‘If’ to ‘Need’. The shift of conjunction to verbs.

If i… vs I need.

Robert McKee in his article The substance of story discusses the foundations of story laying focusing on the protagonist and their relationship with the audience. Within this reading, McKee briefly touches on the differences of reality vs. story telling by identifying the different characteristics of a protagonist to an individual in the real world. Mckee’s enforcement that a protagonist, in attempt to obtain their desire, must pursue their objective till the ‘pendulum of existence breaks’ (McKee 1997), something easier to achieve in the entertainment industry’s screen as it’s ‘circumference of experience is defined by the nature of it’s fictional reality’ (McKee 1997). Breaking this down into similar terms, the protagonist of the movie is faced with a scene of epiphany where their cognitive shifts from ‘if i did this’ to ‘i need’. The difference of linguistics is what sets the gap between reality and an audiences desire to watch a movie about a protagonist with more uninterrupted concentration than any other task of that day.

 

Is changing conjunctions to verbs the key to success?

 

McKee, Robert. (1997). ‘The substance of story.’ In Story: Style, Structure, Substance, and the Principles of Screenwriting. New York, USA: HarperCollins, pp. 135-154.

 

 

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