Storycraft

What Hacker News says

1. adamgordonbellMay 2026
   The old version of this question is Aristotle’s Poetics: what makes a story feel like a complete action rather than just a sequence of events?

   One related thread is John Truby’s Anatomy of Story. His system is a 'story structure grows out of the hero’s weakness, desire, opponent, moral choice, and self-revelation.' And he then catalogues variations and popular versions of each of those ingredients.

   He also has a follow on book that that goes even further toward what this project is doing. He treats genres almost like deep story forms with specific tropes: myth, horror, detective, comedy, action, fantasy, crime, love story, and so on each have their own worldview.

   It's like one mans version of TVTropes, but with a underlying structure, more than a catalogue.

   Reading Truby break down stories is pretty entertaining.

   The world of narrative non-fiction also has their own versions of these structures. Storycraft by John Hart is a good guide.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Truby

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2. KerrickDec 2024
   Read the following books:

   - On Writing Well by William Zissner

   - Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg

   - The Elements of Style, 4th Edition by Strunk & White

   - Good Prose by Kidder & Todd

   - Wordcraft by Jack Hart

   - Storycraft by Jack Hart

   - The Art and Craft of Feature Writing by William Blundell

   - The Art and Craft of Storytelling by Nancy Lamb

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