORY fits this latter category. It deserves all the accolades it has garnered, and more. As one reviewer pointed out, McKee focuses on principles. Once you learn the principles AND master the craft, you are free to use your creativity in any way you wish as long as you are aware of what you are doing. The patterns and examples that McKee provides are not in the book to be slavishly followed. They are there to demonstrate audience expectations and, more imortantly, the thought process that goes into the building of a great screenplay. McKee makes it clear that you are free to follow your own thought process, even if it means contradicting some of his analyses and advice. Again, the only caveat is that you have to first know what you are doing. Otherwise, it's like writing poetry in free verse because you don't know anything about poetic forms. McKee's book teaches you the principles and the forms (genres) of building a great story in the form of a screenplay. If you want to learn them, this is the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Do the Work Beforehand
Review: Creativity is a misunderstood thing, and from what is often said about it, it can't be hamstrung by rules. It must be set free to improvise, fly, and blossom into art. The author must work at the typewriter like a jazz musician riffing in a club, and the magic will happen. On rare occasions, this may happen to great affect, but it happens rarely with experienced artists, and I suspect never with inexperienced ones. The exceptions are well-publicized because the people who it happened to are as surprised as everyone else and love telling the story. Opposing this attitude, Robert McKee's book gives practical advice on the work required to "engineer" a great screenplay: know the characters before putting words in their mouth, know the setting before creating a romantic sunset in it, and know the nature of the universe the world is set in before you have someone build a spaceship that is faster than light or even cross the street when the "Don't Walk" sign is on. Know these things as well as you can know them, and the screenplay will happen. In fact, it will be difficult to stop it. Once that's done, you can use what I believe is his best piece of advice. Create the story, know it in and out, then ask a friend for twenty minutes of their time. Tell them your story. If they are silent, except for the whispered "Wow", you have a story.
Rating: 
Summary: No good for real writers
Review: Ten years ago, I went to McKee's seminar--big mistake. Entertaining, unlike this boring book (so the man can't write--maybe that tells us anything?) but nothing new. The finale was a movie, Casablanca, which contradicted all his "teaching" (e.g. no flashbacks! first act no longer than twenty minutes! not too much talking!--Casablanca had a great flashback, a first act of plus 30 minutes, and almost nothing but dialogue--but for Moron McKee, it was an example... ???). Casablanca was written like a novel: based on characters, changing the screenplay everyday because of the characters, no-one knowing how it would end--until the end. That is real writing. Not: concocting plots, writing outlines and backstories before writing scenes and dialogue; putting your 'inciting incident' in the first ten minutes, and all those silly rules. This is all formula and no wisdom, coming from a would-be rehashing Aristotle and Egri. And then of course there's the fact that the first McKee screenplay(successful--if any) is still to be seen. Those who can, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Screenwriter
Review: The absolute best out there. No other book I have read comes close to it. An absolute must for aspiring screenwriters, established screenwriters, or anyone in showbiz for that matter.
Reccomended: A Hero of a Thousand Faces & Poetics. If you have the money and time check out Mckee's seminar.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best out there !
Review: I cannot belive how someone can give this book a bad review.
Most of teh bad reviews seem to simply bash the book without telling why it is supposed to be "bad".
The book is brilliant. It clearly shows how to REALLY tell and structure a story. It is about principles of story telling and goes beyond most of the "how to sell your stuff to the producers" hype.
Rating:
Summary: About to Read it Again
Review: You can't break the rules unless you know and understand the rules. These are some of the rules brought to you in an easy to understand format. The book gets more and more interesting as it goes. So much information, I am going to read it again. Read this book along with The Hero with 1000 Faces and How NOT to Write a Screenplay. These 3 books are essential for all screenwriters to read.
Rating: 
Summary: VERY DETAILED BUT VERY DRY
Review: Robert McKee's resume as a screenwriting guru is impeccable. Personally I find his style to be far too rigid for my tastes. Still, I keep this book as a resource because McKee provides hundreds of examples to of how to write a scene and create a screenplay sequence. Overall, this book is good for the left brained folk, not so great for the right brained folks
Rating:
Summary: Boring but important
Review: Very sound exposition of story writing in general and screenwriting in particular. Lots of good examples and detailed analyses. Quite tedious to read - it is really a textbook - and somewhat demanding with lots of big words and foreign language quotes. If you have a poor vocabulary and the concentration span of a gnat, give this one a miss. Useful to anyone building stories, or evaluating them, or even consumers of books or movies. Good as background for the after movie discusion in the cafe. Likely to be unpopular with many as it questions many received truths and conforting assumptions. Highly recommended.
| 
