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The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works
A guide to understanding the major genres of the story world by the legendary writing teacher and author of The Anatomy of Story, John Truby.
Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Writers who want to succeed professionally must write the stories these businesses want to buy. Simply put, the storytelling game is won by mastering the structure of genres.
The Anatomy of How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works is the legendary writing teacher John Truby’s step-by-step guide to understanding and using the basic building blocks of the story world. He details the three ironclad rules of successful genre writing, and analyzes more than a dozen major genres and the essential plot events, or “beats,” that define each of them. As he shows, the ability to combine these beats in the right way is what separates stories that sell from those that don’t. Truby also reveals how a single story can combine elements of different genres, and how the best writers use this technique to craft unforgettable stories that stand out from the crowd.
Just as Truby’s first book, The Anatomy of Story, changed the way writers develop stories, The Anatomy of Genres will enhance their quality and expand the impact they have on the world.
Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios, production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and sell them. Writers who want to succeed professionally must write the stories these businesses want to buy. Simply put, the storytelling game is won by mastering the structure of genres.
The Anatomy of How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works is the legendary writing teacher John Truby’s step-by-step guide to understanding and using the basic building blocks of the story world. He details the three ironclad rules of successful genre writing, and analyzes more than a dozen major genres and the essential plot events, or “beats,” that define each of them. As he shows, the ability to combine these beats in the right way is what separates stories that sell from those that don’t. Truby also reveals how a single story can combine elements of different genres, and how the best writers use this technique to craft unforgettable stories that stand out from the crowd.
Just as Truby’s first book, The Anatomy of Story, changed the way writers develop stories, The Anatomy of Genres will enhance their quality and expand the impact they have on the world.
722 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2022
585 people are currently reading
2634 people want to read
About the author
John Truby
18 books170 followersJohn Truby (born 1952) is an American screenwriter, director, screenwriting teacher and author. He has served as a consultant on over 1,000 film scripts over the past three decades, and is also known for the screenwriting software program Blockbuster (originally "Storyline Pro"). He is the author of Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, a book about screenwriting skills.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 94 reviews
December 1, 2022
I'm 28 years old. Four years ago, on a plane leaving Los Angeles, I discovered my second favorite book, The Anatomy of Story. And yesterday, November 29th, 2022, I found my all-time favorite book: The Anatomy of Genres, the fastest 700-page book in print.
John, your work has rescued me from never truly knowing how the best stories work and how to create them. Through your work, every story/script/novel I write is infinitely better than anything I would have made otherwise.
Thank you for freeing me from the 3-4-5-6 Act Structures and the Monomyth. Thank you for saving me from Stephen King's pantser advice. Thank you for a lifetime of great work and for passing it on.
I have had incredible teachers in my life, but above the lot, you transcend. This book is a modern treasure, and you are like the Pythagoras of Story.
I look forward to meeting you tomorrow at the Grove. Unbelievable job on this, and thank you, Leslie, for your work and teachings on writing in the novel medium. - Eric Vonrhein
John, your work has rescued me from never truly knowing how the best stories work and how to create them. Through your work, every story/script/novel I write is infinitely better than anything I would have made otherwise.
Thank you for freeing me from the 3-4-5-6 Act Structures and the Monomyth. Thank you for saving me from Stephen King's pantser advice. Thank you for a lifetime of great work and for passing it on.
I have had incredible teachers in my life, but above the lot, you transcend. This book is a modern treasure, and you are like the Pythagoras of Story.
I look forward to meeting you tomorrow at the Grove. Unbelievable job on this, and thank you, Leslie, for your work and teachings on writing in the novel medium. - Eric Vonrhein
June 8, 2023
I don't believe a word of what Truby says in this book, and I don't think any of his pronouncements are useful to writers. Here are some examples from the first chapter: "Seeing the world through the prism of story marks a revolutionary change in how we look at the world, and it's the reverse of what we've been taught." "Stories are maps of humanity." "If human life is poetics, the knowledge we get from story is the greatest knowledge of all."
These sweeping statements rest on nothing but Truby's say-so, and they are essentially meaningless. His set of genres—the very heart of the book—is unconvincing, as are his assertions about the genres.
This book is a con, in the purest sense: Truby expresses himself with so much confidence that the reader is likely to be swept along, but behind that confidence, there is nothing of substance. It's impressive that he has managed to con so many readers into buying this book.
These sweeping statements rest on nothing but Truby's say-so, and they are essentially meaningless. His set of genres—the very heart of the book—is unconvincing, as are his assertions about the genres.
This book is a con, in the purest sense: Truby expresses himself with so much confidence that the reader is likely to be swept along, but behind that confidence, there is nothing of substance. It's impressive that he has managed to con so many readers into buying this book.
June 26, 2023
if i hear this man john truby use ONE MORE SUPERLATIVE i am going to lose my mind.
"the best example in the history of film!"
"the greatest use of this technique!"
"superior to all others!"
like dude please stop.
I found his "Anatomy of Story" somewhat helpful, but there's not a single original insight in this 700 page book. if you've seen any of the movies he's referencing or heard of Aristotle and took a history class in high school you've got the "anatomy of genres" covered, you don't need this clown explaining it to you. You mean to tell me that.... life is a story?????? I am astounded! My whole life is changed!
"the best example in the history of film!"
"the greatest use of this technique!"
"superior to all others!"
like dude please stop.
I found his "Anatomy of Story" somewhat helpful, but there's not a single original insight in this 700 page book. if you've seen any of the movies he's referencing or heard of Aristotle and took a history class in high school you've got the "anatomy of genres" covered, you don't need this clown explaining it to you. You mean to tell me that.... life is a story?????? I am astounded! My whole life is changed!
July 8, 2024
John Truby attempts something very ambitious with this book. He lays out a theory for how all the major genres today work, how to write them, and what they teach us philosophically. It's an interesting theory, but ultimately I find his overall framework not very compelling.
I heard an old adage once that storytellers should only ever expect to become masters of 1-3 genres over the course of a lifetime, because every single genre is deep and takes years to understand and engage with in fresh, original ways. Ultimately, I think this is why this book falls short of its ambitions. John Truby tries to deeply untangle, analyze, and explain every single storytelling genre. While he does sometimes have good insights, he also makes major blunders. Frankly, he just does not understand all the genres in the ways he thinks he does, and I don't think any single human being could.
On YouTube, I discussed IN DEPTH with a couple of my storyteller friends (Heath Robinson and Douglas A. Burton) where his chapters on Horror, Action, and Myth miss the mark. I won't repeat all our points here. But in short, he strides (over)confidently into topics like philosophy and religion, integrating them into his grand theory, but on so many levels clearly does not understand either of these things as they relate to the points he's making. His understanding of religion is very limited to a Judeo-Christian Western bias; he often asserts universality where it is not warranted, which constantly hurts his arguments.
For example: He asserts that the horror genre is about life vs. death, a trait the genre allegedly shares with religion. But this analysis is off in both regards. Horror is fundamentally about FEAR, and specifically the fear of SUFFERING, not fear of death. (There are fates worse than death that many horror stories grapple with!) And religion of course is about a lot of things, but the one he references constantly (Christianity) is also about avoiding and/or making sense of SUFFERING, not death. So too is Buddhism, and many other faiths. Religion provides a sense of meaning, purpose, and justice in the midst of a confusing and painful world. It's a much more complex and nuanced phenomenon than he makes it out to be. And so is the horror genre.
Also, trying to understand the arguments Truby is making in this book is often frustrating because he (a) refuses to define any of his terms, (b) constantly uses key terms like "story" in wildly inconsistent ways, and (c) uses systems of categorization that are bizarre and frankly incoherent.
In those moments when I did manage to grasp whatever slippery, confusing argument he was trying to make, I often found that the insights offered were rather obvious and not very profound, or just unconvincing.
To be fair, there were some nuggets in here. This book gave me a lot to think about, and I definitely learned from it--which is why I kept reading, despite my constant irritation with the text. But I can't genuinely recommend it.
I think ultimately the reason this book doesn't work for me is that it fails on a foundational level. His theory is essentially that every storytelling genre can be neatly categorized, compared and contrasted, and that they each have a unique philosophical message to offer. In other words, every genre means something. And every story written in that genre shares that same meaning.
I think this is incorrect. Stories of all sorts of genres can mean all sorts of different things. What differentiates the genres isn't what they mean; it's what they do. Every genre offers a unique and consistent recipe of emotional experiences. Horror scares us, comedy makes us laugh, fantasy allows us to explore our hidden longings through the dream logic of archetypes, and mystery invites us to lean in intellectually and try to solve a puzzle... etc., etc.
On one level, I don't think genre is actually as deep as he thinks it is. But on another level, it's far more complex than his rigid analysis allows. This is because every genre can--and does--ask us different questions about the human experience. For example, horror makes us confront our fears, but while doing so it can ask us questions about family and guilt (Hereditary), religion (Saint Maud), race relations (Get Out), desire and envy (X), and so, so many other things.
The playground for each genre is infinite. If you follow Truby's guides, I'm afraid you'll end up severely narrowing the scope of what you can do in different genres.
At the same time, every genre has a history to be studied, audience expectations to honor, and tropes to both respect and artfully subvert. Like I said, you can spend a lifetime studying just one genre and never learn all there is to know. Rather than reading Truby's Anatomy of Genres and erroneously thinking you've mastered them all, choose the top 1-3 genres that you are most passionate about. Study your chosen genre(s) with all your heart, learn all the rules--and then go break those rules and create something new.
I heard an old adage once that storytellers should only ever expect to become masters of 1-3 genres over the course of a lifetime, because every single genre is deep and takes years to understand and engage with in fresh, original ways. Ultimately, I think this is why this book falls short of its ambitions. John Truby tries to deeply untangle, analyze, and explain every single storytelling genre. While he does sometimes have good insights, he also makes major blunders. Frankly, he just does not understand all the genres in the ways he thinks he does, and I don't think any single human being could.
On YouTube, I discussed IN DEPTH with a couple of my storyteller friends (Heath Robinson and Douglas A. Burton) where his chapters on Horror, Action, and Myth miss the mark. I won't repeat all our points here. But in short, he strides (over)confidently into topics like philosophy and religion, integrating them into his grand theory, but on so many levels clearly does not understand either of these things as they relate to the points he's making. His understanding of religion is very limited to a Judeo-Christian Western bias; he often asserts universality where it is not warranted, which constantly hurts his arguments.
For example: He asserts that the horror genre is about life vs. death, a trait the genre allegedly shares with religion. But this analysis is off in both regards. Horror is fundamentally about FEAR, and specifically the fear of SUFFERING, not fear of death. (There are fates worse than death that many horror stories grapple with!) And religion of course is about a lot of things, but the one he references constantly (Christianity) is also about avoiding and/or making sense of SUFFERING, not death. So too is Buddhism, and many other faiths. Religion provides a sense of meaning, purpose, and justice in the midst of a confusing and painful world. It's a much more complex and nuanced phenomenon than he makes it out to be. And so is the horror genre.
Also, trying to understand the arguments Truby is making in this book is often frustrating because he (a) refuses to define any of his terms, (b) constantly uses key terms like "story" in wildly inconsistent ways, and (c) uses systems of categorization that are bizarre and frankly incoherent.
In those moments when I did manage to grasp whatever slippery, confusing argument he was trying to make, I often found that the insights offered were rather obvious and not very profound, or just unconvincing.
To be fair, there were some nuggets in here. This book gave me a lot to think about, and I definitely learned from it--which is why I kept reading, despite my constant irritation with the text. But I can't genuinely recommend it.
I think ultimately the reason this book doesn't work for me is that it fails on a foundational level. His theory is essentially that every storytelling genre can be neatly categorized, compared and contrasted, and that they each have a unique philosophical message to offer. In other words, every genre means something. And every story written in that genre shares that same meaning.
I think this is incorrect. Stories of all sorts of genres can mean all sorts of different things. What differentiates the genres isn't what they mean; it's what they do. Every genre offers a unique and consistent recipe of emotional experiences. Horror scares us, comedy makes us laugh, fantasy allows us to explore our hidden longings through the dream logic of archetypes, and mystery invites us to lean in intellectually and try to solve a puzzle... etc., etc.
On one level, I don't think genre is actually as deep as he thinks it is. But on another level, it's far more complex than his rigid analysis allows. This is because every genre can--and does--ask us different questions about the human experience. For example, horror makes us confront our fears, but while doing so it can ask us questions about family and guilt (Hereditary), religion (Saint Maud), race relations (Get Out), desire and envy (X), and so, so many other things.
The playground for each genre is infinite. If you follow Truby's guides, I'm afraid you'll end up severely narrowing the scope of what you can do in different genres.
At the same time, every genre has a history to be studied, audience expectations to honor, and tropes to both respect and artfully subvert. Like I said, you can spend a lifetime studying just one genre and never learn all there is to know. Rather than reading Truby's Anatomy of Genres and erroneously thinking you've mastered them all, choose the top 1-3 genres that you are most passionate about. Study your chosen genre(s) with all your heart, learn all the rules--and then go break those rules and create something new.
April 12, 2023
"This book is genuinely fascinating, just dropping hot takes every chance it gets." – a friend of mine after I showed him parts of the book.
There's plenty of good quality content here, which is what you want when you buy a book that's 700 pages long. It's also clear a lot of time and research has gone into gathering it. The book has a feeling of a life's work project and a service to the writing community. There is a gap in the market for a guidebook detailing the story beats of genres, and this book is filling at least some of that.
The title is more informative on what this book is about than I initially realised. The book is two different books combined: a guide on how to write story beats for specific genres and a collection of philosophical essays on how genres relate to the real world. These two are intertwined to be explored and read simultaneously. The author has made a good attempt at combining the two, but for me, those ideas should have been in their own books. The philosophical analysis sections often got too far from the topic, and the essays (short or long) being in between explaining the story beats makes it harder to navigate through the guide portions of the book, which can be off-putting for a reader.
As an insight into the genres and the way the themes relate to the real world, the book delivers. These were the sections with the 'hot takes' which sometimes made an entertaining reading experience. I agreed and disagreed and sometimes was really confused by them, which is all okay as long as the reader remembers to stay critical. The book also has a very American-centric view of the genres. It's not really a bad thing, it was rather interesting when it came to the philosophical analysis (for someone not from the States), but it is good to be mindful of it.
I think a lot of people might buy this book thinking they're only going to read the sections they're interested in. Potentially you could do that, but the formatting isn't helpful or efficient for this purpose. The Genres are divided into their own chapters but beyond that it becomes harder to navigate or see the bigger picture, even if you read the whole chapter (or in my case the whole book). The story beats don't come together in a satisfying nor clear way that would make a story, rather they float on their own being surrounded by the philosophical analysis essays. Often there is information that doesn’t really fit, but it had to be there for the reader to understand the next section. This happened especially in the first genre section (Horror), which gave the impression that the author forgot to tell the reader this and therefore just slapped it there. Additionally, there is a lot of repetition, to the point where the same argument was made 5-7 times during a chapter. Therefore, as a guidebook to how to write your own story, the book falls a little short.
I do want to point out that I was really disappointed in the Fantasy section. It was the shortest chapter (being 40 pages when others were 50-65 and longest being 70 pages) which doesn’t make sense since even the author says that the genre is really broad. The takes he made reduced fantasy to just a hero's journey and was outdated. The main examples explored were Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins and Wizard of Oz, which are all relatively old fantasy and don’t reflect the genre today. There is a long section about Game of Thrones, but that doesn't talk about fantasy at all. It is just about how to do a tournament story structure. In general, the chapter was lacking in the exploration of magic systems. Since this chapter was also missing the essays that relate the genre to the real world, it was clear that the author put a lot less effort into this chapter.
The book is most helpful for writers and filmmakers. It’s not very beginner friendly so I only recommend it if you're already familiar with it and want to get beyond general writing theory concepts.
All in all, the book has a lot of good content, but it takes effort from the reader to get it, since the formatting isn’t fully efficient. Also, get ready for the hot takes. Personally, I went between liking and disliking the book a lot during reading, but it still kept me going, which is a huge plus considering the book's length.
There's plenty of good quality content here, which is what you want when you buy a book that's 700 pages long. It's also clear a lot of time and research has gone into gathering it. The book has a feeling of a life's work project and a service to the writing community. There is a gap in the market for a guidebook detailing the story beats of genres, and this book is filling at least some of that.
The title is more informative on what this book is about than I initially realised. The book is two different books combined: a guide on how to write story beats for specific genres and a collection of philosophical essays on how genres relate to the real world. These two are intertwined to be explored and read simultaneously. The author has made a good attempt at combining the two, but for me, those ideas should have been in their own books. The philosophical analysis sections often got too far from the topic, and the essays (short or long) being in between explaining the story beats makes it harder to navigate through the guide portions of the book, which can be off-putting for a reader.
As an insight into the genres and the way the themes relate to the real world, the book delivers. These were the sections with the 'hot takes' which sometimes made an entertaining reading experience. I agreed and disagreed and sometimes was really confused by them, which is all okay as long as the reader remembers to stay critical. The book also has a very American-centric view of the genres. It's not really a bad thing, it was rather interesting when it came to the philosophical analysis (for someone not from the States), but it is good to be mindful of it.
I think a lot of people might buy this book thinking they're only going to read the sections they're interested in. Potentially you could do that, but the formatting isn't helpful or efficient for this purpose. The Genres are divided into their own chapters but beyond that it becomes harder to navigate or see the bigger picture, even if you read the whole chapter (or in my case the whole book). The story beats don't come together in a satisfying nor clear way that would make a story, rather they float on their own being surrounded by the philosophical analysis essays. Often there is information that doesn’t really fit, but it had to be there for the reader to understand the next section. This happened especially in the first genre section (Horror), which gave the impression that the author forgot to tell the reader this and therefore just slapped it there. Additionally, there is a lot of repetition, to the point where the same argument was made 5-7 times during a chapter. Therefore, as a guidebook to how to write your own story, the book falls a little short.
I do want to point out that I was really disappointed in the Fantasy section. It was the shortest chapter (being 40 pages when others were 50-65 and longest being 70 pages) which doesn’t make sense since even the author says that the genre is really broad. The takes he made reduced fantasy to just a hero's journey and was outdated. The main examples explored were Alice in Wonderland, Mary Poppins and Wizard of Oz, which are all relatively old fantasy and don’t reflect the genre today. There is a long section about Game of Thrones, but that doesn't talk about fantasy at all. It is just about how to do a tournament story structure. In general, the chapter was lacking in the exploration of magic systems. Since this chapter was also missing the essays that relate the genre to the real world, it was clear that the author put a lot less effort into this chapter.
The book is most helpful for writers and filmmakers. It’s not very beginner friendly so I only recommend it if you're already familiar with it and want to get beyond general writing theory concepts.
All in all, the book has a lot of good content, but it takes effort from the reader to get it, since the formatting isn’t fully efficient. Also, get ready for the hot takes. Personally, I went between liking and disliking the book a lot during reading, but it still kept me going, which is a huge plus considering the book's length.
October 28, 2023
This book is in every way, shape and form a master class on storytelling. It goes to depths very rarely seen in the structural context on stories. It explains why stories have the potential to change the way we perceive the world.
By the way did I mention how deep this book is? It’s easy to pick up this book (like I did) thinking that it’s only use is in understanding how to write better stories. However it goes way beyond that and that’s not an understatement. This book is about the human condition. It is just as much a psychological guide as it is a guide to storytelling. What I came to realize and ultimately what I believe Truby is getting at is that the mind learns it’s greatest lessons through the stories that we tell ourselves.
For anyone interested in storytelling, psychology or just what it means to be a human and reach our highest potential this book is for you!
By the way did I mention how deep this book is? It’s easy to pick up this book (like I did) thinking that it’s only use is in understanding how to write better stories. However it goes way beyond that and that’s not an understatement. This book is about the human condition. It is just as much a psychological guide as it is a guide to storytelling. What I came to realize and ultimately what I believe Truby is getting at is that the mind learns it’s greatest lessons through the stories that we tell ourselves.
For anyone interested in storytelling, psychology or just what it means to be a human and reach our highest potential this book is for you!
May 2, 2024
DNF during genre 4 of 14. The book is basically a list of lists of lists, enumerating tropes and very confidently invoking links between storytelling and cherry-picked but incorrect or misunderstood ideas from philosophy, psychology and other fields.
As other reviews point out, the author is quick to invoke superlatives and judgements of quality, but gives very little actual support to *why* their theories about story structure should be utilized. Lots of examples at the level of individual tropes, but would benefit from broader case studies of how various stories pull together (or fail to) the necessary story beats to faithfully represent a genre.
As other reviews point out, the author is quick to invoke superlatives and judgements of quality, but gives very little actual support to *why* their theories about story structure should be utilized. Lots of examples at the level of individual tropes, but would benefit from broader case studies of how various stories pull together (or fail to) the necessary story beats to faithfully represent a genre.
May 3, 2025
I started off by hating this book but I began to admire its ambition and appreciate some of the insight it gives into common mechanisms with genres.
I found much of the philosophical wrapping ill-judged. The references to Hegel are enough to make anyone who has studied him blush crimson. Also the overall concept becomes confused, trying to achieve far too much by somehow at once giving a guide to writing within a genre and making an argument that somehow the narrative form is the key to human existence. Come back structuralism, all is forgiven. The more one thinks about the author's difficulties trying to meld the diachronic with the synchronic, the more one is inclined to read Hegel himself rather than what the author might have been told about him one drunken night.
Like all attempts at this kind of overarching theory of everything, the general through the particular, it falls woefully short. But like other attempts, Marx for example, it gives good insights along the way. I think it will appeal to screenwriters more than fiction writers as the author is on more familiar ground with the former, and shakier on the latter.
Would I recommend it to a writer? Yes, in one sense. If they can see past the grad-student bluster, there is much there to stimulate what the mechanics of a story are, and what makes one story belong to one genre or another. Saying that, it is long and ponderous and the architectonic itself so skewed (which is really unforgivable for a book so much about such matters) it might end up being as frustrating as enlightening.
I found much of the philosophical wrapping ill-judged. The references to Hegel are enough to make anyone who has studied him blush crimson. Also the overall concept becomes confused, trying to achieve far too much by somehow at once giving a guide to writing within a genre and making an argument that somehow the narrative form is the key to human existence. Come back structuralism, all is forgiven. The more one thinks about the author's difficulties trying to meld the diachronic with the synchronic, the more one is inclined to read Hegel himself rather than what the author might have been told about him one drunken night.
Like all attempts at this kind of overarching theory of everything, the general through the particular, it falls woefully short. But like other attempts, Marx for example, it gives good insights along the way. I think it will appeal to screenwriters more than fiction writers as the author is on more familiar ground with the former, and shakier on the latter.
Would I recommend it to a writer? Yes, in one sense. If they can see past the grad-student bluster, there is much there to stimulate what the mechanics of a story are, and what makes one story belong to one genre or another. Saying that, it is long and ponderous and the architectonic itself so skewed (which is really unforgivable for a book so much about such matters) it might end up being as frustrating as enlightening.
April 1, 2025
I only made it through the first two chapters (intro, "Horror") and then "Love" (because it's not like the love story genre is called Romance or anything)(you see where the red flags start). Superficial, disorganized, simplistically written, rife with unexamined biases and ignorance about the genres he claims to explain--this man has seen many mainstream movies and has a passing familiarity maybe two classic books in each genre, and it shows. (Evidence: "Dr. Frankenstein"??? Please, this disaster student never finished his degree.)
This is less a coherent overview than a thrown-together collection random lists of ideas that don't connect, don't actually delve into the genres, and are patently untrue (a gem for you, from page 40: "Most genres have a linear shape, because the story is a simple straight line that runs to the end point." like hello??? sir what are you ON???). Takes that are at turns medicore and baffling and all steeped in white patriarchy abound. I'm begging you to skip it--it's 710 pages and absolutely not worth your time.
This is less a coherent overview than a thrown-together collection random lists of ideas that don't connect, don't actually delve into the genres, and are patently untrue (a gem for you, from page 40: "Most genres have a linear shape, because the story is a simple straight line that runs to the end point." like hello??? sir what are you ON???). Takes that are at turns medicore and baffling and all steeped in white patriarchy abound. I'm begging you to skip it--it's 710 pages and absolutely not worth your time.
October 12, 2024
This was a super fascinating book. I neber thought about genres in the contexts laid out in the book but I was blown away with how indepth the book really was. It is a super long audiobook and while I enjoyed the listen, the book really needs to be read with a physical copy too. I needed to make notes and you cant do that with an audiobook so I felt that hinder me just a little.
Really great subject matter but it does make me feel like a book/film can be written based on an almost mathmatical equation and kinda takes the passion away from the idea of writing but its a handy book and if you are looking at getting into writing or you are a nerd like me, grab a copy today.
4 stars
Really great subject matter but it does make me feel like a book/film can be written based on an almost mathmatical equation and kinda takes the passion away from the idea of writing but its a handy book and if you are looking at getting into writing or you are a nerd like me, grab a copy today.
4 stars
March 31, 2024
DNF, unfortunately.
I bought this book to gain insight into the requirements of good genre novel writing, particularly in the mystery, historical, and spec fiction genres. I got some insight into horror and western movies, but that's about it. And that insight required slogging through enormous amounts of generalized and disorganized nonsense. I kept putting it down and picking it up with renewed hope, over the past six months, only to crash repeatedly into the woods of despair. Which, I suppose, is the genre writer's journey.
Truby seems to equate "story" with narrative in a way that simply doesn't work for me as a writer. All of his examples (or most, let's not generalize too much) are movies. Not screenplays, mind: movies. The problem is that Truby doesn't seem to grasp what's involved in actually bringing a film to fruition. It involves far more than a screenplay, which is often only the start of the journey. So talking about how a movie presents genre requirements is mostly irrelevant to novel writing, for all kinds of reasons.
I think this book might be of some use to, say, movie reviewers or critics who need to understand the film's genre, why it works, or doesn't, as a diagetic narrative and so on. That's not me.
The other problem I have is that Truby's insights into the key elements of the genre are diffuse and incoherent. He doesn't work with a systematic model of narrative, semiotic or otherwise, that would permit him to synthesize his insights into a coherent explanation of genre. Then he drops his movie examples into the mix, often obscuring what little structure he's brought to the table.
So, novel writers beware: you won't get much out of this effort.
I bought this book to gain insight into the requirements of good genre novel writing, particularly in the mystery, historical, and spec fiction genres. I got some insight into horror and western movies, but that's about it. And that insight required slogging through enormous amounts of generalized and disorganized nonsense. I kept putting it down and picking it up with renewed hope, over the past six months, only to crash repeatedly into the woods of despair. Which, I suppose, is the genre writer's journey.
Truby seems to equate "story" with narrative in a way that simply doesn't work for me as a writer. All of his examples (or most, let's not generalize too much) are movies. Not screenplays, mind: movies. The problem is that Truby doesn't seem to grasp what's involved in actually bringing a film to fruition. It involves far more than a screenplay, which is often only the start of the journey. So talking about how a movie presents genre requirements is mostly irrelevant to novel writing, for all kinds of reasons.
I think this book might be of some use to, say, movie reviewers or critics who need to understand the film's genre, why it works, or doesn't, as a diagetic narrative and so on. That's not me.
The other problem I have is that Truby's insights into the key elements of the genre are diffuse and incoherent. He doesn't work with a systematic model of narrative, semiotic or otherwise, that would permit him to synthesize his insights into a coherent explanation of genre. Then he drops his movie examples into the mix, often obscuring what little structure he's brought to the table.
So, novel writers beware: you won't get much out of this effort.
February 16, 2023
Probably closer to a 3.5 than a 4, but Goodreads won't let us do half stars. Truby is brilliant and this book is packed with interesting information/good ideas, but there's something about how this is written that prevents it from ever feeling like it comes together fully. It's more A then B then C rather than A+B+C=conclusion. The points just sorta hang there. This is in stark contradiction to Truby's other book, The Anatomy of Story. There's such a strong throughline in that book, everything said there feels like it's an essential part of a larger point. There's the outline of a bigger point in Anatomy of Genres, that being how each genre tackles one "layer" of the question of life (horror deals with life and death, action with how to act effectively in life, etc) but it never truly solidifies and the individual chapters often feel as though they have no coherent point themselves.
Really, this book just needed more time in the oven and I look forward to a possible future second edition. However, it seems like Truby has been working on this for quite some time now so he may not want to spend time with this project longer. I've been working on a book for three years and it's driving me insane, so I sympathize!
Really, this book just needed more time in the oven and I look forward to a possible future second edition. However, it seems like Truby has been working on this for quite some time now so he may not want to spend time with this project longer. I've been working on a book for three years and it's driving me insane, so I sympathize!
August 25, 2023
I picked up this book because The Anatomy of Story is one of the best Writing Guides I've read. It's full of practical lessons, taught masterfully. My love for that one is also why this one disappointed me so terribly.
This book is antithetical to all that made me love TAoS. Where TAoS is practical, this book is fanciful. Where TAos gets straight to the point, this one rambles on about tangents.
Also, the advice wasn't great? I write Fantasy, so I was especially excited about the chapter on Fantasy. I shouldn't have been. The way the genre was talked about seemed outdated, narrow and reductive. If you'd like actual advice on writing Fantasy, check out Brandon Sanderson's lectures on YouTube--they're gold.
If you've read TAoS, I wouldn't recommend this one. The Anatomy of Story is an awesome book, and it's so much better than this one that you too, like me, might end up feeling let down by The Anatomy of Genres.
This book is antithetical to all that made me love TAoS. Where TAoS is practical, this book is fanciful. Where TAos gets straight to the point, this one rambles on about tangents.
Also, the advice wasn't great? I write Fantasy, so I was especially excited about the chapter on Fantasy. I shouldn't have been. The way the genre was talked about seemed outdated, narrow and reductive. If you'd like actual advice on writing Fantasy, check out Brandon Sanderson's lectures on YouTube--they're gold.
If you've read TAoS, I wouldn't recommend this one. The Anatomy of Story is an awesome book, and it's so much better than this one that you too, like me, might end up feeling let down by The Anatomy of Genres.
May 3, 2025
I don't know what to do with this book. I picked it up because a writing organization of which I'm a member recommends it. I thought it would help me in my own development as a writer and in my efforts to assist other writers to develop their craft.
Unfortunately, it's a DNF for me. It's not horrible. It's just, for me, rather a waste of time right now.
The problem is, the thing reads like a reference book, and you can't just pick up a reference book and read it cover-to-cover. I'm going to keep in on my bookshelf for now, just in case I feel like referring to it later. But I'm not reading it straight through.
So what is it, exactly? It begins with the academic theory that (a) stories are told to show us how to live, and (b) that's why we read them (0r watch them, in the case of plays and films). It then proposes that every genre has its own theory about how the world works and how to succeed in life. These genres are classified in a kind of hierarchy from horror (which is basically about the fear of death and staying alive) to romance (which is all about love, the highest lesson we can possibly learn). Fourteen genres are slotted into this hierarchy, and each one is analyzed in terms of "story beats" that every successful story must "hit" in order to work properly.
The concept of the story beat grew out of screenwriting. From what I've been able to tell, the word first entered the writing lexicon by accident. A Russian screenwriter told somebody that writing a script was just a matter of putting all the bits together, except he pronounced "bits" more like "beats." Later, Blake Snyder popularized the term in Save the Cat!, along with (as I understand it) a system for creating the structure for a screenplay by using story beats.
Which, I suppose, is all well and good. As I recall, master screenwriter William Goldman said that screenplays are structure. But the concept has been pushed out to prose, and now all manner of novelists have adopted the mechanism for the creation of their novels and maybe even short stories.
The problem is, novels and short stories aren't screenplays. There is, to be sure, structure in them, but most of the best prose writers in history never approached writing that way. Most of them took a character-first approach. In On Writing, Stephen King said, "Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.” And Ray Bradbury said it in his own inimitable style: "Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations."
I say all this to explain that The Anatomy of Genres probably has some utility as a reference for those interested in writing screenplays, but its theories should be taken with a grain of salt--not everyone comes to a story looking for explanations of life; sometimes they want to escape life for a while--and its methods may not be well-suited to prose writing.
For me, it's probably not that useful. But I'll hang onto it, just in case someday it might be.
Unfortunately, it's a DNF for me. It's not horrible. It's just, for me, rather a waste of time right now.
The problem is, the thing reads like a reference book, and you can't just pick up a reference book and read it cover-to-cover. I'm going to keep in on my bookshelf for now, just in case I feel like referring to it later. But I'm not reading it straight through.
So what is it, exactly? It begins with the academic theory that (a) stories are told to show us how to live, and (b) that's why we read them (0r watch them, in the case of plays and films). It then proposes that every genre has its own theory about how the world works and how to succeed in life. These genres are classified in a kind of hierarchy from horror (which is basically about the fear of death and staying alive) to romance (which is all about love, the highest lesson we can possibly learn). Fourteen genres are slotted into this hierarchy, and each one is analyzed in terms of "story beats" that every successful story must "hit" in order to work properly.
The concept of the story beat grew out of screenwriting. From what I've been able to tell, the word first entered the writing lexicon by accident. A Russian screenwriter told somebody that writing a script was just a matter of putting all the bits together, except he pronounced "bits" more like "beats." Later, Blake Snyder popularized the term in Save the Cat!, along with (as I understand it) a system for creating the structure for a screenplay by using story beats.
Which, I suppose, is all well and good. As I recall, master screenwriter William Goldman said that screenplays are structure. But the concept has been pushed out to prose, and now all manner of novelists have adopted the mechanism for the creation of their novels and maybe even short stories.
The problem is, novels and short stories aren't screenplays. There is, to be sure, structure in them, but most of the best prose writers in history never approached writing that way. Most of them took a character-first approach. In On Writing, Stephen King said, "Plot is, I think, the good writer's last resort and the dullard's first choice. The story which results from it is apt to feel artificial and labored.” And Ray Bradbury said it in his own inimitable style: "Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations."
I say all this to explain that The Anatomy of Genres probably has some utility as a reference for those interested in writing screenplays, but its theories should be taken with a grain of salt--not everyone comes to a story looking for explanations of life; sometimes they want to escape life for a while--and its methods may not be well-suited to prose writing.
For me, it's probably not that useful. But I'll hang onto it, just in case someday it might be.
August 31, 2024
I really enjoyed this. The Anatomy of Genres discusses genres not merely in terms of common tropes and plot beats, but their thematic intent, philosophy, and history. I found that compelling, and Truby is detailed and passionate in his explanations.
The author explores a hierarchy of genres almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with Horror (the primal fear of death) at its base and Love (the pursuit of happiness with another) at its apex. Each genre is given an enthusiastic and equal share of the discussion. Like with a colour wheel, Truby posits the genres and themes that contrast, parallel, and complement each other, and which combine well to make a genre-transcending story.
I'd often go into a chapter a bit sceptical, thinking, "Huh, I wouldn't put X in Y genre..." or "Is that really even a genre of its own?" but the author continually surprised me with his persuasive breakdowns of plot and theme. With over a dozen genres and their sub-genres to cover, the format gets a bit repetitious and is sometimes obfuscated by Truby's jargon, but for the most part I found it engaging, thought-provoking, and useful, even when discussing genres that didn't hugely interest me.
The author explores a hierarchy of genres almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, with Horror (the primal fear of death) at its base and Love (the pursuit of happiness with another) at its apex. Each genre is given an enthusiastic and equal share of the discussion. Like with a colour wheel, Truby posits the genres and themes that contrast, parallel, and complement each other, and which combine well to make a genre-transcending story.
I'd often go into a chapter a bit sceptical, thinking, "Huh, I wouldn't put X in Y genre..." or "Is that really even a genre of its own?" but the author continually surprised me with his persuasive breakdowns of plot and theme. With over a dozen genres and their sub-genres to cover, the format gets a bit repetitious and is sometimes obfuscated by Truby's jargon, but for the most part I found it engaging, thought-provoking, and useful, even when discussing genres that didn't hugely interest me.
December 12, 2025
Basically, Truby just gives his opinion for pages on end. He rambles on and contradicts himself a lot and didn't really tell me anything that I didn't already know -- except the endings to a bunch of books and movies that I wanted to watch >:( Plus, he said a bunch of offensive and inaccurate stuff about Christianity, but it was nice that he was acknowledging the literary aspects of the Bible. The redeeming moments in this book were when he listed off a bunch of books that fit the genre for each chapter, and I had a lot of fun checking off the stuff I have watched and read. But, unless you've never watched or read anything and you live under a rock, he's not saying anything new here -- just a bunch of genre expectations that everyone already knows about (that's why they're called genre *expectations*).
April 3, 2023
This is a fascinating guide to the genres in popular storytelling. John Truby is brilliant at explaining on a philosophical level how each genre works, and providing a map to write a great genre story. I recommend reading or listening to the audio version of his other book, The Anatomy of Story, before reading this since Truby references terms from Anatomy of Story numerous times. The material in this book can be challenging to comprehend at times, depending on which genres you’re drawn to and your experience reading and watching stories in those genres. I found the myth, science fiction, fantasy, action, and western genres easiest to understand, whereas the crime family (crime, gangster, detective, and thriller) was the hardest to comprehend.
May 16, 2024
As far as works on narratology go this was pretty decent, all the genres are dutifully discussed and the author makes some general comments on storytelling that make sense.
"Story is a philosophy of life expressed through characters, plot, and emotion. It shows life as art. That’s why stories are the universal building blocks of religion and always have been. Story transcends specific religions, each of which is a collection of stories about how to live an ethical life."
"Stories are maps of humanity."
"The great insight of the Detective Mind-Action story view is that life is about comparing stories to learn what is really true."
"A revelation must be triggered by a specific physical clue."
"Point of view may be the single most powerful technique in story."
"Story is a philosophy of life expressed through characters, plot, and emotion. It shows life as art. That’s why stories are the universal building blocks of religion and always have been. Story transcends specific religions, each of which is a collection of stories about how to live an ethical life."
"Stories are maps of humanity."
"The great insight of the Detective Mind-Action story view is that life is about comparing stories to learn what is really true."
"A revelation must be triggered by a specific physical clue."
"Point of view may be the single most powerful technique in story."
August 10, 2025
While it's quite dense and took me a while to get through, I found it to be a very comprehensive analysis of the different genres and their standard beats. I like how technical John Truby's writing craft books tend to be.
January 22, 2023
“If human life is poetics, the knowledge we get from story is the greatest knowledge of all”
March 11, 2025
If you want to improve your basic writing skills, the good news is that there are many good books and classes you can avail yourself of. In fact, a lot of books and classes teach slight variations on the same advice. This is another piece of good news: if you have a choice between two or more classes, then as long as you have an engaged teacher, enthusiastic classmates, frequent assignments, and a system of robust, edifying feedback (i.e. workshops), then one is as good as another. But what if you want to write better science fiction stories? Horror novels? Romance or western or gangster? Where do you go to learn about genre writing?
One may be surprised (as I once was) to learn of the important of genre-savviness for writers and editors. This is at least the case for those who want to appeal to a big publisher, and perhaps even for those who plan to publish independently. Unfortunately, your run of the mill college writing course or graduate program is not going to bother with genre. In fact, they may consider ignorance of genre to be a point of pride. So other than reading in your area of interest, how can you gain knowledge?
Happily, today you can discover niche courses in places like Masterclass and BBCMaestro. More to the point of this review, the library of instructional genre books keeps growing, and a fine entry on the shelf is John Truby’s The Anatomy of Genres, which was published in 2022.
Truby founded and for thirty years has run a writer’s studio. He is also a regular Hollywood consultant. The depth and breadth of his experience is emphatically on display in his book.
The Anatomy of Genres is big—at 700 pages, it is certainly the largest of all the books on writing I’ve ever read. Its subject matter is vast, and its objective ambitious: the author surveys fourteen genres as he endeavors to classify all of storytelling, traveling from horror to memoir to comedy to romance. And during this tour of the solar system of story types, Truby’s enthusiasm never flags.
Truby naturally divides the material on the basis of genre. He combines forms only a couple of times; memoir is put with coming-of-age (one might argue that the latter is a subset of the former) and detective with thriller, but for the most part each form gets its own chapter. This means that a writer who is mainly interested in learning about fantasy, for instance, need only flip to chapter 11.
The book asserts that there is a boilerplate recipe to all stories. For each genre, Truby identifies the particular ingredients that make the recipe special in that case. He first provides a snapshot of the genre, then the worldview it asserts (he terms this the “mind-action story view”), and then compares the genre to its brethren to locate it in the larger universe of storytelling. Having established this big picture, Truby enumerates a genre’s peculiar “story beats,” including special considerations of setting, types of characters, patterns of engagement between characters and world, along with motivations, complications, and other elements of plot. Truby also explores the storytelling models he considers normative to a given genre. As an added bonus, for each genre, he explores alternative forms that can subvert or elevate that genre, and usually provides examples from books and films to illustrate.
I believe this book is a great starter resource for any writer aspiring to work in genres, not only for the rich survey of genres which it offers but for its abundance of enthusiasm. There is a point in the book where Truby refers to it as his life’s work. The passion and focus that his vision must have required show.
If the book has weaknesses, I believe they are Truby’s penchant for bespoke terminology and the fact that the book’s skeleton does not appear quite equal to the task of supporting the voluminous anatomical features hanging upon those bones.
Regarding terminology, this might have been solved by more normative word choices or else by a glossary. For instance, I don’t understand why Truby chooses to use the phrase “mind-action story view” instead of something more recognizable like “worldview.” He may have had special reasons for employing exotic phrases, but a reference section would have been helpful.
More importantly, the structure of the “lessons” is not as lucid as a project so expansive and yet so detailed deserves. While on one level this book is a work of art—the author’s own grand theory of storytelling—on a more basic and crucial level, it is pedagogical. But because most people are reading without the benefit of an instructor, the burden lies on the text to make its train of thought abundantly clear.
The book’s challenges seem partly to be a matter of organization and partly a matter of design. These matters speak, in turn, to a larger question of just how big any author wants to let their vision get and how much trouble they are willing to go to in order to see that vision achieve its finest form.
What follows is a nerdy digression into the construction of the book, one which I welcome you to read, but if you want the tl;dr version, then it is this:
The “recipes” in this book do not lend themselves to ready reference. While I am confident you can glean a lot of knowledge from this book on your genre of choice, I don’t find this book very accessible in terms of mapping out your writing strategy or checking to make sure you are staying on track. Instead, organizing what you glean from this book is a job that will fall to you.
For those who like the nerdy digressions, here is a more detailed explanation.
Okay, geek critique over. To return to the wider view, I wish to reemphasize my admiration and gratitude that Mr. Truby undertook this feat of love, research, focus, and composition. I will also repeat my conviction that this book is, in my estimation, a fantastic resource, not only for writers but for students of literature in general and of life, for all the interesting insights which it offers into how story forms illuminate the everyday world.
To the extent that I point out the book’s weaknesses, I only wish to prepare eager writers for the challenge which faces them as they reap information about their genre of choice. I absolutely encourage them to use this book; I also advise them to do so with their wits about them and a notebook or laptop nearby for taking notes. Make your own map out of the pieces you find here!
In closing, I offer the truism that in any project, creative or otherwise, there will be tradeoffs. Truby desired to go both deep and wide. In the end, his topography came out splendidly, but at the cost of coherence in his maps of the depths. Perhaps this makes The Anatomy of Genres an unselfconscious test case for a fifteenth genre: the how-to book.
***
I'm currently on a mission to read and review books on writing craft. Check out my other book reviews, and if you are looking for more personalized writing assistance, I offer professional editing services. Come see if what I do is right for you: www.ultreyaeditorial.com
One may be surprised (as I once was) to learn of the important of genre-savviness for writers and editors. This is at least the case for those who want to appeal to a big publisher, and perhaps even for those who plan to publish independently. Unfortunately, your run of the mill college writing course or graduate program is not going to bother with genre. In fact, they may consider ignorance of genre to be a point of pride. So other than reading in your area of interest, how can you gain knowledge?
Happily, today you can discover niche courses in places like Masterclass and BBCMaestro. More to the point of this review, the library of instructional genre books keeps growing, and a fine entry on the shelf is John Truby’s The Anatomy of Genres, which was published in 2022.
Truby founded and for thirty years has run a writer’s studio. He is also a regular Hollywood consultant. The depth and breadth of his experience is emphatically on display in his book.
The Anatomy of Genres is big—at 700 pages, it is certainly the largest of all the books on writing I’ve ever read. Its subject matter is vast, and its objective ambitious: the author surveys fourteen genres as he endeavors to classify all of storytelling, traveling from horror to memoir to comedy to romance. And during this tour of the solar system of story types, Truby’s enthusiasm never flags.
Truby naturally divides the material on the basis of genre. He combines forms only a couple of times; memoir is put with coming-of-age (one might argue that the latter is a subset of the former) and detective with thriller, but for the most part each form gets its own chapter. This means that a writer who is mainly interested in learning about fantasy, for instance, need only flip to chapter 11.
The book asserts that there is a boilerplate recipe to all stories. For each genre, Truby identifies the particular ingredients that make the recipe special in that case. He first provides a snapshot of the genre, then the worldview it asserts (he terms this the “mind-action story view”), and then compares the genre to its brethren to locate it in the larger universe of storytelling. Having established this big picture, Truby enumerates a genre’s peculiar “story beats,” including special considerations of setting, types of characters, patterns of engagement between characters and world, along with motivations, complications, and other elements of plot. Truby also explores the storytelling models he considers normative to a given genre. As an added bonus, for each genre, he explores alternative forms that can subvert or elevate that genre, and usually provides examples from books and films to illustrate.
I believe this book is a great starter resource for any writer aspiring to work in genres, not only for the rich survey of genres which it offers but for its abundance of enthusiasm. There is a point in the book where Truby refers to it as his life’s work. The passion and focus that his vision must have required show.
If the book has weaknesses, I believe they are Truby’s penchant for bespoke terminology and the fact that the book’s skeleton does not appear quite equal to the task of supporting the voluminous anatomical features hanging upon those bones.
Regarding terminology, this might have been solved by more normative word choices or else by a glossary. For instance, I don’t understand why Truby chooses to use the phrase “mind-action story view” instead of something more recognizable like “worldview.” He may have had special reasons for employing exotic phrases, but a reference section would have been helpful.
More importantly, the structure of the “lessons” is not as lucid as a project so expansive and yet so detailed deserves. While on one level this book is a work of art—the author’s own grand theory of storytelling—on a more basic and crucial level, it is pedagogical. But because most people are reading without the benefit of an instructor, the burden lies on the text to make its train of thought abundantly clear.
The book’s challenges seem partly to be a matter of organization and partly a matter of design. These matters speak, in turn, to a larger question of just how big any author wants to let their vision get and how much trouble they are willing to go to in order to see that vision achieve its finest form.
What follows is a nerdy digression into the construction of the book, one which I welcome you to read, but if you want the tl;dr version, then it is this:
The “recipes” in this book do not lend themselves to ready reference. While I am confident you can glean a lot of knowledge from this book on your genre of choice, I don’t find this book very accessible in terms of mapping out your writing strategy or checking to make sure you are staying on track. Instead, organizing what you glean from this book is a job that will fall to you.
For those who like the nerdy digressions, here is a more detailed explanation.
Okay, geek critique over. To return to the wider view, I wish to reemphasize my admiration and gratitude that Mr. Truby undertook this feat of love, research, focus, and composition. I will also repeat my conviction that this book is, in my estimation, a fantastic resource, not only for writers but for students of literature in general and of life, for all the interesting insights which it offers into how story forms illuminate the everyday world.
To the extent that I point out the book’s weaknesses, I only wish to prepare eager writers for the challenge which faces them as they reap information about their genre of choice. I absolutely encourage them to use this book; I also advise them to do so with their wits about them and a notebook or laptop nearby for taking notes. Make your own map out of the pieces you find here!
In closing, I offer the truism that in any project, creative or otherwise, there will be tradeoffs. Truby desired to go both deep and wide. In the end, his topography came out splendidly, but at the cost of coherence in his maps of the depths. Perhaps this makes The Anatomy of Genres an unselfconscious test case for a fifteenth genre: the how-to book.
***
I'm currently on a mission to read and review books on writing craft. Check out my other book reviews, and if you are looking for more personalized writing assistance, I offer professional editing services. Come see if what I do is right for you: www.ultreyaeditorial.com
October 28, 2024
I really enjoyed the first part of every chapter, but ultimately, this book is too long. It’s trying to do too many things at once.
February 18, 2025
A must read for anyone interested in genre studies or creative writing. I could see some of the loftier ideas rubbing some the wrong way but it all worked for me.
December 31, 2022
Intended for screenwriters, this is a deep dive into what makes up different genres- mystery, thriller, fantasy, love, etc. Very interesting for any reader.
July 14, 2024
I think I want to like this book more than I do.
Look, I've read a lot of books on writing. I legitimately enjoy them. But a pitfall some writers fall into (John Gardner, Robert McKee, John Truby, etc.) is when they slip into *teaching from on high.* It's when they adopt this voice like they know something that is for sure true, and everyone else has been too blind to see it.
In my opinion, the three male writers I mentioned above are all guilty of this, but I come back to John Gardner and Robert McKee because there are passages of text where I feel the power of their insight anyway. I have thoughts along the lines of, "Hey, you may be a dick, but that's good advice."
And it's not that John Truby doesn't have any good advice. He has some. There are some lines of thought that are interesting in this... It's just a lower percentage of the page count than I would've hoped.
Look, I've read a lot of books on writing. I legitimately enjoy them. But a pitfall some writers fall into (John Gardner, Robert McKee, John Truby, etc.) is when they slip into *teaching from on high.* It's when they adopt this voice like they know something that is for sure true, and everyone else has been too blind to see it.
In my opinion, the three male writers I mentioned above are all guilty of this, but I come back to John Gardner and Robert McKee because there are passages of text where I feel the power of their insight anyway. I have thoughts along the lines of, "Hey, you may be a dick, but that's good advice."
And it's not that John Truby doesn't have any good advice. He has some. There are some lines of thought that are interesting in this... It's just a lower percentage of the page count than I would've hoped.
Read
December 24, 2025Secondo nella mia classifica "teoria letteraria e scrittura" nel 2024.
Articolo intero sul blog: https://attanasioscrive.it/articoli/c...
Articolo intero sul blog: https://attanasioscrive.it/articoli/c...
August 25, 2023
This book is over 700 pages. That means it will take between 12 and 20 hours to read. Will you improve by giving half a day of your entire life to this book? No. No, you won't.
If you want to invest that amount of time with a positive return, read Nabokov's Lectures on Literature or Ebert's collection of 4-star reviews, depending on whether you're more interested in writing or screenwriting. Both of those authors actually understand their respective subjects, which is something that absolutely cannot be said about Truby despite the gimmicky, sales-slimy bio of him on the back.
He begins with the premise that there is a ladder of genres, so one has to start with the lowest to proceed to the highest. This is the first hint that Truby knows as much about the anatomy of genre as he knows about the anatomy of a shellfish. Possibly less. Ironically, it was the cover artist, not the author, who actually understands that genres are more like spots on a color wheel, where they all face, influence, and bleed into each other. Truby should have understood this himself when he has so many example works also have (also [insert genre]) in his listings. After going all the way through the book, even he realizes what a ridiculous idea his ladder was and disavows it at the very end.
This book wouldn't even be 700 pages if it had an editor who read it. Several times I've done what I've never done before: while I was reading, I thought maybe I misplaced the bookmark and put it a few pages back. But every time I'd go back a few pages, the reason I felt like I'd already read that is because I had: he often repeats himself in passages that are sentences to paragraphs in length. Editor?
Many of these passages are a collection of half-baked ideas from Truby wedged into some misunderstood and usually barely-applicable academic theories he picked for certain genres. It's telling that the ideas he lifts from others usually only show up in their respective chapters, because it demonstrates that they're not widely applicable to genres as a whole and will lend no insight whatsoever to writing.
Truby is truly talented when it comes to misapprehending genres. His chapters on westerns, humor, and especially gangster are mindbogglingly bad. He goes off into some really weird speculation on the nature of capitalism in the gangster chapter, and doubles down on the stupid by breaking down The Great Gatsby as an example of a gangster book. Jay Gatsby's means of getting his money is barely mentioned in the book, and when it is it's done merely as a mechanism of giving Gatsby a way to afford his huge mansion. Gatsby's not even a gangster, he's a bootlegger. This is the sort of thing that a tenth-grade student would be given an "F - See me after class" as a grade, but it's something Truby spends page after page being wrong about. The other chapters are no better.
This is the worst kind of non-fiction: the kind that's so far removed from reality that it's fiction. There is a difference between writing with confidence and writing with arrogance. Writing with confidence sounds like, "This is the way the world works, and here are several reasons why I say that." Writing with arrogance is how Truby sounds: "This is the way the world works. Now that I've said that, let's move on to the next thing." He often comes up with complete whackadoodle ideas and considers them facts simply because he wrote them down. I'd have given up a few hundred pages in, but the book started becoming unintentionally funny. I kept reading to see how many, "If X, then eggplant. Since I say X, here's an eggplant," sort of non-sequiturs he was going to come up with.
I know I wasn't supposed to laugh at this book, especially since Truby considers it his life's work and his magnum opus, but I couldn't help it. I made it all the way through so you don't have to. Run, don't walk, far far away from this incoherent mess of wasted pulp.
If you want to invest that amount of time with a positive return, read Nabokov's Lectures on Literature or Ebert's collection of 4-star reviews, depending on whether you're more interested in writing or screenwriting. Both of those authors actually understand their respective subjects, which is something that absolutely cannot be said about Truby despite the gimmicky, sales-slimy bio of him on the back.
He begins with the premise that there is a ladder of genres, so one has to start with the lowest to proceed to the highest. This is the first hint that Truby knows as much about the anatomy of genre as he knows about the anatomy of a shellfish. Possibly less. Ironically, it was the cover artist, not the author, who actually understands that genres are more like spots on a color wheel, where they all face, influence, and bleed into each other. Truby should have understood this himself when he has so many example works also have (also [insert genre]) in his listings. After going all the way through the book, even he realizes what a ridiculous idea his ladder was and disavows it at the very end.
This book wouldn't even be 700 pages if it had an editor who read it. Several times I've done what I've never done before: while I was reading, I thought maybe I misplaced the bookmark and put it a few pages back. But every time I'd go back a few pages, the reason I felt like I'd already read that is because I had: he often repeats himself in passages that are sentences to paragraphs in length. Editor?
Many of these passages are a collection of half-baked ideas from Truby wedged into some misunderstood and usually barely-applicable academic theories he picked for certain genres. It's telling that the ideas he lifts from others usually only show up in their respective chapters, because it demonstrates that they're not widely applicable to genres as a whole and will lend no insight whatsoever to writing.
Truby is truly talented when it comes to misapprehending genres. His chapters on westerns, humor, and especially gangster are mindbogglingly bad. He goes off into some really weird speculation on the nature of capitalism in the gangster chapter, and doubles down on the stupid by breaking down The Great Gatsby as an example of a gangster book. Jay Gatsby's means of getting his money is barely mentioned in the book, and when it is it's done merely as a mechanism of giving Gatsby a way to afford his huge mansion. Gatsby's not even a gangster, he's a bootlegger. This is the sort of thing that a tenth-grade student would be given an "F - See me after class" as a grade, but it's something Truby spends page after page being wrong about. The other chapters are no better.
This is the worst kind of non-fiction: the kind that's so far removed from reality that it's fiction. There is a difference between writing with confidence and writing with arrogance. Writing with confidence sounds like, "This is the way the world works, and here are several reasons why I say that." Writing with arrogance is how Truby sounds: "This is the way the world works. Now that I've said that, let's move on to the next thing." He often comes up with complete whackadoodle ideas and considers them facts simply because he wrote them down. I'd have given up a few hundred pages in, but the book started becoming unintentionally funny. I kept reading to see how many, "If X, then eggplant. Since I say X, here's an eggplant," sort of non-sequiturs he was going to come up with.
I know I wasn't supposed to laugh at this book, especially since Truby considers it his life's work and his magnum opus, but I couldn't help it. I made it all the way through so you don't have to. Run, don't walk, far far away from this incoherent mess of wasted pulp.
August 21, 2024
This is such a stellar book for writers; I’ve read so many of these writing instructional / self help styled books and if I had to recommend just one, it’s this.
(As an aside, #2 is a little harder to choose - I do like Save the Cat, but there are several close competitors, including a few by Austin Kleon not directly about writing but more about the creative process; however, they’ve all blended together in my mind - the best I can say on the matter, anyway, is just read good books, read a lot & write a lot. While or after or before you read John Truby. 😂
And okay, if you need a break for shows, check out Lucas Strunc’s “LocalScriptMan” channel on Youtube.)
Anyway, back to our scheduled broadcast—
The only way I can conceive of this book being better is just formatting, not content. I’d love to have an outline at the beginning of each chapter for quick cursory reference, and then a breakdown of the concepts in the following pages. Currently, there is so much packed in that it’s a little overwhelming, and having the summary neatly listed on one page would help remind me of all I’d just read, to retain & process it better. As it stands, I find I have to go back & skim chapters a lot, even with highlights, annotations, notes in my journal and bold headers within the chapter. There’s a LOT here to internalize.
On the other hand, I felt like the editing could have been a smidge better. Some concepts seem much simpler to me or else he doesn’t have as much to say about them; they don’t require as much unboxing as structures he seems to grasp better, but he seems determined to give them all equal air time regardless, like a parent trying to feign impartiality. It’s clear from the writing that some of these ideas resonate more with him & he has deeper insights. I wouldn’t mind then if some redundancy was cut out of chapters that are more self-explanatory.
Once in awhile, he makes leaps of conjecture & I don’t agree with all of his opinions & assumptions, but none of that detracts from the potency & brilliance of this book & his analytical/organizational faculties overall.
(As an aside, #2 is a little harder to choose - I do like Save the Cat, but there are several close competitors, including a few by Austin Kleon not directly about writing but more about the creative process; however, they’ve all blended together in my mind - the best I can say on the matter, anyway, is just read good books, read a lot & write a lot. While or after or before you read John Truby. 😂
And okay, if you need a break for shows, check out Lucas Strunc’s “LocalScriptMan” channel on Youtube.)
Anyway, back to our scheduled broadcast—
The only way I can conceive of this book being better is just formatting, not content. I’d love to have an outline at the beginning of each chapter for quick cursory reference, and then a breakdown of the concepts in the following pages. Currently, there is so much packed in that it’s a little overwhelming, and having the summary neatly listed on one page would help remind me of all I’d just read, to retain & process it better. As it stands, I find I have to go back & skim chapters a lot, even with highlights, annotations, notes in my journal and bold headers within the chapter. There’s a LOT here to internalize.
On the other hand, I felt like the editing could have been a smidge better. Some concepts seem much simpler to me or else he doesn’t have as much to say about them; they don’t require as much unboxing as structures he seems to grasp better, but he seems determined to give them all equal air time regardless, like a parent trying to feign impartiality. It’s clear from the writing that some of these ideas resonate more with him & he has deeper insights. I wouldn’t mind then if some redundancy was cut out of chapters that are more self-explanatory.
Once in awhile, he makes leaps of conjecture & I don’t agree with all of his opinions & assumptions, but none of that detracts from the potency & brilliance of this book & his analytical/organizational faculties overall.
February 17, 2023
Buku ini memuat genre-genre film dalam definisi tradisional tapi lebih mendalam. Jika sebelumnya setiap kali aku nonton film “mainstream” selalu merasa “ceritanya terlalu klise”, di buku ini dijelasin akar-akar dan elemen penting dari setiap genre. Alasan di balik keklisean film, dan tips-tips cadas supaya cerita kita nggak jadi sama klisenya. Kata kunci dari seluruh isi buku ini: transcending. Gimana cara menekan cerita ke bentuk paling murni dan membekas paling dalam.
Kalau di Save The Cat cuma ada 10 genre dan satu rangkaian plot beat serbaguna yang bisa dipakai di setiap genre, maka di buku ini ada 14 dan setiap genre bakal dibedah tujuan dan latar kemunculannya, lalu beat-beat-nya dibahas secara unik.
Aku baru baca tiga genre di sini: horor, action, dan love story. Pembahasan mengenai genre horor menurutku sangat membuka mata dan sekarang aku nggak melulu melihat cerita horor sebagai cerita yang bodoh. Memang tujuan horor itu membuat tokoh-tokohnya tertimpa kutukan dan nggak sempat belajar dari dosa masa lalunya. Memang tokohnya bodoh, karena itulah ini jadi genre horor. Kalau tokohnya pintar, ini jadi genre detective, yang mengeksplorasi intelegensi manusia, Genre love story juga mencerahkan karena elemen-elemennya sama sekali nggak kayak buku romansa luar negeri yang sering kubaca. Buku romance luar yang selama ini kubaca lebih kayak Sex Action atau woman porn, bukan love story yang dijabarkan penulis dalam buku ini.
Setelah ini aku mungkin bakal nulis cerita cinta yang nggak bakal bikin aku malu bacanya keras-keras di ruang keluarga.
Oh ya, soal kelemahan. Kelemahan buku ini… karena dia sistemnya membahas dari overview lalu masuk semakin dalam dan dalam ke setiap poin pembahasan, jadi seringnya kita lose track ini sudah ke poin berapa. Ibarat skripsi, headingnya udah kayak gini: 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.2
Bagaimana pun, aku berusaha mengambil ilmu baru dari buku ini.
Thank you, sir.
- an aspiring writer, always
Kalau di Save The Cat cuma ada 10 genre dan satu rangkaian plot beat serbaguna yang bisa dipakai di setiap genre, maka di buku ini ada 14 dan setiap genre bakal dibedah tujuan dan latar kemunculannya, lalu beat-beat-nya dibahas secara unik.
Aku baru baca tiga genre di sini: horor, action, dan love story. Pembahasan mengenai genre horor menurutku sangat membuka mata dan sekarang aku nggak melulu melihat cerita horor sebagai cerita yang bodoh. Memang tujuan horor itu membuat tokoh-tokohnya tertimpa kutukan dan nggak sempat belajar dari dosa masa lalunya. Memang tokohnya bodoh, karena itulah ini jadi genre horor. Kalau tokohnya pintar, ini jadi genre detective, yang mengeksplorasi intelegensi manusia, Genre love story juga mencerahkan karena elemen-elemennya sama sekali nggak kayak buku romansa luar negeri yang sering kubaca. Buku romance luar yang selama ini kubaca lebih kayak Sex Action atau woman porn, bukan love story yang dijabarkan penulis dalam buku ini.
Setelah ini aku mungkin bakal nulis cerita cinta yang nggak bakal bikin aku malu bacanya keras-keras di ruang keluarga.
Oh ya, soal kelemahan. Kelemahan buku ini… karena dia sistemnya membahas dari overview lalu masuk semakin dalam dan dalam ke setiap poin pembahasan, jadi seringnya kita lose track ini sudah ke poin berapa. Ibarat skripsi, headingnya udah kayak gini: 1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.2
Bagaimana pun, aku berusaha mengambil ilmu baru dari buku ini.
Thank you, sir.
- an aspiring writer, always
August 5, 2024
PROS
● The Anatomy of Genres is a straightforward guide to the must-have story beats for most genres (horror, action, myth, memoir, coming-of-age, science fiction, crime, comedy, western, gangster, fantasy, detective, and romance).
● Each chapter is dedicated to a single genre, so there’s no need to read the entire 700-page guide in one sitting. Just skip to the chapter on the genre relevant to you and leave the rest for later. Just be aware that the author sometimes references information provided in previous chapters.
● Truby offers fresh insights into how to mix and match genre beats for maximum effect. This is very helpful if you want to write something a little off-centre.
CONS
● While Truby provides thoughtful meditations on the value of stories and how they change our worldview, these are somewhat distracting from the main content of the guide and are very lightly supported with arguments and/or evidence. Be ready for some philosophical name-dropping and contentious “hot takes.”
● The guide is US American-centric, with most examples hailing from US TV & Literature (the author is a US American screenwriter). This isn’t necessarily a “con,” but if you were looking for a more global outlook on genre, prepare to be disappointed.
● Last but not least, the chapters are structurally inconsistent, with each chapter containing totally different section divisions. Don’t expect to be able to easily reference parallel story beats across genres.
My recommendation? ☞ Ignore the philosophy, embrace the beats.
Best for: experienced writers who want to ensure their novel hits all the right notes and/or anyone looking to get out of a brainstorming rut!
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