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Action: The Art of Excitement for Screen, Page, and Game Hardcover – September 6, 2022

by Robert McKee (Author), Bassim El-Wakil (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 73 ratings
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From the master of Story, Dialogue, and Character, ACTION offers writers the keys to propulsive storytelling.  

ACTION explores the ways that a modern-day writer can successfully tell an action story that not only stands apart, but wins the war on clichés. Teaming up with the former co-host of The Story Toolkit, Bassim El-Wakil, legendary story lecturer Robert McKee guides writers to award-winning originality by deconstructing the action genre, illuminating the challenges, and, more importantly, demonstrating how to master the demands of plot with surprising beats of innovation and ingenuity.

Topics include: 

  • Understanding the Four Core Elements of Action
  • Creating the Action Cast
  • Hook, Hold, Pay Off: Design in Action
  • The Action Macguffin
  • Action Set Pieces
  • The Sixteen Action Subgenres

A must-add to the McKee storytelling library, ACTION illustrates the principles of narrative drive with precision and clarity by referencing the most popular action movies of our time including: Die Hard, The Star Wars Saga, Dark Knight, The Matrix, and Avengers: Endgame.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Twelve
  4. Publication date
    September 6, 2022
  5. Dimensions
    6.4 x 1.05 x 9.4 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1538726912
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1538726914
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"ACTION inspires action. McKee and El-Wakil have created the guide I’ve been looking for all my years as a professional screenwriter. ACTION helps you understand how and why the thing works—how its heart beats, how it thinks, and most importantly, what makes it move. For a professional action writer, it almost feels like cheating."―Zak Penn, American screenwriter and director

"Robert McKee’s books offer lucid analysis, perceptive insights and fruitful challenges to those of us who practice the magical arts of storytelling. I highly recommend his latest: ACTION—THE ART OF EXCITEMENT Buy it, read it, put it to work!"―Michael Hirst, creator, screenwriter, series producer of Vikings, and Billy the Kid

ACCLAIM FOR ROBERT MCKEE
"Legendary."―The Washington Post

"Universally acclaimed."―The New York Times

"McKee is the world's best-known and most respected lecturer of Storytelling Arts."―The Wall Street Journal

"The ultimate master."―BBC

"His great insight into storytelling is unparalleled."―Los Angeles Times

"A not-so-secret force in the movie industry and Hollywood's most sought-after screenwriting instructor."
 ―Vanity Fair

About the Author

Robert McKee, a Fulbright scholar and member of Final Draft’s Hollywood Hall of Fame, is the world's most sought-after author and lecturer known for his seminars/webinars that provides writers with crucial insight on the story universe. His writing seminars have earned him an international reputation. The cornerstones of his teaching are Character, Storynomics, and Dialogue. Translated into 23 languages, these singular works have defined how we talk about the art of storytelling. Over the last 35 years, he has mentored screenwriters, novelists, playwrights, poets, documentary makers, producers, and directors. The list of McKee alumni includes the winners of over 60 Academy Awards, 200 Emmy Awards, and 100 Writers Guild of America Awards, as well as recipients of the Pulitzer, Booker, Olivier, and other major prose and playwriting prizes.

Bassim El-Wakil has worked closely with Robert McKee for over a decade, as author and lecturer. Acknowledged as an expert on all forms of story structure and genre, he has a personal love for Action, Crime, Fantasy, and the long-form serials of television and comic books. His podcasts, THE STORY TOOLKIT and THE WRITER'S JIHAD are available on all major podcast platforms.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Twelve (September 6, 2022)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1538726912
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1538726914
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.9 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.4 x 1.05 x 9.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 73 ratings

About the author

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Robert McKee

Robert McKee

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Robert McKee, a Fulbright Scholar, is the most sought-after story authority in the world. The best-selling author of STORY, DIALOGUE: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage and Screen, and soon to be published STORYNOMICS, McKee occupies a unique place in modern media storytelling. His teachings have spread beyond the screen, stage and page and his influence in corporate storytelling has become a global phenomenon. Writers of fiction and non fiction, producers, directors, media professionals, and business leaders from the world over read McKee's books and attend his sold-out international seminars (http://mckeestory.com) for an exclusive deep dive into the mastery of the story arts.

McKee’s former students include over 65 Academy Award Winners, 250 Emmy Award Winners, 2,000 Emmy Award Nominees, 150 WGA (Writers Guild of America) Award Winners, 250 WGA Award Nominees, 50 DGA (Directors Guild of America) Award Winners, and 100 DGA Award Nominees.

McKee continues to be a project consultant to major film and television production companies such as 20th Century Fox, Disney, Paramount, & MTV. In addition, Pixar, ABC, BBC, Disney, Miramax, PBS, Nickelodeon, Paramount, GLOBOSAT, MNET and other international TV and film companies regularly send their entire creative and writing team to his lectures.

In the corporate world, McKee consulted his STORYNOMICS to companies such as Microsoft, Intel, BOLDT, Marriott International, Arm and Hammer, and Deutsche Telecom/T-Systems to name a few.

Since 1984, more than 100,000 students have taken McKee’s courses in various cities around the world.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
73 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

LingoSlinger
5.0 out of 5 stars Clarity and power for writers
Reviewed in the United States on November 25, 2023
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If you write in any action genre, this book (in McKee’s usual academic style) brings marvelous definition to what exactly you’re trying to make your audience feel. The answer is “excitement.” The authors explain how action differs from horror or suspense, helping you write all three more powerfully.

If you are deep into creating your screenplay or novel and wondering “Why isn’t this working?” Action provides a terrific, actionable reminder of how the characters must interrelate and of the tropes you must hit, or your action story isn’t fulfilling audience expectations for excitement.

I loved this book, and reading it makes my mind flood with ideas for future creations. Recommended.
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TMack
5.0 out of 5 stars POWERFUL!!
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2022
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I bought this book today September 6th 2022 the day it came out I started reading the sample and had to buy the book immediately because it was a page Turner it is very easy to understand has a lot of great insights I'm still reading the book but I have covered a lot already this in my opinion is Robert McKee's best work as far as a book and I'm looking forward to the improvements it's going to make to my screenplays and screenwriting!!! Highly recommended by T-MACK!!🎥
7 people found this helpful
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R&S
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Seminal Work by Robert McKee
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2022
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Robert McKee's latest book, "Action," was released three days ago. It is, as I expected, excellent and consistent with the exceptional quality of his previous three books on writing, "Story," "Dialogue," and "Character." McKee has vast knowledge of literature, film, and stage and is meticulous and insightful in presenting it. Unlike most books on writing craft which are like the caffeine hype of an Amway Convention (yet hollow with advice so stale that has become cliché), McKee's works are graduate level. The Master scores again.
12 people found this helpful
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BB
5.0 out of 5 stars More great work from McKee & Bass
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2022
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A+
4 people found this helpful
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pbweill
1.0 out of 5 stars Horrible
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2023
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First of all, 15 bucks is very expensive for an ebook. Second, I got like three writing tips from all these pages. One rule an author must follow is always keep the reader in mind. These authors missed that mark, going on and on and on about their smart theories but forgetting to teach us about writing.
4 people found this helpful
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Diane H
4.0 out of 5 stars Good information
Reviewed in the United States on December 19, 2022
Action is a book about writing action into your book, screenplay or graphic novel. It methodically describes how all fiction follows an action methodology regardless of genre. Each genre is explained in excruciating detail. No prior knowledge is assumed. I would assume most writers or readers know that epic stories consist of a hero, a villain, and a victim. However, the author mentions it several times like it was a new idea.

Okay, you can tell I didn’t like the author’s pedantic tone. It did seem at first as if he was talking down to his reader. However, you can’t argue with success. He has trained many award-winning writers—according to his bio in the back. I do believe there is some great information here. I just wish I didn’t have to read all the rest of Action to get to it. 4 stars.

Thanks to Twelve and NetGalley for a digital review copy of the book.
3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Denise
3.0 out of 5 stars yes, but
Reviewed in Italy on March 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
Having read many books about storytelling, I must say this doesn’t add much to what McKee already wrote in Story and Dialogue. I expected more insight in the tricks of the trade instead of a mere analysis of successful action movies and the repetition of “if you can come up with a truly original villain and extremely creative ways to get your hero out of the mercy scene, you win action writing”
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North Yorkshire
3.0 out of 5 stars I like McKee - but this needs an editor
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 3, 2022
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This is a good book that seeks to provide a solid grounding for writers of action stories. McKee belabours the key principles in the first half of the book but only so he can apply them to effect in his case study sections toward the end. If you have read any McKee (or Shawn Coyne) before then it is really the 2nd half you will want.

i found the first half a bit repetitious. He states his definition of the action genre and then puts it in graphic form, then writes it out long-hand, and then has a mini-recap. This means some key points, like villains are bad guys, get spelled out around 8-10 times. This long intro section looks very like it was lightly worked up from a set of presentational slides.

Given that the first half of the book is about categorising story types and stuff, it is a shame that the categorising is a bit bungled: his 4 'core story conventions' are listed in a different order each time, he lists 10 genres and then a few pages later is naming other things as genres that aren't on that list of 10 (by his system these extra things should be labelled subgenres). Sometimes he calls one of the 4 core story conventions 'action' and other times he calls it 'event'. Giving that he is describing the action genre you think an editor might have tightened this up to avoid possible confusion.

There is also a note up-front about pronouns, saying that non-specific references will be 'she' on odd-numbered pages and 'he' on even pages. Fair enough, but this rule is promptly ignored and does not feature. I get that page-setting makes this harder to achieve than we might think, but just get rid of that prefatory note. It's a petty point, but it speaks to a level of editing that has clearly been skipped.

if you cut out the repetition of info (in bullet points, verbal statement and infographic format) then you are really looking at a 60pp book. I get that those repetitions drill in the main structural points and so there is a pedagogic point to the repetition. The 2nd half is more effective because the first half has been so insistent about its structures and categories. We can focus on exploiting those terms and structures. But, sometimes it is be-labouring the obvious (and I am aware my review is belabouring its point as well).

If you are a writer the issues I have noted above are probably virtues; I am more of a reader, looking to this for insights and an understanding of how stories work. Still, I thought it worth flagging up this issue, as it is an expensive book.
2 people found this helpful
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Lola
4.0 out of 5 stars Sounds good…
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 19, 2022
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Haven’t read yet at renovations are currently taking top priority. I look forward to reading as hope it will help my writing knowledge. This is one of many McKee books
One person found this helpful
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