The Biggest Reason Why Writers Fail At The Premise by John Truby

[@radicalfriendsmovie]

Thank you filmcourage for doing so many wonderful interviews! Your passion for filmmaking in all its aspects, is awsomeness!

[@deaconx]

He's not talking about dramatic chaos. He's speaking about sloppy storytelling because of chaos in the actual writing.

[@candleglowdreams]

I could listen to this writer each day and not tire of what he is saying. Wonderful~

[@AR-vu4hr]

I think the underlying point being made here is that it's difficult to merket a film (find an audience) if you don't know or can't define its genre. You could have a mix of genres, but market it as a belonging to a specific genre and not have an issue (IMO). I'll use the well known example of Harry Potter to illustrate: it is considered Fantasy YA, but it also has mystery, action / adventure, boarding school drama (Enid Blytonesque and the Worst Witch), a coming of age story. You could easily put into another category. I suspect that if you look at most other popular films or stories you will find a similar layering of genres.

[@LockSteady]

Perhaps that's the best question to ask, but the only answer I can come up with seems too simplistic to post. But since nobody else has, I'll take a shot. Pick a basic genre, one of the essential story-forms, and only then overlay a skin of another genre. A minor skin. An aesthetic skin. Don't create a convoluted mess when you combine genres. And a writer avoids making a mess, by not leaving the essential, or base, or "chosen" genre. Apparently that's the trick to avoid betraying the premise.

[@butterflymoon6368]

How on earth do people write from genre and why would you ever pick one? I write from character. I don't care about genres.

[@karpcalmari4628]

Would be nice to hear some examples where story worked very well, and where it didn't do well. And point out the main mistakes etc.

[@ThatCreeNative1]

Karp Calmari My guess is Edge of Tomorrow. It has Action, Adventure and Mystery. What it didn't put was romance and drama. Not much Adventure when they are still in the same place the whole movie and that wherever they go isn't totally far. Not much mystery considering it just reveals a lot in the movie. If anything they should've put Drama and Romance. The Romance is a little difficult since they do not have a lot of romantic scenes but of course typically putting in a love story in a movie to a point where you expect love stories to be in every movie nowadays. It was dramatic and filled with action. Where did genre win? For me it's Captain America Winter Soldier. It has Action, Adventure and Sci-Fi. There aren't much romance scenes and there are dramatic scenes. However it does have a lot of action, adventure and science fiction in the movie to a point where it sold what you came for! The main reason why I did love that movie is because of the genre, I got what I came for and I was happy. That's the example this man is saying in the video. Give the correct form of what you're selling.

[@GodofVengence]

Based on what he said, most scripts that mess up genre blending simply wouldn’t get sold. Chances are you can think of some examples of genre blending that works well - for example, the “mockumentary” style uses documentary film techniques as a vehicle to deliver comedy.

[@gummybear2700]

His book does it really well, Anatomy of story. Unless that's what you mean lol

[@butterflymoon6368]

Romance is awful though. It ruins so many movies. I hate seeing it.

[@bozodeniro]

Eye luv it, the mood music and background beat almost entirely drowns out the sound track and audio narrative on the "James Patterson Teaches Writing | Official Trailer" ad - laughed so hard I almost missed the link for Skip Ad!

[@ryanbarker5217]

i feel as if it's absolutely pointless to develop an idea without knowing what genre/s you're writing for. if you don't know, how can you expect someone to pay for your script? or see the movie? after all, the genre dictates the story elements and cast of characters. take whatever idea you have right now. if it's a rom-com, change that to a horror for a minute and consider the huge alterations you'd have to make to craft a decent horror movie. that may be a pretty extreme example, but it should illustrate just how powerful choosing the correct genre can be on the story.

[@Stormeyworld]

Hmm. Good advise. I'm having a little trouble deciding what genre my movie is. I don't want to call it romantic comedy but it sure is a comedy has romance but also drama. Better think about what genre I really want it to be.

[@TwistedAdventures42]

I like to think some of the better movies overlap into multiple genres.

[@learnerlearns]

No matter what genre you decide upon, remember that sophomoric spelling errors will label your work as amateurish. For instance, knowing the difference between "advise" and advice.

[@sekhmet4542]

Stormeyworld maybe it's a love story. That's a genre.

[@mime1926]

chaos is dramatic...that's what makes a great screenplay.

[@LuraKetch]

Thank you for sharing!

[@oS2006DE]

Now that's an assumption about some of my own unused story ideas that I hadn't even considered challenging! :-)

[@jdsartre9520]

this interviewer is usually really good. but this time, where were the follow up questions asking for examples?

[@victortiti89]

What genre you have to write so the chances to sell increase? Thanks for answering!:)

[@Stratword_]

Would love to hear his thoughts on theme.

[@mime1926]

unpredictability is the adversary of formulas.

[@wdoug95608]

John, john, (pause) john. Good stuff for sure. However your ending comment re: The biggest reasons writers fail at the premise line is the wrong genre to... Didn't you say earlier or in another clip that Films now must combine genres? IF you could address that or if some cares to take a stab.

[@TomEyeTheSFMguy]

7 years later and no-one cared to take a stab.

[@natm5224]

Oof, so no one else cared about that either. I caught that too about the ending comment and was hoping to find something in the comments section elaborating on that. 😅

[@AR-vu4hr]

I just watched this (9 years later) and left a comment (above) on how I think this piece of advice applies more to marketing than it does to the elements of an actual story. For example, Harry Potter has mystery, action/adventure, a coming of age story, teen lit / boarding school drama, but it is marketed as Fantasy YA.

[@MiguelExhale]

Genre..

[@DDavis-mi2cg]

I can't buy some of his thoughts on films today are multi-genre. In that case, the studios would go crazy trying to figure out the genre of the films purchased by the studios. Genre must be clear.

[@thereccher8746]

That doesn't make it less clear. That only means there are now clearly more genres. Lord of the Rings is clearly Adventure Fantasy Action. Jaws is clearly Horror Thriller. They''ve been multi-genre for years.

[@hastinmy]

yes

[@butterflymoon6368]

I don't have a genre. At all.

[@mime1926]

people like chaos. Formulaic storylines are everywhere...it bores people.

[@ahsinoe4]

Agree or disagree This man is one of if not the most highly paid screenwriters in the world

[@Fearofthemonster]

IS he a screenwriter? He is an advisor to the script writers but other a few episodes of a series (something called jumpstart 21 cops or something like that) he wrote no scripts. Correct me if I am wrong.

[@murrynathan]

How come nobody’s put Batman in a vampire movie? They all like bats. Wait! the new Batman was a vampire. How about a mashup between Twilight & The Batman? Hollywood here I come!

[@mime1926]

Chaos is a fact of life- having it in screenplay creates suspense.

[@armanflint]

My porno is doomed.

[@EATMAN888]

Myth...so he sneak dissing the bible i suspect.

[@03509338]

Am I the only one who gets bored every time he speaks

[@Damacles9]

Yes

[@stephrjgk]

I watch with the speed at 2. helps a bit

[@camboudiacleef1253]

if you're bored, you're not good for this job.....!!

[@troydon3989]

Might seem meaningless, but try enabling subtitles and reading along can help focus.

[@janekailey2173]

He doesn't even mention "The Biggest Reason Why Writers Fail At The Premise" until the last few seconds and even then it doesn't make sense...especially since he only devoted a few seconds to the actual topic of the video (not that it would have make any difference, LOL)!!

[@Tomoyuki_Tanaka]

+Jane Kailey If you actually watched the whole interview, and listened to what the interviewer asked at the beginning, she asked about GENRE, not premise. That's why he was talking about genre. The problem isn't with John Truby going off topic, but that this video is titled incorrectly - it should have been in line with the interviewer's question about genre and titled as such.

[@janekailey2173]

+Tomoyuki976 Title of video: The Biggest Reason Why Writers Fail At Premise

[@janekailey2173]

+Tomoyuki976 I thought I DID watch the whole video. Wait, let me check.

[@Tomoyuki_Tanaka]

***** Exactly, that's why I said the video is titled incorrectly. It should have been about genre, not the reason why writers fail at premise, because he only mentioned that at the last portion of the video. Weirdly enough, right at the beginning of the video, the interviewer asks, "why is understanding genre so important?", which should have been the title because John Truby was answering that question and not really explaining the premise until the end.

[@natm5224]

@@Tomoyuki_Tanaka then the title needs to be corrected because when I searched for videos on premise, this one came up and this kind of mistake wastes time.

[@pennyboom]

who even is this guy

[@jonbainmusicvideos8045]

cowboys and aliens was very cool. sucker punch probably the best movie ever made. broke all the rules of genre.

[@fab92n15]

Cowboys and Aliens was boring movie. Sucker punch was crap except the SFX.

[@albertmarble]

This s more about genre than premise! Waste of time

[@ryanbarker5217]

agreed, but i find a lot of these videos by film courage are poorly titled.