Stealing Fire from the Gods: The Complete Guide to Story for Writers and Filmmakers (2nd Edition) |  | Author: James Bonnet
Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions
List Price: $26.95
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Seller: backpack_books
Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 164022
Media: Paperback
Edition: 2nd
Pages: 269
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 1932907114
Dewey Decimal Number: 808.23
EAN: 9781932907117
ASIN: 1932907114
Publication Date: July 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A revised and expanded sequel to Stealing Fire from the Gods, this 2nd edition includes important new revelations concerning the ultimate source of unity, the structures of the whole story passage, the anti-hero's journey, the high-concept great idea, the secrets of charismatic characters, and the analyses of many important new stories and successful films.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
 Posting a review on behalf of Carmen MacKenzie November 11, 2008
Ken Lee (Seattle WA)
"If you want to be a significant storymaker then the ideas in "Stealing Fires from the Gods" are worth their weight in gold. Mr. James Bonnet brilliantly and practically illustrates the multi-structural life cycles of the storywheel. He reveals the genetic code on how to tell a great story that engages the human spirit and supplies a thinking framework that unlocks your inner storyteller" Carmen MacKenzie
 Self-evident ignorance April 1, 2008
Sam Paige (San Francisco, CA)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
This is a painful piece of work, designed to make you feel like you're doing something important. Anything that truly resonates is borrowed from Joseph Campbell's work. Read that...or read David Mamet's work on writing (Three Uses of A Knife and Bambi vs. Godzilla comes to mind). Aristotle's Poetica. Good story writing is difficult to do but easy to explain: make the audience/reader want to know what happens next.
In giving examples to prove his points, he consistently re-imagines the themes/meanings and plots of widely known work so that it fits his "formula." He doesn't even follow his own imaginary principles.
The definitive book for real storytellers February 14, 2008
Kris Hembury (Australia)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you appreciate the deepest dimensions of stories and you want to tell them, buy this book.
The author said he began decades ago asking the question, 'what are stories about?' (Or something similar). A few years ago, I began the same quest, and pretty much all of my discoveries are included in this book--as well as a whole lot more. I've been humbled, because I invested a lot of myself into 'my theories' but I've come to realise they're not mine, they're universal and we can all tap into and share them.
The concepts in this book go very deep but are explained succinctly, meaning one might breeze over the ideas without understanding their significance. Touching on the anthropological, emotional, psychological, spiritual, you'll consciously get a lot from this book if you have an open, explorative mind.
This isn't so much a practical guide to the technicalities of the craft of writing; it's much bigger and deeper. This book is about stories, what they are, how to tell them and why they work. It's also about life.
Like someone has said, 'all great works are built on the shoulders of giants'--in this case, people like Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung--but...
if I were to pick one book for an aspiring storyteller, a single book that encompasses the most about stories, it would be this one, with the advice, "Have the patience and faith to explore the many treasures that certainly exist within it."
Stealing Money From The Schlubs September 26, 2007
H. Satterfield (LA, CA, USA)
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
Okay, I have my MFA in screenwriting, and have read many a book on writing (and there are some very good ones out there). But if, like me, you want additional tools or methods to improve your story/writing/script, then this book is "practically" useless. I say "practically", because after spending half the book on the history of story and other incidentals (academic), the author reserves the last quarter of the book for a complicated bit of story construction/deconstruction mumbo-jumbo that was part Joseph Campbell, part mysticism, and part fevered-dream. There is no "practical" here. Oh, there are boxes for you to put your story into, then based on that box (or paradigm), specific paths for your story to follow. However, so many other books do it so much better (and more practically). Heck, read Michael Hague, he'll give you four fundamental hero types/goals; and read Joseph Campbell yourself. And for gosh sakes, there's nothing like reading screenplays.
The book made me mad. This much money for this little is a bookish crime.
 Slightly over my head September 13, 2007
Frederic Woodbridge (ID, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
[3.5 stars]
I have to give this a three-and-a-half-star review, because like an opera viewer, while I can recognize the skill of the singers, I am technically inept at understanding the reasons for that skill.
This is advanced level writing, and I can sort of catch glimpses of brilliance in how the author describes story but, for me, that brilliance is frequently hidden from view by the ponderous language and the intricate psychological contrivances. I wanted to really understand this book, but I don't know if that's possible as a neophyte screenwriter. I believe this is a book I will return to when I have a bit more knowledge and confidence.
In the meantime, I will finish reading Syd Field.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 19
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