The TV Drama Genre Course
A Truby Seminar on CD-ROM

One-hour TV Drama is the other major form on TV besides sitcoms, and is a very lucrative and creative one for writers. Year in, year out, the best dramatic writing is found on television. The challenge for writers is to be very good under impossible deadlines.

Features

The TV DRAMA GENRE COURSE is designed to make you a professional TV writer, able to work on the staff of any show on television. The course teaches you how to break down a show so you can write a great spec script. You also learn the different story beats for the various genres of 1-hour TV, how to include Emmy-winning elements, how to write on staff, and when to break the "rules."

If drama is your strength and love as a writer, the TV Drama Course will put you at the top of your game.  Here are some of the main features:

• Writing a great TV drama
• Common elements of Emmy-winning scripts
• Story structure template for figuring out the keys of the top TV dramas
• Cardinal rules of TV drama
• Worst fallacies of writing for television
• Ideal process for writing the one-hour show
• Writing freelance vs. staff
• Character change in the script and the season
• Maintaining your vision
• Anatomy of a TV season
• Breaking the "rules"

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Master the Genres
that Hollywood Loves to Make

We are fortunate to have CD versions of 65+ hours of screenwriting coach John Truby's classic courses on writing screenplays in each of the major film genres: action, comedy, crime/thriller, love, myth, and horror/fantasy/sci-fi as well as TV drama and TV sitcoms.  Each CD (requires Win 95 or higher and speakers) is composed of one of Truby's seven-hour courses on the respective genre.

Professional screenwriters know good structure is not enough.  You have to specialize to win.  Let Hollywood's premiere expert on genres give you the keys to professional success, showing you how to execute the most popular and successful story forms.

Why Specialize in a Genre?

The first rule of professional writing is this:  The entertainment industry buys and sells genres.

Genres are story types, and business has learned that you reach the greatest audience by taking a few of the most popular story types and constantly reworking them in new and creative ways.

The strategy for writers is clear: to succeed, you have to specialize in two or three of these popular forms and write something original.

All the Genre Courses

The genre courses on these CDs are the most in-depth, professional-level courses in the most popular genres in the world.  Just pick the genre course or courses for the kind of writing you want to do.  And this way, you'll be writing from strength, writing the kinds of scripts the entertainment industry wants to buy.

ACTION STORY SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE helps you weave all the elements that make an original, tightly-plotted action story.  Hollywood's most popular genre, but also surprisingly tricky.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

COMEDY GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE shows you the secrets of a successful movie comedy.  Learn all 7 of the major comedy structures, including buddy picture, traveling angel, black comedy and satire.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

CRIME GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE will help you build unique heroes, criminals, nightmare and crime sequences.  Learn the tricks, tools and techniques for writing this often convoluted, plot-heavy family of stories.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

DETECTIVE GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE guides you through the maze of suspects, motives, alibis and crimes to help you create a great whodunit. (Included in Crime Genre Course Software.)
7 hours.  Just $94.  

FANTASY GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE shows you how to construct the complex magic of this highly popular form.  The fantasy, horror and sci-fi story forms have become increasingly popular with the movie-going public.  Learn the characters, structures, and themes of all these advanced forms.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

HORROR GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE gives you the tools to surpass the tough expectations of the audience and really knock them out with something new and terrifying. (Included in Fantasy Genre Course Software.)
7 hours.  Just $94.  

LOVE GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE helps you create two characters that people will really care about and shows you how to add plot to the story form.  Hollywood is always looking for a love story.  This course tells you all the tricks and story beats to write a winner.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

MYTH GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE will turn you into an expert myth storyteller.  With the rise of the international market, Hollywood is desperate for myth stories to create its blockbusters.  Here's how to write them.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

SCIENCE FICTION GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE shows you how to create stories of universal evolution.  Here you'll learn its many characters, structures, and themes. (Included in Fantasy Genre Course Software.)
7 hours.  Just $94.  

THRILLER GENRE SCREENWRITING COURSE SOFTWARE helps you create a lot of plot in a small space with just a few characters.  Master this surprisingly difficult form that is a staple of the entertainment industry. (Included in Crime Genre Course Software.)
7 hours.  Just $94.  

TV DRAMA COURSE SOFTWARE helps you write the myriad of sub-forms - personal drama, social drama, crime, detective, fairy tale, mixed - that you must know to be successful.  The 1-hour drama on television is a great way to break into Hollywood.  Here are the keys to success.
7 hours.  Just $94.  

TV SITCOM COURSE SOFTWARE helps you map out the oppositions and structures that actually produce the laughs in this very popular form, the source of more work for writers in Hollywood than any other form.  But the sitcom is highly specialized and involves much more than writing jokes.
7 hours.  Just $94.

About John Truby

John Truby has written for film and television and been story consultant on over 1,000 scripts, novels and plays.  He has taught his professional writing classes to over 20,000 students worldwide.  His students include the writer, director, or producer of Outbreak, The Mask of Zorro, The Negotiator, Sleepless in Seattle, The Addams Family, Beeltlejuice, Leap of Faith, Lost in Yonkers, Rambling Rose, Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, Back to School, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Triumph of the Spirit, and Star Wars.

He has also worked as story consultant and script doctor for Disney Studios, Sony Pictures, Fox, HBO, BBC, Alliance Atlantic, RAI, Lux Television, TV4, and Cannell Studios.

Some of the Praise and Endorsements
for John Truby and his Seminars

"Truby's Comedy Class was very useful. Suddenly, I'm much funnier... on the page."
Michael Endler, Back to School

"John Truby's Movie Comedy Class is a wonderfully comprehensive course that actually shows you how to write a funny script."
Martha Coolidge, director of Rambling Rose, Weird Science, Sledgehammer

"I attribute my success in attaining agency representation, optioning several scripts, and being selected as a Disney New Writer Fellow to John Truby's...genre classes. I wrote a detective sexual thriller immediately upon completing "Detectives, Crime Stories and Thrillers". Because of the insights into this genre gained from this class, I optioned my scripts within 3 months and won my position as a Disney Fellow."
Flo Cameron

"While editing my next feature, I've been listening to your "World Myth" tapes a lot and thought I should just thank you for putting them out there in the world. You kick ass!"
Blair Murphy, filmmaker

"Next to a computer, John Truby's sitcom techniques are the most useful tools a sitcom writer can have."
Ellen Sandler, writer-producer Everybody Loves Raymond, Baby Talk, Kate and Allie, Taxi

"One of the smartest things I did to break in as a sitcom writer was take Truby's Sitcom Class."
Pam Wick, writer Married.. With Children, My Two Dads

"Truby's...a course that allows a writer to succeed in the fiercely competitive climate of Hollywood."  
American Film Institute Magazine 

"A veritable bible for screenwriters." 
Backstage 

"If you're ready to graduate from the boy-meets-girl league of screenwriting, meet John Truby... (His course draws) epiphanies that make you see the contours of your psyche as sharply as your script."  
LA Weekly 

"...a thoroughly detailed and impeccably presented education in the anatomy and psychology of any good story... an invaluable road map that I would recommend to any serious writer. 
Jeff Arch, Sleepless in Seattle

"Truby's course is invaluable for anyone who wants to be a professional screenwriter." 
John Flynn, Director of Best Seller, Rolling Thunder

"This course is so good I took it twice." 
Ralph Winter, producer Planet of the Apes, Inspector Gadget, Star Trek IV, VI 

"When novice screenwriters ask me what course, book, or study guide influenced me the most, I tell them it was your course. I filled an entire notebook with notes and was greatly impressed by your teaching, organization, and sharp analyses... I have you to thank for helping me win a very prestigious, important award that changed my life." 
Susan Vaughn, writer

"I've taken dozens of writing classes, workshops, and seminars. None of them has been as helpful as Truby's.... It's well-organized, entertaining and practical. I recommend if for everyone who works - or wants to work - in the film industry." 
Robert Newcombe, recently sold his first script to Disney

"I spent 4 years and $24,000 at film school and learned more in 24 hours (with Truby's course)." 
Sidney Lee, screenwriter

"My screenplay came in 6th place out of 13,000 entries.... I learned by ordering your enlightening Screenwriting Course and specific genre cassette tapes, including your fantastic BLOCKBUSTER program."  
James R. Crape, Writers Digest Screenwriting Competition  

"Fabulous course - invaluable. Lets you know what you really need to write, structure, and analyze a film story. Complete, advanced point of view."  
Diana Brewer, TV Development Lorimar 

"I'm now using what I've learned as a yardstick to measure all the scripts I'm evaluating. Thanks!"  
Linda Buzzell, Vice President, Development
Sascha Schneider Productions

"This guy is the best script doctor in the movie industry, and this program makes you tell a good story whether you want to or not. A winner. If you even toy with the idea of storytelling, you must have this.... Highly recommended." 
John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine 

" I think of all of them Truby's the best.... For my taste, his stuff cuts the deepest." 
Larry Wilson, screenwriter Beetlejuice, The Addams Family 

"Among the legions of screenplay guru devotees, few would deny that John Truby is the most cutting edge of the lot. For success, Truby...is a match made in screenwriting heaven." 
Wade Major, Entertainment Today