In its original sense, a shaggy-dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax. In other words, it is a long story that is intended to be amusing and that has an intentionally silly or meaningless ending.[1]
The Anatomy of Story
”The Anatomy Of Story is concrete and practical without resorting to simplistic ‘Three Act Structure’ screenwriting clichés. It will be an indispensable guide to writing your first great script.” —Larry Wilson, co-writer /co-producer of Beetljuice and co-writer of The Addams Family THE ANATOMY OF STORY 22 STEPS TO BECOMING A MASTER STORYTELLER Faber & Faber launches John Truby’s The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller—a new Bible not just for screenwriters, but for any writer crafting the perfect story. Taking as his examples Jaws, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Tootsie, The Great Gatsby, The Godfather, Chinatown, and A Christmas Carol, among many others, Truby illustrates in The Anatomy of Story (Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux) what makes a great story and how to create that story, focusing on plot and premise, theme, characters, moral development, and crafting the kind of ending that brings readers and audiences back again and again. Additionally, Truby offers seven key story structure steps, which are the major stages of a story’s development and of the dramatic code under its surface. The Anatomy of Story is a step-by-step guide to constructing the best story possible—be it a screenplay, short story, or novel. Truby, who has taught his twenty-two-step Great Screenwriting and Genre classes to more than 20,000 students worldwide, is available to discuss: Top 10 mistakes writers make about story. Five best and worst questions about screenwriting. How the 22-step-approach is different from the 3-act structure. Five unique story elements of blockbuster films. Five best techniques of character and plot. John Truby is Hollywood’s premier story consultant and founder of Truby’s Writers Studio. He has worked as a story consultant and script doctor for Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, FOX, and HBO, among others. Booklist “ Hollywood story consultant Truby commits his vast knowledge of screenwriting and storytelling to the page in this handy guide for aspiring writers of all types. Truby delves into the setup, from basic structure to the premise and the depth behind it. From there, he moves into character, emphasizing the importance of not only the hero but also the characters in the story who aid and oppose him. Truby illustrates the importance of setting to the story and how careful plotting is needed to weave the elements of the story together. He cautions that plot is not incidental and requires careful management and timely revelations. Although most of his examples are from movies, such as Tootsie, The Godfather, and Star Wars, Truby also draws from novels and plays, and his advice is applicable not only to the hopeful screenwriter but to the aspiring novelist as well. A comprehensive guide to writing stories of all kinds, Truby’s tome is invaluable to any writer looking to put an idea to paper.” —Kristine Huntley Tweet
The cute and cursed story of Furby
On Version History: your favorite, most annoying furry friend.
Cory Doctorow: Stories Are a Fuggly Hack - Locus
I've mentioned before, stories are weird. I mean, really, really weird. Nothing that happens in a piece of fiction has any consequence in the real world. Romeo and Juliet did not live, did not die, and the ''tragedy'' they represent is objectively less important than the tragedy of the live yogurt culture I digested at the breakfast table this morning. My theory is that the parts of our brains that …Read More
Creatures of Story and Song | Reaktion Books
Discover why a beaver was said to bite off its own testicles, why the baleen of a right whale was prized by medieval knights or why you should give your crush the gift of a great auk.Creatures of Story and Song pieces together evocative legends, poems and historical accounts from a thousand years of history […]
If You’ve Only Ever Played D&D, You’re Missing Out - Aaron Ross Powell
Tabletop RPGs are story engines. Why would you want to tell only one kind of story?
Kwaidan (1964)
Taking its title from an archaic Japanese word meaning "ghost story," this anthology adapts four folk tales. A penniless samurai marries for money with tragic results. A man stranded in a blizzard is…
An Open Letter to the Female Hat-Wearing Dog From “Go Dog, Go” – The Ugly Volvo
I bought your book to help my son learn prepositions and adjectives and was, from the first read, inexorably drawn in by your heart-wrenching struggle for approval. Momentarily distracted by the humdrum parade of big dogs, little dogs, black and white dogs, I watched as you walked in, brimming with joy and confidence, and looked on as some total nobody, indistinguishable from most of the other dogs in this book, crushed you with his subtle rejection.
Branchline — stories grow in branches
A place to grow stories together, one bloom at a time. Read a path. Pick up where the last writer left off. Watch stories branch.
MATT THOMPSON
As part of my EngD project, I am creating ways for story authors to easily write narratives with multiple branches, along the lines of the Choose Your Own Adventure stories from the 1990s. Typically, this kind of story authoring is hard, as the number of material that needs to be written increases exponentially with the number of decision points.
Let the Dog Decide: The Revolutionary 15-Minute-a-Day P…
Training a dog doesn’t need to be a painful or frustrat…
Twig + Tale | Sewing & Craft Patterns
Discover sewing patterns for timeless clothing & crafts. Thoughtfully designed for makers of all skill levels. Create with Twig + Tale today.
Robert Hanks · On Putting Things Off
Job gone, I sat around trying to write, managing bits and pieces, but earning very little. And then my marriage drifted away too, leaving me, in Alan Partridge’s phrase, clinically fed-up boo-hoo. My wife, having said she would leave, took two and a half years to find a way of doing it – there is a small consolation in not being the only procrastinator in the relationship. While this was going on the LRB commissioned me to write about Richard Hughes, who wrote A High Wind in Jamaica. I like Hughes and it seemed like a job I could get on with. I cheerfully settled to the research, reading the novels I hadn’t read, rereading the ones I had. Then I started writing, or that’s what I told myself: some paragraphs, some sentences, a sketch of a plan, then some rewriting, rearranging, scrubbing, more rewriting, more scrubbing, pauses to reconsider. Then I did some more research: the short stories, the children’s stories, the poems and plays, the journalism, Richard Perceval Graves’s biography, then back to the rewriting …
Flanderization - All The Tropes
Flanderization is the process of taking a single (often minor) action or trait of a character within a work and exaggerating it more and more over time until it...
How I draft stories
I discovered that trying to write one big blob does not work for me. I can get as far as 2000 words before the volume overwhelms. As with many things in life, breaking it down into pieces helps a lot! This is where most outlining writers suggest a big bulleted
I want to tell you a story, and it begins with this VERY WEIRD animal: Meet Thetys vagina... [a thread 🧵] 📸 m_patton bit.ly/2Mgw8Sf 🌿🧪🦑🐙🌊
