John Truby and Leslie Lehr delve into writer’s techniques — and lives

By Jim Flint for Ashland.news

On a crisp fall evening in Ashland, John Truby, the man behind the narrative secrets of Hollywood blockbusters, and his wife, Leslie Lehr, whose candid bestseller “A Boob’s Life” has made waves from bookshelves to HBO, will cozy up at Bloomsbury Books to dissect the art of storytelling.

He’s the genre guru who can transform a premise into gold; she’s the sharp-witted author whose take on America’s fixation with the female form landed her a deal with Salma Hayek.

Together, they’ll tackle what it takes to master the craft, navigate the highs and lows of the writing life, and perhaps reveal the secret to surviving a marriage of two wordsmiths.

The free talk will be from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, upstairs at Bloomsbury Books, 290 E. Main St.

Truby and Lehr teach writing seminars together.

“Our first one, Story for Novel, was both live and audio, 15 years ago,” Lehr said. “Combining his story structure and my advanced prose techniques puts writers in the top 1% of professionals.”

They both work with other writers as consultants and are their own first readers as well.

“I edited ‘Anatomy of Genre’ and he edited ‘A Boob’s Life,’ so we believe in these books,” she said. “We talk story all the time at home. It’s our love language.”

Truby’s teaching is a rewarding experience for him in many ways.

“Storytelling is the most complex craft in the world,” he said. “I love seeing that someone who puts in the hard work of mastering this craft can be successful and write a story they can be proud of for the rest of their life.”

An Ashland connection

Their visit to Ashland was prompted by a close friend and Ashland resident, Cissa Vanderlip.

“She told us that Ashland is the most literate community in the United States,” Truby said. “After all, it hosts a festival dedicated to the greatest writer in history.”

Truby is an advocate of the idea that commercial success and creativity are not opposed to each other.

“In any genre, popularity and excellence come from ‘transcending’ the genre,” he said. “In other words, you don’t just hit the genre beats that everyone else writing that form is hitting. You execute the beats in a way we’ve never seen before, and express the deeper life philosophy that makes readers love that genre.”

In a narrative, “beats” refers to the smallest units of storytelling that represent a change or shift in the scene or the story. Writers use beats to control the pacing of the story, emphasizing key moments and maintaining the reader’s or audience’s interest.

“Writers are almost always taught that the hero drives the story,” Truby noted. “And that appears to be true from the point of view of the reader. The crucial beat that most detective writers don’t know is: always figure out the killer’s plan first.”

The killer’s plan shapes everything the detective does and can make or break the plot, he said.

“A writer who doesn’t understand this beat has almost no chance of writing a great detective story.”

Mastering a genre

For Truby, mastering genres has been about learning the 15 to 20 plot beats that must be present to tell a good story.

“But more recently, it has become clear that the real power of genres — what brings the reader back to that form again and again — is that each story form expresses a different view of how to live a good life.”

Truby’s new book “Anatomy of Genres” is designed to show writers how to write a bestseller and a great piece of fiction at the same time.

Lehr’s new book “A Boob’s Life” delves into the deeply personal and societal aspects of living in a woman’s body. Her own experiences inspired her to write the book and shaped its narrative.

Lehr has gone from size AA to DDDD and everything in between, from puberty to motherhood, enhancement to cancer, and beyond. At turns funny and heartbreaking, “A Boob’s Life” explores both the joys and hazards inherent to living in a woman’s body.

Lehr recalls a sequence of events that led to the book.

“One night when my husband and I were about to celebrate our first home together, I got out of the shower and noticed my breasts didn’t match.”

She had just completed breast cancer treatment and was grateful to be alive.

“I was also upset. I wanted to ‘fix them.’ My husband accused me of being obsessed. As a feminist, I was insulted. Then a comedian on TV made a boob joke, proving it wasn’t just me.”

Living her breast life

More observations, various epiphanies, and a few computer searches followed — until she realized that, like most women, she could track her whole life by her breasts.

“Wanting them as a girl, hiding them to work, showing them to date, breastfeeding, breast implants, breast cancer — I had to investigate further,” she said.

A prize-winning fiction writer, Lehr wrote about her harrowing experience of breast cancer in a New York Times “Modern Love” column.

“It went viral and Katie Couric read it on NPR,” she said. “I had zero intention of ever writing about it again. I wanted to forget. But I kept hearing from other women, how sharing my experience could help save lives, and it gave me a greater purpose.”

The book is both humorous and heartbreaking at times. She felt it was important to include humor.

“A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down,” she said.

“A Boob’s Life” hit No. 1 for feminist literature on Amazon the same day it was optioned by Salma Hayek for a comedy series on HBO Max.

“That proves that the combination works,” she said. “And it also underscores the way women are seen. It’s helpful to have a sense of humor.”

“A Boob’s Life” also delves into topics that have political and cultural resonance, touching on issues of body autonomy, societal expectations, and how public policies impact women’s lives.

“The last 60 years were a s—show for women,” she said, “and ‘A Boob’s Life’ details the reasons. Obviously, #metoo and #timesup led to such a backlash that the old guard yanked us back even further. But the more we see it, the more we can fight it.”

Truby is the founder and director of Truby’s Writers Studio. Over the past 30 years, he has taught more than 50,000 students worldwide. Together those writers have generated more than $15 billion at the box office.

With a BA from USC’s film school and an MFA from Antioch University, Lehr has taught in the Writers’ Program at UCLA and at conferences around the country. She is a prize-winning author and essayist, and coaches writers in Truby’s techniques.

The authors’ books will be available at the talk.

Freelance writer Jim Flint is a retired newspaper publisher and editor. Email him at [email protected].