I’ve been aware of John Truby for a few years, since a director friend went on one of his courses.  I read the notes she’d made, and it seemed like Truby was another contender for the writing guru crown, the distinction being that instead of getting you to structure your story in 3 or even 5 acts, he got you to look at 22 factors.  22 is more than 7 times as big as 3, right?  So was Truby 7 times as good, or just 7 times more pedantically detailed?

It’s only now that I’m reading John Truby’s book The Anatomy of Story that I can really hope to answer that question.  And it has to be said that I’m very impressed.  What comes across clearly is the depth of Truby’s perceptions.  Not only that, but he’s captured his insights into a series of questions that you can apply in the development phase of your work, and by doing that he ensures you’re in the driving seat, rather than merely a spectator as he barks his version of wisdom at you, which is how I feel at times when I read McKee.

Truby has thought a great deal about what makes a story tick, in ways that help to cement the empathy of audiences.  His interest is in creating protagonists living in situations so fascinating that people are compelled to follow their journeys.  The emphasis is on shaping everything around that journey, so it resolves critical questions and doesn’t waste time delving into the irrelevant.

One area in which Truby is particularly strong is in exploring a character’s moral behaviour, which in this context concerns the way they interact with others.  Specifically he suggests that a protagonist should be morally flawed at the outset of the story, that is have them acting in such a way that they are seen to hurt at least one other person at some level.  This sense of morality as an observable trait that can thus be seen to change over the course of a story is one I find fascinating and convincing.

By removing morality from the realms of the abstract and exploring it as something manifest in behaviour, and hence filmable, it gives another dimension to the process of story development.  Many myths are fundamentally stories about morality, and Truby’s steer in this regard is a valuable aid in giving your story a mythic dimension.  Plus, a lot of commercially successful movies work at that level, and I’d be interested to discover how my own morality changes when I’m exposed to tremendous wealth.

Where Truby excels is in creating templates to explore different aspects of story.  He makes sensible propositions about premise, structure, character design and so on, and then gives you the questions that will help you determine the answers to those issues for your own story.  In effect, he’s done the intellectual heavy lifting for you, and leaves you to benefit from his analysis.  So far I’ve yet to find his approach less than useful, and utility is the measuring stick by which I judge books on screenwriting.

I thoroughly recommend The Anatomy of Story, which at this point is only available in hardback: and has considerably nicer paper than the cheap coarse grain stuff used in my hardback copy of McKee’s Story.  Of such trivialities are sentiments made.  I’m still reading the book, and continue to benefit from what I’m coming across: this is an excellent text whether you’re embarking on a screenplay, novel, or pitch for a comic series.