Читать книгу Memo from the Story Department - Christopher Vogler - Страница 9

MY TIME IN THE

STORY DEPARTMENT

—— MCKENNA ——

I have never wanted to write a book. Christopher Vogler made me do it.

By nature, I am a troubadour, a gadfly, a raconteur, an entertainer. I fell into directing plays and was a carefree young fellow, traveling from one low-paying gig to another. I was learning lessons about showmanship and my craft, and I was happy to ply my trade for anyone willing to pay the piper.

Then I met Mr. Vogler, who is a far more serious and determined gent than I. Aside from his snarky wit, what attracted me to him was his unique ability to read obscure tomes and to distill their arcane information into digestible and tasty nuggets of wisdom. Gadfly meets Harry the Explainer.

We shared an insatiable appetite for stories and how they are made.

Being serious, Chris applied himself to getting steady work in the film industry. Aware that I was inclined to gig forever, Chris took me in hand and insisted that I join him.

He showed me how to make a living as a reader/story analyst for film studios. On one level, he was being kind to a penniless fool. On another, he was recruiting a comrade to help decipher the lessons his artistic journey was revealing and a colleague who would provide different lessons for him to consider. Over a very long time on the job, we have analyzed uncounted thousands of screenplays. We have been and remain a two-man story department.

So this book (which I never wanted to write) is an artifact of our four-decade conversation. The son of an amateur handyman whose claim to fame was canoes constructed from concrete, Chris is on a lifelong mission to describe how things work and to create a better set of tools. The Writer's Journey and his chapters within this book are fruits of that search.

He's badgered me for years to explain what I know. He finally handcuffed me to a keyboard and got his wish. If my contribution to this book proves to be half as valuable to storytellers and audiences as Chris' work has been, I'll be a very happy man.