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When you do enough research, the story almost writes itself. Lines of development spring loose and you'll have choices galore.

Robert McKee

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Robert McKee
Age: 83
Born: 1941
Born: January 30
Author
Playwright
Screenwriter
Writer
Detroit
Michigan
Stories
Writes
Enough
Research
Writing
Spring
Development
Lines
Almost
Choices
Galore
Story
Loose

More quotes by Robert McKee

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Ninety percent of what we create is not our best work.
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We rarely know where we are going writing is a discovery.
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A culture cannot evolve without honest, powerful storytelling. When a society repeatedly experiences glossy, hollowed-out, pseudo-stories, it degenerates. We need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society.
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Do research. Feed your talent. Research not only wins the war on cliche, it's the key to victory over fear and it's cousin, depression.
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Good story' means something worth telling that the world wants to hear. Finding this is your lonely task...But the love of a good story, of terrific characters and a world driven by your passion, courage, and creative gifts is still not enough. Your goal must be a good story well told.
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Given the choice between trivial material brilliantly told versus profound material badly told, an audience will always choose the trivial told brilliantly.
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Story isn't a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality.
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Stories are the creative conversion of life itself into a more powerful, clearer, more meaningful experience. They are the currency of human contact.
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Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form.
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When people want to sound smart, they add syllables to words, words to sentences, sentences to paragraphs, paragraphs to books. They try to make up in quantity and complexity what they lack in quality. That's bullshit! They're just hiding their bullshit!
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No civilization, including Plato's, has ever been destroyed because its citizens learned too much.
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To get the truth, you want to get your own heart to pound while you write.
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Most of life's actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower.
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Of all the reasons for wanting to write, the only one that nurtures us through time is love of the work itself.
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Stories are the currency of human relationships.
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Influence is just persuasion in slow motion.
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A fine work of art - music, dance, painting, story - has the power to silence the chatter in the mind and lift us to another place.
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Stories build cultures by answering the big questions.
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There is no screenplay-writing recipe that guarantees your cake will rise.
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What happens is fact, not truth. Truth is what we think about what happens.
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