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Most writers work at a tremendous disadvantage because they don’t know this rule, which has to do with what producers and studios want to buy. Hollywood doesn’t buy and sell movie stars, directors or writers. The First Rule of Hollywood is: it buys and sells genres. If you’re not selling them what they want, you’re out of luck.
Genres are different kinds of stories, like Action, Detective, Love and Thriller. More importantly, genres are really good stories, the all-stars of the story world that have been popular with audiences for decades and sometimes centuries. That’s why Hollywood buys and sells them, and why you need to know not only which genres you’re using in your script but also how to write them well. Many writers wrongly believe that they are competing against the 100,000 scripts written every year. In fact, they are competing against the other scripts in their genre. Which is why you have to know your genres cold. Mastering your genre seems like it should be easy, since these are forms we have all seen at the movies since we were kids. Unfortunately, each genre is a complex story system where all the crucial elements exist under the surface in the structure. Each genre has a unique hero, desire line and opponent, asks a key question, uses a specialized storytelling strategy and expresses a highly detailed set of themes. Most importantly, each genre has anywhere from 8-15 unique story beats that must be in your script or your script will fail. What’s more, you have to twist each story beat, write each in an original way so your script stands above all the others in your form. But here’s the good news: all the techniques required for a great genre script are very precise and can be learned. There’s no reason you can’t become a master of your form and write a script that presents your genre to the Hollywood buyers in a fresh new way. I’d like to give you a brief look at some of the most popular genres in the entertainment business, that make up, individually or in combination, 99% of Hollywood films and television. Of course this won’t begin to cover all the techniques you need to know to master your form. I teach an all-day class in each genre, and even that doesn’t cover everything. But this will give you a sense of what form you’re probably working in. Perhaps the most popular family of genres in film and TV is Detective, Crime and Thriller. But you have to be careful when choosing one of these forms. While they all involve a crime, they are very different forms with very different structures. Detective Stories (L.A. Confidential, Chinatown) are about searching for the truth, so you need lots of suspects who could believably have committed the crime. This form also has more reveals than any other, and many writers have trouble sequencing these reveals, since they normally occur in reverse chronological order. Crime (The Usual Suspects, No Country for Old Men) is a genre that places less emphasis on detecting the criminal and more on the cat-and-mouse beats of catching him. This pushes Crime toward the Action genre, and means that the opponent is best when he is some form of master criminal. Thriller (Michael Clayton, The Sixth Sense, Silence of the Lambs) is the most popular of this family of genres in movies (detective is most popular in TV). Like Detective, Thriller involves detection, but there are typically far fewer suspects, and emphasis shifts to the detective being an average person who enters extreme danger. Thrillers are surprisingly tough to structure because you have to coordinate two opposing desire lines: the hero wants to uncover the killer while also escaping intense attack. Writers of Love Stories, and particularly Romantic Comedies, are always surprised, and a little chagrined, when I tell them that they have chosen probably the most difficult genre to write well. There are many reasons for this, among them the fact that Love Stories (Four Weddings and a Funeral, When Harry Met Sally, The 40-Year-Old Virgin) are highly choreographed, with no less than 12 unique story beats. But the biggest reason Love is so tricky is that the hero’s desire and opponent are the same person. No other genre has this peculiar structural element. The hero wants the lover, but the lover is also the first and main opponent. The result is a writer who doesn’t know if the story is coming (attraction) or going (repulsion). The good news is that the love story, when written in an original way, is extremely popular with audiences worldwide. Myth and Action are two genres that rule in the summer months. Myth (Lord of the Rings, The Dark Knight) is the foundation genre of more blockbusters than any other form. That’s because Myth deals with archetypal characters and life moments, which are recognizable worldwide regardless of culture or nationality. The big problem with Myth is that the story, which usually involves a journey, tends to be extremely episodic. To fix that, Hollywood almost always combines myth with one or two other genres that update and unify the Myth story. Action (Ironman, the Bourne films, the James Bond movies) is one of those genres often combined with Myth. This form was practically invented for the film medium, which is based on the split-second cut. If Love Story has the trickiest story structure, Action has the simplest. The hero has a clear goal and goes after it with great speed and relentless energy. But don’t be fooled by this. Action is much harder to execute well than it looks. Because the form has such a simple desire line, most action scripts lack plot. You can’t just string together a few big action set pieces. You need a complex opponent and as much information hidden from your hero as possible. The second major family of genres is Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction. Horror (28 Days Later, Jurassic Park, Nightmare on Elm Street) is about humans in decline, reduced to animals or machines by an attack of the inhuman. It’s the narrowest of all the genres, so you may be surprised to know that it has more unique story beats –15 – than any other form. Horror scripts are often very predictable, with a reactive hero and a monster who is just a killing machine. So one of the best ways to set your Horror story apart from the crowd is to make your hero active and force him or her to go up against the most intelligent monster possible. More >> |
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Screenwriting
Over the course of 3 decades, John Truby has taught more than 30,000 students the art of screenwriting. Providing the knowledge and expertise he has applied as a consultant on over 1,000 movie scripts, Truby offers an approach to storytelling that has earned acclaim for his instructional classes and screenwriting software from students and critics alike:
"If you're ready to graduate from the boy-meets-girl league of screenwriting, meet john Truby...(His course draws) epiphanies that make you see the contours of your psyche as sharply as your script."
Screenwriting Software Truby’s Blockbuster screenwriting package allows students to learn the art of developing ideas into fully realized, professionally structured scripts right at home. Based on a user interface that teaches as you write, Truby’s Blockbuster screenwriting software shows you the deep structural weaknesses that are likely to be in your script and takes you through the ideal order for fixing them. Truby’s Blockbuster software package is the only screenwriting program of its kind to focus in on writing for specific genres. With add-ons for action, comedy, horror and every genre of screenwriting, Blockbuster can be tailored to fit exactly the style of movie you’re working on. Screenwriting Classes From the writers, directors and producers of Shrek to Sleepless in Seattle to Star Wars, Truby’s screenwriting classes have trained some of the top players in Hollywood today. Truby’s audio and video screenwriting courses will teach you hundreds of screenwriting techniques that will allow you to compete with the best. Truby’s 14 hour audio classes and 8 hour video courses focus on the 22 building blocks of every script. These screenwriting tools will take you from beginning to end in the development process of your script idea.
"Truby's Story Structure Class is a totally new system.... a course that allows a writer to succeed in the fiercely competitive climate of Hollywood."
Screenwriting Online Classes In addition to screenwriting courses and software, Truby.com also offers classes which include one-on-one interaction with a personal mentor. The Great Screenwriting Online Class is 12 weeks long and contains all the information from the Truby live seminar. Writing exercises at the end of each lesson help you apply the course information to your story. |