Editing Non-Fiction

Hello and welcome to the Story Grid 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. In this episode, we are shifting gears a little bit. I have finished up a first draft of a nonfiction book I've been working on a while. And so while I'm working on the second draft of my novel, Sean and I are going to work through the story grid techniques and the story grid tools of moving from first to second draft in a nonfiction book as well. So I know a lot of you listening write nonfiction, want to write nonfiction. And even for those that are writing fiction, it's always good to hear about the story grid tools from a different perspective. So it's a great episode. It's really eye opening for me and I think you're going to love it. So let's jump in and get started. So, Sean, before we dive in to today's topic, I got to tell you something funny. So my, my wife took my oldest son to see Wonder Woman over the weekend. And, and so, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched it, I'm gonna spoil a piece of it. So she's, she starts texting me halfway through the movie and she's like, I'm so mad at you. Your story grid crap has ruined movies for me. I go, I go, why? She's like, I knew exactly who was gonna die. I was like, it was the mentor, wasn't it? And she'.

And so when she got. But when she got home, we were talking about it with my older son and I was like, but you know, why the mentor has to die? And so I was able to like, go into, you know, the hero will never know if they can do it on their own if the mentor doesn't somehow leave their side. And then, then I spoiled Lord of the Rings for my, my son because he hasn't read or seen the movies. Because I was like, you know, when Gandalf dies, he's like, gandalf dies?

I'm like, well, he comes back.

He's like, he back. Like, Well, I said, well, you, you could have read those. They've been out. So anyway, so I, I just thought that was funny.

That is great. That is the best.

So anyway, so this, so what, what's been nice is while we Were working on moving from the first draft to getting me ready to write the second draft of the novel. I was working on the first draft of a nonfiction book. And this is a book I actually had the concept for over a year ago. And I flailed around with it for a year basically until I felt like I actually knew what I was trying to write. And it started where I was discussing with somebody the war of art and you know, Steve Pressfield's book and the idea of resistance and overcoming resistance and how I have developed over the years. Because, you know, 10 years ago or 11 years ago, when I first started trying to run my own business and everything, I was so tied up with resistance that I would spend half the day playing video games. And the only time I could like motivate myself to work is when I was literally out of money and I had like a one year old at home and my wife wasn't working and it was a whole thing. And so I started recognizing these patterns that at the time I didn't know were resistance. But now I. I know that's the name for it. And I started developing a set of tools that would help me overcome resistance. Super practical stuff. And so I wanted to write a book that is basically the how to manual for overcoming resistance. And so I worked on that. It came out at about 35,000 words. I have it set up into four sections. Create space, Overcome Fear, do the Work, and Ship the Work. And most of the chapters are teaching about a tool. And so I thought it would be good as I'm now switching over into writing mode again and working on the second draft for the novel of spending some time. How do we go from first draft to second draft for nonfiction? Because I know we have a lot of nonfiction listeners as well. And so I thought that we could start working through my manuscript. And you know, how do you do the. How do you use the story grid tools for nonfiction in a super practical way? So yeah, so I thought we would just get started. So, you know, you and I never prepare, like decide what we're like going to talk about ahead of time. So where would you start with, you know, somebody coming to you with a nonfiction manuscript to start figuring out how to get it to draft two?

The thing about nonfiction and editing in general, we're going to be doing that editor's course in a couple of months. So I've been preparing all the materials for that sort of week long intensive class in teaching somebody how to edit from scratch. So you hit me in a good place here because you know, I had to really go back and think, what do you do at the very beginning of a project when you're editing it? Like when somebody hands you a manuscript, what do you do? So coincidentally, I mean, you did hand me the manuscript for this nonfiction project, and you're calling it right now the GRAW method a couple of weeks ago. And so I'll just walk you through, you know, what I do when I'm handed a nonfiction manuscript and how I use the story grid to analyze nonfiction. And this is going to be kind of fun because it's going to require a lot of sort of self examination on your part, which is actually a lot for you.

Well, well, part of a lot of your book is, I mean, one of the tools that you talk about in your book is about the necessity to be able to self examine your own behavior. So the editing process, when you're looking at it and you're editing your own work, is really about doing just that, examining what you want to say, how you want to say it, who your Target audience is, etc. Etc. So the very first thing you have to do when you edit something, and this sounds extremely obvious, but a lot of people sort of graze over this first step. And the very first step is to read the entire manuscript of the potential client, which sounds kind of obvious, right? You're going to read the whole thing, Right. But a lot of times when you're an editor, you just, you have this tendency to want to get down to brass tacks. You want to go full editor mode before you have an opportunity to actually experience the first read. So the difficulty as an editor is when you read that manuscript for the very first time, is to stop yourself from doing what your wife was doing in the movie theater, which was extrapolating forward based upon her knowledge of the story grid and saying to herself, oh, the mentor is gonna die here before it actually happens. Right. So the very first thing you have to do is read the whole manuscript. So I've read the entire manuscript that you've written, and after you read the manuscript, you have to let it sit in your brain pan for a while before you can really be good at helping the writer, you know, figure out what their problems are and how to fix them. So it's been about, I don't know, about 10 days since I finished the manuscript, and I feel comfortable that we can start talking about, you know, what are the next steps for this draft you with here. So now what do you do? And in the book, the story grid, I lay Out. I think it's like one of the earlier chapters. There's a chapter called an editor, six core questions. And this is always where I start after I've read the manuscript and let it sit for a while. And the very, very first question is, what's the genre? Right.

What genre? Nonfiction. Are you trying to write it? Do you have any sense of what the genre of this book is?

I mean, the obvious one would be self help, but I don't. I'm not as familiar when I think of genres for nonfiction. I think of whatever category they'll go in on Amazon.

Right.

So I would say I'm not overly familiar. Like, you know, I think, okay, well, there's business books, there's memoir, there's narrative nonfiction. So mine would go in the self help category. But I feel like the self help probably has a lot of sub genres in it, as well. But I don't know for sure.

Well, I would even take it even more global. And we've talked about this before, and I personally have four global nonfiction categories where I start.

Oh, that's in my notes somewhere.

Yeah, it's easy to forget. That's why you have to constantly be asking yourself the same question. So the four big global nonfiction genres are academic, which are, you know, books that are written for people who already are walking around with a very large body of knowledge. So if you're writing a book about genetics and you're an academic book, you're not going to talk about basic Mendelian, you know, mental genetics and traits and recessive genes, et cetera. You're going to go right to the quick of it and get into the nitty gritty, assuming that your audience already has a ton of knowledge. So these are academic books are really for professionals. They're for people who want to know, don't need any, you know, additional reminders about the principles of their chosen field. So that's the first one. Academic books, and usually the academic presses cover academic books. The second silo is called how to, in my opinion. Now, how to are very practical, practical guides that give very simple directions for people to be able to do something. So if, if you want to learn how to plant a garden, then you would buy, you know, a really good how to book on the best way to have the most vegetables per square foot. And then you would do that above ground, you know, square foot gardening thing. And, and you would read an entire book about that, and you would be able to apply the knowledge very quickly. So how to is the second nonfiction, you know, category for me, the third one is narrative nonfiction. Narrative nonfiction are those things like autobiographies, biographies, memoirs, historical stories, but they're all based. They're all story based works of nonfiction, meaning that narrative nonfiction uses the techniques of the fiction writer only using nonfiction research and fact. So narrative nonfiction are things like Devil in the White City, which is Eric Larson's book about the serial killer around the Chicago World's Fair. The Perfect Storm is narrative nonfiction. Some great biographies are. Narrative Hamilton by Ron Chernow is narrative nonfiction. It's a biography, but it's the story of one man with a very large canvas. He also wrote a great book on John D. Rockefeller. And you know, he uses the techniques of the fiction writer in order to write a very compelling biography. So we have a sense of the full man based upon fictional genre that he interlaced with the facts of the character or the protagonist. The fourth one is the one that has really risen in the last, say, 20 years. And this is called the big idea work of nonfiction. Now the big idea work of nonfiction is something like the War of Art. Also. Who moved my cheese? These are nonfiction works that use, wait for it, all three of the previous categories that I talked about. So in a big idea work of nonfiction, the writer uses story. They use the fiction writer's skill box to really entertain the reader so that they get a full sort of experience, a beginning, middle and end. There's a genre in there, a fictional genre that isn't obvious to the reader, but they can feel it and they have certain expectations based upon the choice of the writer.

So this is like the, it's like the thriller of the nonfiction where it combines other genres.

Yes, okay. Yes, it is. It's a very, it's a very elegant way of writing nonfiction because generally big idea books are not all that long. You know, they're really about getting a lot of information into the smallest unit of story.

Academic books come in, into play in Big Idea because the big idea writer uses academic traditions to support his ideas or her ideas.

And this would be like Malcolm Gladwell.

Exactly. And Steve too. Steve Pressfield in the War of Art. He cites a lot of. He cites Carl Jung, he cites a lot of psychology, he cites mysticism, religion, all sorts of things in the War of Art to back up what he believes to be true. It doesn't necessarily have to be super duper journalistic, incredible deep research like Malcolm Gladwell, as long as the writer really uses supportive documentary evidence of writers and academics who have come before them to support their theory. Lastly, and this is really, really important. A lot of people kind of forget this about big idea, but really, the reader at the end of a big idea book has a how to element too. They have a feeling like if they. They could prescriptively use that big idea in their own life, by following the theories and the story of the writer, they can apply the ideas to their own life. So there's a how to element in Big Idea too. Now that you know the four sort of big categories that I use for story grid, nonfiction, which category do you think your book is?

How to.

Okay, now, how to is usually very. What's the word? It has a limited audience. That's my point.

So do you think it's a big idea book?

Well, ultimately you as the writer have to make that choice. But I will say this. When you're dealing with nonfiction, that concerns internal work, meaning not building a shed or retuning your car, planting a garden. Those are all external how tos. Right. Those are how to projects, how to knit a sweater. Those are all really important books. But the audience doesn't mean that you can't sell a million copies over the years. But it doesn't. It's not going to change somebody internally as it does externally. Okay, I know I'm getting a.

Well, like, what genre would you put the book Getting Things Done or Checklist Manifesto in?

Well, I didn't read Getting Things Done and I just sort of blew through Checklist Manifesto. Checklist Manifesto, I believe is more Big Idea because it really brings a lot of story to the table, as I recall. I'm just kind of. It's Gawande. Right. And it's.

He talks about using checklists in hospitals to like reduce errors and all that kind of stuff. I guess I look at that as like people read it to learn how to do something specific. But it definitely isn't like, you know, a step by step how to build a shed type book either.

Exactly. And it's also, you know, if you look at the value at stake in that book, it's life and death. Right, Right. Because what he's saying is that something as mundane and boring and simple and ridiculous and silly as a checklist saves lives. So all those things that we know, as we get older, we start to take for granted. And so, you know, we don't take them for granted anymore. Like, you know, whenever I go to this go shopping, I definitely go with the shopping list. Now when I was younger, I would never. But now I do because I know that advertisers and marketers and retailers, they, they prey upon people who don't have a shopping list and. Right. So if you don't have a shopping list, you end up back here. Yeah. So the Checklist Manifesto, I think was a big idea book because it brought something that is overlooked and it shined a very big torchlight on it so that people could understand, hey, checklists save lives. Because medical mistakes, believe it or not, kill more people every year than cancer. Kill more people than traffic accidents. And it wasn't until people really started focusing on medical mistakes in a hospital to reduce all those deaths. And you know, the way that they figured out how to do it was by having checklists because, you know, the power structure in a hospital is so ridiculous that nurses wouldn't feel comfortable saying to asking a doctor, hey, did you wash your hands before you came in the room? You know, but it's, it's really that simple. Anyway, I'm getting off track, but I think the Checklist Manifesto is a big idea because it tells a story. Okay? So I think you can feel right now that what I'm suggesting to you is that you need to broaden your view of your book.

Yeah.

You need to think of it in a much bigger way because if you don't, you'll be trying to sell your book to only those people who bought the War of Art and who can already speak the War of Art language. But what about all those people? Now a lot of people have bought in the War of Art and a lot of people have enjoyed the War of Art. A lot of people would love to buy a follow up book that shows them practical steps that they can do every day in order to combat resistance. But what I'm saying is that you're avoiding a very, very large market of people who've never read the War of Art. Hopefully, if you do your job the right way, it won't matter if anybody has read the War of Art or not. Because your toolbox is really a way of teaching yourself how to change behavior. Right. These are steps for someone to change their life.

Right.

Your big genre is big idea because it's a huge idea to help somebody change their life. Now I remember a year or so ago when you started talking to me about this concept for this book. And one of the first things you said to me was, hey, Sean, I don't have any big ideas.

I'm not a big idea kind of guy. I'm kind of a guy who accumulates a bunch of knowledge and, you know, just sort of takes a lot of good advice and then applies it to my own life. But I don't have any of the big ideas. I would have never come up with the idea of resistance. So I'm not. I'm not going to be able to write a big idea book. What I can do is write, you know, the proletariat version of the War of Art and give a bunch of how to ideas. And when you told me that, I didn't correct you.

Because you have to be able to do whatever is necessary in order to create a manuscript. Right, right. So you don't. You don't need me as your friend or editor saying, well, actually, Tim, you are going to write a big idea book. And what you have to put in it is the following. And then what that would have done would have probably freaked you out because you would have said to yourself, john thinks I'm going to be able to write a big idea book, and I can't. Oh, my gosh, maybe I should just put this on the shelf and not worry about it. So now that you have a manuscript, though, now I can say to you, this is a big idea book. This isn't a how to book, because, again, it's going to have elements of how to in it. How to is a very big part of the book. But you also are going to need to tell a story to back up what you're saying academically and to bring that how to element so that the reader, once they finish the book, can start reading it again and making notes about how to apply your toolbox to their own life. But you're not going to. This isn't the kind of book that I think you anticipated writing, which would have been somebody just picking it up in the middle and saying, oh, that'll help me. I don't need the rest of the book. Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I can get on board with that.

Okay, so you're gonna write a big idea work of nonfiction that has some conventions and obligatory things that have to be in it. Right, right, yeah.

Sure.

Because people have certain expectations from a big idea book.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I can definitely sense that when I think about the books that I'm reading.

Right. Well, when Malcolm Gladwell comes out with a new book, you're expecting him to have a big idea in it. Right. Like, Outliers was a really interesting book that followed up on the Tipping Point, and so was David and Goliath. And what Gladwell is really, really good at doing is taking conventional ideas and making you see them In a different way. So what do you think the big idea of your book is?

So the thing that. So there's kind of two things I've played around with this. So the first is I fundamentally believe anybody can find success in their creative pursuits if they can just learn how to overcome resistance. I don't think it's rocket science. I don't think it's magic. I don't think it's that you get to be picked. I think anybody can find success in their creative pursuits as long as you follow some basic principles of how to pursue them. So that's. I would say, the belief that I bring into the book is that, like, I reached a point and I think I talked about this in one of the chapters where I either had to decide that I just wasn't cut out for this and I need to go find something else to do, or that I was cut out for it. The problem is I just don't currently have the skill set to do what I'm trying to do do. And so I went with the latter, and it's paid off. And so I think for most people, it's not about being chosen or special. It's about just having some basic understanding of how life as a creative works. The big question I'm asking is, you know, I have the manuscript up here and I put it in. The introduction is, oh, I might just do it from memory. It's basically, how do we, you know, organize a life that helps? How do you organize a creative life that allows you to produce and ship great work while staying sane, sober, and free? And so that's the question I want to answer is how do you organize a creative life? How do you produce and ship great work? And how do you do it in a way that you don't lose your sanity, sobriety, or freedom?

Okay, I love that. I think it's great. Now, let's think about that for a minute, though. Is there something that is even some idea that's even broader than that specificity of learning how to be a creative person? What I mean by that is, is there an attitude, belief that is prevalent among the general public that you think is wrong?

Yeah, I think that most people think that the creativity is synonymous with. Oh, what's the word? With unpredictable or luck or magic or the muse.

Yeah, or the muse. Okay.

And I think that most of creativity is found in systematic systemizing 95% of your life. So I think that the idea that creativity is like the idea of the creative that wakes up at one in the Afternoon because they're up late drinking and then they, like, sit down and the muse talks to them is, you know, with all. You know, I've worked with hundreds of creative people. That's just horseshit. Like, they all, like, live an extremely systematic, planned life that makes their creativity, their success as a creative inevitable.

Got it. Okay. So it's interesting that I mentioned genetics earlier in this discussion, but I'm going to go back to genetics. Do you believe that this is. That the following statement is true? Do you think that the majority of people in. Let's just limit it to the United States. The majority of people in the United States believe that you're either born a creative person or you're not.

Yeah, I believe most people. So I would say there's a big group of people that will, like, say that, that they believe that, and then there's another large group of people that would say they don't believe that, but all of their actions say otherwise.

Exactly.

It's kind of like how people believe God loves everybody except for them.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So I think you're on to something really extraordinary here. If you just sort of bring that. That lens of your camera higher in your elevation of looking at your work. So if you take the camera up and you say, what is the fundamental, quote, unquote truth that you are trying to debunk in your book? It would be, creativity is genetic. We are told from birth, pretty much from birth, that if we do, we're not born with a gift, we are not creative. And we're also told as we move through our schooling system in this country that we are only as smart as some ridiculous number from an IQ test or from an SAT score or something like that. So we believe and have been told for generation after generation, probably since the turn of the century, the 20th century, from, you know, the 1890s to the 1900s, that science and genetics are, you know, they determine how smart we are. Once our number, once our abilities have been evaluated objectively by some sort of random standardized test, then we know where we sit on the hierarchy of humanity. And creative people have been told early on that they're, quote, unquote, gifted, and so they believe that they have some sort of gift. And other people who. Who don't score a certain number, which absolutely means nothing, by the way. It's been proven that IQ tests and standardized SAT scores have nothing to do with creativity or intelligence. They come to believe that. No, I just don't have what it takes. So I'm just not going to work on being creative. So what you're saying is that creativity, a muscle, and we are all born with that muscle. And some people are told, hey, you should really work on developing that muscle and getting stronger. And others say, hey, that muscle's too small, so forget about it, do something else. So if you look at the genetic abilities versus environmental abilities, what you're saying is that the genetic side is not what you've been told your entire life. You are not limited by a, you know, some ridiculous analysis of your intellectual capability when you were five years old. And I think that's a message that people need to understand that creativity is not mystical gift that certain people were born with and other people aren't. Creativity is human. It's an element of humanity. Meaning every single person who's a human being has the capacity to be creative. Right, Right.

I guess I feel like that. And maybe it's just because of the circles I run in, but I feel like that has just been like hammered ad nauseam. And so I tend to assume everybody's heard that a million times already. So me saying that again is not all that helpful.

Well, I understand that point, but the way you're going to say it is going to be different from the other people saying it. Right? So the way you're going to write your book is different than the way Steve Pressfield writes his book and the way, you know, Elizabeth Gilbert Gilbert. The way Elizabeth Gilbert writes her book is different than Steve and Steve is different than Elizabeth. But their message is equally compelling for Neigh Brown as another person. Each one of them has a different point of view. Each one of them has a brilliant thing to say. And you can, you can read Steve's book and it doesn't mean you're not going to enjoy Elizabeth Gilbert or Brene Brown. You can read all three and get something new out of all three of them. And I would also say that the message in our circles is probably, yeah, we hear it all the time. That's because we have selected ourselves to be in an environment that supports that idea. Right? So if we truly believe in this idea, then we will have the courage to. To express this idea in our own way without saying to ourselves, everybody knows this. I can't add anything to this. Who cares? Because that's absolutely not true. What you have written, your manuscript is completely different than anything Elizabeth Gilbert or Steve or Brene Brown would write. And it's very unique, it's very practical, and it's very, in its way, very Stoic. It's finding the toolbox that will allow you to beat down a voice inside of you that tells you that you're a loser and that everything that you do has been done before and there's no point in trying. And everybody understands what that voice is. Steve named that voice Resistance.

And it's a really great metaphor because now we. We know the enemy and we know, you know, we know what that enemy is all about. And we also know that enemy is full of shit. But we can never. But. But still, the enemy is truly powerful. It's a shapeshifter. And it can hit us in any number of ways. I mean, it still beats Steve Pressfield, you know, senseless sometimes. His last post on his website was about him facing the resistance of another project.

Yeah.

So my point is, yeah, this is a message that people have heard before, but you need to understand that your book is about amplifying that message in the Tim Brawl way.

Okay.

And if you just say, oh, I don't want to be one of those guys who says everybody has something inside them that they need to work on to get out, it's so boring. Well, sorry.

That'S what you're writing. That's what your book is about, right? That's what your book is about. It's not about creating space. It's not about creating space. It's about being creative. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, I mean, my thing is like 90% of what I read on that topic is super fluffy. And so I'm not interested in writing a 35,000 word book trying to convince you that. Of that thing, you know, that like, you can be creative and you are creative and you were born creative. Like, my thing is like, that part would go in the introduction. And now we're going, I'm going to show you how to do this and how this actually works in the real world. That's the book. And I'm not fighting that idea because that is the idea I'm bringing to it. That is my fundamental belief. And all of those things, what I've never read before, that I want to write is the. So, like, I spoke at this conference one time and like, everybody in there, like, friended me on Facebook and then like, up to this still. I, like, my newsfeed is full of, you know, the pictures of like a lake at sunset with an emotional or a motivational statement. You know, like, I'm so sick of that. Like, I'm. Motivational statements aren't super helpful when I have work to do. And so my Thing is, like, what I want to write is like, you know, let's. Let's assume you have no motivation. Let's assume you can't get any work done because you're so tied up with resistance. Okay, let's start there. You know, how do we move from that point? Because that's where most of us start. So, yes, I love that idea and I want to teach from that standpoint. But, like, what I, what I've always tried to do with my teaching is like, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in causing your paradigm shift, right? When I do book, when I teach book marketing, I'm like, if you're an author that thinks book marketing is evil, I'm not here to convince you otherwise. However, if you want to learn book marketing, I can teach you how. And so I'm not writing a book to convince you that you are creative. This is a book for people that already believe that they just don't know how to get it out of them themselves.

Great. That's not in your introduction, what you just said, is it?

I guess not.

Right? So the next question on my six question editor's core questions is, what's the point of view? And you just explained to me what the point of view is based upon. Your reaction to the arena that you're working in is fluffy, right? It's motivational. You know, lines from Beautiful Legs.

Right? So, and that's, that's what I'm trying to do is bring some concreteness to this very fluffy world.

Right? So this is the promise that you need to make your reader very, very early on in your story, in your book. This is the beginning hook of your book. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean the beginning hook of your book has to be 25% of your entire book. We're in a different arena here. And if you look at the tipping point, Malcolm Gladwell's beginning hook is probably the foreword and introduction to his book. And his ending payoff is the last chapter in epilogue. So he's operating sort of in a 108010 perspective. And that's kind of a good idea in a big idea book. Because you know what? People who buy big idea books, they want to know who you are, who is Tim Grow, and why do I care about what he has to do? Tell me. And what does he have to tell me? What's his point of view? And so when you're beginning hook of your book, you have to say something like, you know, you could begin the book with something like, you know, have you ever heard this before? Guy drinks himself, you know, into a stupor, wakes up the next day, you know, has a difficult time, you know, having breakfast, sits down at one o', clock, and then writes 25,000 words of, you know, inspired prose and just say, that's bullshit. You know, or the fluffy. You know, just put forth what you just explained to me that you want to. This book, if you don't believe that you're creative, if you think that it's just not in you, please put this book back down and don't buy it, because I am not going to spend any time telling you that you're a special snowflake. Because you know what? Everybody is. Everybody has the capacity to be creative. The end. It's just fact. If you want to hear and read the research about our inability to put a number on human intelligence, this isn't the book to tell you that. But trust me, that is a truth.

Yeah.

This is what you have to say to the reader so that they go, oh, okay, I get it. Yeah, he's right. Yeah. Now and then you have to move forward. Now, how did I go about coming up with this idea that I need to find practical ways that will get my ass in a chair to do my work? Well, I did this and I did that. So you can see where the story. The story element, the narrative element of your book needs to come through too. Right. Because you want the reader to know who you are, who Tim Grohl is. Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that Tim Grohl, who takes care of his kids or the Tim Graw, goes on date night. This is the professional Tim Grohl. This is the guy who says, if you don't. If you're a writer and you don't believe in marketing, God bless you. See you later.

Right. That's your attitude. That's a really good attitude. That's my attitude now, too. And it's taken me a while to get the attitude that if you don't believe in story structure, if you don't believe in the five commandments that I talk about, God bless you. See you later. I'm not interested in convincing you any longer. I've got a book. If you think. If you're not convinced by my book and the millions of words that I've written and the hundreds of hours of podcast, God bless you, go find somebody else, but don't bother me anymore. But if you have an interest in what I know, then come on in. I'll tell you what I know. I'll Give you everything I have. So that's what you have to bring. That point of view. It's sort of like when I was writing the story grid and I showed it. I showed the manuscript to Steve. You know, the first thing Steve said was, could you tell us why you're writing the book?

Because what if, you know. What if nobody knows who you are, Sean? And nobody did know who I am. And they probably don't know now either. But. So he told me, you've got to put a story in your how to book. You've got to say why you're writing the book. And that's the first thing I do in the book. I say, nobody teaches editing, and it's a big mystery. So I want to teach you what I've learned and I've had to learn myself. So that's a good idea to think about when you're writing a big idea book is you need to introduce very early on, you've got to hook the reader on your big idea. My big idea. And you have to blatantly state it. My big idea is this. Number one, you are creative. Two, you are battling a demon who's stopping you from doing your creative work. Number three, drinking and being, you know, and not being sober is no way to beat an enemy. No one wins when they're drunk or takes drugs. You know, you're very vulnerable when you're intoxicated. You're not going to beat anyone when you're intoxicated. So, you know, get rid of the notion that drinking or taking drugs is going to help you beat a monster. It's not going to happen. And then, you know, like, give a really, like. This is the great thing that I think that Steve did in the war of art is that he gave a lot of lists. Now, here's what resistance does. Here's what it looks like. Here are the elements of resistance that are here to knock you on your ass. Now, you don't have to do that because Steve already did it. But what you want him, you know, let people know is, my name is Tim Grohl, and this is what I believe, okay? I believe everybody's creative. I believe this so that the point of view of your idea, and then you want to culminate with the big payoff, which is your big idea. I believe that if you follow what I have to tell you in this book, that you will be able to create something that you are very proud of, whether or not it makes a dollar, anybody buys it, or you're going to be able to quit your job, I have no idea. But you personally will be proud of the work that you accomplish and you will respect yourself. The amount of work that you had to do to accomplish it. That's all you can give people is a plan to help them respect themselves more by creating something from an internal life. So are you starting to come around to what the Big Idea Book is about and the fact that you can actually write one?

Yeah, well, because what you're basically doing is reflecting back to me things I already believe and just saying, well, this is, you know, when I. Because, you know, a year ago. And I'm just. I've come a long way in the last year anyway, but like a year ago, if I thought, I gotta write a big idea book, I'm like, I'm not Malcolm Gladwell. You know, I can't do that.

Right.

Let's move on with my life. Yeah. So I feel like coming, you know, I'm basically just bringing my perspective on the world and going to show you why it exists and how you can be a part of that too.

Exactly. That's exactly right. And I'm not really doing this. The questions that I'm asking you are the things that lead you to answer these questions. Right. The questions help you self examine, figure out what it is that you're trying to accomplish here. So the third question is, what's the point of view, which we've been talking about for the last couple of minutes? And the fourth question.

What are the objects of desire? What do you want people to take away from this book? And what do you need people to take away from this book?

All right, what did you say number three was that we've already discussed?

What's the point of view?

I thought that was number two.

Number two is what are the conventions and obligatory scenes of your chosen genre? Right. Okay, so we didn't get too deeply into the conventions and obligatory scenes of Big Idea. But anybody who's interested in that can look@storygrid.com go to my analysis of the Tipping Point. And if you just read all those posts in sequential order, I cover all the stuff that we're talking about. Now, I don't want to get into the nitty gritty of conventions and obligatory idea book so early. I just want you to recognize that there are conventions and obligatory scenes for nonfiction too.

So objects of desire. So is this the objects of desire that I'm helping the reader fulfill for themselves? Like, what do they want bringing. What are the. Their desires that they're bringing to this Book.

No, this is what you, as the writer want. Nonfiction is really about positioning yourself as somebody who stands up on a milk crate in the middle of the park and says, everybody, come over here. I have to tell you something. It's sort of like the Mark Antony speech in Caesar. You know, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, when he says, friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I have not come here to praise Caesar, but to bury him. This is after they murder him. And Mark Antony isn't there to bury Caesar. He's there to get these people to take out the guys who killed Caesar. Right? So he has a very clear intention, but in order to get to the people to listen to him, he has to tell them what they want to hear first before he can change their mind.

So this is very much the rhetorical approach of the Big Idea nonfiction writer is you must look at it as if you are preparing a speech that you will deliver in Carnegie hall to the most influential people in the world, or you're giving a TED Talk, or you're doing something where your goal to convince somebody that what they believe is wrong and that what you are going to tell them, you're going to tell them what's wrong with what they believe and how to change it.

Okay. So I would say my objects of desire are one to bring concreteness to a very fluffy industry or space. The other thing I want people to believe, change their belief on is that creativity is not hard in the way that they think it's hard. It's much more hard in the way that digging a ditch is hard versus this kind of philosophical, you know, yearning that doesn't. That seems like we have to go through. I feel like my. So that's one. Those are two things I want to do. The other is I really, really want people to be able to move past whatever is blocking them from doing their creative work. And most of it has to do with. It's not so much. It's not because something's wrong with you, or it's not because something you know you're not good enough, or it's not because you don't have the right tools. It's mostly because you don't really understand what's going on inside of you. And so I believe that if you can basically see what's going on inside of you, your behavior automatically changes. So it's not a violent process either, where you're constantly forcing yourself to do things you don't want to do, or you were, you know, hate or scared of or whatever. So you know, my goal is, you know, really what I want to do is take, you know, 25 year old Tim and convince him, you know, it doesn't have to be this hard.

You're not entering something that you don't have the ability to do, or you're not, or you're not good enough to do, or you're waiting around for the right moment to do. It's mostly like, let's follow some very simple steps that will put you in a place where you're automatically doing the work that you want and need to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's well put. If you look at now, if you look at It from the 25 year old Tim point of view, what the 25 year old Tim wants is creative success. He wants the fruits of the labor, right? These are the. We all want this. We all want to be number one on the New York Times bestseller list. We all want to have our movie at Sundance. Or we, you know, we want all of those bells and whistles and, you know, tasty cakes that come with that kind of third party validation. So that's what the 25 year old Tim wants. Now what does the 25 year old Tim really need? Oh, I don't know how to put this right.

Yeah, I mean, he needs to. He needs to know that lots of things.

Meaning. Meaning he needs to know that the creative process is meaningful, has nothing to do with tasty cakes and Sundance Film Festival. The creative process brings meaning to life. We learn about ourselves when we create something. We learn that life has meaning, that it's beautiful, that there's something worth living for. There is nothing better than creating something that you are proud of or even not proud of. As long as you try and you work hard and you deliver that lousy, shitty first draft. You have created something meaningful. Doesn't mean it's perfect, doesn't mean that you can't use your craft to make it better, but it's meaningful. So what people want in our society today is meaning. It's very difficult to find meaning in our culture today. What you are offering in your book is a way for people to have meaning in their life. That's pretty damn important, right?

Yeah.

And the way you are offering meaning goes back millennia. It's about work. It's about the Bhagavada. We are entitled to our labor, but not the fruits of our labor. That is what the Bhagavada Vita is all about. We are entitled to work, but the fruits of the work are not ours. And that is very meaningful. And it doesn't make any sense whatsoever until you create something and it fails. And you know what? I've created so many things that have failed, but I'm still proud of them. I still go, you know what? At least I tried. Yeah, that didn't work out. No, yeah, it didn't work out, but at least I tried, and I learned something, and it brought meaning to my life. We remember our failures far more than our successes because they are more meaningful to us. They were the moment when we had to change who we were. So your book is about you telling people that what they want, they can have, but not in the way they think that they want it. You're going to say, and that is the path payoff of your book. The ending payoff of your book is that the process, the creative process is meaningful. And it is more important than it's important to ship your work. It's important to do your work. It's important for all those things, because if you don't ship your work, nobody sees your work. Right, Right. So, you know, the big payoff of your book, I think, is to let people know, hey, guess what? I told you at the beginning of this book that I was going to teach you how to create something that you can ship, and I did do that. But guess what the paradox is, after you ship it, it's no longer yours. You get the meaning, but you don't get the. You know, the money. The money comes, keep your mouth shut, and you thank God. But you don't do it for the money. Right? Yeah. You keep your mouth shut, and you thank God that somebody. It was interested in enough and what you had to say and was moved by it that they parted with money. They gave their value for your value. But you can't control that. All you can control is trying the next project. So the discussion we're having now is really.

An important step for nonfiction big idea. It's a huge step because what it does is it clarifies your intentions and why you're writing the book, not just for you, but for other people. Now, let's just get to the last question. We're gonna have to stop.

Okay, well, what was question number five?

Number five is. Oh. Question number five is, what is the controlling idea theme? Okay. And that's. That's something that we've been talking about probably since the beginning of this conversation. But it's important to ask that question specifically and to write down what your controlling idea theme is. And remember what you have to do in a controlling idea. Theme to express the change in value plus the cause. So what that means is that creativity triumphs when we. Blank. Creativity triumphs when we engage with 100% of our spirit in the labor of the work with no investment in the financial payoff, the fruits of the label. I just. That's a jumbly sentence. But that's kind of what I think we've come to for your controlling idea.

Okay.

Creativity triumph. Yeah. So that's a good thing to know. And what you're going to do in your introduction and your beginning hook is tell them that, hey, guess what? By the time you're done with this book, I hope you understand this. That's what Malcolm Gladwell does at the beginning of the tipping point. Things tip. Little things have big, big consequences. By the time you're done with this book, you're gonna understand that little things cause big events. That's the tipping point's, you know, promise. So you have to make a promise, too, in your beginning hook. Now. Now, the very last question is, what's the beginning hook, the middle build, and the ending payoff. And so those are the six questions that an editor is going to talk about with their client after they had time to let the work sort of percolate in their brain. So they read the entire manuscript, they give it some time for them to think about, to let their subconscious work on it, and then a week, 10 days later, they have a conversation with the client, and they go over these six questions. That's the first step to editing nonfiction.

Okay, so what's my next step? Is it to actually. Even though we've talked about all this, should I go through and actually write down all my answers to this?

Yes. Okay. And take as much time. You know, write a paragraph, write two paragraphs, or write one sentence. There's no rule on how to answer these questions, but it's been my experience that the more you think about them and the more effort you put into really rolling around in these ideas.

The more clarity you'll have going into your next draft.

Okay. And you would say that's what this is missing. Like, the book is working.

No, it's missing a lot of other things, too, that we can talk about in the next week.

All right. Okay. I can't think about that, so I'm going to work on this. Okay, so I'll work on this and get this out to you, and then we will continue to talk next week.

Yes.

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