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

by John Truby

The plan generally shapes the rest of the story. So it must involve many steps. Otherwise you will have a very short story. The plan must also be unique and complex enough that the hero will have to adjust when it fails.

The battle should involve the hero and the main opponent, and it should decide once and for all who wins the goal. Decide whether it will be a battle of action and violence or a battle of words.

Whatever kind of battle you choose, make sure it is an intense experience that puts your hero to the ultimate test.

Let’s look at a seven-step breakdown from a single story, The Godfather, so that you can see what such a breakdown might look lik...

Hero Michael Corleone. • Weaknesses Michael is young, inexperienced, untested, and overconfident. • Psychological Need Michael must overcome his sense of superiority and self-righteousness. • Moral Need He needs to avoid becoming ruthless like the other Mafia bosses while still protecting his family. • Problem Rival gang members shoot Michael’s father, the head of the family. • Desire He wants to take revenge on the men who shot his father and thereby protect his family. • Opponent Michael’s first opponent is Sollozzo. However, his true opponent is the more powerful Barzini, who is the hidden power behind Sollozzo and wants to bring the entire Corleone family down. Michael and Barzini compete over the survival of the Corleone family and who will control crime in New York. • Plan Michael’s first plan is to kill Sollozzo and his protector, the police captain. His second plan is to kill the heads of the other families in a single strike. • Battle The final battle is a crosscut between Michael’s appearance at his nephew’s baptism and the killing of the heads of the five Mafia families. At the baptism, Michael says that he believes in God. Clemenza fires a shotgun into some men getting off an elevator. Moe Green is shot in the eye. Michael, following the liturgy of the baptism, renounces Satan. Another gunman shoots one of the heads of the families in a revolving door. Barzini is shot. Tom sends Tessio off to be murdered. Michael has Carlo strangled. • Psychological Self-Revela...

TOOTSIE WAS A HUGE HIT because its main character, played by Dustin Hoffman, dressed up as a woman. Right? Wrong.

What made that character funny, and what made the entire story work, was the web of characters that helped define the hero and allowed him to be funny.

Look below the glossy surface of Dustin Hoffman in a dress and you will see that each character in that story is a unique version of the hero’s central mora...

Most writers come at character all wrong. They start by listing all the traits of the hero, tell a story about him, and then somehow make him change at the end. ...

I think you will find much more useful. These...

We’ll begin not by focusing on your main character but by looking at all your characters together as part of an interconnected web. We’ll distinguish them by comparing each to the others according to story function and archetype. 2. Next we’ll individualize each character based on theme and opposition. 3. Then we’ll concentrate on the hero, “building” him step-by-step so that we end up with a multilayered, complex person that the audience cares about. 4. We’ll create the opponent in detail, since this is the most important character after your hero and, in many w...

The single biggest mistake writers make when creating characters is that they think of the hero and all other characters as separate individuals.

Their hero is alone, in a vacuum, unconnected to others. The result is not only a weak hero but also cardboard opponents and minor characters who are even weaker.

To create great characters, think of all your characters as part of a web in which each helps define the others. To put it another way, a character is often defined by who he is not.

KEY POINT: The most important step in creating your hero, as well as all other characters, is to connect and compare each to the others.

you force yourself to distinguish the hero in new ways. You also start to see the secondary characters as complete human beings, as complex and as valuable as your hero.

All characters connect and define each other in four major ways: by story function, archetype, theme, and opposition.

Every character must serve the purpose of the story, which is found in the story’s designing principle (see Chapter 2, on premise).

or function, to play to help the story fulfill that purpose. Theater

Even though the audience is most interested in how the hero has changed, you can’t show them that change unless every character, including the hero, plays his assigned part on the team.

Let’s look at the story function of the major kinds of characters in fiction.

Hero The most important character is the main character, or hero. This is the person who has the central problem and who drives the act...

The hero decides to go after a goal (desire) but possesses certain weaknesses and needs that ...

All other characters in a story represent an opposition, an alliance with the hero, or so...

Indeed, the twists and turns of the story are largely the product of the ebb and flow of opposition and friendship betwee...

Opponent The opponent is the character who most wants to keep the hero from achieving his desire. The opponent should not merely be a block to the hero. That is mechanical.

Remember, the opponent should want the same thing as the hero. That means that the hero and the opponent must come into direct conflict throughout the story.

That’s why you must always look for the deepest conflict that your hero and opp...

The relationship between the hero and the opponent is the single most important r...

In working out the struggle between these two characters, the larger issues and th...

The opponent is simply the person on the other side. He can be a nicer person than the hero, more moral, or even the hero’s lover or friend.

Ally The ally is the hero’s helper. The ally also serves as a sounding board, allowing the audience to hear the values and feelings of the lead character.

Fake-Ally Opponent The fake-ally opponent is a character who appears to be the hero’s friend but is actually an opponent. Having this character is one of the main ways you add power to the opposition and twists to the plot.

The fake-ally opponent is invariably one of the most complex and most fascinating characters in a story because he is usually torn by a dilemma.

While pretending to be an ally of the hero, the fake-ally opponent comes to actually feel like an ally. So while working to defeat the hero, the fake-ally o...

Fake-Opponent Ally This character appears to be fighting the hero but is actually the hero’s friend.

The fake-opponent ally is not as common in storytelling as the fake-ally opponent, because he is not as useful to the writer. Plot, as we will see in Chapter 8, comes from opposition, especially opposition that is hidden under the surface.

Subplot Character The subplot character is one of the most misunderstood in fiction.

Most writers think of this character as the lead in the second story line—for example, as the love interest in a detective story.

The subplot character has a very precise function in a story, and again it involve...

The subplot is used to contrast how the hero and a second character deal with the same problem...

Let’s look more closely at Hamlet to see how you might create a true subplot character.

We might say that Hamlet’s problem, reduced to one line, is to take revenge on the man who killed his father.

Similarly, Laertes’ problem is to take revenge on the man who...

The contrast focuses on the fact that one killing is premeditated murder and the other is an i...

The subplot character, like the ally and the opponent, provides another opportunity to define the hero through comparison and advance the plot.

The subplot character tracks a line parallel to the hero, with a different result.

Let’s break down a couple of stories so you can see how characters contrast through function.

He is initially hostile to her, but ends up giving her far better training than she receives at the FBI.

Hero Clarice Starling • Main Opponent Buffalo Bill, the serial killer • Second Opponent Dr. Chilton, the warden • Fake-Ally Opponent None • Ally Jack, her boss at the FBI • Fake-Opponent Ally Hannibal Lecter • Subplot Character None