Most people think genres are simply categories on Netflix or Amazon that provide a helpful guide to making entertainment choices. Most people are wrong. Genre stories aren't just a small subset of the films, books, TV shows, and video games that people consume. The storytelling game is won by mastering genres. They are the all-stars of the entertainment world, making up the vast majority of popular stories worldwide. Knowing how to write genres is the most important skill in the storytelling industry-and the real secret of genres is that each one expresses a unique philosophy of how to live a good life, which is what readers and audiences really hunger for. The Anatomy of Genres is a step-by-step guide to using these basic building blocks of the story world. The legendary writing teacher John Truby details the three ironclad rules of successful genre writing and provides in-depth breakdowns of the fourteen major genres-Horror, Action, Myth, Memoir, Coming-of-Age, Science Fiction, Crime, Comedy, Western, Gangster, Fantasy, Thriller, Detective, and Love-as well as the essential plot events, or "beats," that define each of them. The ability to sequence a genre's beats in the right way, and then combine elements from different genres into the densest plot possible, is what separates stories that sell from those that don't. Truby's first book, The Anatomy of Story, changed the way writers develop stories. The Anatomy of Genres shows writers how to tell their best stories, and through the power of fiction, how audiences can live their best lives. Book jacket.