Story – Robert McKee's Creative Storytelling Magazine Issue 005 – Drew Carey | Page 25

YOUR OWN
WORST
ENEMY
nomenon). Sometimes, there’s
just a hunger for a particular kind
of book (Vampires, Zombies,
BDSM novels) based on some
ephemeral need in humanity ’s collective unconscious that
drive sales. Trying to write one of
those books that get swept up in
the tide or even, the ultimate for
some, a book seen as the cause
of the tide is folly. It’s like selling your house and putting all of
your money on number 7 at the
roulette table because you have
a feeling #7 is going to hit!
Chasing the vagaries of the bestseller list (believing in formula and not form) is the mark of
the amateur. That’s putting the
by-product of the Story (money,
fame, etc.) ahead of the Story itself. Your contempt for form and
lust for formula may even give
you what you want. You write the
next huge thing that makes you
hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now what? That kind of writing
is equivalent to winning a lottery.
Why not just play the lottery?
The truth is that I don’t think my
business partner really had contempt for Story form, I think it
scared her. She had the stuff to
write a terrific Story that played
off of century old themes, but to
do so requires adherence to fundamentals. Not formulaic rules.
Despite all of their desire to live
by their own lone wolf ways,

ironically what amateur writers
really want is a recipe. And certainty. And guarantees.
Form scares the big bestselling
writers too. That’s why they often do write books that do not
abide the obligatory scenes and
conventions of their genres. But
just because they have a wide
audience of people who will buy
whatever they write and make
those books bestsellers, does
not mean that they wrote a story
that worked.
In our desire to be unique and
powerful, creative people become their own worst enemies.
To abide by “rules” seems antithetical to why we’re artists in
the first place. So when presented with things that look like rules
(form) we unconsciously rebel.
We resist it with everything we
have. And even when we talk
ourselves off of the “I’m not going to write that scene because
it’s stupid” cliff, it’s really hard to
actually see the form for what it
really is—an opportunity. Form
gives you the place to throw
down your best stuff.
Take the Hero at the Mercy of
the Villain scene. It’s been done
to death. Try not picturing Bruce
Willis or Liam Neeson chained to
a pipe and being tortured when
you hear “hero at the mercy of
the villain.” How do you not write
that set up, but instead, innovate

Story Magazine // Issue 005

it and still deliver the form?
Thomas Harris did it in The Silence of the Lambs. He didn’t run
away from it. Instead, he probably wrote two hundred versions
of it and none of them worked.
He probably didn’t really figure
it out until his tenth draft. What’s
important to remember is that
he didn’t quit until his thriller
WORKED. And working means
abiding conventions and obligatory scenes of genres.
The writer/business partner and
I never did get on the same page
about her thriller and we parted ways. Unfortunately, it’s five
years later and she still hasn’t
been able to get a publisher to
take her on. I think about her every day and have faith that she
will one day set aside her Resistance to form and create something remarkable.