Recently, I was reviewing John Truby’s new book “The Anatomy of Genres – How Story Forms Explain the way the World Works,” with a view to using it as material for my latest blog. However, the more I studied the book, the more I realised I needed to go back to Truby’s earlier work, “The Anatomy of Story” to refresh my thoughts about his approach to storytelling, and I found a gem.

First, it is necessary to explain that Truby is not a fan of the three-act structure of story telling. Far from it, he believes writers should discard it as being far too limiting as it assumes the story has only two major turning points at the end of each act, and an important moment at the mid point. Instead, he asserts:

“The average hit film in Hollywood today has seven to ten major reveals. Some kinds of stories, including detective stories and thrillers, have even more.”

And he goes on to say:

“Good writers know that revelations are the key to plot. That’s why it’s so important that you take some time to separate the reveals from the rest of the plot and look at them as one unit. Tracking the revelations sequence is one of the most valuable of all storytelling techniques.”

This is the gem I mentioned earlier. By analysing the story in terms of how the plot is driven by a series of revelations experienced by the hero, the writer can identify the spine of the story. Audiences or readers want excitement – that means surprises that keep them guessing what will happen next. A story without surprises or revelations is boring. That is why writers should always keep key information away from the audience/reader until they absolutely need it at the most dramatic points.

Trudy gives a number of examples of a reveals sequence. Here is his analysis of Alien:

• Revelation 1 The crew realises that the Alien is using the air vents to move through the ship.
• Decision – They decide to flush the Alien toward the airlock and vent it into space.
• Changed Desire – Ripley and the others want to kill the Alien.
• Changed Motive – They must kill the Alien or die.
• Revelation 2 Ripley learns from the computer, MOTHER, that the crew is expendable in the name of science.
• Decision – Ripley decides to challenge Ash’s actions.
• Changed Desire – She wants to know why this was hidden from the crew.
• Changed Motive – She suspects that Ash is not on the crew’s side.
  Revelation 3 Ripley discovers that Ash is a robot that will kill her if necessary to protect the Alien.
• Decision – Ripley, with Parker’s aid, attacks and destroys Ash.
• Changed Desire – She wants to stop the traitor among them and get off the spaceship.
• Obsessive Drive – She will oppose and destroy anything and anyone who aids the Alien.
• Changed Motive – Her motive remains self-preservation.
• Revelation 4 After his robot head is revived, Ash tells Ripley that the Alien is a perfect organism, an amoral killing machine.
• Decision – Ripley orders Parker and Lambert to prepare for immediate evacuation and the destruction of the spaceship.
• Changed Desire – Ripley still wants to kill the Alien, but it now means destroying the ship.
• Changed Motive – Unchanged.
• Audience Revelation The Alien remains an unknown, terrifying force throughout. So the audience learns things at generally the same time as Ripley and the crew, depriving them of a sense of superiority over the characters and increasing their fear.
• Revelation 5 Ripley discovers that the Alien has cut her off from the shuttle pod.
• Decision – She races back to abort the self-destruct sequence.
• Changed – Desire Ripley doesn’t want to blow up with the ship.
• Changed Motive – Unchanged.
• Revelation 6 Ripley discovers that the Alien is hiding on the shuttle.
• Decision – She gets into a spacesuit and opens the shuttle to the vacuum of space.
• Changed Desire – Ripley still wants to kill the Alien.
• Changed Motive – Unchanged.
• Notice that the final revelation is the classic horror one: the place you escape to is actually the deadliest place of all.

So what do you think of Truby’s approach to reveals? He’s right of course that the more shock reveals and turning points there are, the more exciting the story becomes. But that does not mean that all reveals are equal. It still makes sense to end the first and second acts with a stunning reveal that triggers a major turning point and sends the plot in a new direction. In some respects, there is a lot of similarity between a reveals sequence and Eric Edson’s Hero Goals Sequences . That is, the hero pursues a goal until ‘New Information” (ie a reveal) comes along and the hero goes off in a new direction or modifies his goal.

As I have written in previous blogs, there are many ways of designing and analysing storys: Syd Field’s three-Act structure, the four-Act structure (a variation of the three Act structure), Hague’s Six stages, Frank Daniel’s sequence method (and many alternatively labeled sequence structures ranging from 7-12 sequences), the mythical hero’s journey, Edson’s 22/23 hero goal sequences, Harmon’s 8 point Story Circle, Blake Synder’s 15 step Save the Cat Method, Truby’s 7 steps and 22 building blocks, Pineiro’s 12 steps, the Nutshell Method, and many more I have covered in previous blogs. So there are many different ways of breaking down a story narrative. Many cover the same pattern of story telling, just with a slightly different level of detail or emphasis. I find them all interesting in different ways. And there is something to gain from studying them all. But which would you choose?

Of course you might disagree with me, that any story structure is too restrictive and feel it is more natural to pick your hero and let him/her follow their way. This is ‘pantsing’. Some very successful writers write this way, but they probably have a natural instinct for story patterns.

So what is best method for you as a writer to use? It’s simply that which best works for you.

Next month I will look at Grenre again.