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READING REVIEW: LESSON 10
This Reading Review is based on the Lesson 10 reading from Robert McKee’s Story.
There are 10 questions. The Review is not graded.
1. At the beginning of Chapter 16, Robert McKee describes Curiosity and Concern, saying the emotions of an audience flow towards “the Center of Good.” What is this?
a. The Controlling Idea
b. The screenwriter’s conscience
c. The idealized person the protagonist imagines himself to be
d. The character that represents the positive values in life
Hint: “Mr. Coney Island was a conscienceless assassin, but inside he was convinced he was good.” (Page 347, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “As the story opens, the audience, consciously or instinctually, inspects the value-charged landscape of world and characters, trying to separate good from evil, right from wrong, things of value from things of no value. It seeks the Center of Good. Once finding this core, emotions flow to it.” (Page 347, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
2. In Mystery, the audience
a. Knows more than the characters
b. Knows less than the characters
c. Knows the same things the characters know
d. Takes clues from the screenwriter’s “Red Herrings”
Hint: “Mystery means gaining interest through curiosity alone.” (Page 349, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “In Mystery, the audience knows less than the characters. …Mystery means gaining interest through curiosity alone.” (Page 349, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
3. In Suspense, the audience:
a. Knows more than the characters
b. Knows less than the characters
c. Knows the same things the characters know
d. Takes clues from the screenwriter’s “Red Herrings”
Hint: “Suspense combines both Curiosity and Concern.” (Page 351, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “In Suspense, the audience and the characters know the same information. …In this relationship, we feel empathy and identify with the protagonist, whereas in pure mystery our involvement is limited to sympathy. Master detectives are charming and likeable, but we never identify with them because they’re too perfect and never in real jeopardy.” (Page 351, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
4. In Dramatic Irony, the audience
a. Knows more than the characters
b. Knows less than the characters
c. Knows the same things the characters know
d. Takes clues from the screenwriter’s “Red Herrings”
Hint: “Dramatic Irony creates interest primarily through Concern alone, eliminating curiosity about fact and consequence.” (Page 351, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “Dramatic Irony creates interest primarily through Concern alone, eliminating curiosity about fact and consequence. …What in Suspense would be anxiety about outcome and fear for the protagonist’s well-being, in Dramatic Irony becomes dread of the moment the character discovers what we already know and compassion for someone we see heading for disaster.” (Page 351, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
5. What does McKee say about “The Problem of Surprise”?
a. Audiences have a love/hate relationship with Surprise
b. Surprise can destroy the audience’s Suspension of Disbelief
c. The audience prays for the satisfaction of their expectations
d. The audience prays for a reversal of their expectations
Hint: “We go to the storyteller with a prayer, “Please, let it be good. Let it give me an experience I’ve never had, insights into fresh truth.” (Page 355, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “If what the audience expects to happen happens, or worse, if it happens the way the audience expects it to happen, this will be a very unhappy audience. We must surprise them.” (Page 355, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
6. If you are going to use Coincidence in your screenplay, McKee suggests:
a. Bringing it in early to allow time to build meaning out of it
b. Bring it in while your character is in chaos so it’s less noticeable
c. Bringing it in late, preferably as a deus ex machina
d. Using the “rule of threes,” that is, if you use one coincidence, use a total of three
Hint: “[Coincidence] may enter life meaninglessly, but in time gain meaning…” (Page 356, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “The solution, therefore, is not to avoid coincidence, but to dramatize how it may enter life meaninglessly, but in time gain meaning, how the antilogic of randomness becomes the logic of life-as-lived.
“First, bring coincidence in early to allow time to build meaning out of it.” (Page 356, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
7. According to McKee, the same storytelling rules apply to both comedy and drama, but coincidence can be an exception. How?
a. If the comic protagonist has suffered enormously
b. If the protagonist never despairs, never loses hope
c. Both A and B
d. None of the above
Hint: “In THE GOLD RUSH : At Climax, the Little Chap (Charlie Chaplin) is nearly frozen to death when a blizzard rips his cabin off the ground, blows it and Chaplin across Alaska, then drops him smack on a gold mine. CUT TO: He’s rich, dressed to the nines, smoking a cigar…” (Page 361, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “Comedy tolerates more coincidence than drama, and may even allow a deus ex machina ending… if two things are done. First, the audience is made to feel that the comic protagonist has suffered enormously. Second, that he never despairs, never loses hope. Under these circumstances, the audience may think, “Oh, hell, give it to him.” (Page 261, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
8. Regarding POV, which of the following strategies does McKee recommend for keeping story tension high?
a. Jumping through time and space, grabbing bits and pieces, facilitating exposition
b. Unexpectedly jumping between the POV of the protagonist and the antagonist
c. Giving each major character a moment in the story told from their POV
d. Telling the entire story from the POV of the protagonist
Hint: “The more time spent with a character, the more opportunity to witness their choices. The result is more empathy and emotional involvement between audience and character.” (Page 364, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “Generally, therefore, it enhances the telling to style the whole story from the protagonist’s point of view.
“…The more time spent with a character, the more opportunity to witness their choices. The result is more empathy and emotional involvement between audience and character.” (Page 364, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
9. To avoid the accusation, “This is melodramatic,” McKee recommends
a. Avoiding overexpression
b. Making sure the characters actions match their motivations
c. Keep your story “smaller than life.” Remember, “truth is stranger than fiction”
d. Taking care not to lose your cinematic subtlety
Hint: “Anything you can imagine human beings doing, they have already done and in ways you cannot imagine. None of it is melodrama; it’s simply human.” (Page 370, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “We feel a scene is melodramatic if we cannot believe that motivation matches action. Writers from Homer to Shakespeare to Bergman have created explosive scenes no one would call melodrama because they knew how to motivate characters. If you can imagine high drama or comedy, write it, but lift the forces that drive your characters to equal or surpass the extremities of the actions and we’ll embrace you for taking us to the end of the line.” (Page 370, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
10. McKee says that holes “are a part of life.” But they can spoil a screenplay. What does McKee recommend?
a. Forging a link between logical events and closing the hole if you can
b. Make it so the hole happens so fast that no one will notice
c. Have an illogical character directly admit they are behaving illogically
d. All of the above.
Hint: “This remedy, however, often requires the creation of a new scene that has not purpose other than making what’ around it make sense.” (Page 371 Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
Correct: “If you can forge a link between illogical events and close the hole, do so.”
“As the hole arrives, the audience may not have sufficient information at that point to realized that what just happened isn’t logical or it may happen so quickly, it passes unnoticed.”
“Rather than hiding the hole, the writers admitted it with the bold lie that Ferrari might be impulsively generous.” (Page 372, Robert McKee’s Story, 1997)
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