Vernacular: structure

STRUCTURE is a selection of events from the characters' life stories that is composed into a strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.

Structure provides progressively building pressures that force characters into more and more difficult dilemmas where they must make more and more difficult risk-taking choices and actions, gradually revealing their true natures, down to the unconscious self.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: story events

A STORY EVENT creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character, that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value, and is achieved through conflict.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: story values

STORY VALUES are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next.

Ex: alive/dead, love/hate, freedom/slavery, truth/lie, courage/cowardice, loyalty/betrayal, wisdom/stupidity, strength/weakness, excitement/boredom, good/evil, right/wrong, life/death, justice/injustice, self-awareness/self-deception

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: beats

A BEAT is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction. Beat by beat, these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: scenes

A SCENE is an action through conflict in more or less continuous time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a characters life on at least one value with a degree of perceptible significance. Ideally, ever scene is a Story Event.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: sequences

A SEQUENCE is a series of scenes--generally 2 to 5--that culminate with greater impact than any previous scene.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: acts

An ACT is a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequence or scene.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: story climaxes

A STORY CLIMAX occurs when a story (a series of acts) builds to a last-lact climax which brings about absolute and irreversible change.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: archplot

ARCHPLOTS have causality, closed endings, linear time, external conflict, consistent reality, and a single, active protagonist.

Most human beings believe that life brings closed experiences of absolute, irreversible change; that their greatest sources of conflict are external to themselves, that they are the single and active protagonists of their own existence; that their existence operates through continuous time within a consistent, causally interconnected reality; and that inside this reality, events happen for explainable and meaningful reasons.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: miniplot

MINIPLOTS have open endings, internal conflict, and multiple, passive protagonists.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: antiplot

ANTIPLOTS have coincidence, non-linear time, and inconsistent realities

A story must obey its own internal laws of probability. The event choices of the writer are limited to the possibilities and probabilities within the world he creates.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: active protagonists

An ACTIVE PROTAGONIST, in the pursuit of desire, takes action in direct conflict with the people and world around him.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

GMC

GMC stands for Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. This term was popularized by Deb Dixon, who does workshops and published a book on this topic.

Basically, the theory is this: All primary or secondary characters worthy of appearing in your story should have GMC, which can change over the course of the story and which can be expressed as follows:

[Character] wants [Goal] because [Motivation], but [conflict].

This is also one way to set up your story pitch when querying editors and agents.

EX: Susie wants to marry Johnny because she just found out she's pregnant with his baby, but she's engaged to Johnny's scary biker brother and the wedding's tomorrow morning.

Vernacular: causality

CAUSALITY drives a story in which motivated actions cause effects that in turn become the causes of yet other effects, thereby interlinking various levels of conflict in a chain reaction of episodes leading to the Story Climax, expressing the interconnectedness of reality.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: setting

SETTING is 4-dimensional:

PERIOD: Story's place in time
DURATION: Story's length in time
LOCATION: Story's place in space
CONFLICT LEVEL: Story's position on hierarchy of human struggles

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: character arc

CHARACTER ARCS: The finest writing not only reveals true character, but arcs or changes that inner nature, for better or worse, over the course of the telling.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: true character

TRUE CHARACTER is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: character

CHARACTER brings the story the qualities of characterization necessary to convincingly act out choices.

[Robert McKee--STORY]

Vernacular: wallbanger

A book so dreadful that the reader chucks it full-force against the nearest wall rather than suffer through another word.

Vernacular: WIP

Many authors will refer to their "WIP" or "MS" when writing emails or posting messages electronically.

WIP stands for Work In Progress. MS, which is short for ManuScript, may or may not by synonymous, since an MS may be complete, whereas a WIP is by definition unfinished.