The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller

by John Truby

A story tracks what a person wants, what he’ll do to get it, and what costs he’ll have to pay along the way.

Serious novels typically depict how a person interacts and changes within an entire society or show the precise mental and emotional processes leading up to his change.

The dramatic code expresses the idea that human beings can become a better version of themselves, psychologically and morally. And that’s why people love it.

Stories don’t show the audience the “real world”; they show the story world. The story world isn’t a copy of life as it is. It’s life as human beings imagine it could be.

The hero has a desire, but it is not intense; he covers a great deal of territory in a haphazard way; and he encounters a number of characters from different levels of society. Spiral Story

Lecter shows us, in miniature, how an opponent relentlessly attacks the hero’s weaknesses until she fixes them or falls.

That’s because you are really speaking two languages—one of words, the other of images—and matching them exactly over the course of the story.