Story Grid Writing Podcast

Nobody is innocent in your story. Everyone is hiding something.

You must adjust these levels correctly in order for your reader to connect with the right characters.

This is the focus Danielle, Leslie, and Shawn take on Tim's scene this week.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M_rP2ARaDQbSlGBmNRESszzYuNN-nrxa0pdJjt0qQRU/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-277

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 277 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

Who is the Hero, Victim, and Perpetrator in your story?

What are the relationships between each of them?

The more vague or ungrounded each of these relationships are, the more the story will not read as believable.

This is the focus Danielle, Leslie, and Shawn take on Tim's scene this week.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OQd5NxTcn2JLwrphueCX91A4wXN9BEQFBYwbyN7NJ1M/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-275

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 275 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

Figuring out your Story Theme is the key to unlocking the entire roadmap of your story.

Scott Mann is the author of the new book → Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan.

Randall Surles is a Story Grid Certified Editor and worked with Scott to develop and produce the book under an extremely tight deadline.

In this interview, they discuss what went into writing the book, how they worked together, and what it meant to write a book like this.

How do you ground your characters in a reality that your reader will believe even though you are making the whole thing up?

This week Tim makes the mistake of sterilizing his protagonist to the point where he is no longer interesting or believable. Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie walk him through the steps of using character development and a strong narrative device to fix these problems.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10bdr_tF4ASohz0cHoNjlbNmsLOVXiDpFw54ugHYLZI8/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-274

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 274 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

Who is telling your story? Who are they telling it to? Why are they telling it?

This is the Narrative Device!

The Narrative Device consists of three main components:

• Author: The Author is someone who is capable of telling the POP premise as a story to shed light on the problem another person has.
• SAM: The Single Audience Member is a person with a problem related to the one the protagonist faces in the POP premise.
• Problem: A specific problem that the POP premise can shed light on.

What Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie are trying to teach Tim this week is how this affects every single word of his writing.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ugNstol1I3DGyIcOQ13pdkkgyKKGddFvAE7LH_-OLng/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-273

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 273 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

Shawn, Leslie, Danielle and Tim face a hard question...

Is the Story Grid Podcast still worth doing?

You might be surprised by what they have to say.

What happens when you can't connect to your protagonist?

This week Tim makes some progress on his scene,  but it's still missing something. The soul in the writing isn't there.

Shawn, Leslie, and Danielle talk through how to use emotional pain to connect into the story.

There are times in your story when you need to switch out the protagonist. This can even happen in the middle of a scene or short story.

But how do you do it the right way?

This week Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie look at Tim's draft to see how you can hand off the protagonist to a different character without confusion.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T9K3Reuspp3oXJdBm_Aj8QLuUXv0Lcj7wPTG9SZKKGI/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-270

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 270 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

Great stories always answer two-factor problems.

In this episode we see how Tim's mistake of choosing the wrong protagonist messes up the two factor problem. Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie help him sort out how to fix this problem.

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNGyDX5dkbchjT6UcrixUNv_2PI_WT7GrZn04H0nIh0/edit

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-269

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 269 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast

In this episode we start comparing the Story Grid 624 Analysis of the first draft of Tim's scene to EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain. Pretty quickly we see that Tim made one small mistake that ends up having a huge impact on the rest of the scene.

In EYE WITNESS, the author switches the protagonist near the beginning of the scene. Tim doesn't do this and, as you'll see, this causes a lot of problems!

Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNGyDX5dkbchjT6UcrixUNv_2PI_WT7GrZn04H0nIh0/edit?usp=sharing

To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-268

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Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com

This is Episode 268 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast