Bobby Mack's In Town. No, Not Billy Mack From Love Actually.

I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely convinced by Robert McKee's Story.

It explains itself well as it goes along, and gives good examples and the like, but at the end of it all I just felt slightly overwhelmed by the almost algorithmic charts and equations involved, and something about it didn't quite sit right with me. It's entirely possible that I lost the thread somewhere along the way, and that I'm resenting the theory for my lack of understanding, but it could just be that it's a matter of horses for courses, every particular writer having son gout, and all that.

So anyway, I don't quite adhere to McKee's approach, but I certainly couldn't discount it either - a lot of people are big fans, and if nothing else, he's passionate about trying to discern what makes some stories work and others flounder - so it's only right that I point out that he's in the UK - specifically London - next week, doing some of his seminars; one on Love Stories, and then his famous Story Seminar.

It's short notice, yes, but I only found out myself last night, and I'm breaking away from my hot cross buns (not a euphemism) to post this, so it's as fast as I could letcha know, all right?

Good.

Well, now we've got that settled, this is the link you need to click for more details.

And I note one level of the tickets entitles you to a free copy of Final Draft - however, as people who buy it from authorised suppliers are eligible for a free copy of the new version which is due in May, you might want to make sure that, if you get it this way, you'll also be entitled to the free upgrade.

(On which theme, I'll be interested to see what people think of FD v8 when it comes out; I've been using Celtx and Word and waiting to hear that FD's new version is more readily compatible with Vista.)