Note that the title employs the word ‘storyteller.’ What he attempts to teach through this book is not how to write, but rather how to develop a compelling story. Billed as "Hollywood’s premier story consultant," Truby is also the leader of workshops built around the 22-step method described in the book. Truby doesn’t distinguish between genres or between novels and screenplays. A solid story is the foundation of every great work of fiction, and solid stories seldom create themselves. There is always a complicated network of details that have to mesh perfectly in order to make an "organic story" such as Truby teaches here. As he points out, and as everyone who has ever written a full-length work of fiction knows, there’s more to a compelling tale than beginning, middle, and end.

The 22 steps are neither form nor formula, but rather a series of thought-provoking exercises intended to draw forth the subtleties of character, plot, and theme that ultimately determine the level of substance and reader satisfaction in the story.

Beginning with background information, such as the types of stories, a clear definition and purpose of the premise of a story, and the seven minimum steps needed to build a story, Truby breaks each of these into smaller chunks. In addition to suggestions for applying the steps to a particular work, Truby makes generous use of examples from films and novels. (It may be worth the price of the book to find out what James Joyce was aiming at when he wrote Ulysses.) Casablanca and The Godfather, Star Wars and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as a host of other classics are broken down into their most fundamental parts to help illustrate the 22 steps.

In truth, there is probably nothing revolutionary in what Truby presents; with enough time and research, most of us could dig up similar strategies. What Truby has done is to collect a comprehensive set of elements, dissect them, arrange them to form a cohesive map of the story journey, and, most importantly, explain the proper use of that map. Unlike most How To Write books, this one does not include sections about finding an agent or marketing yourself and your book. Every page is devoted to teaching the art of storytelling. Any writer who is serious about the craft would do well to explore Truby’s method and apply the same attention and analysis to his or her own work that Truby has given to the art as a whole.