Thursday, May 8, 2008

Equipment for Living


“Why is so much of our life spent inside story? Because as critic Kenneth Burke tells us, stories are equipment for living.”
- McKee, Robert. Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principals of Screenwriting. ReganBooks: New York, 1997. pg 11.

Stop and think about this quotation for a moment. It is absolutely mind boggling. We spend most of our free time consuming stories, whether they be in the form of novels, TV shows, video games, conversations with our friends, writing, sport, and any other activity in which we partake.

This is another book that every writer should own. But I think it also has a lot to say about the nature of reality. McKee calls states, “Story is a metaphor for life.” I think that it goes well beyond metaphor. I think story is the nature of reality.

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