"John, I've got your book on Story - by Robert McKee."

"Oh, yes I was wondering where it went.  Is my name written inside the front jacket?"
"Yes it is."
"John?"
"Yes, Mark."
"I was going through Chapter 14 - the Principle of Antagonism and I got carried away and forgot that it was your book. And...I started marking it up."
"How badly!"
"Pretty badly, most of its underlined. Some of its hightlighted, I've bracketed most of the quotes and then there's the comments that I've written in the margins - oh yes, and the usual dog ears, maybe about twenty all told."
"Twenty! How can you dog ear twenty pages in one chapter?"
"After I'd started I could not restrain myself and I continued the pattern for the remaining chapters - then went back to previously untouched chapters and began the process there. I guess, since I'm telling you this, I better add that there's some double dog ears for the really important pages."

"The book sounds like its now unreadable to anyone else."

"John, can I tell you a story about my Dad, because it may be hereditary?"
"Really do you have to?"
"Its a short one."
"That's what you say about all your stories... But I guess go ahead."
"Not that I believe the same thing, but Dad would have considered personal commentary to be value added - and often tried to return books that he'd marked up in a similar way. Usually just the first few chapters - they would have a scattering of, "rubbish", "complete rubbish", "lunacy", "imbecile", "half-wit". When these comments, and others like them, became so thick that he'd be forced to abandon reading the book for his own sanity, he would head back to the local BookCity to return it. Dad considered his markups - to be value added & informative to the next reader - and could not understand the booksellers inability to see his point of view."
"So, Mark, what your suggesting is that your markups of my book are in someway 'value added'."
"Not exactly, but maybe if you'd try reading it, marked up, so to speak, you may find it useful."
"Useful! Now look here, you asked to borrow MY copy of the book after you lost YOURS. You've kept it for two years and now you want to return it, MARKED up. And your suggesting that this might in some way be USEFUL to ME!"

It seems to be a nearly universal human attribute for us to get much more interested when we sense conflict. All of our senses are heightened. I've noticed this as I'm reading a book, there's background and setting and I'm reading along, then comes these few lines of conflict, and I catch myself reading intently and sometimes re-reading those lines.

By the way this conflict has not happened - between John and I, yet. So its fictional. Most of what happens between John and I is not "newsworthy" or "storyworthy". It's simply us connecting on a frequent basis - just like the many day to day events of our life. But story disappears most of this and focuses on The Inciting Incident, as a means to set up The Conflict, and then hopefully, The Resolution. Here's a few levels that conflict thrives, according to Robert McKee.

 Well its a Saturday, so I'm going to end this blog here. Love feedback or questions...;-)
p.s. John, I might have exaggerated things a bit - for the sake of the story ;-)
 Note: no names have been changed to protect the innocent.