John Truby's "The Anatomy of Story" Pt. 1 and 2

Part 1 on "Premise" and Part 2 on "7 Steps"

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• John
• Truby
• The Anatomy of Story

[nikonxxx]

this guy fucked me up, hahah once i listened to him, i never listened to anyone else

[soulfuljourney]

brilliant map makers are not necessarily brilliant travelers. the skill of teaching and dissecting is not necessarily the skill of writing/crafting. his skill may well be in understanding the technique of facilitating others' creativity vs. creating himself. all coaches are not always the best athletes. different skill set. so i don't think he needs to be degraded for his weaknesses, so much as valued for his strengths. great directors are often not the best actors either.

[makeiteasyable]

this man is so wise.

[MEAndersFit]

@Hamadryade They're probably not writers. LOL

[Hamadryade]

Howcome no one is taking notes ? tss..

[jmmhauser]

Mr. Truby makes so much sense.

[Xelanderthomas]

@djoh1186 also, please don't get me wrong. I'm working on a play...it's not a screen play it's a stage but still I am finding Truby's book and idea amazingly helpful...

[Xelanderthomas]

@djoh1186 What this finally told me was that a great performance is a great performance and probably embodies all the elements that make a great performance. When Truby lays out these very specific steps in a pretty specific order and then uses an already established "great" script as an example...well, I just wish I could see a script that I know for sure the writer was using these specific steps and see how it turned out. But he doesn't really write, so I can't. That's all I'm saying.

[Xelanderthomas]

@djoh1186 Absolutely, I don't doubt these guys are well paid and deserve ever inch of their career. It's interesting that you mentioned Meisner.  I have studied (taken classes or workshops) all three of the major American (for lack of a better word) method teachers approaches, Meisner, Strassberg and Stella Alder's - now, in all of these the teacher/coach will inevitably point to Marlon Brando's performance in a Street-Car Name Desire as a quintessential example of this particular technique...

[djoh1186]

@Xelanderthomas I agree with you somewhat, that some 'guru's' may become guru's only because they have given up on screenwriting. Others though, McKee for instance, are paid more for their consultancy work than most script writers are paid.

Stanislavski and Meisner were not renown actors but they are responsible for almost all of the acting you see in modern cinema. I believe some people are meant to teach.

[MPTPGV]

@Xelanderthomas

I agree, but I disagree, I think that these people aren't perfect, and you shouldn't take their word as law, but they definitely help. However, there are some people with experience, the most notable, though his book is hard to find, it is the best book I've read, outside of McKee's Story, on Scriptwriting, J. Michael Straczynski The Complete Book of Scriptwriting. He created Babylon five and wrote The Changeling for Clint Eastwood. Check him out, if you haven't already.