Beat Breakdown: Analyzing Writing Line-by-Line - Part 2

Hello and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. My name is Tim Grohl. I'm your host, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He's the creator and founder of StoryGrid, and along with him is our Editor in chief of StoryGrid Publishing, Leslie Watts, along with the Chief Academic Officer of Storygrid University, Danielle Kielski. In this episode, we continue breaking down the short story Eyewitness by Ed McMaine, beat by beat. So we're literally going line by line through this short story, separating it into beats and looking at each individual beat and analyzing it. So we started this last week, we're continuing it this week, and for those of you that are wondering why this is worth all of the hassle, I really recommend you just stick with it. One of the amazing things about looking at a masterwork line by line is you really get to understand what the author was doing at each part of the process, and it really helps you understand how to put these things into practice in your own writing as well. So this is a really, really good process. I hope you stick with it. Again, if you are listening to just the audio version of this podcast, I highly recommend you go to our YouTube channel Story Grid, check out the video recording of this episode, because then you can actually follow along with the writing as well. But either way, I hope you enjoyed the episode and we're going to go ahead and jump in and get started.

All right, so let's pick back up with where we left off last week. We are in the middle of the beat that starts out with the input. Magruder shrugged. He'd been on the force for a long time now, and he was used to just about every type of taxpayer. I looked over to where the thin man sat on the bench against the wall, and then it has the output. Well, I said, let me see what I can get out of him. So we're going to pick back up there talking about the input and the output, and then we're going to classify each of the input and the output as active buildup, breakdown, or binding, and then talk about their valence, whether they're enlivening or depleting. And then we're going to be moving through the rest of the story, breaking up the inputs and outputs and qualifying them in the same way. So let's dive in and get started. Last time we were talking about the input and we classified it as active buildup, but we don't yet Have a valence for it. So Tim, do you think this is enlivening or depleting?

I would say it's enlivening.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what we have too. And now let's go down to the output. So we have. Well, I said let me see what I can get out of him first. Would you say that that is an active buildup or a breakdown?

Active buildup.

Okay, so let's, we have breakdown. Let's talk about why Capelli might be breaking down here. And part of, I think part of the, the deal with this story is that the breakdowns are a lot more subtle because they're acting in this workplace environment. They're acting in this established.

Established set of rules. So when they break down, it's not like they're burning everything down. They can have these kind of subtler, subtler ways of breaking down where they're kind of striving for, for, for dominance in the situation.

Could you talk about what a breakdown beat is again? Like, remind me, what is the difference between active buildup and a breakdown?

Look at an active buildup. An active buildup is when the avatars are following the rules established in the collective cultural grammar in which they are. They're building up the relationship between them. Now sometimes we look at this from Sam's perspective. When you say this is building up the energy for Sam, it's pushing her interest forward, it's making her want to read further. But because Sam and the avatars are really closely intertwined when they follow the rules of the, the situation in which they are, when they, when they build up their relationship with each other, that has that effect on Sam. So it's acting on these parallel paths. Now, breakdown is a response to some sort of novelty. So a breakdown is when an avatar encounters something either they haven't seen before, they're not expecting to see in this context, or that threatens them and distracts them from the conversation at hand. And in response to that, they go through an autonomic response which is freeze flight or fight. So freezing, they just take a beat and.

Process, but they're freezing while they're doing it. It's like deer in the headlights flight. They're buying time to figure out what to do because they're not sure how to address this. And then fight. They are sacrificing something to try to save themselves in the situation.

So these are the options for breakdown. And what that looks like in practice is that they are.

They'Re responding in a non strategic way. So when you have active buildup they're going through. Like I said, they are following the rules. They're also pursuing objects of desire according to a strategy. And in breakdown, that breaks down. So the relationship between the avatars breaks down because they're not following those rules. They also break down their ability to follow this object of desire. And they act in a way that cracks through their established public Persona. And they're acting out of self preservation or this autonomic response to novelty. So from Sam's perspective, it's a breakdown if it makes her pull back and reevaluate what happened before. So she's reading along. She doesn't know the rules of this world as well as the avatars do, Right. So she's reading along, something happens. The avatar responds with a breakdown, and she has to say, whoa, I guess what just happened is a novel thing. And so she has to kind of reevaluate, re interpret how she sees what just happened. And it creates intrigue for why that would upset that particular avatar to the point of breaking down their public Persona. And so again, what we see is that Sam and the avatars have this. This alignment going on where we can see the breakdown happening both at the level of Sam that she's. She has anxiety, she's pulling back, she's reevaluating what happened. And at the level of the avatars, where they're undergoing increased conflict and they're going. They're undergoing that breakdown of their strategic pursuit of their objects of desire.

I was just going to say that's fantastic. That. That's a really terrific overview of what we mean about build up and breakdown. Here's a. Here's a quick addendum to it. So the way I like to think about it is that it's sort of like spider webs. So when you're in a relationship, you're talking to somebody and you're trying to see their point of view, you're sort of like throwing a spider web at them. And if it sticks, then this webbing starts to get more and more thick. And if they. They return the spider web, it's great. And so you're building up a relationship with that person, and you're. You're both pursuing your own objects of desire, but you're doing it with civility. And then what happens in a breakdown is that someone defects from the relationship.

And.

And there are levels of defection. Right. Sometimes we can get distracted, and we say, I'm sorry, I have to leave. And that breaks that moment of connection. But we know that the relationship is going to still be viable in the future.

So in this case, we have a relationship between two detectives. We've got Magruder and we've got Capelli. And what's operating here is that Capelli is playing the role of protagonist. So what that means is that Sam, our single audience member, is seeing the world through the eyes of Capelli. And this is another great operational heuristic for. For storytelling. The outputter is always Sam's perspective, because we have to remember that Sam, as a concept, the single audience member, she is listening to a story and she's reading the story that has been written down by the author narrator. And so the thing is, is that Sam can't talk back to the author narrator because the author narrator isn't really there. All we have are the syntactic words of the author's, you know, ideas. So Sam can't output. So when you can't output, what you usually do is you look through the lens of someone who can. And so the outputer becomes Sam's viewpoint of seeing what's going on in the story. So when Capelli decides that he's going to give it a try and see if he can get something out of it, it's a breakdown because now Sam has to think, oh, I wonder why, why he's leaving.

And then.

So that's from Sam's point of view. And it's also a breakdown because Capelli's saying, you know, I've had enough Magruder of this discussion. I'm going to move forward. I'm going to take on the responsibility of interviewing this guy, and you just sit on your butt and, you know, do your. Your Magruder thing and I'll go do it, right? So these guys are in a relationship. And probably Magruder had done that for Capelli at some time, too. So while it's a breakdown beat, it's not like a burn down the house kind of breakdown beat, but it is a cutting away of the relationship. And Capelli is differentiating from Magruder. He's different than Magruder. Therefore, the relationship is. It has been cut off for a while. So I hope that makes sense.

I have just one thing to add to all of this, which is it's a very complete picture. But one thing I would add is that when novel things happen, that causes a breakdown in our cognitive processing, right? So that we are. Because it's surprising. So we're acting in a way that is consistent with our predictive processing. So I go, you know, I do an input and I expect an output of a certain kind. And when that doesn't happen, that creates this, this, you know, cognitive dissonance. And what, what I love about these breakdown beats is, and how they reveal character is that we have. Every time we have a breakdown, we have an option to open our cognitive frame and take this in and process it or double down on the way that we typically operate. And so it's a really great way to see how the avatars are managing because that's what stories are about. They're about how we take in novel.

Unexpected events that throw us into chaos and how we can metabolize those and improve our cognitive frame so that we can manage better in the future.

So when I'm looking at this particular output where he said, well, I said, let me see what I can get out of him. This is breaking down because he was. He's basically, I mean, would this be a freeze? So the. It's freeze, flight or fight. So would this be.

So what's he trying to say to Magruder?

Basically he's saying, well, since you couldn't get it out of him, I guess I should go give it a try.

Yeah.

Is that a fight?

Yeah.

All right. Because he's being a little snarky.

Yeah, right. We'll see who's top dog around here. That's where he is in this breakdown space. Exactly.

Yeah. You know, I've been watching the Candace and I've been watching the Johnny Depp trial in the evenings.

And we were watching the cross examine of Amber Heard by. All I know is her first name. Camille, the. The lawyer for Johnny. One of the lawyers for Johnny Depp.

And.

Amber Heard just will not. She won't just answer a question. She just keeps like. Like she. They went. There's this great interchange where she's like, you didn't. You didn't donate the money? She's like, yes, I did. I pledged the money. And she's like, yeah, but that's not the same as donate. And she goes, well, I use the words interchangeably. And it's like they're not the same.

Word, you know, Anyway.

And you see a couple points where Camille just gets real snarky because she, from my perspective, she's just sick of not being able to get a straight answer out of this woman. And anyway, that's just what I thought of here is like, there's a moment of breakdown there where she just starts fighting, but in a way that's socially acceptable.

Yeah, that's a really good Example of that kind of thing happening. And so then. And a courtroom is a really good example. So if you have someone who is answering a question, but they're changing the subject, they're using the strategy of flight. But if it's for the purpose of pursuing their objective desire, like they're consciously deciding, I'm going to change the topic strategically now, then they're not truly breaking down, right? Because they're not. They're not having that autonomic response and trying to buy time. They're using it as part of a strategy. So that's another really good thing to keep in mind when you are dealing with breakdown beats is that you can use the same.

The same actions that could denote a breakdown to actually enable covert operation so that people can look like they're breaking down, they can look vulnerable, when in fact they're manipulating.

How do you know the difference?

Well, as the author. As the author, you need to know the difference because you're writing them. And then when you. And you need to have your author valence the language such that Sam interprets it correctly.

Well, so will there be times where, like, because the author knows things that Sam doesn't. So are there times where it reads to Sam as a breakdown, but the author knows that it's not? But we would still label it as a breakdown because we're looking at these through Sam's eyes, right? Like, we're just. We're just reacting to what's on the page. We're not trying to. We're coming at it as Sam, not the author.

That's right. So. So you want to manage the effect that you have on Sam. Breakdowns are extremely powerful, and we need to be careful with them. When you see someone have a breakdown, you're seeing vulnerability, and you get really interested in why that person is doing that. And.

You want to find out more about them. You want to find out about their information processing. So what we want to make sure is that if we have a breakdown, we want Sam to have that level of engagement with that avatar. Whereas, like, if. If they are manipulating, then she's going to have a real shock later on when. When that's revealed. So it depends on the. The kinds of revelations that you want Sam to have and. And what type of experience you're creating.

Let me just pop in with a quick example of how. How this is done. There's a wonderful novel that became a me a movie called Primal Fear, and it was written by William Deal, and it was Ed Norton's sort of first big Break as an actor. And so when you analyze primal fear on the page, meaning you look at each of the words, the way he signals to the single audience member that something's not quite right here is through the use of overly chaotic language.

Right.

So the means by which the. The character played by Ed Norton speaks is that it's always the worst possible, you know, thing happening. Right. And so what you can remember about life is that things are complex rather than all chaos or all order. So when William Deal makes the language all chaotic, Sam is sort of like something's not quite right here. And I can't really put my finger on it. But this is intriguing because I'm not really sure why I'm getting this strange feeling about this poor guy who was abused by this. This priest. Wow, interesting. And so that kind of. It's like a little piece of wood, you know, it's like a sliver of wood. It kind of hangs around in Sam's mind until such time as William Deal reveals that the guy was making up the whole thing at the start in order to destroy the priest and to. To have his own agenda followed. So that's a really good example of how the on the page language gives the clues to Sam without specifically saying he's lying. It's the way in which the language is valenced as either overly chaotic or overly ordered without the mix of complexity.

Yeah, I think.

It reminds me of the golden age of detective novels when they had that group that would get together and one of their rules is you have to play fair. So the, the reader should be able to solve the crime at the same time that the detective does. And I think that, that, that applies to this, this idea of not tricking Sam, like letting her know that there is something wrong, even if you do it in that very subtle way. And I think it really goes back to the ethos that we have. Like, absolutely, you can just put a breakdown on the page and reveal it later. But, you know, Sam is in for a shock at that point. And what you're telling her is the world is unpredictable and you can't, you can't identify covert actors. So if you want the message to come through to Sam, this is how you identify a covert actor. You have to give her the clues to do that. And, and we can see examples of this, like in the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, we have an unreliable narrator. But if you're looking for clues in the text at the word by word level, you're going to find that. And so you can see, like, as you said, Sean, with primal fear that something is off, and know that before you know what is off. And so I think that to.

Empower Sam, instead of defeating her, it is important to be able to signal that the breakdowns are actually breakdowns at the point that they happen. Okay, so now we need the valence of this. So what would you say the valence is?

I want to say enlivening, but that makes me nervous because it's a breakdown beat, and I feel like breakdown beats should be depleting.

That's right. I give you a cheat sheet. Yeah, breakdown beats are always depleting because they force her to reevaluate and look for novelty. So we'll put depleting for. Well, I said, let me see what I can get out of him again, because we have that.

That challenge to their relationship, which is subtle but still there.

So that completes that beat. Now let's look at the next bit of text. So, Tim, how would you break down the next input and output so it reads.

Magruder cocked an eyebrow and asked, you think maybe the old man would like to see him personally? Maybe if he's got something. If not, we'd be wasting his time. And especially on this case, I don't think. Yeah, Magruder agreed. I left Magruder and walked over to the little man. He looked up when I approached him and then blinked. When I was looking at this one, I was a little. I feel like maybe the beat actually breaks in the middle of Capelli's response, because Magruder cocked an eyebrow and asked, you think maybe the old man would like to see him personally? So that's clearly an input. Capelli responds, maybe if he's got something. If not, be, we'd be wasting his time. And especially on this case, I don't think. But then Magruder responds to that by saying, yeah, and then I feel like that actually ends a beat there, because then Magruder goes off to do something else.

So Capelli leaves Magruder. So in general. So the thing is, the thing about beats is that they're chained. So an output is the input to the next input. Right. So you have all of them working together. And for the most part, unless there is a drastic change of subject or change of valence, we want to avoid breaking up dialogue. It's possible to have, like, the first half be an output and the second half be an input, but in practice, the way that that happens is it's like, yes, Tim, I agree with you, but now let's talk about this other thing where I, like, address. I wrap up the previous beat and then change the subject or say that you say something like, something enlivening like.

Like, yeah, I agree with you. And then you turn it around and say something depleting. Like, I agree that we should do that. However, it's going to be very dangerous, but, you know, in a depleting way. So we would have to look at the actual words. But if you have that drastic valence shift, you can also break it. But in general, we want to keep chunks of dialogue together if they're not drastically split into halves like that. And so this one, I would say we want to keep it together because he's not doing that where he has really two halves of one thing that he's saying.

The output would be that Capelli's response. Maybe if he's got something. If not, we'd be wasting his time. And especially on this case, I don't think.

All right, so first let's take a look at this input. Magruder cocked an eyebrow and asks, you think maybe the old man would like to see him personally? So do you think that is a buildup or a breakdown or binding buildup, active buildup? So do you think that he's responding to Capelli's challenge? Do you think that. So Capelli is trying to fight with him? Do you think that he's fighting back?

Yes, because of the way he cocked an eyebrow. So that was his response to, let me see what I. Well, let me see what I can get out of him. So then maybe that's a challenge. Like, okay, then fine, go get the Lieutenant.

So, Right. So. So Capelli wants to go talk to this guy, and Magruder is saying, well.

So you think that the old man. Right, the Lieutenant. So he's, he's not agreeing with Capelli's course of action, but he's, so he's challenging him. Right? He's fighting back. But. But he's doing it by changing.

Changing what they're talking about. So now they're talking about getting the Lieutenant involved. Now he's invoking hierarchy. Right. So I just want to bring that up because he's not, he's not agreeing with what Capelli said.

He's suggesting that Capelli might want to do this other thing, getting the old man. And so he's very subtly. Right, bringing in the, the rules of their hierarchy, bringing in the challenge to Capelli's status because the Lieutenant is a gatekeeper in this power, dominance, hierarchy. He, he's the one who decides who's in favor and who's not. And so it's this very subtle dance where Magruder is reissuing a challenge and of a different sort to Capelli.

So you feel like it's a breakdown and it's fighting again.

Right. And this is the. The really interesting thing about this introductory section is that they're fighting within the bounds of normal conversation.

Like, this makes me think this is like in a book where there's lots of conversations between a man and his wife. Right. There's probably going to be some of this in there, or it doesn't on first read feel like a fight, but it's definitely a fight, depending on the.

Relationship of the avatars. Yeah, absolutely. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And like, and these, these guys are partners on the force. And. And they're partners, but they're not. They don't have the same. They're not a team.

Right. And so it's. It's a contest to figure out who's going to be the. The guy to go to, the one who comes out on top. And so Capelli is younger than Magruder. He's less senior. He's a hotshot. And then Magruder is this grizzled guy who's relying on seniority and knowing how the game is played to get ahead.

So we have different ways of approaching navigating the hierarchy of the police precinct with the two of them. Because it's a breakdown. We have depleting. So let's go to the output now. So Capelli says maybe if he's got something, if not, we'd be wasting his time, and especially on this case, I don't think.

So. Do you think this is a breakdown or a buildup?

So I feel like this is Capelli basically working it out out loud what he wants to do, because.

He'S been kind of issued a challenge. And so he's responding to the challenge by basically like, well, yeah, we probably don't want to do that. I don't know. I. I'm leaning towards breakdown and almost like a freeze because we're kind of watching him not know what to do next.

Freezes don't have dialogue. Freezes are going to be there. They don't have the capacity to act. Flight is buying time.

Well, then I, I think to this would be Flight because he's basically trying to like, draw out some time while he makes a decision what to do next.

I, I absolutely see where you're seeing that with the processing, what we focused on here is that he's still having to act a little bit covertly within the bonds of the society that they're in, which is the station. And in particular, looking at these pronouns. So when Magruder challenges him, he says, you think the old man would like to see him personally? Right? So he's. He's saying, this is you. This is your.

You know, your neck is on the line. Right? And then Capelli says, if not, we'd be wasting his time. So we saw this as him reissuing a challenge in a very subtle way. Like, I go down. We go down, Bud. You know, don't get. Don't get too plucky with calling in the lieutenant, with messing with my strategy for dealing with this, because we're both implicated in this together. So we saw this as a fight.

Okay? I mean, I kind of read this. I don't know how much we want to split these hairs, although that's kind of what we do here. But I guess I read this as, like, Magruder did put him in his place of just like. Because he forced him into this position where he's got to make a decision about what to do now. So, yeah, maybe it would be a challenge. But I guess he's like. He does back down.

Because if he want to Me, if he wanted to fight some more, he'd be like, all right, let's go get him. Why don't you go get him? Where this is like him backing down and being like, oh, well, no, we don't want to actually do that.

Well, I think Capelli never suggested getting the old man. So he's not fighting for that. He's fighting against that.

So he's saying, we'd be wasting his time. We shouldn't do what you want to do because we'd be wasting his time. So I think I should do my thing. I think I should go talk. So Capelli is fighting for himself to go talk to Struthers, and Magruder is trying to undercut that and trying to have him either wait for the lieutenant or let Strother sit or have somebody else handle it. So he's trying to not have Capelli differentiate and get recognition.

So let me just walk through it again, and then we'll. We don't have to keep going back and forth. But I think of it as, like, Magruder says in the beat before.

We.

Can'T get anything out of him, basically, or.

He won't talk to anyone. That was two beats before. And then Capelli basically is like, says, Fine. If you won't do your job, then I'll do your job. And so then.

Magruder responds back like, okay, well, then let's just go get the lieutenant to solve this. And so to me, if you want to ratchet it up as the underling, you would say, okay, go get him, because it's your ass on the line if you go get the lieutenant. And it's a waste of his time where by him saying like, no, no, no, let me talk to him first. To me, he's like, he lets Magruder win this. He's not fighting back. Because to me, if we're looking at these as, like, the. To me, fighting ratchets up, right where this is a ratchet down. Because a ratchet up would be like, I don't. I don't know. That's how I. I was thinking through it.

Okay, yeah. What I'm thinking there is like, if he were fighting to make Magruder look bad, if that were his objective desire, I would agree with you that ratcheting up would be, go get the lieutenant. But what he's fighting. He's not fighting against Magruder. He's fighting for him. So his object of desire is, I get to go talk to this guy. Magruder's object of desire is you stay in your place. And so ultimately, Capelli wins the exchange by getting to go and talk to him. So it's all about the objects of desire. And so I don't see this as a back down. I see this as he's still pushing to get what he wants. He's still pushing for his object of desire of going to talk to Struthers. Okay, so we have a breakdown, though.

In this output, and we know that's depleting, right? So I think it's good to explore his frame and why he's breaking down, because Sam does have intrigue about that when she sees that. So I think it's really good that we have that discussion and can go through what's actually going on there. So, Tim, what about the next piece of text? How would you split up the next input and output?

Capelli just said, as the out, as the output of the previous. Maybe if he's got something. If not, we'd be wasting his time, and especially on this case, I don't think so. Now we're into the next beat. Yeah, Magruder agreed. I left Magruder and walked over to the little man. He looked up when I approached him and then blinked. Mr. Struthers? Yes, he Said warily. All right, so I'm struggling with this one because I was looking ahead a little bit while during some of the conversation. So, yeah, Magruder agreed. Seems like the input and the output. This is where I think I tend to want to break beats down further than they need to be broken down.

Give it a go.

Because. Yeah, okay. So his response to Magruder agreeing to let him go over is, I left Magruder.

Okay.

Like, I would make that the output and then the input of the next one would be. And walked over to the little man. And the reason why I said that is because.

The little man responded to that. So he. The. Because Struthers.

Looked up when I approached and then blinked. He was that he wouldn't have done that if Capelli had not have walked over to him. So I have two beats there. The first is, yeah, Magruder agreed. That's the input. Output is I left Magruder. Then the next input. So the next beat is and walked over to the little man. Then I have output. He looked up when I approached him and then blinked. And since you were actually typing that in as I said that, I feel like I got that one right.

Well, sometimes I can be tricky and do that to look at it, but, yes, you did. So, yeah, that's absolutely what we had. And so what we're seeing there is that there is. Even though this is in one sentence, we do have a break in what's going on when he leaves Magruder, he's wrapping up that situation. They've come to an agreement, right. And then he's moving over and addressing Struthers. So he walks up, and then, as you said, Strothers looks up and blinks. So as. As we're discussing breaking this down, what do you notice about. About the outputer here?

So I was going to ask if, after I left, Magruder, did a trope just in there. I know we're going to get to tropes later, but did a trope just in there?

It did. It did.

Yeah. So then I'm thinking, like, okay, in that trope, Magruder was the output, or he was the protagonist of that trope, Capelli, and we just. Sorry, Capelli. Yeah, man.

I'll probably leave this part in, but the amount of times I had to edit out me saying the wrong name last week. So Capelli was the outputer of that trope, and so he was the protagonist of that trope. Even though we know Struthers is the protagonist of the entire short story, where in this Trope. This new trope, it switches to. Capelli is the inputter and Struthers is the outputer. And so now Struthers is going to be the protagonist of this next trope.

Yes. And this is a beautiful handoff here using a freeze. Right. So I know we haven't gotten there, but. But blinking is a classic, classic freeze move. So it's a really lovely handoff, as you noted, from one trope to the next. And we get. We get that vulnerability of the new protagonist right away. So it facilitates Sam's transition from identifying with Capelli to identifying with Struthers.

So this is a really nice, nice little beat section here. So to look at, let's finish up this trope by. By qualifying the input and output here. So, yeah, Magruder. Agreed. So what would you say? Is that a buildup or a breakdown?

Active buildup. Great and enlivening.

And here we have. We have a departure from the challenges that they were going through before. So, yeah, is not a very expressive.

Thing to say. You could be still fighting. You could be running away. Like, there are many things. So the fact that the author chooses to say Magruder. Agreed. Lets us know that this is a buildup and that it's enlivening. So.

If he had said something like, yeah, Magruder shrugged me off. That could be a flight breakdown. Right. But because we have that. Agreed. We know that the author is saying this has come to an end, and these two are on the same page for now.

So, yeah, you have that exactly right. And then what about the output? I left Magruder?

Same thing. Active buildup and enlivening. I feel like this beat is just in there to push the reader into the next trope. So since we're. It's just pushing everything just forward real quick. It's both build up and enlivening.

Yep. These are both build up and enlivening. Absolutely. Okay, next, let's look at. And walked over to the little man. What's going on there?

So active build up and enlivening. Because we're now in the input of the next beat.

So if I'm thinking.

It'S definitely not breakdown, and then it's pushing the reader forward. So I would say enlivening.

So now the reader is switching over to reader. Sam is switching over to identifying with Struthers. Right. What is this doing to Struthers?

What do you mean? Like in the story or, like, from Sam's point of view? Like, what do you. What do you mean? Well, part of me think, well, it's bringing Struthers back on the stage for us to consider.

And up until now, Struthers is just kind of sitting there nervously waiting, and so he's been in a holding pattern.

Yeah. Who's. What's he waiting for?

He is waiting to talk to the lieutenant.

So he has this object of desire. I want to talk to the lieutenant. Is Capelli facilitating that for him? Is he helping him out?

I don't think he knows that yet. I don't think Sam knows. Well, the same Sam knows, he's not.

Yeah, right.

I mean, but Struthers doesn't. He may be coming over to get Struthers to take him to the lieutenant.

He. He could be.

But how does Struthers react?

He blinks after he looks up.

Right. So he's not expecting the interruption from Capelli. He's not expecting to have to deal with.

Another cop. Like, they haven't told him, we're going to go get the lieutenant. Right. They've told him he's had to deal with Magruder and. Magruder. We know how Magruder is.

So let me ask a question here, because obviously you think this is depleting. That's how you guys labeled this. So am I, when I'm looking at the input, am I looking at it in the context of the output to decide if it's enlivening or depleting, or am I looking at it as its own thing?

You're looking at it as its own thing, but also targeted toward the output or in the situation that they're in. So I'm just bringing up the output because this is the first time that we've seen Struthers on the stage, really. And it helps us to simulate.

I think, what he's been going through up to this point, if we're not consciously thinking about that, because we have to simulate. Like, he's. He came in, he said, I want to talk to the lieutenant. They gave him the runaround, and now he's having to deal with another cop. So it's not like he's, oh, thank you, someone for coming over to talk to me. Like, when you walk into a bank, I don't know. This is my experience, you walk into a bank and they're like, oh, somebody will get to you. And then you wait for, like, your whole life, and, you know, maybe eventually someone comes. So he's not. He's not truly in a holding pattern. Right. Like, they've come over and they've said.

They'Ve said, you know, you can talk to me or you can talk to nobody. And he's like, well, I'll talk to nobody. And then they're just letting him stew. So he's in this sort of. He's not necessarily. He's not in a waiting, like, expectant holding pattern. He's in a. You can sweat it out until you're ready to talk to one of us, because we're not going to go get the old man.

All right, So I hear you, and I. I'm on your side. I'm just still. I'm still trying to back up because I want to understand so I can make future ones, because I'm looking at, like.

So if I were to reword this, I would say, because we're always looking from Sam's perspective. Right. What's on the page, according to Sam. So in this case, Sam knows good and well that Capelli walking over to this little man is not. Not helping Struthers, or. Yeah. Struthers get what he wants out of life. He's now another roadblock for Struthers. So. Because Sam knows that going in.

So if, like, if in the previous conversation.

Magruder and him had decided, like, yeah, go get him and take him to the Lieutenant, this exact same phrase would be enlivening. Yeah, I'm, you know, I think up until this moment, I've been looking at each individual piece as if it stands alone in time. And so I'm looking at, like, Ann walked over to the little man. I'm like, well, there's nothing in there, you know, depleting, except maybe calling the man little. But, like, the action is not depleting on its own. So it needs to be enlivening. But I have to take into context everything that came before it leading up to this particular piece of content or writing.

That's what are called progressive complications. So Sam is building.

A perspectival understanding of the story from start to finish. So she is being informed by the syntactical grammar and language of the story from the first word until the word that she is presently reading. So all of the. The inputs and outputs are progressively building.

So this is a case where.

It was mentioned earlier on when Magruder said to Capelli.

He won't talk to anyone but the lieutenant.

So obviously, in that language, many tries had been made to get this guy to give up his information, including Magruder. So Magruder failed to get this guy to talk. That's why he's telling Capelli don't even try, bro. I tried, and he wouldn't talk.

So now Capelli's like, let me give it a try. And he's like, no, don't do it, because now you're showing me up, right? So the fact that.

This guy, this Struthers guy, has been sitting, waiting to give his information, and no one is enabling him in his goal to talk specifically to the most powerful person in the precinct, he's in a turbulent cognitive state, sitting there stewing as. As Danielle so wisely put it, because he's like, should I stay? Should I go? I don't know. What am I going to do? These guys, Nobody's going to talk to me. Oh, my gosh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Should I see if I can find the lieutenant myself? And then, all of a sudden, here comes another cop.

And so. And this cop seems determined. That's why he blinks, because it's an unexpected moment. And so that blinking is a nonverbal communication. That's a signal to Sam the mental state of Struthers. So when we blink, it's a tell of how our minds are processing something. It means you need. You're startled.

And it's unexpected novelty causes a breakdown and a freeze when we don't expect it coming. He obviously did not expect this Capelli detective to walk up to him.

So that's why it's a really nice transitional trope. Because what McBain sent as information to Sam was quite a bit with that very, very clearly defined word blinked. Because that's autonomic behavioral response to an input of unexpected energy. And the unexpected energy in this. In this instance is Detective Capelli walking up and saying, Mr. Strothers. And so now we've got a freeze that is a breakdown that switches out our protagonist. And Sam is now following the story through the lens of Struthers.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And now the output. So he looked up when I approached him and then blinked. So is that an active buildup or a breakdown? Okay, I know we've probably hinted at this.

Yeah, Breakdown, freeze.

And we know that those are depleting. So now we have Struthers as protagonist as we go into the next piece of text. And. And as you pointed out, we're. We're now in this new trope. So what would you place as the next input and output?

So after Struthers blinks, the next input is Mr. Struthers, question mark. So it's. That's Capelli speaking. And then the output would be. Yes, he said warily.

All right, so that ends the beat there. All right, now let's look at this input, Mr. Strothers. Is that enlivening or. Sorry, is that an active buildup or a breakdown or binding for completeness?

I would say active build up.

So he's trying to connect with him. And then do you think that is enlivening or depleting?

Let's see. I'm. I'm torn again because I feel like.

If him walking over is depleting, then him starting a conversation is a continued depletion of Struthers. Yeah, So I would say depleting.

Yep. That's what we have as well.

Okay, so let me ask another question. I feel like you've probably answered eight times, but. All right, so I'm. I'm locked into. This is from Sam. Like how Sam interprets it. But so. So what I'm hearing is. Is how Sam interprets it, but through the eyes of the protagonist of this current part. Right. So we're always asking on the end, because the. Since the protagonist in general is the output, or when we're looking at the input of a beat, we're always. Sam's always asking, is this depleting or enlivening for the protagonist? Is that. Would you say that's correct?

Yeah. And one thing that I find really helpful is looking at whether it's facilitates the protagonist's pursuit of their current object of desire or whether it distracts them from that. So is it pushing their agency forward or is it constraining their agency?

That can be another heuristic for thinking about that.

Okay. I think I may actually be starting to understand this.

Oh, fantastic.

We'll see. Though I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

Well, we're here to enable your agency, Tim, so we'll get. We'll absolutely get there. So. Okay, so let's try it out. So. Yes, he said warily. Is that an active buildup or a breakdown?

I think it's active buildup because he's just responding.

Okay. And is that enlivening or depleting?

I would say depleting. And the. Wearily is what tips me off to that.

Okay. I would say he's on his guard, but he's still. He's still agreeing to play Capelli's game here. So we have that as enlivening for that reason that he's.

That Capelli is interrupting him and trying to. He's not facilitating his objective desire to. To talk to the lieutenant And Struthers is saying, I'll play your game for now. So he's not fully buying in, but he's agreeing to go along.

So that's. That's enlivening. So let's go to the next beat. So where would you break the next input and output?

So it reads, this is Capelli speaking. I'm Detective Capelli. My partner tells me you have some information about the. And it's the dot, dot, dot. And then Strothers responds, you're not the Lieutenant, are you? And that's where I would end the beat, because that's an input output.

Great. Starting with, I'm Detective Capelli.

And so on. Is that an active buildup or is that a breakdown or binding?

Active buildup.

Enlivening. Depleting.

I would continue down the depleting path.

Okay, so here we've actually switched over to enlivening because they've agreed to play the same game.

So his interruption. Struthers has accepted his interruption.

And at this point, for now, in this micro moment, they're moving toward a common goal of figuring out what Capelli wants to talk about. So they're on the same page. So we have enlivening there. Now, in the output is Struthers building up or breaking down?

I would say breakdown, because he's fighting.

We have it as a flight that he's questioning him to buy time to figure out what to do about this guy. He knows he's not the lieutenant. If he were Lieutenant Capelli, he would have said, I'm Lieutenant Capelli. Right. But he's questioning to.

Figure out more about this guy, get more information.

But I know that it's a breakdown because.

He stops the agreement they've had and.

Breaks the relationship.

Yeah.

So this kind of one, this beat and a half that they agreed to play the game, he just immediately put a stop to it.

Yeah. And so he probably was agreeing. Exactly. Because of what you said before. Maybe this guy's going to take me to the Lieutenant. Maybe this guy even is the Lieutenant. He doesn't know.

We find out later. He does not know what the lieutenant looks like. Right. But. But he thinks maybe. And then he's. Then he gets this first clue and he. No. And it shuts down immediately, his willingness to participate in that conversation.

So, yeah, absolutely. A breakdown and depleting.

So now let's look at the next beat. Where would you break that?

So it reads, no, I said, but I'm working very closely with him on this case. I won't talk to anyone but the lieutenant, he said. His eyes met mine for an instant and then turned away. He was not being stubborn, I decided. I hadn't seen stubbornness in his eyes. I'd seen fear, so that's where I would end it. So the input is no, I said, but I'm working very closely with him on this case. The output would be, I won't talk to anyone through. I'd seen fear. And so this is where there's some embedded.

World building, or I don't know if that would be. Is that world building?

Yeah.

His eyes met mine for an instant and then turned away.

Yeah. Yeah. Because world building, this is where it's important to note. Just because outside of Storygrid, a lot of times when people say world building, they're thinking about the setting. But world building is not only the setting. It's the setting and then it's everything within that context. So all of the avatars, and it's the relationships between them as well. So world building is this very rich activity where it's anytime that you're describing the. The. Either the material world or the rules of the world or the. The way that the interactions are governed, all of that goes toward world building because it helps Sam to understand the fullness of the context and how this place works. So, yeah, so let's start with that input. No, I said, but I'm working very closely with him on this case. Is that an active buildup or a breakdown?

I would say active buildup because he's trying to get the relationship going again.

Okay, great. And is that enlivening or depleting?

Okay, so I'm going to say depleting because he's still in the previous beat.

Struthers was like, he ended with depleting by breaking the relationship because he wants to talk to the lieutenant. But Capelli is going to try again to not let him talk to the lieutenant, which is moving Struthers away from his object of desire. So I would say it's depleting.

We looked at this as enlivening because it's providing him an outlet to move forward toward his objective desire through a compromise. So he's not saying you talk to me or you talk to no one. He's not saying.

He's not even saying, like, you know, you know, I'm your option that's available. I mean, that would be kind of the same thing. But he's saying I am essentially a proxy for the lieutenant. So he's providing him information to enable him to reach his Objective desire through the pathways available.

See, I feel like that goes against what we said just a couple beats ago that we're looking at this through the eyes of Struthers. And Struthers has said over and over he just wants to talk to the Lieutenant. So to me this looks as him as to me this is the same as him walking over.

He's offering options at this point. He wasn't offering options before, so he's not. So the object of desire.

Is like.

Is Struthers. Struthers idea of what it will take to achieve his. His goal state of saying staying safe while delivering this information. So what Capelli is doing is he's not, he's responding to.

Not Struthers like very constrained idea of the. This is the tactic that we need to use to accomplish this object of desire. But he's saying you want to talk to the lieutenant and I am your conduit to get there. He's saying I'm a pathway. So he's facilitating. He's giving him a way forward to get to his object of desire. And he's saying you don't necessarily have this information yet. But I'm. And you know, he's, he's using techniques to get Struthers to talk. Right. So he. But the technique he's using is he's saying I am the way to get what you want. I'm your pathway. I'm an option for you. And you don't have all of the information to know that I am a facilitator of your objective desire. You think you just have to talk to this guy. But what you don't understand is I'm his proxy. So he's giving Struthers more information not as a way to redirect him to talking to someone other than the lieutenant, but by positioning himself as, as that proxy for the lieutenant and the pathway to eventually getting to talk to him. Okay, so that's why we have that.

As. As enlivening. So now let's look at Struthers again. So is he active buildup, breakdown or binding?

I would say this is breakdown.

So we have that fear going on there. And so we know that is depleting. So just a note on this is that the reason that we highlight that fear is that stubbornness.

Is a choice.

So if I'm stubborn, I am saying I'm going to stick to this as my strategy. It's like a broken record strategy. I just want to see the lieutenant and then whatever you say to me, I'm going to say, I want to see the lieutenant. And that's a, that's a pre made decision. So stubbornness, I am processing and I'm choosing that as my strategy so that wouldn't break down. But because he's doing it out of fear, he's not doing it out of stubbornness. This isn't a conscious manipulation. This is a breakdown where he's acting autonomically. So that's why it's really important to have those embedded qualifications that you pointed out to have that world building so that we understand where Struthers is acting from. And that changes our interpretation of his output.

So if he was being stubborn here instead of fearful, it would be active buildup.

It would just be depleting because it would be a manipulation. Right. And that, it seems to me that that that qualification that's added to Struthers dialogue is.

Author Capelli.

Communicating to the single audience member, Sam, that this is the point when I decided this guy wasn't just a time waster or, you know, a crank. Right. And he's got information because he's afraid and he's here and he's insisting. Right. All of that. So that's him signaling that to Sam. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think this is a really, really important moment when, when Capelli turns the tides and how he's thinking about Struthers and that's going to put their relationship on an entirely new footing.