Story Structure as Master Metaphor
The storyteller’s selection and arrangement of events is his master metaphor for the interconnectedness of all the levels of reality–personal, political, environmental, spiritual. Stripped of its surface of characterization and location, story structure reveals his personal cosmology, his insight into the deepest patterns and motivations for how and why things happen in this world–his map of life’s hidden order.
Robert McKee
in Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
I’m not sure I fully grasp this statement, or understand exactly what it means in terms of my art, but I’m chewing it over. Story structure as my map of life’s hidden order? That certainly gives a new import to where the story begins, and in what order scenes are presented.