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

by John Truby

American Beauty is a comedy-drama set in suburbia, so Lester’s main opposition is within the family, with his wife, Carolyn, and his daughter, Jane, both of whom dislike him.

He soon becomes infatuated with his daughter’s friend Angela. But because he’s married and she’s a teenager, she becomes another opponent.

he begins to live life as he pleases and gains an ally in Ricky Fitts, the boy next door, who sells him pot.

Ricky and his father, Frank, are also subplot characters.

Lester’s central problem is figuring out how to live a meaningful life, one where he can express his deepest desires within a highly conformist s...

Ricky responds to his deadening, militaristic household by selling pot and spying on others with his video camera. Frank represses his homosexual desires by exerting a...

Hero Lester • Main Opponent Carolyn, his wife • Second Opponen...

Third Opponent Angela, Jane’s pretty friend • Fourth Opponent Colonel Frank Fitts • Fifth Opponent Brad, his coworker • Ally Ricky Fitts • Fake-Ally Opponent None • Fake-Oppo...

CHARACTER TECHNIQUE: TWO MAIN CHARACTERS There are two popular genres, or story forms, that seem to have two main characters, t...

Let’s see how the character web in these two forms actually works, based on the function that each ...

Love Stories Having to create two equally well-defined characters makes certain requirements for the character web of your story.

The love story is designed to show the audience the value of a community between two equals. The central concept of love stories is quite profound.

Love stories say that a person does not become a true individual by being alone. A person becomes a unique and authentic individual only by entering into a community of two. It is through the love of the other th...

Expressing this profound idea with the right character web...

If you try to write a love story with two main characters, you will have two spines, two desire lines, two tra...

So you have to make sure that one character is a little more central than the other. You must detail the need of both characters at the beginning of the story, but you should ...

But one of the best ways to set your love story apart is to give the woman the driving line, as in Moonstruck, Broadcast News, and Gone with the Wind.

When you give one character the desire line, you automatically make him or her the more powerful character.

In terms of story function, this means that the lover, the desired one, is actually the main oppon...

typically fill out the character web with one or more outside opponents, such as family me...

You may also have other suitors for the hero or the lover so that you can compare different versions...

Buddy Stories The strategy of using the buddy relationship as the foundation of the character web is as old as the story of Gilgamesh and his great friend Enkidu.

The buddy strategy allows you essentially to cut the hero into two parts, showing two different approaches to life and two sets of talents.

These two characters are “married” into a team in such a way that the audience can see their differences but also see how these differences actually help them work well together, so that the whole becomes greater than the sum of the parts.

As in the love story, one of the buddies should be more cent...

Usually it’s the thinker, the schemer, or the strategist of the two, because this character comes up with the plan and s...

The buddy is a kind of double of the hero, similar in important way...

Structurally, the buddy is both the first opponent and the fir...

He is not the second hero. Keep in mind that this first opposition between the two buddies is almost never serious or tragic. It usually ta...

Usually, you fill out the character web with at least one outside, danger...

And because most buddy stories use a mythic journey, the buddies encounter a number of secon...

Each of these opponents should represent a negative aspect of the society that hates the buddies or wants to break them up.

This technique is a great way of defining secondary characters quickly and distinguishing one from another. It also helps broaden and deepen the buddy form because you define various aspects of the society in relation to the two leads.

One of the most important elements of the buddy web has to do with the fundamental conflict between the friends. There is a snag in th...

CHARACTER TECHNIQUE: MULTIPLE HEROES AND NARRATIVE DRIVE Although all the popular genres have a single main character, there are some nongenre stories that have multiple heroes.

Having a number of heroes is the main way you create a sense of simultaneous story movement.

The risk is that you show so many characters at the same time that the story is no longer a story; it has no forward narrative drive. Even the most simultaneous story must have some linear quality, sequencing events in time, one after another.

To write a successful multihero story, you must put each main character through all seven steps—weakness and need, desire, opponent, plan, battle, self-revelation, and new equilibrium. Otherwise the character is not a main character; the audience has not seen him move through the minimal stages of development.

Notice that having lots of heroes automatically reduces narrative drive. The more characters you must lay out in detail, the more you risk hav...

Examples of multihero stories that use one or more of these techniques are American Graffiti, Hannah and Her Sisters, L.A. Confidential, Pulp Fiction, The Canterbury Tales, La Ronde, Nashville, Crash, and Smiles of a Summer Night.

CHARACTER TECHNIQUE: CUTTING EXTRANEOUS CHARACTERS Extraneous characters are one of the primary causes of episodic, inorganic stories.

The first question you must ask yourself when creating any character is “Does this character serve an important function in the overall story?” If he doesn’t—if he only provides texture or color—you should consider cutting him entirely. His limited value probably won’t justify the time he takes up in the story line.

A second way that characters connect and contrast in a story is through archetype.

Archetypes are fundamental psychological patterns within a person; they are roles a person may play in society, essential ways of interacting with others.

Because they are basic to all human beings, they cross cultural boundaries an...

Using archetypes as a basis for your characters can give them the appearance of weight very quickly, because each type expresses a fundamental pattern that the audience recognizes, and this same pattern is reflected both within...

But it is a blunt tool in the writer’s repertoire. Unless you give the archetype detail, it can become a stereotype.

KEY POINT: Always make the archetype specific and individual to your unique character.

For fiction writers, probably the key concept of an archetype is the notion of a shadow.

The shadow is the negative tendency of the archetype, a psychological trap that a person can fall into when playing that role or living out that psychology.