This means engaging all of the senses and creating a fully-realized world that the audience can step into. By doing this, the story becomes more than just a series of events; it becomes a transformative experience that can stay with the audience long after the story has ended. "Withholding, or hiding, information is crucial to the storyteller’s make-believe." Once we understand that all of human life is a form of story, the next step becomes clear: genres are the portals to this world. My novel’s basic arc- who is battling whom for what, where they’re doing it, why they’re doing it, and how it’s going to end. The author fails to establish confidence as a master storyteller due to the simple fact that he can't even give an accurate description of Harry Potter.

Truby was born in 1954 and grew up in Australia. He attended the University of Melbourne, where he studied film and television. He then moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career in screenwriting. John Truby is a screenwriter, teacher, and producer. He has taught at many different universities and currently has his own screenwriting school, the John Truby Writers’ Studio. He has also written several books on screenwriting, including The Anatomy of Story. The main challenge facing any storyteller is overcoming the contradiction between the first and second of these tasks. You construct a story from hundreds, even thousands, of elements using a vast array of techniques. Yet the story must feel organic to the audience; it must seem like a single thing that grows and builds to a climax. If you want to become a great storyteller, you have to master this technique to such a high degree that your characters seem to be acting on their own, as they must, even though you are the one making them act that way. A version of this hierarchy of knowledge is what we’re taught to this day. We’re told that math and science are essential for our future success, while painting, music, and theater are extracurricular activities. Stories are diversions, something to take our minds off our troubles after a long day. They are something a few creative people write, and even fewer get paid for, while the rest of us enjoy stories in our spare time. Scene Construction and Symphonic Dialogue Finally we'll write the story, constructing each scene so that it furthers the development of your hero. We'll write dialogue that doesn't just push the plot but has a symphonic quality, blending many "instruments" and levels at one time.

And that’s the problem I struggle with when I read books like John Truby’s Anatomy of Story. You can think all day about your one-sentence premise or your seven key story steps or your three-part character equation or your four-cornered opponents, but you aren’t going to be able to construct a resonant story out of these bits and pieces until you tap into your hard-earned emotional wisdom. (I’ve spent a lot of time this week marveling at Rowling’s dazzling variety of disenfranchised, alienated characters – from Snape to Luna Lovegood to Neville Longbottom to Harry himself – and how many routes to redemption and community she finds for them.) In this sense we storytellers are a lot like athletes. A great athlete makes everything look easy, as though his body just naturally moves that way. But in fact he has so mastered the techniques of his sport that his technique has simply disappeared from view, and the audience sees only beauty. Similar to Blake Snyder, Truby points out that writers should be able to say what their story is about before they start writing, but his primary method of getting there is unclear. The "designing principle" is, I would say, Truby's really original contribution, something I haven't read about before, but he can't say what it is. He can never get to whether this is a method storytelling, a master plot, a narrative focus, or what. He puts a lot of importance on it, and says it will lead to "original and organic" storytelling, but can't say what it is. If I said I had something of enormous value, you'd probably want to know what it is, and get annoyed with me if I just told you over and over that it was really important.

Theme (Moral Argument) The theme is your moral vision, your view of how people should act in the world. But instead of making the characters a mouthpiece for a message, we will express the theme that is inherent in the story idea. And we'll express the theme through the story structure so that it both surprises and moves the audience. Stories that emphasize simultaneous action tend to use a branching structure and include American Graffiti, Pulp Fiction, Traffic, Syriana, Crash, Nashville, Tristram Shandy, Ulysses, Last Year at Marienbad, Ragtime, The Canterbury Tales, L.A. Confidential, and Hannah and Her Sisters. Each represents a different combination of linear and simultaneous storytelling, but each emphasizes characters existing together in the story world as opposed to a single character developing from beginning to end. 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. Then, the perfect survival manual to help you negotiate the often confusing, contradictory and cutthroat world of professional screenwriting." -- Larry Wilson, co-writer /co-producer of BEETLEJUICE and co-writer of THE ADDAMS FAMILYScene Weave In the last step before writing scenes, we'll come up with a list of every scene in the story, with all the plotlines and themes woven into a tapestry. Serious novels typically depict how a person interacts and changes within an entire society or show the precise mental and emotional processes leading up to his change. By keeping certain information hidden, the audience is forced to engage with the story and make their own interpretations, which can make the experience more immersive and rewarding. However, this technique must be used carefully to avoid frustrating or alienating the audience.

Depending on how one classifies genres, there could be six, seven, thirty-two, hundreds, or even thousands. Here, we will work through what I believe to be the fourteen most influential of them.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. This book was phenomenal. Please go out immediately and torch your copy of SAVE THE CAT and get this book instead. At work, we need to tell a compelling story to drum up business. A good story can determine whether we can pay the rent.