Robert McKee started his story seminars by accident. A Saturday writing class at Sherwood Oaks grew from 20 to 300 students, forcing him to move to a larger room. When the school closed, a single LA Times ad for a "Story Structure" seminar flooded him with calls, and a request from Women in Film led him to compress eight weeks into an intensive three-day weekend that became his signature format.
Chapters
Let's rewind then 10 years before the book when you embarked on your first seminar. What was the impetus or guiding light that said, I need to do that?
Loneliness. You know, writing is a lonely profession, and I was a busy working writer, and I was optioning screenplay, one a year, and writing a lot of episodic television and, you know, making a nice, rather nice living. In fact, I bought a house in Santa Monica and put a swimming pool and guest house to it on option money alone from my screenplays. And so I was doing fine, and then I got a call from a wannabe private film school called Sherwood Oaks Experimental College, a pretentious name. And the idea of Sherwood Oaks was that only professionals would teach. And for a while, the school was very successful because Dustin Hoffman was teaching acting, Sidney Pollack was teaching directing, people were flocking there, right? So anyway, I got a call, would I put together a writing course on Saturday mornings? And I said, yeah, I'd be happy to, because as I said, it'd be a chance to sit around with other writers and talk shop. And, and so I had, I had taught writing at USC Film School, and so I took those lectures, and, and I I created this little Saturday morning, 9 to 12, 8-week course. Then I get another call, would you do it again? I went back and what had been 20 people the first time was now 60, 70 people. I did that. It was 60, 70 people in the room. It's really not a recitation anymore or a seminar. It's really a lecture. So I did that. I get another call, would you do it again? I said sure, I mean, this has been great fun. And so this time I get there, they've rented a theater and there's now 200, 300 people. And I did that. And then Sherwood Oaks went out of business because it was very badly managed. And so I thought, you know, these Saturday mornings are fun, and I love giving these lectures and Q&Aing with the students. And so I put an ad in the LA Times, literally 2.5 inches wide, inch and a half high, story structure, Robert McKee, and a phone number. And the phone wouldn't stop. And then I got a call from Women in Film. In New York. And they said, we want you to come to New York and do your story seminar in New York. I said, I can't go to New York for 8 weeks, Saturday morning, you know, whatever. They said, well, could you just do it in a weekend? And I thought, you know, can anybody actually talk 24 hours, 8 hours a day, 3 days in a row? I mean, is it possible? I said, I'll try. So I went to New York and Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I gave what had been 8 weeks in 3 days. And it worked. And then I get a call from Seattle, I think it was, and I went. Then I got a call from International Forum, would I come to Rome and do it for the Italians? I mean, this whole thing was unplanned. I mean, it was just— it just happened, and I just didn't fight it. And I'm glad I didn't, because I just love it. But it was not like I set out to do anything. I just thought it would be nice to sit around with other writers on Saturday morning.
