Story – Robert McKee's Creative Storytelling Magazine Issue 005 – Drew Carey | Page 55

MCKEE
INTERVIEWS
STEVEN PRESSFIELD
RM: When you’re working on a
scene like that, do you take a 360°
point of view so that you see it
and then know what you’re not
saying?

SP: I guess so.

why not?

RM: Do you even see a golf game
and Bagger Vance as a crucible
for…

RM: It sure is.

SP: Yes, I do.

SP: I do. That was a war story, too, in
my opinion.

RM: Right, so you’ve imagined it
from all points of view.
SP: Yeah, yeah.
RM: Then the third dimension of
point of view, of course, is your
author’s point of view, which is
what we have talked about so
far. Your subject is so often war.
And so when people ask you the
question, “Why do you always
write about war?” you just hit it
because you think it’s a metaphor
for everything. Your book on Alexander is called The Virtues of
War, and it seems to me that all
of your books somehow are different aspects of the virtues of
war, whether it changes politics
or not.
SP: I think that’s true, yeah.
RM: Right, but it is a cauldron for
testing that…
SP: For the virtues of inner integrity.
RM: Right. So your point of
view—except in the case of Bagger Vance—is that virtually everything is about the virtues of war.

RM: He was a veteran.
SP: He was a veteran and, you know, it
came from the Bhagavad Gita, which
was a battle war and Krishna—Bagger Vance—was a warrior god.
RM: Yeah, talk about the inspiration for that first book. You said
that it was based on an Indian
myth.
SP: There’s a Vedic Hindu scripture,
the Bhagavad Gita, which people
maybe have read in their comparative religion classes. It’s sort of
the Hindu Bible. It’s the book that
Gandhi used to free India, and it’s
a great book about a troubled warrior named Arjuna (it’s a very short
book) who receives spiritual instruction from his charioteer, who
happens to be Krishna, i.e., God in
human form.
When I did Bagger Vance, instead
of a troubled warrior getting advice
from his charioteer, I made it a troubled golf champion getting advice
from his caddie, and the caddie was
God or was God in human form. I
just stole that structure lock, stock,
and barrel. It’s a great structure, so

Story Magazine // Issue 005

SP: I’m a big believer in stealing anything you can. So that was the origin
of that. I’ve always loved the Bhagavad Gita. I probably read it 12 times.
RM: But still, the leap from that
myth to golf?
SP: It was pretty easy leap, really.
RM: Well, to you, but not to others, really. It wouldn’t be an idea
that would necessarily occur to
anyone except somebody who
has played the game and understands the caddie-player relationship.
SP: Let me go back to one thing we
were just talking about.
RM: Sure.
SP: And that is the difference between the ostensible point of view,
the narrator’s point of view, the story
he is telling you, and what the book
is telling you—what the author and
what the greater theme is talking
about. Sometimes this comes back
to instinct for me whereby you finish
a book and you go, “Wow, I didn’t
realize it was about that.” It just sort
of took that form.
Like in Killing Rommel, my most recent book is a story of this British
patrol that goes behind the lines