The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works

A guide to understanding the major genres of the story world by the  legendary writing teacher and author of The Anatomy of Story, John  Truby.

Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix  or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices.  Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren’t just a small subset of the  films, video games, TV shows, and books that people consume. They are  the all-stars of the entertainment world, comprising the vast majority  of popular stories worldwide. That’s why businesses—movie studios,  production companies, video game studios, and publishing houses—buy and  sell them. Writers who want to succeed professionally must write the  stories these businesses want to buy. Simply put, the storytelling game  is won by mastering the structure of genres.

The Anatomy of  Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works is the legendary  writing teacher John Truby’s step-by-step guide to understanding and  using the basic building blocks of the story world. He details the three  ironclad rules of successful genre writing, and analyzes more than a  dozen major genres and the essential plot events, or “beats,” that  define each of them. As he shows, the ability to combine these beats in  the right way is what separates stories that sell from those that don’t.  Truby also reveals how a single story can combine elements of different  genres, and how the best writers use this technique to craft  unforgettable stories that stand out from the crowd.

Just as  Truby’s first book, The Anatomy of Story, changed the way writers  develop stories, The Anatomy of Genres will enhance their quality and  expand the impact they have on the world.