Beginning the Ending Payoff

Hello and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He is the creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book StoryGrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. So there's two things I want to say here at the beginning. So the first off is just this is a great episode. So we go over the first few scenes of my ending payoff and we use that as an opportunity to talk about what an ending payoff is, what you have to do at the beginning of an ending payoff to really make it work. If you remember back at the middle build, I kept writing all these scenes at the beginning of my middle build that that worked as individual scenes, but didn't work as the beginning of a middle build. So I think this is a really important episode that gets you into the ending payoff, helps you understand how to start your own ending payoff. So the second thing I want to mention, it's this thing that's been rolling around in my head and so I wanted to work on it a little bit here, kind of work it out as I talk about it. And it really came into focus is during this episode with Sean, this was happening in my head. I didn't actually talk about it, but I realized that one of the threads through this story is understanding that just your family doesn't have to be the people that you're related to with blood. In fact, a lot of times those are the people that let you down the most. But yet we constantly hang on to them, hoping that they'll be the people we need them to be. While so many times the people around us are our true family, they're not related to us by blood, but they are our true family. They're the ones that are supporting us in a day to day basis and will be there when the chips are really down. And I just realized in this episode, like, that is a major part of this story that I didn't even know I was writing into it. And it's something.

Just personally I'm dealing with on a couple different levels. And it kind of brought into a sharper focus the importance of writing fiction. So for those of you that have been listening for a long time, you know that my day job is working with authors, with marketing, helping them build their author platform, sell more books, all that kind of stuff. And one of the things I often run into is authors feel like, you know, nonfiction authors. A lot of times it's really straightforward what the promise of the book is, right? Like, if you read this book, you'll lose £20 or you'll make more money or whatever, you know. But a lot of fiction writers feel like, well, my work's not as important because this is fiction, and it's hard for them to wrap their head around it. And the thing that's been rolling around in my head is this understanding that I haven't come up with a great metaphor, but somehow telling stories is a way to embed a truth further into somebody's brain than you can by just telling them the truth. This, you know, I could come up to you and tell you, you know, well, blood is not as important as the people that are really supporting you. And you may or may not believe me. And even if you do, it won't really get down to, like, your gut level, how you. The world. But when you read a story that lays that out without actually saying, like, digs down deeper into our psyche, I think, and it changes us on a fundamental level. So, anyway, it's just been something that's been rolling around in my head the last few weeks anyway. And then as that came into focus in my mind while Sean and I were discussing my ending payoff and realizing this entire thing thread in the story that I'd been saying but didn't realize I was saying, it just made it me realize even more how important it is that we all learn to tell stories better. Because the better we tell stories, the farther our stories will go and the more that they'll change people's lives. So, anyway, I hope you really enjoy this episode. I think you're going to get a lot out of it. So let's jump in and get started. All right, Sean. So with the last episode, we finally got through the Middle build. Finished that. And just as a recap, there were three tests that Jessie, our protagonist, had to go through in the Middle Build. And at the end of the third test, she died inside of the digital world, which means she was supposed to die in the physical world and did die in the physical world as well. So I then transition into writing the next three scenes, which will be the first three scenes of the ending payoff. And it's the aftermath of what happened at the end of the Middle build. It's also the all is lost, you know, the aftermath of the all is lost moment because Ernst and Alex are in trouble, Jesse's dead. Everything, you know, we can't find her brother. We don't know what's going on. So I also wrote, you know, because you gave me some. Some changes. The biggest one would be that as the, you know, the villain did not, like, kill her on purpose, so instead of, like, choking her out, he accidentally kills her. So I. I didn't go back and change those because you. You said, just take notes and we'll fix it later. But the next three I wrote as if that was the case. And so, yeah, so I wrote these three scenes. I decided to open up the first scene from her brother's perspective because we talked about, like, the entire book has been from her perspective, but she's dead now. And so how do we get past that? So I decided just to jump over to her brother and kind of give an update on what he's been up to. And then the next scene steps back into the room and we see what happens as she wakes up and then the aftermath of her waking back up. So what did you think?

Well, generally, I think the choices that you made are intriguing and workable. Let me take one step back in terms of how the big question for this episode is this. How do you best transition from the end of the all is lost moment at the end of your middle build to the kickoff of the ending payoff sequence of events that will lead to, you know, the conclusion of the novel and the big, big, you know, big event at the end. You've set up at the very start that there's this, you know, this big threshing. It's akin to the big moment in the Hunger Games or, you know, in a war novel. There's the big climactic battle at the very end of the novel that, you know, you're using as bait to get the reader to continue on the journey to that big moment? So this is a really critical moment in the story because we really need to kick it into overdrive. And, you know, this is the moment where we want people to put down the book, go to the bathroom and get, you know, a bowl of potato chips, and then come back to the living room and, you know, read right through until the end. So the thing I always say about the middle build, and I'm not the only one who says it, is that the middle build belongs to the antagonist.

So what that essentially means is that the antagonist in the story has been using the events of the middle build to get to a place where they can, quote, unquote, get what they want. So what's interesting in Your choice of starting, you know, sort of kicking into the ending payoff with the point of view of Jesse's brother. And also what you do in that scene is make it very cryptic to a degree. We're not really sure why the brother isn't so upset about Jesse dying. He says at the end of the chapter, you know, it won't be a surprise if he tells his colleague, who is probably 81 or 83. Right? Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. So he's. He's telling her, did you.

Did you. Do you think the reader will pick that up?

Well, you know, it's really hard to say because you and I have been, you know, at this for so long that our ability to read it fresh is very compromised. My suggestion is to leave it as is. And then when we go through the editing, we'll see whether or not you set it up in a way that's surprising. I think it's surprising you set up that 83 was in the training video so many, you know, scenes ago. She was present at the last threshing. Something happened in the last threshing that actually threw her out of the good graces of the faction and stuck her as a numbered. Or did it? You know, what's really nice here is you've got a whole bunch of things. A whole lot of questions are arising in this chapter, even though the chapter isn't all that. I don't mean to insult you, but it's not all that compellingly. Well done. There are a lot of questions that it raises. The question this. Now, just to go back to my statement about the antagonist owns the middle build is. In a thriller, the antagonist and the protagonist are mirrors. Meaning the protagonist has objects of desire. They have conscious and sometimes unconscious objects of desire, and so does the antagonist. And we. We suspect that the antagonist is the president of the faction because he's been on stage and his object of desire is very, very clear throughout the novel. He wants the best team possible to go in and win the faction again if he loses. Sorry, win the threshing again. If he loses the threshing, he's out of power. So he's going to lose everything that he's worked so hard to gain if he loses the threshing. So he wants the best possible players in this threshing to keep his faction in power. So his. His desires are very crystal clear. And so as antagonist, he serves as, for lack of a better phrase, a red herring, in my opinion. But ideally, you'll have somebody behind the scenes who's manipulating the Circumstances for his own private goals.

Right. Which is what I want the brother to be.

Exactly. So I think it's working. There now is a moment of doubt in the reader's mind about the real motivations of Randy the brother. Randy seems to have information that 83 or I forget, is it 83 or 81? Do you remember?

I can't remember.

You can't even. It doesn't matter. We'll figure it out. It's 83.

I just pulled it up.

Okay, so 83 doesn't have information that Randy has. Now. What's kind of cool is that all this stuff can start tumbling back in the reader's mind and say, wait a minute, 83 is. Now she's, she's allied with Randy. Then what was she doing as a numbered. Because she was sort of the one who was protecting Jesse when she was numbered. So maybe she was protecting her in order to get her to do this training so that she could A, B, C, D. So now all this, the antagonists object of desire is starting to become clear or not clear, but at least rumblings of it are happening in the reader's mind. Randy doesn't seem to be who he originally professed to be. He never contacted Jesse after he told her he would. He tells 83, oh, it just couldn't happen because of the lockdown of the systems, which seems ridiculous. It also seems ridiculous that he'd be able. That, you know, there'd be these easy to access terminals at the bottom of the building. And so all of this stuff is working well. And what I like is that you've transitioned from a moment of all is lost to now we are in the antagonist's lair. So this scene was a really good choice. And I think with some polish it could be, you know, it could really work. And it's gonna push the reader into the ending payoff and set up a lot of surprises in the ending payoff. So I like that scene. I like that choice that after Jesse dies, we go to the scene where the all is lost moment is discussed. The antagonist is discussing the all is lost moment with his compatriot or colleague. So that I think that works. And I think it's a, it's a pivotal moment for you as writer because now you sort of, you're nudging your, yourself into solving your, your major problem. I have to say that you're the end of the middle build. You really set it up in a way that is really, really at the bottom of the trough. Because if we look at it you know, rationally, the faction's in deep trouble. Like, their best laid plans really backfired here. AS is in deep trouble because he killed the best player. The two people who supported the best player are under arrest. As seems mentally unstable and they've got their threshing in four weeks. Right. And you can really even build this up more in dialogue and say, look, we've been preparing this for a year. These kids have been in training for a year, and now we've just completely annihilated the entire team. What are we going to do? Which is great. And it's even better if you don't know the answer to how to solve it yet.

I have no idea.

Okay, good. So that took some work to get to that really deep trough of all is lost. Now the reader is going to think to themselves, oh, my gosh, how is. How are these people going to compete against just some phenomenal other team from Russia? How are they going to beat the Russians? And I think, you know, maybe in another draft you could play up sort of the. The pseudo nationalistic, you know, antagonism between the American faction and the Russian and European and East Asian factions or whatever. You know, you decide are the team, you know, continents or whatever. All right, so the first. This first scene, you know, if somebody read it without having read all the other material, they would see this scene and they would say it's okay. I mean, it's. But because it's falling where it is and because there's a lot of room to play with Randy's diabolical or Machiavellian setups, from my point of view, when I read it, we gotta believe or I have to believe. Randy's got everything exactly as he wants it. This is exactly the plan that Randy had for from the very start. So if you look at it from that point of view and say to yourself, Randy, you know, after the last threshing, came up with a plan to do something that would allow him to take complete power of the faction. And now he's at that moment as the master planner that he's got everybody panicking. He's got. The president's panicking, the players are panicking. He's the only one who knows about Jesse's gift, and he's gonna exploit that knowledge for all it's worth. So I think the next chapter where. Which is a fun chapter where everybody's sort of freaking out, it's the fallout from Jesse's death in the cyberspace. Everybody's in the control room, the big, nasty you know, Colonel comes in, slaps people around. Alex is freaking out. Ernst is crying on his knees. The President comes in, beats up as for a little bit. That's really terrific because it just dramatically explains how every single person in that room is freaking out.

Right?

And I think that's a good thing. But this is the moment where somebody who's just a master Machiavellian political player, they will see here is a moment where I can step in and take absolute control. So this might be a place where Randy surfaces from the underground. I'm not sure yet. But you have to look at it from Randy's point of view. Now, the reader is going to look at this scene, and Jesse and all the players in the scene are panicking. They're at the bottom, except for Jesse, because she's. She's oblivious to the panic because she's sort of been in some nether world for a while until she's resuscitated. But do you know what I'm getting at here? Do you understand what I'm saying? Where the antagonist at the end of the. Like, it's Hannibal Lecter. At the end of the middle build of Silence of the Lambs, he's.

When he escapes. Is that when he escapes?

Yeah. Okay. I mean, it's not exactly the end of the middle build of silence lands. It's right before the end of the middle build. But he gets out because he's planned his escape from the very start of the novel. And so, you know, he's got all these people doing things that they think they're doing independently, but he's pulling. He's pulling the strings behind the scenes. This is exactly the attitude that you have to have about Randy. He's been pulling the strings of all these players in a way that is going to suit his purposes at the very ending payoff of the novel.

So let's go through. So I have an idea, but we need to Talk about scene 45 and 46 to talk about what I did. Okay. So far. So scene 45, you kind of explained it. Everybody's just kind of flipping out. And. Yeah, you were right. And, like, what I wanted to do was set this up so that Randy, from day one, was pulling the strings. So he got the president to go after Jesse, which got her in the number. But he had Lila there, 83, to manipulate Jesse into actually going to the Capitol. Then once she was there, you know, he was manipulating behind the scenes, helping her win the whole time. And then. And he had a plan. Even if she died because he knew she would come back. And I tried to set that up. I tried to explain that in the third, in scene 46, in the third scene where she has a memory of him, like, running through, like, thinking. I tried to have a memory of like him flipping out the first time she died in the grid when she was really young. And then she came back. Did that work at all?

No, that, that absolutely works. And it was, it was fine to put it in that scene.

Okay. Because what I wanted was like, he knew, he knew she would come back if something happened to her. So he wasn't worried about her dying in any of the training.

Of course.

So I do. I don't. You haven't said this, but, like, I did feel like the way I brought her back was a little anti climactic. Like it just. She just kind of woke up and everybody. Yeah, yeah, that was going on.

That was going to be my big note about it is it's just too obvious and it's signaled.

And so maybe this is where Randy gets his freedom. Like, maybe Lila either breaks him out or he tells the President, like, I can bring her back. And so. But you've got to get me unhooked. But he knows how to bring her back. Like, I don't know. What are your, what are your notes on scene 46? Because you seem to like scene 45 probably up until the end because that's when she just kind of wakes up.

The trick in the ending payoff is to. Is to get to the big event as quickly as possible with the least amount of. But in a surprising way. And that's easier said than done. Having Jesse just wake up. It seems anti climactic because we've been doing this for so long and perhaps we have, you know, really gotten people to think that she's going to wake up from the very start of the, of the book, which is the possibility, I think there's got to be a dramatic moment where, you know, everybody's panicking and there's some kind of communication that. That happens where the President gets a message from Randy like, I know how to fix this, but it's going to, you know, come see me. It's almost like when, you know, if you're ever working in a job in a corporate environment and something horrible happens and the last thing you want to do is tell your boss because, you know, you don't have the solution to figuring it out. And.

And so you're just sort of like sitting on the information for a while and then you get a Call where the boss's assistant says, you know, the boss wants to see you. And so, you know, you have to. And they, you. You're not sure if they know that what's happened, but you kind of figure they might. And if, if you have that moment where somebody could save you from that pain, and while you're sitting there with the information and a colleague comes in and goes, hey, I heard what happened. Hey, I can fix it. How much would you, you know, appreciate that person? What would you do to get them to fix it so that you didn't get in such huge trouble? That's kind of what. That's kind of the moment I think you're. You can find here.

Well, so, I mean, okay, so let me talk through this because it's hard to come up with that moment if the President is the one that has a problem he can't fix because there's nobody he's scared of except for Randy. The people that run, he's scared of Randy.

Why do you think he's imprisoning Randy? Because Randy won the last threshing in a way that we still don't know as the reader, how did he did it. But he did it in such a dramatic way that the President saw him as a threat. Right. So what he did is he put him in his own private world, in his own Guantanamo Bay. So this guy's been sitting on ice in some netherworld inside this reality somewhere because he can't get out. And he's been working for four years to figure out a way to get out.

Well, I was thinking, what if in the final scene of the Middle Build, so I left it where there were still three. It's as Craig and Mark, and Mark's the one that lost.

What if I had him die because he lost and then Jesse still got accidentally killed? And so the problem is they're now down to two, and they. If they don't have three, they automatically forfeit. That's an even deeper hole for the President as he now doesn't even have enough players for the game.

Yeah.

And so then that's the one that's the problem that Randy can say, you let me out, I'll fix it. Now the President has no idea how he's going to fix this. But Randy knows Jesse's coming back, so he's, you know, they're fine, but he needs. He. This is his way of twisting the President's arm to get him out. Because right now the President's really upset because he doesn't have the best players. But he's still like. He's still got three, which is what he needs for the threshing. And he's like, well, maybe I can pull this out. But if he's down to two, he's seriously screwed because he can't even compete with two.

Well, I don't. I think using a rule as a way to raise the stakes is. And pulling the rule out, you know, at the end is a cheat. And I don't think you need a rule to have this guy panic because. Okay, yeah, I like the idea of them only having two teams now instead of three. I think that's okay that Mark dies accidentally, but I don't think they would have to forfeit. It's sort of like a couple of weeks ago, I was watching the movie Hoosiers, and there's this great scene where Gene Hackman plays this basketball coach, and he's trying to teach his players how to play his way as the coach. And they're all taking shots from half court. They're not listening to him. And he only has six players to begin with. So he pulls one of the guys who's not listening to him to, you know, prove a point to the other guys, and he sends in his worst player. So there's, you know, there's the one guy who's been pulled for not listening to the coach on the bench, and the other five guys are out playing. Then one guy fouls out. So the guy comes out and the guy has been pulled, takes off his shirt and is about to go into the game. And Gene Hackman looks at him, goes, where? Where are you going? He goes, oh, he just filed out. So I have to go in because we only have four guys. And he says, sit on the bench. And the referee comes over the Gene Hackman and says, coach, you only have four players, you know, you want to put in your fifth. And he says, my team is already out there. The team that I'm playing with is already out there. So he plays the rest of the game with only four guys, and the other team, of course, destroys them. But he makes a point that, you know, I'm going to play with what I have. So I think the idea of having. And I love that scene because it's so strong of the coach not to give in to letting this. This guy who's been, you know, disobeying him, get away with murder. So what could be fun would be to bring it down to two teams and.

And Randy has got the president right where he wants him Right. Because he's only got two teens and he knows he can get Jesse to wake up. So everybody's panicking, and Randy sends a message saying, I can fix this for you. And instead of the president agreeing to Randy's thing, he says, I'm gonna play with two. And then when Jesse comes back to life, then Randy's whole plan is destroyed because he wasn't counting on the president having the guts to only play with two.

And this way, it's kind of an interesting. It's a way of denying the antagonist their ultimate, you know, plan. Imagine if you're Randy and you've been planning this scenario for four years or however long it is, and he says the great. He's building up in his mind, the moment where I win is when the president panics and I can step in and resuscitate Jesse and then save the day. And then I will not only be released from prison, I will then probably get complete control of the faction. And he's using his sister to get this ultimate goal. So the way to really kick the ending payoff in is to make that setup work. Have Randy, his best laid plans have come to fruition, but then have the President Marcus have a different reaction than Randy was expecting. And now Randy's got to really think on the fly. Well, what am I going to do now? Because Jesse's definitely going to wake up. I've got to figure out a way to get to her before she wakes up. So maybe, you know, the next scene is him somehow going into that deep nether space where Jesse is sort of on ice until she wakes up. I wouldn't wake her up until Jesse or Randy, I'm sorry, Randy. Can try and get her to do his bidding. Does this make sense?

Yes. So I'm thinking the trick.

The trick about the ending payoff is not have it be okay. It's just going to run through and everything that I expect is going to happen is going to happen. Yeah. I'm talking from the point of view of the reader. Now, the reader is going to expect the President Marcus to take up Randy on this offer. Right?

So, okay, so a couple things. So one is, do you think at this point the reader is going to know that Randy's the bad guy?

No.

Okay, so what I'm thinking is, is to insert President Marcus into scene 44, the scene right after the first scene in the Middle Bill or ending payoff.

Right.

And instead of the scene being a discussion between Lila and him, it's the negotiation between Randy and Marcus that Lila is privy to because she was brought in to work with him anyway. And so I still get to introduce 83.

Well, she's like, I think the way to introduce her is to do what we've always said, which is to say she's the Obi Wan Kenobi for the final stage. She's the one who's going to take care of the training for the next four weeks before the threshing. So she's the one who's going to give them the final mojo to be able to go into the threshing and be successful because she was with Randy when their team won the last one. So she's okay. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. But so should that scene 44 be the negotiation that Marcus ends up turning down? Yes, that's a great idea. F Himself.

Yeah. Like, no, I'm going to go with two.

Like, I still don't trust you. I'm not letting you out ever, ever, ever, ever.

Right after. And then that in the last threshing, I'm not, you know, like make a really cryptic statement about Randy did something in the last threshing that resulted in them winning, but it was morally reprehensible or something. But we don't know what Randy did to win the last threshing that caused him to be thrown in the dungeon, which I think is a great bit of business that is creating a lot of narrative drive here. And reminding the reader of these little Easter eggs that you've planted is a good idea because then you can use them in the climactic battle. Will Jesse revert to the things that Randy did to win or will she find another way?

So if that's scene 44, scene 45 could be, we're like, yeah, I think it's the same.

It's. It's the aftermath of what happened. I just don't think she wakes up at the end. I think they prepare, you know, they start preparing her body for cremation. So Randy then that puts a real sort of stopwatch on Randy because Randy's plot to get to co opt President Marcus fails. So he has to really put his brilliant evil brain to work. And what he does is he hacks death and he goes to the place where Jesse is sort of swirling around this alternative universe. Just like that scene you had in the middle of the middle build where he, you know, they talk and he explains to her, hey, you know, you wait for instructions. I'm gonna tell you what you have to do.

So, okay, so I'm trying to set this up because they. They would not leave her plugged in to the grid once she's dead.

That's right. So she's in an alternative reality that is not in the traditional grid, but is almost like a parallel universe. This is how Randy's kind of hacked this world. That's how he's able to get in. And you can have him explain this to Jesse because he's got to have sort of a speech that explains what he's done, why he's so powerful, et cetera, et cetera, and also why he's so threatening.

I'm stuck on how he's gonna communicate to her if she's not connected to the system. Like, I was thinking of thing. Are you thinking there's some way he's communicating with her outside of that? Because I, like, I was thinking, you know, there could be this whole thing where, like, he sends Lila to steal her body and, like, jack her back in so he can get to her and wake her up and that kind of stuff.

Or are you saying you could do that? Okay, that would probably be more reasonable. I think what I just suggested is too metaphysically complex.

Yeah, I don't want to do it that way.

Absolutely.

Cool.

Yeah. I like, you know, get 83 to get her body before decremation. It can be a little thing, can be a nice scene, and CERN dip it. I've lost my ability to think, but yeah, so she gets the body and they can get her back into the system for a period of time so that he can, you know, rush her process to awaken.

Okay. And then. Okay, so scene 44. Okay. So the. Let's talk about. Let's roll it back and talk about the fundamental issues with what I have right now. So one is there needs to be this kind of like, coming to the forefront of the villain. The villain coming to the forefront. Mm. Which I kind of did. But it sounds like I think it'd be much better if it's also this confrontation between him and his captor. So that's one problem. The next problem is it was extremely anti climatic how I brought her back.

Yeah.

So having a body, smuggling and jacking this dead body back into the system, and then him, you know, kind of getting into her head and doing his speech and saying, like, giving these instructions of, you're gonna wake up and this is what you're gonna do, and this is why it's so important.

Right.

And so then she wakes up and then her and 83 have their confrontation, and then that's when we move into 83, does the final preparations for the three teams to get them ready for the threshing.

Right. And I think you can skip the scene with 83 and Jesse. I think you, you know, after they get her to wake up, the next scene is, you know, 83's training day. And she's got as and the other guy and the teams, and she's just about to jack them in to go. Go through some training session, and she. She's. And then all of a sudden, you know, Jesse shows up or something like that. I don't think you need to have a big. How's it going? Well, I, you know, what. What's it like back in the numbered. Well, you know, you don't need that scene.

All right, so you gotta. But I think that's a pretty good plan.

I think now you would say, so I want. I want to stay up high for just another minute. Because when I tried to write the first few scenes of the middle build, I completely missed the point of what the middle build was. Right. So I kept writing these scenes that, like, encapsulated the scene was fine, but it didn't accomplish what the beginning of a middle build should accomplish. Right. It took me three tries to finally hit that. So what I'm asking is. And, like, what we established, like, one of the things I remember, like, thinking back, I learned is like, okay, introduction to new world, introduction to allies and villains, and setting up the first kind of initial problem of the middle build, which is going to be somehow tied to her. Still trying to get back to the original world. Yes, Right. So that's what I remember from the next time I write the first few scenes of a middle build, I won't make those mistakes again. So my worry with writing the beginning of an ending payoff was I would also completely miss the boat on what I'm supposed to be doing at the beginning of ending payoff. And in my mind, it was start resolving the all is lost. Right. So. Because all is lost, you know, hopefully, especially I think if I kill Mark, there's. That even adds a little another whole twist, which is now we don't even have enough teams for the threshing. You know, so start, you know, introduce the villain. You know, give him some center stage that. So I was trying to introduce, like, bring. Okay, Randy's now going to play a real role, and we've only heard from him once before, but he's, you know, that's why I decided to do the scene from his perspective instead of some of the other Ideas was like, okay, he's going to be like a main character in these last few scenes, so let's start with him. And then I wanted to deal with how to like, get them out of that hole, out of the all is lost moment so we could get to the threshing, so we could get to the ending payoff moment.

Okay, let me answer the big question then.

Okay.

The purpose of the ending payoff is to deliver the answer to the beginning hook. The beginning hook. We established that Jesse wants to return to her idyllic sort of family fantasy world. That's what she wants. And all indications are is that that world is dead and gone. But she refuses to accept that fact. So she refuses to leave home at first until she is forced to, because other people would suffer if she didn't. The ending payoff is about her. Either is getting her fantasy to come true or not come true. She has to either get what she wants, not get what she wants. What she wants is to go home with Randy and live a nice quiet life with mom and dad and Randy. So this is what Randy, who's the antagonist, understands about Jesse. So when he jacks into her body again and explains to her why she has to wake up now and what.

She has, the promise, he's going to.

Make her, yes, we are going to go home, you and I, after you win the threshing, we are going to get so many credits for mom and dad that we will live the life that we were always supposed to live. So this is what you have to do in order to win the threshing and that we can go back and live a nice quiet life like we were promised. And Jessie is going to say to herself, okay, that's the plan. But he also has to plant in her mind a doubt so that at a critical moment in the critical time at the threshing, she understands that what he has said to her is a lie and that he has been using her from the start in order to get what he wants.

So, because the final question. So the climax of does that make.

Sense though, how it's.

Yeah.

Has to pay off the beginning hook.

Yeah. Okay, because we've talked about this a little bit, what the climax of the ending payoff will be. And so I want to reestablish that so I know where I'm going. So the climax is going to be, am I going to believe my brother, do this thing that he wants that I either don't want to do or is like more morally reprehensible? I haven't figured that out. But this bad thing to get this good thing that I've wanted since the beginning, or am I going to not do this bad thing but lose the thing that I wanted?

Exactly. It's a best bad choice situation. Is she going, which of the bad choices is she going to take? If she doesn't do what Randy says, she's not going to be able to go home and live a quiet life. If she does do what Randy says, it's going to cause crazy amount of suffering for other people. Or maybe he tells her to lose. I don't know. Maybe it's a. Maybe it's a irreconcilable good. And, you know, the great crisis questions are both. So the irreconcilable good is. It's good for me but terrible for everybody else. Do I sacrifice good for me to make things good for other people? So that's really what you want to lead up to. And there has to be something planted in her mind that reveals that her fantasy is a lie. Something that Randi does or says to her strikes her as a lie. And she's been sort of avoiding that truth until the climactic moment when she has to make a decision.

And because this is a maturation plot, she's going to choose living the truth, even though that will cause her personal suffering, it will be better for most people if she makes the choice to live in the truth and for herself. So the thriller, which is this is also part of the thriller genre. The thriller, the ultimate scene is the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. And what this scene is, when Randy goes into her mind when she's dead, is the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. You're going to do that scene a little bit early and sort of put mystery on it. You're gonna disguise it.

So what he's not going to say, but what's the truth is, unless you agree to help me, I'm not waking you up. Is that like the mercy of the villain? Which is.

That's a possibility. I don't think he would bring. I think he's going to really play off of her.

Yeah, I don't think he'll say that, but in his mind, he's approaching this like, you know, she has to help me, otherwise I'm not going to wake her up. There's no point in waking her up. Because isn't the hero at the mercy of the villain? The whole thing is like, you know, he could end. He could end you. Right.

She has to outsmart okay, let me really clarify. The hero at the mercy of the villain scene.

Okay, okay.

The hero of the mercy of the villain scene is the moment when the hero discovers their true inner gift and exploits it to outwit or overpower the villain. So in psychological theory and in general humanistic thought which we're living in now, there's the belief that each and every individual in society has a special gift within their soul and it is their purpose on earth to express that gift and give it to the rest of society before they leave the earth. So the hero at the mercy of the villain scene is the moment in time and it can be a fractional moment where the hero realizes that gift and the only way they do is when they sacrifice their own personal stuff for the greater good. So that is the really crucial moment in a thriller is when the hero puts his self sacrifices in order to save someone else. In Silence of the Lambs it's when Clarice Starling goes back to Ohio because she can't live with herself knowing that she might be able to save another person who's going to be skinned alive if she doesn't act. So she sacrifices her life goal of being in the FBI, she puts that at risk in order to try and save somebody else. So Jesse needs to go to the threshing to fight in the threshing even though it will hurt her. So one of the things you might play with is get her to agree with Randy that she will, once she wakes up, she will refuse to fight in the threshing. And then she decides to. I'm not sure. See, this is the, this is the place where you, the writer has to really shine.

I can't give you, I can do this, but I'm trying to explain the scene and the purpose of the Scene from the 30,000 Foot Cultural View of this story. All of this has been leading up to revalidate a social and cultural belief. And in our culture today we believe in human humanism. We believe that every person and every individual is sacred. So stories are a process and reaffirming that belief. And a thriller is a really strong example of reaffirmation of humanism when the hero is able to access their internal gift to outwit and out overpower a much stronger opponent. So now Randy's gift may be chaos, it may be really brilliant political thinking and outmaneuvering.

But Jesse has to rise above and figure out how to beat him in the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. And I think the idea that Randy could perhaps successfully keep her from waking up is kind of interesting. He might be like, sorry, honey, I'd like to help you, but unless you do what I tell you, I don't know. You know, I don't think I can. And she'd go, what do you mean? Well, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe you won't wake up. Maybe that time when you were little and you woke up, maybe that was because I helped you. What do you think? And he can put real personal, deep doubts into her. And you may even begin this entire story with a prologue where, you know, two little kids are playing by the river, and the little girl, you know, awakens or whatever. I don't know, but I think we're in a nice place. I think your. Your marching orders are a little bit vague but clear. I mean, I think, you know, the global. The global thing that you have to create is this hero at the mercy of the villain scene. And if you're capable. If we're able to use that scene early and pay it off in the threshing scene itself, in the climactic global thing, like, if she can get out of the hero the mercy of the villain scene without the reader knowing what her ultimate decision and thought process is and then pay it off in the big climactic battle, that could really be great.

Yeah. I'm thinking. Okay. I think I'm good. I think I have a general understanding of where I'm going now, because, you know, I'm looking at this as. I think. I mean, even having clarity, because I. I don't really. I've never really known how he won the first threshing or the last threshing.

Right.

Well, that's.

That's actually good, because now you can figure you can make something up. And before, if you had locked yourself into this elaborate reasoning and thought process, it's really difficult to abandon that stuff. So the fact that you did not solve that problem helps you now.

Okay. Yeah. Like, I'm thinking things like, he won by basically sending his compatriots as lambs into the slaughter. So that's why Marcus doesn't trust him.

Mm.

And then there's something around 83, basically helping him with it, like being a believer that he's going to free everybody when really he just wants to take the power. And that's. That's his whole play with Jesse is like, look, everybody's a slave. Help me, and we'll actually free everybody.

Right. Make the faction great again.

Yeah.

Oh, geez. Sorry. Yeah, it took me a Second.

So. Yeah, okay, so I'll have to figure that out because it's still just. I just can't wrap my head around what the threshing is yet. So. Okay, so I'm gonna rewrite. I think I should rewrite at this point because it's such a vast change. So rewrite scene 44 to include Marcus. Keep 45 the same. I'll probably have to tweak some things based on the changes we made, but pretty much the same. Then have body smuggling issue with Lila that then rolls into Randy going in and pulling Jesse out of this deep state that she's in. So that's. I mean, that sounds like four scenes instead of three. And if I can get there, then that sets us up for the final prep and rolling into the threshing. Yeah, yeah, because you, you said the ending payoff is like what, 12ish scenes? Yeah. All right, so I'll use up four just getting us to that point.

So you could go four, four scenes to the setup. Three or four in the actual threshing itself. Just the complete action packed, you know, one scene after another with cliffhangers. Then you have two or three resolution scenes and you're done. Maybe two resolutions. And then you've got a first draft and then we can go all the way back to the beginning again and rip it apart.

All right. Okay. So what I'll do is I'll. I'll get. I'll rework these scenes based on that, and then we can talk in the next episode about what the threshing is going to be. And I'll try to start thinking about it because, you know, it was at the. With figuring out the third test. It was like just this long slob flailing in my head. Lots of thinking in the car, in the shower, trying to come up with something. So I'm assuming I can do that again. But right now I feel like I have no idea how to top what I've already done.

Well, I think, I think since, you know, you use the intellectual challenge for the third severing. This one has to really be, you know, very intense, physical and mental. It's got to combine both. So it's almost as if, you know, you have to run a triathlon while you are, you know, solving a quadratic equation, I don't know, something like that. So that it's. There are so many different levels of challenge. It becomes, you know, really exciting for the reader.

So I'll start. So I'll work on those scenes. Start thinking through an idea for what the threshing will be, and then we'll reconvene and go from there. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything Story Grid related, check out storygrid.com make sure you pick up a copy of the book and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss anything happening in the Story Grid universe. And man, are there things coming up that you will not want to miss. So if you want to make sure that you know everything going on, make sure you sign up for the newsletter@storygrid.com if you'd like to check out the show notes for this episode or any past episodes, all of that can be found@storygrid.com podcast if you would like to reach out to us, you can find us on Twitter torygrid. Lastly, if you would like to support the show, you can do that by telling another author about the show and by visiting us on itunes, tunes and leaving a rating and review. Thanks for subscribing and being a part of our work here at StoryGrid. We will see you next week.