Story Grid Podcast

Tim finally makes a breakthrough on his middle build and Shawn discusses how you can too. Download Tim's scenes from this week's episode.

Shawn and Tim continue the discussion around Die Hard and how it applies specifically to Tim's book. Click here to see Tim's Story Grid spreadsheet of Die Hard.

This week we introduce you to the newest Story Grid project... the Story Grid Editor Roundtable Podcast. Listen as a panel of editors walks you through the movie Alien. Click here to see all the episodes of the Story Grid Editor Roundtable Podcast.

Tim spent some of the holiday break putting Die Hard through the Story Grid spreadsheet. He has some observations and questions to run by Shawn. Click here to see the Die Hard Story Grid Spreadsheet.

Shawn and Tim discuss one of the most important Story Grid tools and how to use it.

Shawn and Tim continue working through the Story Grid Editor's Six Core Questions.

There are six questions that can guide your writing from the beginning through drafting and editing your manuscript. Shawn walks you through each one.

There are 5 Commandments for Storytelling that must apply to every part of your story. Shawn and Tim dive back into these fundamental ideas.

There are a lot of commonly held myths about publishing that often derail writers. Shawn and Tim bring their unique perspective to what writers should know about the publishing world and how it really works.

Tim reaches the point where he wants to throw his book away and start over. Shawn is there to talk him off the ledge.

We all hit those times where we don't know whether to rework what we've written or keeping pushing forward. Shawn talks Tim through this decision.

After hearing the listener messages from the 100th episode, Shawn reflects on what the last two years have meant to him... and then we dive back into my story.

In this 100th episode of the Story Grid Podcast, we here from you the listeners about what this show has meant to you over the last two years.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo next month? If so, you should be getting ready NOW. Shawn walks you through how to use the Story Grid to prepare for writing an entire novel in one month.

When you get stuck or lost in your story, how do you find your way? Shawn and Tim discuss this as a follow up to last week's episode.

As Tim finished up the Beginning Hook and enters the Middle Build, a very important question comes to light. Download Tim's Beginning Hook.

This is episode 96. We're almost to the two year anniversary of the show. Tim spends a bit of time reflecting on the past, present, and future of the Story Grid Podcast. To share your story, visit: http://storygrid.com/tell

Shawn continues answering questions from listeners about genre, the hero's journey, and more. Questions answered in this episode: Can the mentor also be the villain? Practical ways to workshop and come up with story ideas and to find inspiration. What core components make up a story premise? How can I use the Story Grid methodology in relation to short story? What novels do you recommend for studying the Redemption Plot and the Education Plot? Shawn and Steven Pressfield have worked together on many epic war novels. What are the obligatory scenes and conventions of the war genre? In the horror genre you put aliens under both uncanny and supernatural, is that because it depends on how they will be viewed in the story?

Tim continues throwing your story questions at Shawn. Submit your questions for future episodes at twitter.com/storygrid. Can you talk more about the Society genre, please? Does this lend itself better to a mini-plot story (with multiple protagonists) than an arch-plot story? How do you go to "the end of the line" in a story like The Accidental Tourist? Clearly, the stakes are not life or death, so how do you show a fate worse than death? How do we track sub-plot on the one-page Foolscap Global Story Grid? Or, do we track them at all? In the Action genre, Clock subgenre, the book gives four sub-subgenres with different villain types driving the plot: Ransom, Holdout, Countdown, and Fate. In Fate, Time itself is the villain, and the example is Back to the Future. Does that last one apply only to time-travel stories? How do “Time” and “Circumstances” differ as clock devices/villains? Is deus ex machina ever a good thing? What are the values at stake for a non-fiction? What do recommend writers do abo

A Q&A with Shawn Coyne. Tim took questions from Twitter and Facebook and spends an hour going through them with Shawn. Questions asked: Can you tell us how making a story with multiple protagonists works with the hero's journey? Like in Game of Thrones? In a love story, does the All Is Lost scene necessarily have to the be Lovers Break Up scene? Global Value Shifts: In The Story Grid, you give two core values per internal and external genre. For example, the core values for thrillers life/death, and for maturation it's naivete/worldiness. However, when we actually start to plot our stories, the move from one value to another is gradual. That is the value shift moves from life to unconsciousness to death to damnation (THRILLER) and naivete masked as sophistication to naivete to cognitive dissonance to sophistication (MATURATION). Is this value progression consistent within a genre? That is, do all thrillers follow the same progression as Silence of the Lambs, or is it only the life/death that is consisten