I recommend reading this book, especially if you are a screenwriter. There is no question that McKee loves story, knows film and theatre intimately, writes well, understands screenwriting as a specialized form, and has a lifetime of experience to back up his writing advice. His “Chinatown” example of writing from the inside out is brilliant (pp 154-176) and shows his writing technique to its best advantage. ROBERT McKEE: I read Robert McKee's book, “Story.” It's a good book with lots of great story examples. Both Hauge and Vogler are good speakers and communicators. Their story paradigms appear to be very different but are surprisingly compatible. Having these two story guys working together was very interesting. The production values of this DVD were fair. MICHAEL HAUGE: I watched the DVD, "The Hero's 2 Journeys," by Michael Hauge (Writing Screenplays That Sell) and Christopher Vogler (The Writer's Journey). Syd comes across as warm and authoritative. SYD FIELD: I watched Syd Field's video, "Screenwriting Workshop." It's well made for a talking head instructional video though the opening music is cheesy. The following describes my research for each author’s work with a few personal comments added. Each has written books and lectured widely on the subject of story and story structure. I chose to compare the Dramatica theory of story with the story paradigms of six popular writing gurus: Syd Field, Michael Hauge, Robert McKee, Linda Seger, John Truby, and Christopher Vogler. There are dozens of “how to” books on story structure, especially in the screenwriting field. Contact information is provided at the end. I’ve tried to be as objective as I can and I’m always interested in feedback and notices of errors and omissions. I’ve also included an overview of the source materials, some initial observations, and a summary at the end. I’ve divided the results into four major topics of comparison: Story Throughlines Hero, Protagonist, and Main Character Character Growth and Resolve and Plot Structure. Originally written as a series of articles, I’ve reworked my findings into this single paper. It was past time that I figured out how other story theories are similar and dissimilar to Dramatica, why they are different (assuming they are), and what those similarities and differences mean. I figured my understanding of Dramatica was mature enough that I didn’t have to worry about "contaminating" it by exposure to the competing theories. In 2006 I decided to lift my self-imposed ban. As co-creator of the Dramatica theory of story, I didn't want to influence my development of Dramatica so I avoided direct interaction with competing theories. I spent nearly sixteen years avoiding reading anything of substance by (Hollywood) story theorists such as Syd Field, John Truby, Christopher Vogler, Robert McKee and others. How and Why Dramatica is Different from Six Other Story Paradigms
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