John Truby (born 1952) is an American

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

, screenwriting teacher and author. He has served as a consultant on over 1,000 film scripts over the past three decades, and is also known for the

screenwriting software Screenwriting software are word processors specialized to the task of writing screenplays. Overview Features While add-ins and macros for word processors, such as Script Wizard for Microsoft Word, can be used to write screenplays, the need fo ...

program Blockbuster (originally "Storyline Pro"). He is the author of ''Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller'', a book about screenwriting skills.

Screenwriting career

In the 1980s, Truby received his first credits, writing three episodes of ''

21 Jump Street ''21 Jump Street'' is an American police procedural television series that aired on the Fox network and in first run syndication from April 12, 1987, to April 27, 1991, with a total of 103 episodes. The series focuses on a squad of youthful-lo ...

'', as well as serving as a story editor. He later received a co-writer credit on the 2011

Disneynature Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for The Walt Disney Studios. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in Paris, France. The company's n ...

documentary film ''

African Cats ''African Cats'' (known as ''Felines'' in France) is a 2011 nature documentary film about a pride of lions and a family of cheetahs trying to survive in the African savannah directed by Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey. The film was rele ...

''. A portion of the proceeds for the film were donated to the

African Wildlife Foundation The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) is the leading international conservation organization focused exclusively on Africa's wildlife and wild lands. AWF's programs and conservation strategies are designed to protect the wildlife and wild lands o ...

and their effort to preserve

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Amboseli Amboseli National Park, formerly Maasai Amboseli Game Reserve, is a national park in Kajiado South Constituency in Kajiado County, Kenya. The park is in size at the core of an ecosystem that spreads across the Kenya-Tanzania border. The local ...

Wildlife Corridor.

Teaching

Unlike many authors and teachers on the subject, Truby is critical of Syd Field's three-act "Paradigm", viewing it as a mechanical means of storytelling, and argues that most teachers of screenwriting emphasize inner transformation of characters but not the moral effect their actions have on others. Instead, Truby crafted his own 22-step outline, which formed the basis of Truby's first book, ''The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller'' published in October, 2007 by

Faber and Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel ...

. Truby has since spun off his techniques into worldwide Masterclasses.

Works

* ''The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller'', Faber and Faber, 2007 * ''The Anatomy of Genres: How Story Forms Explain the Way the World Works'', Picador, 2022

References

External links

* * Living people 1952 births American male screenwriters Screenwriting instructors Writers of books about writing fiction {{US-screen-writer-1950s-stub