Getting the Protagonist Right: When and How to Switch the Main Character

Hello, and welcome to the Story Grid podcast. My name is Tim Grohl. I'm your host, and I am a writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He's the creator and founder of the Story Grid methodology, the author of the book the Story Grid, and along with him is Leslie Watts, our editor in chief of StoryGrid Publishing, and Danielle Kiowski, the chief academic officer of StoryGrid University. Now, before we jump in today, I want to mention that coming up in just a couple weeks, we are opening up the registration for the Story Grid Guild. So I hope you've been enjoying this new series we've been doing on the podcast, which started with the 624 analysis of eyewitness by Ed McBain. Now, a lot of times, when you hear this stuff on the podcast and you hear these tools on the podcast, they kind of feel like they just came just intact, right? Like, we have this 624 analysis. It's these six sections, it's 24 questions. It's how we analyze stories. But as you've seen, what you see on the podcast isn't the origins of where it came from. It's the same thing with the beat analysis. So if you followed along the weeks where we were looking at the beat analysis and we're looking at input and output, we are looking at the valencing of them, and we're looking at the misattunement and all of that. Again, it's. We're kind of teaching this wholesale. So we're looking at. At it. We're looking at Eyewitness through that lens, and then we're looking at my writing through that lens. But this stuff, you know, just didn't come out. You know, this stuff didn't exist even a couple years ago, these tools. And I think we forget that sometimes. And so, like the original Story grid material, if you've been following along, this is episode 270. So we've been doing this for a while now. The original book, the Story Grid, that was based on, you know, decades of Sean actually working with writers and helping editing their book and all of that. And so when you first look at the spreadsheet and you see the 13 columns and how he analyzes the scenes, again, it's like, when I see it now, I'm like, oh, yeah, that makes total sense. But that was like him actually deciding one day to sit down with a spreadsheet and analyze a book, which is probably not anything that occurred to you or Me before we came across storygrim. And so. But for when I heard about that stuff for the first time, when you heard about that for the first time, it already existed, right? It was like, this is how we do spreadsheets. This is how we do the full scaffold. This is how we do stuff inside of storygrid. Well, last summer is when we first started developing what would become the beat analysis, the trope analysis, the 624 analysis that you've been seeing on this podcast. And it started very similar to what you've been watching on this podcast now, especially if you've been watching on YouTube, which is I get on a zoom call with Sean, Leslie and Danielle and we start looking at my writing. Except in this case, we didn't have the tools yet. We just. We were. They were figuring it out. They were meeting every day. They were analyzing the Hobbit, among other things. And they were starting to develop this methodology around being beats and tropes and how a scene is structured and how to actually teach this line by line writing. And it was really, really frustrating for me because I was writing it and they were using my writing to figure out if they had developed the methodology far enough. And so it was months of just back and forth, back and forth, where there was one week in particular that always stands out to me because these calls would often last three hours. And we spent the entire first hour, over an hour, and we had only gotten to the second word of the first sentence in my writing. And so it was really hard. But what it developed into was this methodology for looking at beats and tropes and how they build into a scene to really help writers understand the line by line writing. And again, I think it's hard for me when I would tell people about it, and especially as it was starting to come together and I would start to tell people about it, I would say, like, it's really hard for me to talk about without slipping into hyperbole because it is just so powerful. And I've never seen anything like this. I've never seen anything that systematically teaches line by line writing in a way that actually will help you get better. Right. So much of writing advice outside of StoryGrid is squishy and it's soft, and it's lots of kind of like aphorisms that don't actually make sense when you actually try to go and do something, something with them. And it's a lot of people talking about it in a way where they don't really understand it. Right. And so when we're doing it inside of Story grid, we're being very systematic. We understand what we're talking about, and we have this really clear way to help writers level up their line by line writing. And it's really, really powerful. And so you've been seeing this in the podcast. We're going to keep going here. This is just another week of the podcast. But I want to. What I want to let you know is we're opening up registration for the guild this month. So there's a new. A new semester starting September 4th, the first Sunday of September. And we only open up registration three times a year for the guild. And so I highly recommend if any of this has sounded interesting to you, if you want this kind of training for you and your writing, that includes weekly homework, that includes cohorts that you work together on, that is weekly training and all. It's, it's all kinds of stuff, I highly recommend that you check out the guild. It is the most powerful training we've ever done. And it really focuses in on that line by line writing, looking at beats, tropes, and building into a scene, which is the real powerful thing that you as a writer have to master. That I as a writer have to master as well. And I have seen, and we have seen, we've actually gone back and looked at early stuff that I've written, stuff that I was writing just a year ago. And I've had more just leveling up of my writing in the past year than ever before. It's been really, really amazing. Again, you've seen it on the podcast as well. Now, again, right now the registration isn't open when this episode first comes out, but I want you to still go look at the guild and learn a little bit more about it. And there's actually a wait list there that you can sign up for so that you can be the first to get notified when we do open up registration here in a couple of weeks. So you can go to storygrid.com/guild to see more about what the guild is and sign up for the wait list. So in a couple weeks when we open up registration for the next semester, you can jump in and join us. Okay, that's it on the guild. Let's go ahead and jump into this week's podcast episode where we start looking at the controlling idea of my theme and looking really closely at how you hand off the protagonist inside a scene. And I had a lot of insight from this, and I think you will too. So let's go ahead and jump in and get started.

Oh, great. So we're back with Ed McBain and eyewitness. And what we're doing this week, Tim, is to take a look at your second draft of your short story. And the difference between this draft and the previous draft was that we gave you some instructions to really do your best to follow the complete rubric of Ed McBain's 624, which we've, you know, analyzed ad nauseam, and with a couple of major things for you to focus on. The first thing that you needed to focus on was the clarity of the protagonist shift from your detective, Detective Watson, to your witness, which is Randall. And so in a second, I'm going to turn it over to Danielle to see how well that worked. So that was the first change that you needed to really focus on. The second one is that we want to compare and contrast your controlling idea with Ed McBain's controlling idea to make sure that your controlling idea is coming through, if the signal of that controlling idea is powerful enough for Sam, our single audience member, to understand what the point of your story was. So I'm going to want you to think about what your controlling idea is again. Now, you don't have to answer this, and I'll probably ask Leslie to walk you through this. What the controlling idea was in your estimation versus what McBain's was. And then probably, Leslie, Danielle, and I can discuss whether or not your controlling idea is clear from what we read. And then we can. We can pick it apart and see if. If there are recommendations that we can make to. To make it clearer. So I think that's a good place for me to stop and turn it over to Danielle. And so what we're going to want to do now is take a look at the effectiveness of the transition between the protagonist from Detective Watson to the witness, whose name is Randall. Okay. So over to you, Daniel.

Okay. Thanks, Sean. Yeah. Let's take a look at how you handled this. Switch off, Tim. So the idea was that we would follow the pattern of Ed McBain's story and do that transition from the detective as protagonist to the witness as protagonist at the point that the detective walks over and starts to engage the witness so we can take a look at where you had this happen. So after Dawson swivels his chair back, this is Watson's point of view. I stepped toward the breezeway, and the man stopped rocking, eyeing me warily. I pushed the door open and joined him inside, breathing through my mouth. You the captain? I'm Detective Taylor Watson, the Man shook his head and commenced to rocking again. No, no, no. Nobody but the captain.

So let's take a look at how McBain did this. So here, Capelli leaves Magruder. I left Magruder and walked over to the little man. He looked up when I approached him and then blinked. Mr. Struthers? Yes? He said warily. I'm Detective Capelli. My partner tells me you have some information about the. You're not the lieutenant, are you? Okay, so we want to compare those two passages and see how the mechanics or the mechanism shifted between the two protagonists. So when I read your draft, I can tell that you're trying to shift to Randall, but the shift isn't coming off for me.

And I think that this is worth spending time on one because it's really important. That's why we had. We had you do that, because Randall needs to own the Five Commandments, but also because when we look at making these shifts, especially to avatars who are in distress like Randall is, it's not comfortable. And so.

It'S going to be. I think.

They'Re small changes, but it's worth noting for you and for other writers who are trying to go through this process that often these are uncomfortable moments. And when we're writing, we tend to shy away from that discomfort and not want our avatars to have to sit with silence, the things that we wouldn't want to do. But these are critical to getting to understand our avatars and setting things up the right way so I can just go through the things that I'm seeing here. So when we look at McBain, we have that he walks away.

And the first thing that I'm seeing, I want to go through a couple of things here. I walked over to the little man.

So the idea that we get is he's walking over and looking at Struthers.

So when Struthers looks up and blinks, we know, okay, these guys are face to face with each other. This is a confrontational moment where they're negotiating how their interplay is going to be. When we compare this with your draft, I pushed the door open and joined him inside, breathing through my mouth. Well, let's start a little earlier. I step towards the breezeway. So immediately the difference here is that the object. He steps toward the breezeway, he's not stepping towards Randall, he's stepping towards this area. And so already they're sharing a context, but they're not in direct conflict.

And then Randall reacts by eyeing him, but they're still not directly conflicting. So this is similar to what you had going on before, where they're passing, there's this sort of. Instead of a head on, it's this passing, parallel kind of feeling to it. And the effect that that has for Sam is that she does not.

The possibility of conflict is there. The possibility of interaction is there. But she. She wouldn't miss it if it didn't happen.

So if Watson said, you know, then I continued on. I decided to get coffee before I talked to this guy. She doesn't feel like anyone has broken the pattern. She doesn't feel like anyone has failed to respond to something that they were required to do. Whereas when Capelli comes up and looks Struthers in the face, this is something that you can't just break that and go off to the break room without it being weird. So this is what I mean about it being uncomfortable. We need to create that space for there to be some weirdness.

So this is the first place to change some of that wording to make it. To make that setup more confrontational so that they have to deal with each other.

So then the next thing is that we have.

Oh, another point on that is that he joined him inside. And so this again is reiterating that they are in a collaborative space instead of a confrontational one. Can I.

So why is it important in the handoff that it be.

Confrontational? Is it because that's how Ed McBain did it and you're wanting me to do it the way Ed McBain did it, or is there a specific reason why there's a confrontation in order to hand off the protagonist?

This is setting up this particular mechanism of handout handoff. So I think I can answer that question by going to my next point. So this is about creating a strong foundation for this handoff to happen. But when we look at the actual handoff, that's where it becomes really important that they're already in this position so that they can do the handoff. So let's. Let's take a look at that. So here you have Randall, say, you, the captain.

And.

Watson says, I'm Detective Taylor Watson. And that. So what we have here is that there are a couple things going on. One is that.

In order for this here, you, the captain, to be a reaction, a response, it needs to be required. Sam needs to expect that Randall has to say something. He has to be forced into saying something for that to work. Otherwise, as it functions now, it's an input because he's. He doesn't have the duty of response. They're just sharing A context. And then he spontaneously says, are you the captain? That means that he's inputting. And then Watson is still in the.

Responder position because I was reading this as him entering was the input, and then his output was you, the captain. So you're saying the fact that he could enter and he could just not do anything, and that wouldn't be a breakdown. Right. So it wasn't a. It wasn't. Oh, okay. Can we go back and look at Ed McBain's again?

Yep. So, see, he. He looks up when I approached him, then he blinks. This is where the handoff happens, is when there's a breakdown. Struthers blinks. And then the first person to speak is Capelli. Mr. Struthers. And he says, yes. So this is another. Another thing to look at. Here is the first speaker. Here is Capelli. So I would get rid of you, the captain. We don't need that. So I would make this binding more confrontational. Get rid of you, the captain. Start with, I'm Detective Taylor Watson. And then, no, no, no. Nobody but the captain. Now, you're going to be in the right space just by getting rid of that one line. You already do the handoff, but it's going to be more effective if you adjust this binding. And I want to talk a little bit about why that is, too, because if you have Randall, say, you, the captain. Is that a breakdown?

Okay, so what we have here is that he has this guy come into his context, and he's in an active buildup mode, and that means that he is.

Psychologically somewhat stable. So you're creating a very different feeling to their interaction than you have with Struthers, who is broken down at the beginning of this. So you have him devolve into this breakdown. No, no, no. Nobody but the captain. But you have this really big shift between. Are you the captain? No, no, no. Nobody but the captain. So you want to get rid of that line so that he's in constant breakdown mode. And that is the heart of the mechanism of this handoff of the protagonist, is that we connect. Sam. We asked Sam and Sam all of that. Sam connects to people, simulated people, avatars, through their role as protagonist. And that is supercharged when they undergo a breakdown beat. Because Sam is experiencing novelty. They're experiencing novelty. We want to. We want to connect to those avatars that we see undergoing these breakdowns. And so, because we've already had this connection with the detective, we're going to need that extra oomph of the breakdown to do the Shift properly to have a clean break, because otherwise we're kind of going to. Our sympathies are going to be between the two of them, and we're not going to be able to shift into that alignment with Randall as cleanly as we do in the McBain story. And aligning with Struthers.

Okay, that was super helpful. I'm going to try to say it back to you to make sure I understand.

So it's not that, okay, so it's not that the confrontation itself is the actual thing that's needed. It's the fact that there is a breakdown on the behalf of the eyewitness, because that, that breakdown is what will shift Sam into that protagonist, into looking at. Into basically connecting with that person. And then once they're connected there, you keep them as the output or to keep them in the protagonist seat. So, because that's what I was struggling when you were talking about the confrontation, because I'm like, okay, I don't understand how. I understand how the. Well, no, I don't think I even did understand how the confrontation made the switch. But once you put it in those terms of you have to have the person break down because that's what makes the. The switch. That makes a lot of sense to me. And then, then I have options out. I'm not. I, I may still do a confrontation, but then it feels more like, okay, I have options. I just have to have Watson give a clear input that can't be skipped over like him just moving towards the breezeway. And then I have to have my, my new character, Randall, in this case my new protagonist, break down. And I have options for how they can break down. But that's, that's the function is I have to have a clear input that can't be ignored. And as a result of that input, I have to have Randall break down in some way. And that is what actually does the handoff.

Yes. And. And I would say that the confrontation is important because it creates novelty that will give Randall the reason to break down. So when you say that you don't necessarily need the confrontation.

You need something weird, something novel. So that confrontation is what enables the breakdown. And.

I'm thinking, yeah, I'm trying to just off the cuff, run through some simulations of other things you could do. I think something that is really weirdly over the top, like, kind might work like he's. He goes and tries to play the buddy, something like that. That could do it as well. But you definitely. It needs to be.

It needs to be novelty. That will force Randall into that breakdown. So it can't be just middle of the road. Hey, man, we need to do some paperwork kind of in the middle. It needs to be an extreme thing that's going on. So here we have. In McBain, we have this wordless confrontation where they're sizing each other up, and then he. And then Capelli breaks that. And you're going to want to choose something that is weird, either in that way or in a different way. Now, I think one thing to consider is that Capelli is transitioning from a trope that we call sizing up the team to sizing up his new conversational partner. So we see this consistency of strategy as he moves from one to the other. And as I'm seeing your first trope, I don't think that.

The interaction between Watson and Dawson is as cleanly delineated as it needs to be. So whatever the novelty is that he's introducing into Randall's life, that needs to be set up by the quality of the interaction that he has with Dawson in Trope 1.

Well, like, the first thing that comes to mind is basically, he could offer him some money, right? So that would be a way to see if he's there just to get some attention or get some money or get something out of the interaction, because he cut even though so. And let me talk through this, and you tell me what you think. So part of me wants to. If I have to push Watson one way or the other, I want to push him to being a super nice guy. He's a. He's a good, earnest cop who's kind of the opposite of Dawson, right? So he's not ground down by the job yet. And so he still sees homeless people as less than, but he's. He considers himself a good person that tries to treat them well. So to me, a really easy way to test somebody in this situation by being kind to see if Randall's actually there for the right reason, is to just try to hand him a 20 to get him to leave. And then if Randall breaks down and doesn't take the money, now we know something about Randall, and we know a little bit more about Watson. And I could set that up a little bit more with Dawson where he's trying to be the good like he is. He's not unconsciously the good cop. He's consciously trying to be the good cop.

So he offers him money, and then what? What would Randall do?

Not take it. I. I'm not going to fight hard for it, because it is the first thing that came in my head, what I was thinking is.

That is what 99% of interactions with homeless people are, is them asking for money. And you give them money. And that's a really good way to get them to leave you alone.

Because you just gave them what they wanted. And so if they're all wondering why this guy is there.

A great way to test them would be to try to hand him money. Because if he takes the money and walks out, then I just save myself a lot of time and I can go home.

Can I jump in here for a second?

So this. This might.

I'll just throw it out there. The. The. There's a difference between.

Reporting and describing. And so when you write. Dawson swiveled his chair back to his monitor and started tapping the keys. I. So this is. This is the key sentence here. I step towards the breezeway, and the man stopped rocking, eyeing me warily. I pushed the door open and joined him inside, breathing through my mouth. Now that is a. That's a report.

It's not a description of behavior. It's a reporting of behavior that has happened. So when you describe, you would say, I walked through the breezeway.

The man shot me a look. So you're describing behavior as it happens as opposed to reporting behavior as that has already happened. So this is another way. This is just another lens to support Danielle's rubric that she just walked through. Right. And so that can sometimes be helpful. And you have to remember that interaction, when one person is in the presence of another person, there's this. This. This momentary sort of sizing up.

And so if you don't have both sides of the sizing up of the interaction, then we're only getting one viewpoint because you describe the behavior of the one person and then the other and the others. So sorry to be so abstract here. You're describing the behavior of Watson. I walk through the breezeway.

Then you describe the behavior of Randall. He shot me a look.

Bang. So now we know there's. There's. There's this thing where, like, Randall's looking at. At Detective Watson, and he's like, what do you want? And then we get Randall.

That. Then. Then we have.

The input from the detective. I'm Detective Watson. Then we have the breakdown. No, no, no, no. Are you. You know, that is a clean.

It's a clean transition of protagonist, and it happens in the interaction as opposed to a report of something that has already happened. So Sam starts to, for lack of a better word, watch the action as opposed to hearing what happened.

So this is another way of trying to say the same thing. And interactions can be nonverbal interactions. So he shot me a look means it's a non verbal communication. What? Right. And it also indicates a sort of PTSD kind of. What. What was that? It's a, it's a sort of a shocky. He shot me a look like, oh my God, what do you want?

And it's. And as, as Daniel said, these are, these are subtleties. But the, the effect of the subtlety shifts Sam from hearing to watching, if you will. They're hearing what's happened and now they're, they're in it. They're watching the behavior. This guy walks through the door, guy shoots him a look. I'm Detective Watson. No, no, no, no, no. So then you move from a non verbal breakdown to a verbal breakdown and you get a double whammy of breakdown that now says novelty, novelty, novelty. Pay attention, Sam. And now Sam is starting to look through the eyes of the outputter who is now switched to Randall, and she starts to get a little bit. This goes to what Danielle was saying at the very beginning. A lot of times we don't like to put this on the page because it does make us nervous. So these strange moments in our lives when we've all been sort of like in, in the bank line or somewhere in line and there's somebody acting a little bit strange and what do you want to do? Don't look at them, right. Don't make eye contact. Why? Because that's a non verbal interaction that can have, you know, crisis moments. So this is what happens when you're in the subway. You learn this when you live in New York, right? Like, don't engage with the, the person who's not mentally stable. The last thing you want to do is say, hey, how you doing? Because that could really blow up in your face. So you don't hand the money. You just sort of like pretend you push the I'm not there button, right? And then, then the, the person won't engage with you because you're, you're not opening up your frame to them. And people, you see people walking down the street in Manhattan. Everybody's got a closed loop. Nobody's open. And. And if you need help, you have to be pretty loud to someone. Excuse me. Because we were assaulted so much with these, these interaction jabs that we, we close it down. So I, I hope that's a little. I hope I, I added clarity and not confusion here. But these are the very, very clear moments that You've got to nail so that the signal gets to Sam. Oh, wow, that's weird. What's going on now? He shot him a look. I wonder why you shot him a look. Why this? So the behavior.

So maybe if he does like, hey, Buddy, how about 20 bucks and you take a hike? Then. Then Randall would be like, get that stinking money out away from me or something, I don't know.

And that way that's a breakdown because he sees the other person, someone who's offering kindness. And when you get back, negativity, it's a disconnection that Sam is going to perk up to and go, I wonder why he's not taking the money and getting along, you know, so I'll stop there.

Well, I want to. I want to talk about as much as about a year ago when you guys were raking me over the coal with my verb choices, and I just wanted to do anything but talk about verbs. I do want to talk a little bit about what you were saying with. Because I. I understand in theory, but I don't think I understand a practice because so, like, the man stopped rocking, eyeing me warily. Is comparing that to. He shot me a look right to me. So I'm 100% clear on why that's just a better sentence anyway. But can you. Is it because stopped is a past tense verb and shot as a present tense verb? Is that the main thing you're pointing out that's different, or is it something other than that?

I'm just. I. I feel like I don't. It's like, what here's here. I can feel the difference in this now where, like, I look at that. Be like, oh, that is a better sentence. And then I'm going to go write one just like the one I just wrote. So I'm trying to get clear on, like.

Because you were saying the difference between what describing and reporting.

And describing and reporting is more past tense.

Just. Just telling somebody. And then I went in like, you know, and then I had my lunch. And then. So it's. It's a. It's a collapse of lots of. Of. Of stuff that's not important. So when we're, when we're reporting something, we want to get to the point. The point is the interaction of the present tense. And then he says to me, f you, Sean.

Right?

And then you're like, wow, what did you do after he said, F you. Right. But if I go. And then he said, f you, and then I walked down the street, and then before I got to The. And then you're like. You're passing your. It's. The fu is almost irrelevant. Right?

Yeah.

But if you stop and you. You do the present describing of the interaction in as it's happening in present tense.

Then he shot me a look. Now, that's still past tense. He shot me a look. Right. But it has the feeling of watching because it's. It's a. It's a verb. The technicalities of syntactical grammar escape me right now. And I. I would not advise you to try and program a computational syntactic grammatical understanding of language in order to execute this, because it's too technical and you'll forget it. But if you can. If you can grok something like, oh, that's reporting and that's describing. So describing seems like you're watching it, and reporting seems like somebody is telling me what happened. You know, I was on my way to the beach, and then when I got there.

So I was on my way to the beach, and then I got there. That's a lot of happening, right? Because it. It embeds like, I had to get the car keys. Right? And then once I got to the beach, guess who was there. I heard this voice. Sean, how you doing? I turned. It was Bill McGillicuddy from high school. You know, I. I'm making it up as I go, but the reporting and the describing is a good heuristic so that your verb choices get more powerful. So description is just the facts. Jack. He shot me a look. Instead of.

I walked through the breezeway, he shot me a look. Because walking through the breezeway is a lot of actual physical movement, and you collapse it into a phrase and he shot me a look has more urgency to it because you can see the person.

Pushing the energy towards the other, if that makes sense.

So if I.

Okay, so if I cut the whole I stepped through the breezeway, blah, blah, blah.

I pushed open the door and joined him inside. I'm Detective Taylor Watson. The man shook his head and commenced to rocking again. No, no, no. Nobody but the captain does that. Technically, I think we could probably pump it up. When you read through it, I'm like, oh, do I have the elements there? I just need to cut out all the boring or like.

And I don't know how pedantic. Pedantic to get on all of this, but, I mean, we'll probably spend this entire episode talking about three sentences. So what were you going to say, Danielle?

I was going to say, I mean, I think, like, yeah, that was the recommendation. Is Just amp up the word choice and then cut out you the captain, and then you do your handoff, right? So the question is like, do you want to change the nature of the interaction? You don't need to. You can just cut that and amp up your binding. But I did want to say a couple of things about the word choice, because I think we don't want to get a computational rubric. But I think there are a couple of things to point out that could give you some heuristics for how to do the description instead of the reporting. So one thing to notice is that in Sean, what you're coming up with here with he shot me a look, things like, there's shorter sentences. So when you have those periods that allows.

It, it gives Sam more of an opportunity to shift her internal camera.

So that full stop of the period is a natural camera shift point. So anytime that you have that conjunction, I did this and he did this, it tends to blur that hand off from. From one half of the interaction to the other. So it starts to meld the input and the output together. That's not a hard and fast rule, because sometimes you will have sentences with conjunctions that have input and output distinct in them, but they have to be more powerful. So that's one thing. Is that blurring just from the sentence construction? Also, what I'm noticing with your.

Verbs here.

Is, you know, as we were talking about, it's all past tense, but here you have stopped rocking. So.

So shot is this momentary verb. That's why it gives it the present tense feeling. That Sean, you were talking about is like, it happens in the moment, whereas stopped rocking is the discontinuation of a process.

So to experience stopped rocking, Sam has to go back in time, imagine the rocking, and then stop it. So there's some, like, time hijinks going on, right? So you want this point in time thing where, you know, either you have already set up the process before, and then you can say, you know, he froze in the middle of a rock, something like that. Another thing is that Sam has to do extra work to imagine negative action. So if he shot me a look, that is a thing he is doing. If he stops rocking, that is a thing he is not doing. So that requires more work.

And like, just a final point is.

Like, so if he said if I. Because I do set up the rocking in the second sentence, I think or something up there. But that doesn't matter.

That's a long time ago.

Yeah, a long time ago. So I'm just saying here it should say in the man froze. Right. So that's him taking an action versus stopping an action. I'm not. I'm.

Yeah, I mean, that's better. I think froze is a little non specific. You would want to get more into like the. The particulars of the situation. But that's. That's what I'm saying. Yes. Is that it's more a positive action as opposed to ceasing something else. And so I would look out for these ings. Right. That anytime that you have rocking eyeing, this is stretching out that verb and making it more reporting. So just like just giving, you know, kind of some of the mechanics of this I think could help you. This is not an exhaustive list of things that cause these feelings, but if you can start to notice the way that those words influence Sam's construction of the scene, then it can help you to pick better words, I think, or better constructions.

So I think when what, you know, what we're talking about, these specific mechanical adjustments that we're making at the sentence level that are conveying that.

Description versus reporting. Just one sort of footnote I'll add here is that when I think about reporting, I think about someone telling me about what happened versus telling me what. What happened, which is more describing. So that's just kind of one another way to think about that. But I think. And these mechanics are amazing. And I would say they all come under the umbrella of executing the narrative device. So why did these make sense? If we can come up with a way to make them all make sense, then that will help you when you're making the oh, do in the future, do I pull out the ings or do I leave them in oh, does it make sense in light of my narrative device? So if we go back to your narrative device for this, if this is an okay time to do that.

Then we can maybe come up with reasons why these mechanic decisions make sense for the. For the story.

So what? So if we go back to your. Your narrative device, we have an author, we have a single audience member, and we have a problem that the single audience member, Sam is trying to solve. So who is your author?

What we had before for the author was a sovereign threshold guardian detective, explaining the system as if in a report. And I believe we're keeping that the same.

I think there's some nuance to it though, based on the shift in the controlling idea.

Okay, what. What would you add or take away there?

So.

I think what I'm. And this is.

I was trying to figure out what the Control, the controlling idea is in this because, you know, we've shifted a few things around. And what I landed on.

Well, can we start with the. The problem Sam is trying to solve, the third question, the narrative vice, and then back into it. So what. Okay, so what I put down was, is it worth fighting for justice when the system and the people in the system see you as worthless?

Is that a good problem? Do you feel like that comes through?

I think overall, that we're in. That we're in that neighborhood, we want to, you know, perhaps think about how that's a little bit different from what. What was going on in Eyewitness and how that changes what's happening on the.

Ground.

Or, you know, at the. At the sentence level. So for Eyewitness, we were talking about, how does this. How does a witness signal injustice in a corrupt system without becoming a target?

And so in that, you know, in that story, Struthers as protagonist is really worried about himself self becoming a target.

So with this adjustment, who's the target?

I mean, I think it needs. It needs to stay the same, which would be Randall is the target.

Okay, so is it worth fighting for injustice when the system and the people in the system see you as worthless? So is that targeting or is that more of a marginalizing?

Oh, when you say targeting. Okay, so targeting is specific, and marginalizing is more broad and vague.

Well, I think you could have a story about marginalizing. I mean, I think that. And that would be an important story to tell, but I think it is a different mechanism here.

It's different. Struthers is worried about being killed or having his family killed.

But here it seems like Randall is worried about not being under this controlling idea. It seems like he's worried about not being taken seriously, which is a different level of problem.

Yeah. And I don't think that I tried to write it in a way where he is specifically concerned for his safety and the safety of those around him, but the safety.

So if I'm comparing an eyewitness, the. The system itself is corrupt, and they know that the police will.

Hide things or seek retribution for people that come against them. Or this kind of corruption that I'm trying to put in my system is not that. It's not exactly that. It is a more like a corruption of.

They're not specifically breaking the law. I don't know how to put it. I feel like I'm getting lost.

Right. So let's see. Looking at your.

Your. The context in the pop, you've got the system as a whole is corrupt in that members of the hierarchy are given discretion about how they treat individual citizens.

Can I pipe up here a little bit?

You're Sam.

Your.

Your single audience member. The. The device that the author. The person that your author is talking to is. Is getting more specific than the McBain. The McBain person. Remember, the idea here was that we had.

These two cops. They go to a bar. There's a younger cop and an older, seasoned detective. This is the narrative device set up, right? The younger cop says to the older cop, I don't know what to do. I have this information. And I know if I give this information away, I'm going to get in trouble and I'm going to be targeted. What do I do? And so the older. The detective says, hey, you know what? I'm going to go grab a beer. Check out this report I wrote while back. I just happen to have it in my briefcase. And he hands over the report. And that's the short story.

So now let's take a look at your two cops. Right? So let's say Watson is taking out somebody who works at the police department but isn't a detective. Maybe they're in the cleaning staff. Maybe they are someone who nobody really pays attention to, who has a problem. And they say to him, Dr. Watson or Detective Watson, how do I get this information out and. And be known as a valuable source of information in the department? So now that Sam, or the. Is it Sam. Yeah, Sam's problem? So that Sam has changed from just a fellow cop who is sort of in the same category as Detective Capelli, to someone who is not in their quote, unquote, hierarchical rank. But, doctor, Detective Watson is trying to give them advice about how best to not be. To no longer be marginalized as someone who is worthless in the department by giving them this report. Hey, let me tell you about another person who came into the police department who had been marginalized, who ended up cracking the case.

So if you start looking at, as Leslie brilliantly pointed out, the narrative device is going to help you circle back to how to put the verbs in your story, because now you're going to have a cleaner understanding of who Sam is and what their problem is. The problem that Sam has is the problem that we all have. When we go into certain environments. We are not at the level of other people, and yet we want to contribute, but we're not taken seriously. So how do you. How do you get around not being taken seriously because you're marginalized in that environment. And, you know, and that is not just because a lot of people can contribute to the justice system without being PhDs and criminal, you know, jurisprudence. And I think that's part of what your story is about. That is, what your story's about is that when, if we're seeking justice, we need to bring everybody in because they can all contribute to its. It's the probability of it getting better. But when we marginalize people and say that they're worthless and that they can't help, that's when we get into trouble. So I hope that lent some clarity and help to the situation.

Well, you know, I think it did, because then I start going down a path. Path. A couple different paths in my head. So one is I don't need to ne. I don't need to put Randall's life in danger to get that message across. What I need to do is rewrite it in a way where the whole time, the whole interaction between Watson and Randall is just trying to get this guy out the door. What, by doing the least amount of work. And then I almost rewrote it, and I just thought it wouldn't be dramatic enough where instead of him actually coming face to face with the captain, they're, like, walking down the hallway to look at the mug shots, and he sees the captain's picture on the wall, and basically.

That'S how he indicates that that's the guy. So he's never even put in danger. But that's the moment when we realize, like, oh, this guy is useful. And the whole time through, Watson's just trying to push him out the door as fast as possible so he can go home, because there's no way this guy is actually going to be useful. I mean, is that.

To me, that's a. A better way of getting that message across than the way I did it here? Because.

This is where, like, I, I'm still.

It's like I'm trying to do the tropes without understanding what I'm trying to say, and it gets murky.

Right.

As I look at the. The 624 analysis, there are some places where things are not fully aligned, and, and part of that is you're working it out and you get an insight in one part. Oh, yeah, I'd like it to be this. And then. And then probably you're not sure how to make. How to adjust what's happening in other places to align with that insight that you've had about, oh, I'd like the story to go way. And so that is. That's perfectly understandable. And Those are things that we can, you know, that we can align.

And yeah, I think that that's a. That would be a good. A good next step is to really clarify the signal you want to send that controlling idea.

And then look at, you know, look at the levels of your. Of your 624 and make sure the context makes sense and make sure that. That Sam's problem makes sense. And make sure that the ins. The. I skipped a level. The. The inciting incident that the protagonist is facing, plus the goal state, like, make sure all of that makes sense.

And.

And some of the things that I'm seeing in the. In the text that you. I think that will help are things where the intention, you know, the. The motivation of the avatars is not always clear. I'm a little confused about.

For example, about Watson and what his goal is. And. And if he is, you know, if he's this earnest good cop who just wants to do the right thing, that's great. He tell. But then he tells Dawson, I'm just gonna get rid of this guy.

Now, he may be saying that to Dawson just to get. Just to get clearance to go talk to Randall, but that's not something he would put in a report. So there are places where he kind of makes Dawson look bad, kind of makes himself look bad that don't quite fit with that narrative device of a police report that he's recorded and that he is then sharing with Sam to help Sam solve the problem. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

It actually makes me think of stories, Sean, you've told in the past where, like, somebody turns in a book to you, you read it, you come back to the author and say, I think this is what you're trying to say. And the author's like, oh, yeah, that is what I'm trying to say. And now they have to rewrite it, saying that on purpose. And I mean, so that's part of this is. It's like, well, what do you think I'm trying to say? Because I'm not sure. And if you're like, well, we're reading this into it, then like, okay, now let me go back and try to rewrite it with that problem in mind and see if I can do a better job of it. And it'll probably be a little easier or come through clear. I don't know how easy it would be.

Okay. I was going to say, I have a different thought on this problem because I think that.

It. So we're looking at this, at the narrative device level, and it works to look at the marginalization and have this different way of navigating. But I don't think it works when we take it up to the pop level, because at the pop level, in the context, everyone has to be dealing with the same double factors. And I think that there's a misalignment if we say there was a murder, and now people are worried about whether they're taken seriously or not. And so we've talked about how in a short story, we need a very.

Impactful context, like we need to be gripped by that context immediately. So we have this murder. And I think that you can still play in the same space with that marginalization. You just have to take it to the end of the line and the end of the line. So if you take marginalization, you say, what does that look like in a life and death situation? I think what you get into is the space of expendability. And I think that that makes sense in a, in a world where a murder has taken place. But I don't think, I think that when, when a murder takes place, everyone is less sure about their lives. And that needs to be at the crux of your double factor problem is that they're. Is there are murders afoot. And so when you have someone like a police officer gets killed, that can still work with expendability, that, you know, the reason he got killed is that he got in the way of this captain. And so it's, you know, the, the uniform guys are not as. Are expendable in the eyes of this captain. And if a uniformed police officer is expendable, then a homeless person has absolutely no chance of being seen as valuable enough not to be killed. And so I think that it's good to reframe it in terms of the marginalization and thinking about that controlling idea, but just amp it up so that it fits with your inciting incident.

Well, but so if everybody has to be dealing with the same double factor problem, wouldn't that mean that Watson in this case is dealing with a problem where he's not? He's also not. Because then when you started saying that, I thought, well, I should probably make the person who got murdered a homeless person, because then Randall's not only trying to get them to take him seriously, they're trying to get, trying to get Watson to take seriously that this person was murdered or is like.

I think that's getting too literal. Okay, so the way that the double factors work is that you have just factors that are endemic to the context that everyone is Dealing with. And these can be pretty abstract. And then when it narrows down to Sam's problem, this is how a particular person in a particular role is dealing with, like how they, how those factors influence them and how they relate to those factors. So I would take it to the level of abstraction that people are worried about being expendable. And I think that the police officer works with that for the same reason I was saying that it's uniform, it works for the murderer. Right? So if, if someone is threatened, if their position is threatened by someone else, that means they're expendable. It means they're seen as a commodity, that they can be replaced and they have to fight for their position. That's why they might murder. It works, I think it works for, for Watson as well, that if he's having to prove himself in this hierarchy, he's worried about being drummed out. So it's about refocusing the way that you conceive of your avatars so that they're all dealing with the same problem space. But it doesn't have to be so narrow that it's all about homelessness.

It's about the factor that is the sharpest for your protagonist. So everyone's dealing with expendability. But who is that most important for? It's most important for Randall and he's your protagonist and he's aligned with your Sam.

So I want to make sure though that that is all true and I absolutely agree. We need to make sure that the double, that everyone in the context has to deal with the double factor problem because it is going to rear its ugly head in all domains within the context. But I want to make sure that that is your, what we would call a non negotiable. Right. So when we, when we come up with a story idea, we've, we've got a protagonist or in a context and they've got a problem. And we've got that, you know, that's the, the way we set the pop up. And you know, the problem gives rise to the goal within the pop as well.

So.

What we need to make sure of is that they all align. And that's exactly what Daniel's talking about. It has to align from, you know, the context. The protagonist, who is also the single audience member in some fashion.

Right.

Has the, has the same problem is in the same position as the, as the protagonist. And, and the, yeah, all of those pieces are a lot in alignment. In order to do that, we need to have one of those elements, the context, the type of protagonist or the, or the problem that the protagonist faces as one of those. As the non negotiable. Okay, this is my, this is what my story is really about. It's about this type of context, or it's about this type of protagonist, or it's about this type of problem. And then we adjust all the, the, we adjust the other two pieces to make sure they align. And then, and then we can build out all the other, all the other pieces. So if you think, think about the context and you think about the protagonist and you think about the problem that the protagonist has, which is the most interesting to you? What is the, you know, what's really pulling at you to tell the story?

Definitely the, the third. I don't care all that much about the context. I'm happy to switch out the protagonist, but I like that. I like the problem that we've identified and about the marginalization.

Perfect. So you want to work on marginalization. As Daniel, Danielle said, we need to make sure that's going to the end of the line in order to make it compelling so that, you know, that marginalization with the threat of extinction, you know, you're just, you don't get. You are so marginalized, you don't get to be here.

And.

Okay, so we have that problem. Then you can think about who's the best protagonist to face that problem. What qualities do they need to have? What, you know, because you want to push that protagonist to the very limits of their experience where they face a crisis, that crisis between life and death within the context of justice. So if I choose to pursue justice, I am putting my life at risk. If I choose not to, I'm. I'm setting myself up for a kind of damnation.

I mean, I think I've chosen a good one for that. I feel like if we're looking at somebody who. I think a homeless person is the person that would fit that protagonist role. Well, of being marginalized.

Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, as, as, as people go, you know, we talked about one week about how Randall's not even technically a taxpayer, right? So, so he's even, you know.

Magruder and eyewitness wouldn't even give him that much credit. So, so you have that, you have Randall as that protagonist, and then you want to work the context, make any adjustments we need to in the context that ensures that every avatar in the system, so that includes Dawson, that includes the captain, that includes anybody else who is coming within the. Is, you know, is with inside the context.

That doesn't necessarily mean that Every person in the context is being marginalized.

Does it?

Well, what it means is that every person is dealing with the fact that marginalization is happening. So there are citizens who are experiencing injustice not because they themselves are necessarily marginalized, but because people like Randall are marginalized and therefore justice is not happening.

I, I, I would just want to sort of add a little bit here if possible. And seems to me that the, the trouble that I'm having is I don't know why Randall is there. I don't know why he chose to come to the station. What's, I mean, what's at stake for him. I mean, if he doesn't show up, then his life just continues the way it is. If he does show up, then he's, he's kind of putting himself in a really bad position. So the reasons why he would show up will have to sort of emerge. There's a crisis before he even shows up. If he doesn't come and try and give this information, something is going to happen to him that he doesn't like.

I think this was my issue with the, with Eyewitness is I, I couldn't tell you right now. I've thought that several times about the story is like, why did Struthers even show up? Because it seems like his life would have gone on fine without showing up. So why did he show up? And I just, I think at one point I even said, I was like, he must have just felt guilty that it was his fault she got killed. And he's trying to make that right. But I don't remember that, actually. I don't know where that went.

But there's a spot in the story that answers that question very clearly. And it's, it's like the fourth or fifth trope when Struthers sort of gives too much information about his squeaky shoes or his rubber soled shoes, and he gives away the fact that he feels responsible for the death of, of the lieutenant's wife because he was having an affair with her and the lieutenant killed her because of him. And so that, that opened up a whole can of worms for Strothers. Oh my gosh, what do I do? This maniac might come kill me. So I got to get him off the streets. But I don't want to admit to my corruption. What am I going to do? Jeez. And that's why he goes to the police station, because he has the best bad choice for him him is to go report on the Lieutenant so that justice can be served. But he doesn't want to be caught as. As a. As a cheating philanderer husband. And he could lose. Not. I mean, yeah, he could physically get harmed, but he doesn't want to lose his wife either. So it's this very big bucket of worms that he walks in. He walks in with. To that police station, and that's why he's. So. He breaks down so much. So technically, we. We can identify that for you. And on. On your reading, you. You did not identify it, which is probably.

Not your fault, but McBain kind of could have made it a little bit better so that it didn't require Leslie and Danielle and I to read it, to enjoy it at the level that it should be enjoyed, if that makes any sense.

Yeah. So, I mean, I feel like I tried to embed some of that in there. My thought is that he and the captain were involved in something, and the cop walked in on them, basically. And so it was a combination of.

The killer knows who he is, which I put in there explicitly. And also, the reason the killer was there to get caught was because of me. You know, maybe that doesn't work because he's so low on society's totem pole that he wouldn't. He still wouldn't put himself at risk for that where Strothers would. And I can work on a better version or something, but that was my thought, too, is that once we, you know, we've gone back and forth, but once we put this back where it's like, okay, we got to make Randall the protagonist, okay, that means he can't be innocent. And so I tried to write in. I put in a couple places I felt like, signaled that he was not innocent in this.

Yeah, I think. I think that's not clear. That's not coming through. I think what you just explained to me starts. Is starting to form in my mind as a. As a. A viable idea as. So.

Maybe Randall had. Was having a relationship with the captain, and the captain was having a relationship. I mean, the victim, the. The person who was murdered, and then maybe the captain was having a relationship with that same person. And so now it's getting a little bit more juicy, because then it's a. It continues to be a crime of passion, like the Struthers McBain story. And now we. We see that somebody's trying desperately to cover up a part of their identity that they don't want anybody else in the police department to know, because then they might be marginalized. So you've got a nice set of snakes here playing around. It's just that I. I couldn't identify, you know, how they were wrapped. And now that you sort of say that to me. Is that. Is that. Is that what you were going for? That Randall was. For lack. For. For just. For lack of a better term, was having sex with the captain's confidant or the captain's boyfriend?

No, he was having sex with the captain.

And Randall was.

Randall was having sex with the captain or beating him there for sex.

Okay.

And the cop came upon them, and so the captain had to kill the cop to say, because obviously the cop knows who he is.

So why would Randall go to the police station to only talk to the captains if.

If he doesn't know the captain, he doesn't know.

He.

It's just a guy. It's just a trick to him.

Oh, I see.

Right. Like, the captain would never reveal to him that he's a police captain.

And so to me, he shows up wanting to relieve himself of like, I got this cop killed. Even though I hate cops, I still got the cop killed because if I wasn't there with him at that moment, the cop would have just walked by on his beat doing whatever.

Okay, I have to digest that, but I. That. That does seem.

Closer.

But just. You're gonna have to have some signal in there that that reveals all of that to Sam, which is going to be tricky without. I mean, you might have to use.

You know, I don't know. I'm not sure yet.

That that's closer. So Randall's crisis would be if I. If I don't report, then I'm going to feel responsible for the death of another person, and I'm going to be got. I'm going to have cognitive dissonance about that versus if I do report, I'm going to be physically threatened by who. So the crisis matrix at. At the level of the. At the green level is. Is confusing to me. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not sure the turning point.

So, look, let's just go back to the beginning. The problem we wanted to solve today was to effectively teach you how to switch out a protagonist. Right. And I believe we got pretty close to that. And it. One of the. So Danielle spoke to you about the necessity of interaction as the means to make that happen and interaction as breakdown and confrontation to breakdown. And then I dropped in with the idea about the difference between reporting language and descriptive language. And so then you started to get some heuristics about how reporting language sounds with lots of ings to the verbs. Rocking stopped. Right. Whereas the descriptive had hard stop. You know, periods that would be like he shot me a look, which is a very short sentence. And it has a very descriptive particle transfer of energy. So if I were to play the quantum mechanic game, I would say reporting has wave functionality of its. Of its sending signal to Sam, which is a little bit obtuse. And then particle energy is more of descriptive. All right, so we. We got that. And hopefully you'll be able to execute that transfer in a better way using Danielle and my and Leslie's advice. Then Leslie brilliantly said, okay, another way to handle thinking about language is to think about your narrative device. So then we shot up to the narrative device level and started thinking about who the narrator of the story was, who the single audience member was listening to it, et cetera. And then we woof. Then we had a combinatorial, explosive number of issues that emerged from that, which is okay, but we gotta slow it down, take some care, and go one step at a time. And I think the good thing here is that you've now successfully transferred the protagonist from. From Watson to Randall. And so the next stage would be, well, what's the next thing that Randall's going to do? What are. What is the next trope? What is the next sticking point that we can. We can focus on to address in the. In the next. In the next round. So I'm gonna. I'm gonna leave it at that for me and open it up to Leslie or Danielle if they had any other comments, and then maybe we can figure out what. What we'd like you to do next for your. For your homework assignment.

Yeah, for me, I think that that absolutely makes sense. I think we accomplished a lot today, and I think that thinking about next step sounds good. So nothing more to add?

Yeah. So I would say that switching out the protagonist effectively, you know, in that mood, doing the handoff is a really important skill. And I would say that clarifying the 6:24 and really making sure that it's go. That everything's aligned from top to bottom and back again.

Is where I would recommend spending time. Because once you have your. Once you have your signal locked.

And the channel locked. Right. So the signal is the controlling idea. The channel is the narrative device. Then it will. Then you'll. When you get in there, you'll have a better. You'll have more useful constraints for that will enable you to make the decisions about those. About those verbs. And we've talked generally, right. That you need those. You need all those sentences to make sense in the context of a criminal, you know, of a police report.

But then what details? Where are you focusing it? That depends on Sam and Sam's problem. And so that is, you know, for example, one of the things I was going to talk about was that in the, the single audience member that we came into with today's work is like, is a young black officer in the south who's choosing between seeking justice at the expense of his career or keeping his head down to avoid negative consequences. We're making some adjustments away from that. But what I want to say is that every detail you add in there means that you change alter slightly or more the details that you're pointing to in the, in the police report. And so that like really seeing it and putting yourself in the position of Watson trying to, to send a very clear signal to that Sam, who is that Sam? What are the details that matter about that Sam? So then you can.

You know, then you can make those decisions in the, in the actual sentence by sentence writing.

My, my advice for, for, for homework would be to.

Is to look at the protagonist of your story, which is Randall. Now the protagonist of the story controls the five commandments, right? So Randall is the source of the inciting incident of the story. Randall provides the turning progressive complications of the story. Randall hits a crisis, Randall acts, and then Randall's action resolves the story. So the place where I think you should put your concentration is the crisis. What point, what is the crisis matrix for Randall? Where, where is, what virtue is he going to come down on? Is he going to look for the, the well being of his own life? Or is he going to look for the well being of the truth within his mind? Is he going to sacrifice cognitive dissonance to save his life or is he going to give up his life to serve the truth?

And that might be something to think about. And how if he does make the choice of saving himself, then you have to signal to Sam that that's the choice that he has made. If he's going to take the choice that he is going to sacrifice his body in order to live the truth, then that signal has to be clear. So.

I, what I would suggest is you take a look at the crisis matrix matrix that, that we went through with, with McBain and try and fill in those blanks using Randall as your protagonist and see where we are. And as far as the next draft goes is please tweak the beginning of the story so that you do that hard transfer that shift from protagonist and then we'll, we'll take another look at that to see how well we believe you. You nailed it for the next episode. Does that make sense?

Yes. Yeah, I feel good with that. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything Story Grid related, go to storygrid.com where you can sign up for the newsletter. See lots of resources there. If you haven't been to Story Grid in a while, we've updated a couple sections of the website, the homepage, the training page, the resources page, trying to make it easier to find the content on the website that you're actually looking for. Along with that, if you want to get daily videos from us, you can subscribe to our YouTube channel, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all of those places. Along with that, if you want to see any of the past podcast episodes or download the transcript or any of those things, you can go to storygrid.com podcast and don't forget, like I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, the new Guild semester is coming up September 4th, and we would love to have you register for that. And I really think you should. Right now you can't actually sign up, but you can go learn more about it and sign up for the wait list so you can jump in as soon as it opens so you can check that out@storygrid.com guild all right, thanks for listening to this episode. If you want to support us, besides signing up for the Guild, you can go into Apple Podcasts, leave a rating and review. That goes a long way towards letting other writers know about the podcast. And if you have some writer friends, make sure they know about about the podcast as well. All right, we'll stop there. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.