Write a Story That Will Change Your Life
Chapters 1-3 of The Anatomy of Story by John Truby
Welcome back to the Marginalia Book Club where we dive into craft books for writers in order to improve our techniques.
After our deep dive into Jordan Rosenfeld's Make a Scene, we're moving on to explore The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby (Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Amazon).
I'm excited to journey through this book with you as we dissect what makes stories work from the inside out.
Each post will cover specific sections, with thoughts, questions, and a space for discussion. Whether you're reading along or just curious about Truby's approach, I hope you find something to spark your imagination.
Here's our upcoming schedule:
Week 2, April 29, 2025: Chapter 4
Week 3, May 6, 2025: Chapters 5 - 6 (pt. 1)
Week 4, May 13, 2025: Chapters 6 (pt. 2) - 7
Week 5, May 20, 2025: Chapter 8
Week 6, May 27, 2025: Chapter 9
Week 7, June 3, 2025: Chapters 10 - 11
Live Book Club Discussion: June 7, 2025 - 12pm ET - You can register here to grab the link.
Now, let's dive into today's focus: Chapters 1-3 of The Anatomy of Story.
Chapter 1: Story Space, Story Time
Right off the bat, Truby throws down the gauntlet by challenging the three-act structure many writers think of as gospel. He calls it too simplistic and "in many ways just plain wrong." Fighting words for some structuralists! But if you’ve ever found yourself confounded or constrained by the three acts, this makes a ton of sense.
Three-act structure is a mechanical device superimposed on the story and has nothing to do with its internal logic—where the story should or should not go.
Plus, though I love structure, I’m a huge fan of an organic view of storytelling. At our best, writers are artists not assembly-line workers following a prescriptive formula. Words are our medium of choice and with them we paint elaborate portraits and create emotions in readers.
I loved this quote: "stories are verbal games the author plays with the audience." I’ve always thought of stories as immersive experiences, but the idea of them as games adds another layer. It’s like we’re creating these intricate puzzles of emotion and consequence. We're not just telling what happened; we're conveying experiences, creating moments that resonate.
At the story's heart is desire: "I want therefore I am." The two legs that carry this desire forward are acting and learning. Characters learn new information, which leads to actions to achieve their desire. This cycle ultimately leads to what Truby believes is the point of all stories: character change.
And isn't that why we love stories? That fundamental hope that humans can become better versions of themselves? He recommends constructing our stories from the inside out, making them personal and unique to each artist and finding what is original within the idea. This is a great template.
Chapter 2: Premise
What I call a story seed, Truby calls a premise—the initial spark that grows into your narrative. His method advocates spending weeks developing your premise before diving into drafting, and I don’t disagree.
For a full-length novel, it’s always taken me weeks, months, and sometimes years to build that tiny idea spark into something larger. Note, this has never meant years of daily or even regular work on the idea. I like to let a seed or premise sit on the backburner for a while and allow my subconscious to do its job. Then, when I’m ready to focus on the idea with all of my attention, the universe always conspires to help me.
But, it does usually take me several weeks or months of focused effort to fully cultivate that seed into something that I can write. Truby lays out ten steps for developing your premise. His first step resonated deeply with me: write something that may change your life.
This is what I mean when I talk about "blood on the page," a concept that I believe in. If I’m not sharing something important to me, something that matters in my writing—if I’m not bleeding a little on the page—then what’s the point?
The suggestion to create a "wish list" (or what I’ve heard referred to as an "id list") of elements you want to see in your story or love in stories is something I definitely recommend as well.
The full ten-step process includes identifying potential story problems up front (super useful), figuring out who the best character is to be the protagonist, and feeling out the central conflict. (For a worksheet to help you remember the ten steps, check out the bonus material post.)
The "designing principle" was the trickiest concept for me to grasp. It's not what your story is about, but how you're telling it. Some of the examples made it seem like this designing principle can sort of be anything. But the example from the film The Sting clicked for me—it’s a movie that cons both the audience and the antagonist. That is the how of the storytelling.
Other examples that made more sense of this concept were from a film called Copenhagen, which I’d never heard of. Apparently, the story uses the Heisenberg uncertainty principle from physics to explore a character. Sounds confusing and awesome.
Or take A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life. Both films have unique lenses through which the stories unfold—men looking back at their pasts and futures or what might have been without them. These are the narrative devices used to tell the stories and they can make or break the narrative.
Another point that resonated: you must love your main character, even if they're unlikeable. Without the author's love, how can readers connect?
Chapter 3: The Seven Key Steps of Story Structure
Truby breaks story structure down to seven essential steps with the main character as their nucleus.
Weakness & Need: The character's wound or lie, ideally with both psychological and moral dimensions
Desire: What the character consciously wants (external), as opposed to what they need (internal)
Opponent: The person (or force) standing between your hero and their desire
Plan: What they think will work
Battle: The final confrontation
Self-Revelation: The moment of truth and change
New Equilibrium: How things settle after all the dust clears
Truby uses The Godfather as an example here, and it’s a solid breakdown. It really helps to see these steps in action in a story with such iconic beats.
So far, the book is challenging a lot of “screenwriting guru” assumptions, and it feels like it respects the reader as an artist, not just a technician.
Let's Discuss!
📢 What's your take on Truby's rejection of the three-act structure? Do you find his seven-step approach more organic and useful?
📢 Have you ever spent weeks developing a premise, as Truby suggests? How did that affect your drafting process?
📢 What's a "designing principle" you've used in your own work, even if you didn't call it that at the time?
I'm planning to apply Truby's process to my new book idea. If you're starting a project, I'd love to hear how these steps work for you too!
I'm pretty much a "pantser" and I struggle with plotting, so I'm really trying with this book. But it isn't resonating with me. It seems like Truby makes a lot of "always" statements that don't end up being true. In Ch. 3 he says, "a character with a moral need is always hurting others in some way at the beginning of the story." But he's just given the example of Silence of the Lambs, and I can't think of any way in which Clarice is hurting other people at the beginning.
I also picked up The Art of Character and I think that will be more up my alley. But I'm trying to stick with this because I want to learn and I have enormous respect for you as a writer and podcaster (I read Daughters of the Merciful Deep for a book club and then found your podcast!). OK, thanks. Rant over.
I just finished Make a Scene which was excellent. Now I have another fun craft book to dive into. Cool.