G E N R E

Truby's way
Janice Day attended John Truby's genre seminar in London organised by
(I didn't attend the 22-step story structure weekend - just the genre seminar.)
form, and usually a combination of two or three.
If you want to succeed, you must master one or
two of the most popular genres, then write a
script that bends the rules.

GoodFellas: Warner Bros.

'Topics covered include:

- what each genre really means
- three ways to handle genre and which one is
best
- the crucial question for each story form
- key structure points for each genre
- the differences between detective stories,
crime stories and thrillers
- the central theme of each genre
- mixing genre: the key strategy for
blockbusters
- bending the genre rules for originality

Writers resting

ohn Truby, the Hollywood screenwriting

guru who has taught over 20,000
students worldwide and worked as story
consultant and script doctor for, amongst
others, Disney, Sony and Fox, took his place at the
front of a room full of excited delegates.
There he stood, fresh and sparkling clean in
the way that many Americans have (it must be
the teeth) and right on time he began to talk
As I limped home at the end of the day with
my ears ringing, RSI in my writing arm and six
thousand words of notes, I raised my fist to the
heavens and cursed John Truby long and loud,
which is not a good idea at 6.30pm on the
London underground.
When I had finished typing up my notes,
however, I was grateful. I now have a mine of
information on genre that money just can't buy.
Well, actually it can, but Truby's software is more
expensive than his course and it doesn't tell jokes.
Around seventy delegates had signed up to

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May 2005

the courses and I gathered e-mail addresses from

a few. I was hoping for quotes, being the sort of
writer who strings ten quotes together and calls
it an article, but only one replied: Ollie Wicken.
'I thought the course was great,' he wrote.
'Truby is a terrific help with the nuts and bolts of
a script. He's inspiring too in an unusual way.
Inspiration usually gives rise to creativity but
John inspires professionalism, which is what even
the most talented writers need if they're going to
succeed with feature scripts.'
Unlike some courses, the content bore a
refreshingly close resemblance to its
advertisement. This is how part of the ad
appeared in the Raindance e-bulletin:
'The first rule of the entertainment business is
this: it buys and sells genres. Today's most
popular movies are always at least one story

'Genres covered include: Action, Comedy,

Crime, Detective, Fantasy, Horror, Love,
Masterpiece, Myth, Science Fiction and Thriller.'
I hoped the course would tell me exactly what
genre is. I have been to other courses on this
subject and the list of film-types that were
defined as genre was disappointingly short. By
contrast, Truby's list is substantial, heretically
including Science Fiction and Comedy. Other
screenwriting gurus will tell you that these are
not categories of genre. Science Fiction is
apparently 'setting' and Comedy is 'tone'.
Truby explained how he works around this
problem of what is and isn't genre by
distinguishing between 'technical' and 'soft'
genres.
First, just as other trainers do, he examined
each genre separately. Here was another
difference I noticed in Truby's approach from
some other courses where they are treated as if
they are quite independent of one another, which
makes them harder to relate to stories in films.
Instead, Truby picks out the similarities between
them.
He takes each of the genres on his list and

Genres are modern myths.

with genre
Raindance, which followed on from a weekend masterclass in Truby's own 22-Step Story Structure.
So is his approach to genre really different?
compares them. He tells us that we can apply his
simple method of analysis to all of them, which
makes the whole area of genre easier to
understand.
I was curious to know how he had gained this
mastery - or to put it less politely - from whence
he had pinched his ideas. So I asked him.
'I'm sure there are many influences on my
thinking. Most importantly was the technique I
learned from Aristotle. When I was learning how
to write, there were no courses. So I used the
Aristotelian approach, which was to see as many
films as possible and take notes on what worked
and what didn't. I didn't want to start with a
theory and impose it on storytelling. I felt there
were already too many abstract terms tossed
around in the writing world that didn't mean
anything in practice.
'Using that approach I identified the 7 Steps,
then the 22 Steps, and finally the various story
beats of the major genres and sub-genres. I think
the major advantage of this approach is that the
story elements I found are organic to the stories,
not mechanically imposed from outside.'
During his course Truby said that genres are
modern myths: each has its own unique hero and
desire line. Each is set on its own social stage; has
a specialised opponent; needs a key question to
focus the theme; has a unique story-telling
strategy and highlights certain structure steps in
the seven basic structure steps of classical
structure. Most importantly, perhaps, each has
ten or twelve story beats (meaning actual events
rather than structure steps) that need to be
present in that genre.
I was disappointed that we didn't have time to
look at the individual story beats. The course
was packed with information and cleverly
constructed, but it felt like a taster of what he
really does have to offer. It's almost like an
interactive advertisement for his software and, it
has to be said, it works. When challenged on this
point, he explained that he doesn't run single
genre classes over here. In the States he will
spend the entire day on one form and look at the
sub-genres. Comedy, for instance, has eight

major sub-genres.
His goal for his one day genre course is to give
the participants enough information to know
which genre they are working in and how it can
be transcended. He explained that we would look
at how to take classical structure and twist it for
a certain genre. They had been studying structure
in the previous two days but he recapped his
ideas for the benefit of newcomers and the weary
brains of everyone else.
When we went through the genres we
thought about which of these structure steps
were particularly highlighted in each. (Not having
a clue, I kept shouting 'Battle!' until it was the
right answer and I could feel good about myself.)
For example, in the Horror genre, the two
significant structure steps are 'The Ghost' and
'The Opponent'.
He also summarised each genre in one simple
line, e.g. 'The detective film is about the person
who searches for the truth.' He then talked about
how to deal with that genre in order to write the
best screenplay.
Truby says that there are three major ways to
use genre and I paraphrase his advice below:

The most common turn-down from studios

is that 'the scripts are derivative', so you need
to hit the genre in an original way. But
undercutting the genre is limited: you're only
giving the opposite.
3. Transcend the genre. Explore in your story
why this particular myth is still powerful and
relevant now. How can it be fresh? Take an
archetypal hero and make them real and
unique and individual. Put your hero at the
centre of the drama. Give him a problem and
need of his own. In regular genre the hero is
typically a travelling angel who helps
someone else with a problem. Instead of this,
have a hero who makes a personal
statement.
He went on to analyse each genre in turn
which I do not have permission to reproduce.
Suffice to say that the material was fascinating
and helpful. If I have a major criticism of the
course, it's that Truby didn't have time to
illustrate this wisdom with film examples. These
are very important to writers, not just because
we mostly have a visual learning style (we're

The most common turn-down from studios is

that 'the scripts are derivative', so you need
to hit the genre in an original way.
1. Repeat the genre. There is no new thinking
involved in this. Each genre contains a
mini-philosophy which is carried by that
story form. You can repeat that.
2. Undercut the genre: you set up a genre by
hitting the first two story beats, the audience
recognises it, fills in the rest and goes ahead
of you, so you can then trip them up. Attack
the philosophy of that genre and say it's
100% wrong. You are now writing a more
personal story and forcing the audience
to rethink by short-circuiting their
expectations. This gives you an immediate
advantage.

bound to have, if you think about it!) but so that

we can check out the theories against scripts or
films.
He did, however, suggest that we study the
following masterpieces: How Green Was My
Valley, Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Sunset
Boulevard, Body & Soul, Cinema Paradiso, The
Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Dances with
Wolves, The Magnificent Ambersons, Network,
The Seven Samurai and GoodFellas. Truby
believes that these films go beyond individual
main characters to make points about the
society in which they live.
One of the delegates asked how to transcend
May 2005

57

G E N R E

The British are putting out scripts which

guarantee that they won't have a film industry
that can compete on a world market. They
must stop channelling money to producers
and directors and put it into development.
Europe has this auteur approach that it's all
about a director's vision. They don't value the
writer. It's ironic that Europeans, especially
the British, do not value the written word.
the masterpiece. Truby was kind to him. He
smiled and said, 'You can't. That's what
masterpiece means.'
So who is Truby? I bought him a coffee and
asked some gritty knife-edge questions. I
discovered that he is childless and unmarried, his
star-sign is Cancer and he lives in Santa Monica.
Then I remembered that this was ScriptWriter
and not Hello Magazine, so I controlled myself
and tried again.
JD: What do you think of the British film
industry?
JT: The British are putting out scripts which
guarantee that they won't have a film industry

JD: Why don't you teach individual genre classes

over here?
JT: There is a smaller audience here. For instance,
How to Write a Thriller would only attract those
people who want to write a Thriller, whereas a
class covering all genre guarantees to fill the
place. I have to give the public what they want.
America is bigger; there I can fill a hall with a
single genre whereas over here I must throw the
net wider and the course necessarily suffers.
JD: So why haven't you written a book?
JT: I have thought of it and have been planning
to do so for a long time but haven't got around
to it yet. Instead I've spent years developing my
software.

that can compete on a world market. They must

stop channelling money to producers and
directors and put it into development. Europe has
this auteur approach that it's all about a
director's vision. They don't value the writer. It's
ironic that Europeans, especially the British, do
not value the written word.
There is no reason why the British film
industry could not compete with the American
one. They both make movies for a worldwide
audience because their actors speak English. They
could do it. But there is an attitude that doesn't
value the script and doesn't value great writing in
the visual medium. That's wrong because it all
comes down to how good the script is.

JD: Do you do much writing yourself?

JT: I have written screenplays and teleplays but
I've been teaching since 1985. I believe in what I
do and I'm passionate about what I teach. I care
about writers. I want to see them succeed and
give them the tools that can make them the best
writers they can be. Being a writer is a personal
journey. You need to be the person doing the
creating yourself, not a subject reacting to the
outside world.
I want to write what I care about and luckily
I'm in a position to do that. Very few writers make
a good living just writing. It's a mistake to have
making money as a primary objective. If you do
have to have a job, have one that enables you to
write as well.

Daddy got
commissioned!

He is undoubtedly an inspiring teacher and

his final words brought tears to my eyes, which,
let's face it, no one does better than the
Americans.
'The fundamental key to success is this.
Choose the genres that are right for your
particular story and that are right for your
particular skills. Learn the beats that go with that
form. Then hit the beats. Transcend that genre
form and finally add the elements of drama that
lift it out of the ordinary and make it original.
Take these tools of transcending genre to write
something original. Take control of your
creativity and do what you have to do to get your
work made. Don't wait. Life is short. Do it.'

It's A Wonderful Life: R.K.O

John Truby www.truby.com

Raindance www.raindance.co.uk

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May 2005

John Truby is the writer-director of

All-American Boy, a family drama set in
the turbulent times of 1960s America
which was nominated for Best Picture
at the Hollywood Film Festival.