The Anatomy of Story

I mentioned in a recent blog post (Writing WIP Update) that I'd started a new writing project, when I definitely should not have. Well, I was right, because this thing has completely taken over all of my creative energy. Whoops, inspired.

Part of what's been fueling that inspiration is reading a new (to me) craft book, Anatomy of Story by John Truby.

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I'm not super far into my new project in terms of word count yet, but I did spend quite a lot more time on the planning and prep phase than I normally do. I used The Anatomy Of Story by John Truby as a framework for planning my character arcs and plot lines. It's crazy how much more prepared for the full story I feel, including the ending, than I have for any of my other novels. For the longest time, I'd been thinking that I was sort of incapable of planning out the full story in one go.

I thought for sure that I'm just the sort of discovery writer that can't see the end of a story before I write up to at least the midpoint. Obviously this involved a lot of going back and re-writing the beginning to make it make sense with the ending I'd only discovered halfway through the process.

Save the Cat didn't help, the 27 Beat method didn't help, Dan Harmon's Story Circle didn't help. All because I couldn't see the ending until I was there.

But The Anatomy of Story challenged that belief by flipping the presumptions I'd been making about outlining around. What if your outline was not focused on the individual events you're going to write about, but instead, the character transformations that need to happen? And what if, instead of the conflict being driven by a nebulous, faceless force like ~capitalism~, you tailor made an opponent for your hero to butt heads with from the very start? (Look, I know this is obvious to a lot of you, but this part did not come naturally to me.)

The single most important element of a great opponent is that he be necessary to the hero. This has a very specific structural meaning. The main opponent is the one person in the world best able to attack the great weakness of the hero. And he should attack it relentlessly. The necessary opponent either forces the hero to overcome his weakness or destroys him. Put another way, the necessary opponent makes it possible for the hero to grow. —John Truby, The Anatomy of Story. Chapter 4: Character.

Now, I don't believe that this book turned me into a plotter by any stretch of the word. I don't have my book planned out scene by scene. Instead, I have it planned out by movement, tension, and energy. For example, one of my scene cards says, "Revon crashes into Mal's life (like, literally)" and then has a few notes about why that's important and what the impact of that meeting will be on the characters. I didn't plan out exactly how that would happen or the specific pacing yet. That's revision work. I left all the juicy stuff for myself to discovery write while I'm in the draft.

This has been a perfect balance for me to keep myself on track and also not feel like the outline is a ball and chain that I have to lug around. All because The Anatomy of Story framed everything around crafting the character and their opponent first.

I won't lie though, this book is dense. This reads like a college text book. If you're coming off of Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, this may feel like you've waded into the deep end, but I promise, the book is worth it. Give it some time, take it slow, and this book will change how you plan your novels.

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