The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

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A comprehensive guide to writing stories of all kinds, Truby's tome is invaluable to any writer looking to put an idea to paper." -- Booklist KEY POINT: The main function of the genre beats is to express the unique theme/life philosophy of that form. Truby wants you to think intentionally about the metaphors and symbols of place you’ll be employing- from seasons, to weather, to the landscape- and the degree to which they have a profound influence on the kind of story you want to tell. In Worksheet 5, you look at much of the work you’ve already done through the lens of your Story World. This is the chapter where I usually end up feeling as though things are really falling into place. In the last twenty years, this has only intensified. Giving the audience more “story” for their hard-earned dollars has been one of the major trends in worldwide storytelling in every medium. It has such a strong following that anyone with an unpopular opinion about this book may not be taken seriously or as just a cynic. But here goes...

Worksheet 2 will help you focus in on your main character’s arc, from their weaknesses and needs at the beginning, to the new equilibrium of the universe at the end. You’ll start to think about aligning your main character’s arc with the arc of the story, so that they’ll be working together, instead of at cross purposes.

Everything you need to know about life can be found in stories. Why? Stories define life. And the philosophies developed over the course of human history inform and respond to both. As a result, understanding the anatomy of a story is about much more than writing. It’s also about knowing how to live. As the subtitle mentions, Truby’s model of story revolves around a 22-step framework. It should be noted that this division is neither the only one imaginable, nor the only one that works. There are numerous great books on story available, and most have their own unique ways of organizing the details. While some authors focus heavily on screenplay versus the novel versus other story forms, Truby keeps his approach generalizable. Like others, he uses examples from both film and classic novels. Having said that Truby’s way isn’t the only way, it is a way that works, and it’s among the most popular works on story building. I knew that John Truby was the master of Hollywood script and highly influential among fiction writers in novel and short story. But I was blown away by the profundity of his thought. It comes through in his books more directly than in his many videos. Television drama shows a number of characters in a minisociety struggling to change simultaneously.

John Truby is an American screenwriter, director and screenwriting teacher. The Anatomy of Story is his long-awaited first book, and it shares all of his secrets for writing a compelling script. Based on the lessons in his award-winning class, Great Screenwriting, The Anatomy of Story draws on a broad range of philosophy and mythology, offering fresh techniques and insightful anecdotes alongside Truby's own unique approach for how to build an effective, multifaceted narrative. Consider this quote from Richard Flanagan’s novel First Person (2018). Scam artist “Ziggy” Heidl explains the reason for his success:Imagine, if you can, a pre– Star Wars world. In the summer of 1975, Jaws was released in movie theaters throughout America. This realistic Horror story was based on a bestselling book. When Jaws turned out to be a monster hit, the film industry saw that the game went beyond the U.S. market. It was now about worldwide box office. KEY POINT: If human life is poetics, the knowledge we get from story is the greatest knowledge of all. The Anatomy Of Story is concrete and practical without resorting to simplistic ‘Three Act Structure’ screenwriting clichés. It will be an indispensable guide to writing your first great script.” —Larry Wilson, co-writer /co-producer of Beetljuice and co-writer of The Addams Family This is a key element in creating tension and conflict in the story, as the hero must make a difficult decision that has real consequences. By limiting the options to just two, the choice becomes more powerful and meaningful, and the audience is more invested in the outcome.

Each of the various genres—Detective, Love, Fantasy, and the like—is a unique window onto how a particular aspect of the world works and how best to confront it. Writers have a unique perspective because it’s their job to think in terms of different worlds and deeper structures. If they want to write stories that will achieve critical and popular success, they need to consider elements such as morality and point of view. Morality refers to how a character’s actions affect others. That’s why, in the Crime chapter, we discuss the moral code of both the hero and their opponent. While all stories require a point of view, the Detective genre explores the way this fact variously limits and empowers the human mind. I’ve learned that I write better, and have more fun doing it, if I have a roadmap. And using a roadmap like Truby’s, which offers up the reassurance that I can make my story stronger by thinking about all of its elements in a calculated way in advance of writing it, is particularly useful to me. I find that because Truby is written for screenwriters, the book’s tone is very direct in a way that many books for fiction writers aren’t. Truby believes that there is a method to writing a good story, and that the method can be taught. In simplest terms, I'm going to lay out a practical poetics for storytellers that works whether you're writing a screenplay, a novel, a play, a teleplay, or a short story. I willOnce we understand that all of human life is a form of story, the next step becomes clear: genres are the portals to this world.