"The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works" by John Truby

 

Publisher: Picador Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Copyright: 2022

ISBN: 9780374539221

I picked this book up to give me some assistance when I was writing a seminar on oddly enough writing - go figure. He breaks writing down into fourteen distinct genres: Horror, Action, Myth, Memoir, Coming-of–Age, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy, Western, Gangster, Fantasy, Thriller, Detective, and Love. The book itself is quite well written, and easy to follow, but unfortunately while it gave me a fair amount of good information it wasn't wholly applicable to my project as Mr. Truby's examples are drawn primarily from movies, and not from books. 

This is understandable as he does coach and teach people writing, but does focus on the Hollywood end of things. He is the director of Truby's Writers Studio and "has an ongoing program where he works with students who are actively creating shows, movies, and novel series. He regularly applies his genre techniques in story consulting work with major studios including…"

Now while a good number of the techniques are the same, the lack of examples drawn from the written word I found to be a particular disadvantage. Reader's of this column (both of you) will see my point when you take into account my lack of enthusiasm for pretty much anything Hollywood puts out, as they seem to routinely ruin anything that is adapted from a book.

In any case if you are writer have a look at this book you may find fits your niche very well.