Go Back to the Genre

Hello, and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He is a creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. In this episode, I kind of chuckled when I said I'm trying to figure out how to tell a story that works, because that is definitely what last week's episode and this week's episode has been all about, is me trying to figure out what's going on in my story, why am I dreading writing the Middle Build, you know, not knowing what's happening with the villain and my genre and all that kind of stuff. And so I did a lot of work over the last week, thought through a lot of stuff, and came to some really good places. So Sean and I talked through this AM this is a particularly. I think this is a particularly important episode because this is something that every writer is going to deal with, where they're deep in their story and they're stuck. And what do you do when you're stuck? Where do you go? What are the kind of questions you start asking? And so that's what we talk about in this episode. So let's jump in and get started. So, Sean, last week I felt like the call started really nice because you're telling me how good my writing was. And then when we got into the discussion about what does the villain want, it started unraveling pretty quickly for me. And I think this is good because I was struggling. You know, I kept having this dread over me as I entered into the Middle Build that something was wrong. And so as we talked about that, I felt like we got a clear picture that something was legitimately wrong. So I spent a few days.

Thinking about this, and I was just making lots of notes, trying to get what was churning in my head out. And I felt like. So I went back and started thinking, okay, because we talked about the Matrix, we talked about Hunger Games, we talked about other stories, and you always say to just go back to the genre. So I took out my, you know, marked up and tagged up copy of Storygrid and started going through the genres, and I, I. So here's what I think I realized. So I think I realized that. That I was combining a action adventure man against nature labyrinth plot with a action.

No, not action adventure. So just action man against nature labyrinth and Then Action man against state rebellion. Is that right? I don't have it in front of me. Yep, I think that's right. And so I. I was doing both of those because I started thinking, you know, well, if Die Hard is a labyrinth plot, and what else did I come up with? Oh, I started thinking about Ender's game as a labyrinth plot. And I started realizing, okay, if I'm writing a labyrinth plot. Well, actually, I started with rebellion, because that's kind of where we landed, is maybe I should be looking at a rebellion plot. But then the rebellion. All the rebellion plots I could think of. So Star wars is a rebellion plot, Matrix is a rebellion plot, some other one. I was thinking of all of them. The protagonist is flying. They're trying to run from the villain, the entire thing, until at the end, when they finally meet and fight. And so there's. So then I'm like, well, my middle build doesn't work because she's there with the President the whole time. If he wanted to kill her, he would just walk over and kill her. And then when I started thinking of a labyrinth plot, the labyrinth plot, the villain never knows that the protagonist exists until he or she starts causing trouble. And then they tried to use the person to either gain power or destroy them to keep power. So Ender's game would be a labyrinth plot. And what was the other one? Oh, Die Hard. Like, they had the bad guys. Never didn't know he was in the building, didn't care he was in the building, didn't know who he was until he started causing them trouble, and then they started going after him. So I emailed you about it because we, you know, we tried not to talk too much offline so that these are, you know, pure conversations. But I didn't want to come back, you know, a week later and be like, well, I don't know. So. So I emailed you about that, and you said to go with the labyrinth plot. So then that really annoyed me because then something still didn't work with my book. So I was just thinking about it, and then that's when I realized, like, oh, the labyrinth plot. The president can't know that Jesse matters, right? If she's, you know, the one of the story, she. He should not. She should not even be on his radar until, like, when she burns down the tower in the first severing, all of a sudden, it comes on his radar because something's happening in his plan. And so then I'm like, okay, so if I go back to the beginning, hook and just change it to where the mayor is kind of running the whole thing, and he's tasked with finding the people, you know, the prodigies in his city, and shipping them off to the Capitol. Then it. The story, I felt like it clicked into place for me. Like, okay, it's a labyrinth plot. It will probably. You know, you said we might do a rebellion plot in the future. And that's where I started thinking, like, oh, that would be cool to have, like, Balaam and maybe her brother working together to set her up to do a rebellion. But we won't see that until book two or the end of book one. This is all about her getting. Navigating this labyrinth until she wins at the end, but in a surprising way where she doesn't win. She burnt. You know, she burns it all down. So. So once that snapped into place, where we don't even see President Marcus until after she causes trouble, I felt like the whole story got a little easier for me. So with that change, and then I rewrote the first scene of the Middle Build, and I sent that to you yesterday. Where she's coming in, she meet. I kept it. Where she's coming in, she meets as, and they. And he starts introducing her to the new world. But that's about the only thing that's the same. So I tried to make, you know, we also talked about how the new world should be, you know, a good place to start is looking at whatever the old world was and doing the opposite. And so I put the new world under a dome so everybody can actually be outside, and everybody's kind of rich and happy in this world. Like, even the numbered seem to be treated well in this new world. And so really trying to make it this veneer of gloriousness that we won't really see the underbelly for a little bit. So I think that's everything. So since you. The scene, you know, I've done my work on the genre. Would love to hear what you think of that.

Well, I've got a ton of thoughts about everything that's happened since last week. You know, one of the things that people always ask me is, what are you learning anything in, you know, doing this stuff with Tim? Or are you just the, you know, the big fountain of opinion who, you know, gets to tell him when he's doing things wrong and when he's doing things right? Well, you know, one of the things that is often misunderstood about being a mentor, a lot of people think about mentoring as a way of giving back or, you know, doing A good deed and the reality of being a mentor when you actually, and if that's your motivation to be a mentor, that's a good start. But what really happens when you're a mentor helping somebody learn something that you know pretty well is that you learn even more about the thing and yourself as you're doing it. So I know that sounds sort of like vague, but last week, you know, you sent me the, the ending of the, the beginning hook of your story and I thought it was progressing very well. And then you kind of hit me in the gut when you said I'm not really sure about what, what's going to happen with the villain in the middle build. And it's been really bothering me and I'm not really sure why. So I went back to your book and I looked through the stuff and blah, blah, blah. And at that point a realization came to me that has been a real liability for me as an editor. And this goes to what I always say about self examination. As you are working on story and the more capable and the more willing you are to look within yourself to figure out what attracts you to particular genres or particular plot points or whatever, the more you do that, the better you'll be able to help other people as an editor or the better you'll be as a writer. So when you're saying this seems like a rebellion plot and it seems like the villain is changing shapes and you know, we're trying, it seems like we're biting off a little bit too much than we can chew in this first book. And I really had to think about it and I had to say, well, yeah, that's true. Why, why did I suggest to Tim that he has a shape shifting villain that is, you know, her brother who appears to be a good guy and then shifts. And there's also this other villain and it's a multi level villain that is. And what, what it came to me is that I've made that suggestion to a lot of people a lot of times and it's not correct. It's not, it's not in the best service of the writer who is working through their work. And the reason why is because as you very wisely pointed out, I was combining labyrinth with rebellion. And if you don't make a clear choice of the sub, sub genre of your action story and you try and shift from labyrinth to rebellion midpoint, it's too much, it's too confusing. It's going to push the reader away from understanding the trajectory of the story. So for example, in Hunger Games, we don't get rebellion plot until the second or third book. The very introduction to this world has to be labyrinth. And the reason why it has to be labyrinth is because when you're going for an epic action story like a Harry Potter or a Hunger Games, you need to introduce to the reader the rules of the universe. And the way to do that is to use the labyrinth plot. Because if your protagonist is unsure of how things are working, she or he is a stand in for your reader. So if you try to grab and have too much plot at midpoint, you are going to confuse your reader to the point where they'll give up. They're just, they'll say to themselves, I'm not really sure what's going on. I kind of dig this idea of this, this young girl who has to go fight this thing called the threshing. But all of this ancillary stuff about the villain is just getting too overwhelming.

So your choice to go back to labyrinth, purely labyrinth without rebellion is in my estimation, the perfect way to do it. Because in the labyrinth plot, remember I always talk about in action, you've got to have three the hero, the villain, and the victim. Now in the labyrinth plot, the object of desire for the hero is to save the victim to get out of the maze edifice. So they want to enter the labyrinth, save a victim and get out. That is the pure, you know, trajectory of the labyrinth action story.

So when I was suggesting to you that you add this sort of rebellion plot where there's also a visible tyrant, there's one that we all know from the, from the get go, that is a tyrant and that, you know, they are in this war of power, a power struggle war where the hero represents the underclass and the villain represents the tyrant in power. And they are clashing throughout the story. The tyrant wants to push down the rebellion, etc. If you have both that and the labyrinth, it's too much just, just to pay off. My whole thing about why I personally was recommending people do labyrinth plus rebellion, you know, is, is that in my, in my personal life, a lot of the struggles that I've had professionally and personally have been in a situation where it's sort of like shape. The shapeshifter character in my hero's journey is one who presents themselves as my ally and then slowly reveals themselves as, for lack of a better word, the villain.

So for me personally looking at my own self examination, and I'm attracted to stories that clarify the nature of villainy and the nature of villainy from my perception, is people who present themselves one way and are actually another. So villains as shapeshifters are something that I really, really.

Locked into. So oftentimes when I'm giving editorial advice, I'll suggest to a writer, hey, why don't you do a shapeshifter villain? It's because I want, you know, more clarification about how to identify those, those people myself.

So I can. I'll just leave it at that. And I think, you know, that's something that since we've been dealing since last week, I've been thinking about personally. Now, what does this mean in terms of story grid stuff? Okay, what it means is that when you're the writer and you have a relationship with the editor, the important thing to remember is to not take everything that the editor and every suggestion that the editor makes at face value. Do not fully invest all of your emotional and intellectual, you know, belief in the editor. Now, is the editor usually right? Yeah, probably 80 to 85% of the time, the things that they're pointing out are really, really crucial and really important. But there's that 10 to 15% level of the editor's sort of personal history that is clouding oftentimes their ability to give you the perfect advice. So the thing to do in that case is to go back to the material. The material doesn't have any personal stuff attached to it. So the story grid book was a place where I wrote down the general information without having any personal investment. So I was able to clearly define the labyrinth plot and the rebellion plot. This is, of course, when I say I, it means of all the Robert McKee stuff I've read, the Aristotle, all that stuff. I'm not saying that I invented this stuff. What I am saying is that I was able to go source the material and put it in the book. So you didn't take Sean's advice at face value and say, oh, well, Sean says I need a shape shifting villain so that what I'm going to do, and I'm just going to press forward and do whatever Sean says, because what Shawn says is always right. Instead you said, it's just not something is weird. Why don't I go back to the book and let me look at the plots for action in the book and then look at it from the really strict genre point of view, which is what Sean recommends. And so really pleased that you had the, the thinking and the ability to do that work instead of placing all of your faith in me. So did you kind of get what I'M saying here, this is the important thing that the collaborative process between the writer and the editor. The editor has. They're not without personal history. So editors have things, too. And now. Now that I recognize that that's my thing, I can say to myself, oh, my gosh, you don't need anything more than a labyrinth plot. And Tim was right. The labyrinth plot in Hunger Games and Die Hard works really, really well. We don't need multiple levels of incredible personal conflict in the first introductory book of an epic story. What we need is a very clear delineation of the universe that the character is living in. And it's basically a big setup for the second, third book down the road. And even if you never write the second and third book down the road, there is nothing better than a great labyrinth action story. So let's take it back to fundamentals for your story. You're absolutely.

Hang on one second. So I want to comment on some of that, because think. You know, looking at my thinking over the last week, it wasn't so much that I was. I didn't feel like I was questioning you. What I have found is so many times you tell me things, and I'm still just kind of have, like, a big question mark in my head, like, I don't totally understand what's going on yet. And so I looked at it as, like, I. Okay, I still don't understand, like, you know, because if we switched it to Rebellion, that had all these other kind of ramifications.

Yeah.

And so I just was kind of going on this quest for understanding of what was going on. And what drove me back to the genres is, like, you know, you've said countless times, you always start with the genre, and you can only pick one. And so then when I read through them again is when I realized I actually had two. And I couldn't have two. I could have one. And so I had to pick between those two. And what was interesting to me is what the villain wanted and what they knew helped me decide what I was writing because, yeah, that just helped me drive which one of those things I was picking. And so. And then it was. It was. It was one of the first times I felt like, because you're always like, okay, pick your genre, and in action, the villain drives it. I mean, I don't know how many times you told me that. And then go back to masterworks and think through those. And it was the first time I actually sat down and was like, okay, here's three labyrinth plots. What do they all have in Common, you know, and then, okay, here's rebellion plots. What do those have in common? You know, and then I was able to then look back at my story and say, okay, if this is a labyrinth plot, here's what has to change in order to actually be a labyrinth. And so I felt like, I mean, I think you saying the editor is not always right for most people is like, well, nobody's ever always right. And the whole point of this is to get me to a point where I know how to make my own decisions.

Right.

And so I feel like approaching it in that way. I'm always looking for understanding. You know, there's been other times where like I push back and you're like, oh yeah, you're right. Just because what gets me to push back is me thinking like, I want to understand what is going on and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because if I rip my story apart and try, say you are 100% on the nose with having a shape shifting villain with a rebellion plot. If I didn't understand that, I would still screw up the story, you know, as I tried to write it, because I wouldn't really understand what I was writing. So, you know, again, I feel like it was more about me just taking. Yeah. What I've learned and trying to wrap my head around what was going on. Because if I don't understand what's going on, it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, I'm still not going to be able to write the book.

Well, yes, it absolutely makes sense, but I think you're not giving yourself credit for not succumbing to the cult of personality. And what I mean by that is you listen to the message and the messenger, while helpful, is just trying to convey the message. And because I wrote this book and it took me three years to write the story grid, because I had to basically organize all of the thoughts and all the principles and all the practical, prescriptive stuff that I had been recommending to writers into a cohesive unit, that process brought the message into clarity. When the writer struggles, there's often a way of seeding their responsibility to their editor. And what I mean by that is that they say to themselves, know what? I don't want to deal with this. It's my head hurts, I can't figure it out. I'm just going to ask my editor what to do. They'll tell me what to do and then I'll do that thing. And then if my dreams don't come true, I can blame my editor.

And I think subconsciously, a lot of us do that when we have a mentor. So there comes a point where you as the writer or you as the mentee has to go to the material that the mentor has exposed you to directly. You have to make sense of it yourself.

Because if you just ask for the answers from the editor.

Due to no fault of their own, they're trying to help, they may lead you down the wrong path. Now, for me, giving you the advice that I had given you now seems completely ridiculous. And I'm embarrassed by the advice.

Because the simple reality of a labyrinth. And I'll tell you why I said go. You know, I remember the email you sent me. It was very long. And.

I read it and I, I had one of those moments of, you know, eureka moments. And I just knew it immediately. Oh my gosh, I'm such an idiot. I've been, you know, pushing this guy through so many different, you know, doors that he's so confused. And the answer is labyrinth, without a doubt. And I think I just emailed back, do labyrinth.

It was like two lines. That's what I was like, oh, okay. Well, I still don't know what labyrinth is. So that's when I went back and was like, okay, what's labyrinth? You know?

Well, let me tell you why labyrinth makes sense again. You're exposing people to a brand new fantastical world. That's enough. There's something really great about being introduced to a new world that you really just love to get the details in the new world. So to slap on so much shape shifting plot and all kinds of stuff is not just unnecessary, it's counterproductive. And in the labyrinth plot, it's a very simple structure. You essentially have a hero who is called on an adventure. They denied the call until they can't help themselves and they have to go on the adventure because there is, there are victims involved, right? The reason why Jesse eventually goes onto the fantastical journey and takes on the calling is because she has victimized people. The number she needs to save those victims because it's her fault. So the way she saves those victims is to say, yeah, okay, I'll do it. Don't, you know, leave the numbered alone in my hometown. So now she's into the fantastical world, and now she's just another, you know, lucky recruit for the coding school. She's a little bit late. She's behind. That's it. And it's through her.

Her trajectory through that coding school that the evil identifies her as either A threat or an opportunity.

So you're right, you can't have the central tyrannical force, the president of the faction, you know, come to recruit her because he doesn't, he doesn't really need to know anything about her. She's just one of a group of people who gets thrown into this, you know, this sorting system to get the best players for this threshing. So that makes sense. The labyrinth is. She doesn't know what she's in for, so she has to figure out how this world works while she's going through this middle build, which is enough, you know, that's enough plot to really suck in the reader because we want to know what this world is all about. So just to get to the chapter that you wrote, that's the transitional chapter from the beginning, hook into your middle build. This new chapter that you wrote was a great choice. And what you did was what Thomas Harris did in the Silence of Lamps. You put her on a plane. Now that seems like, you know, just like a simple kind of choice. Oh, she's going to take a plane to the new mystical world. Well, that plane is great because it symbolically not only tells the reader, this is a brand new place, she is going very far away from home, but it's also thematically, you know, it's disorienting to go so far high above the world and then land in a new world. And I also love the idea that she'd never been on a plane before. This is a post apocalyptic world where planes and air travel is just extraordinary.

And you put, you know, as on that plane too, so that he can be her threshold guardian who introduces her into this fantastical new world. And also you set up the power structure, he can explain to her what's going on because she's really curious. She has no idea what she's getting into. So all the exposition that's in this chapter works because the exposition is ammunition for as he is in a power position, he is telling her about everything that he knows that she doesn't know. So it's. The scene really works because it also tells the reader, oh boy, wait till you see what's coming up next. And it slowly transitions into the middle build and all the trials. So it's a very familiar way of getting the reader to understand this is a labyrinth. She's going into a place that she has no idea how it works and we don't know either. So we're going to learn as she goes. So we have as much information as the protagonist has which is a way of doing a narrative drive. In what manner do you know?

Hold on, I have my notes.

The reader knows the same as the characters is suspense.

That's right, the suspense. You're driving this story primarily through suspense. Now, at the very beginning of the story, it's mystery because.

You know, Jesse has information that the reader doesn't have meaning. She knows about mining. She knows about the numbered. She knows about all that stuff. So the mystery is what really pushes us through the beginning hook for us. And the trick is to not give the reader too much information about that world. Just let's follow this. This girl who knows everything about this world at the start, and then now she is going into an alien universe. So she is learning as she's experiencing, as is the reader. So you're transitioning from a mystery to start a mysterious narrative drive into a suspenseful narrative drive. And the way you did that transition is through this, you know, this scene of them in the airplane. Now, the other great thing about the labyrinth plot is, yes, you're right. The true villain could not care less about Jesse at the beginning of this book. He doesn't care until she reveals herself as someone he can either he has to destroy or exploit. So it's like, go ahead.

Well, and it's.

At first he's.

He's probably. I assume he's going to be testing her out to figure out which does. Do I need to destroy her or exploit her?

Right. Or flush her out? Is she just. Is she really not that good? I got to get rid of her. He's literally threshing out the smartest young minds, his faction's generation. Right? That's the whole purpose of the threshing, is to co opt the brightest minds in each faction to do the faction's dirty work. So it's an honor to become a coder for the threshing. Setting that up as the ultimate honor is a way of keeping people complacent. It's a. It's the tool of the powerful, is to say, if you are really good, we'll let you up in our, you know, hierarchy. It's. It's a tool that, you know, is. Is the essential tool of humanity to keep people, you know, under control and complacent. So the tyrant villain doesn't really care about the raw material that comes into the threshing. He's going to suss out who is the best, and then he will exploit them for his own ends. And Jesse turns out to be someone he hadn't really bargained for. He's got Jesse's brother in a coma. Essentially.

He'S just living inside of this grid system. His brain is essentially. He's not brain dead, but his body is incapable of movement. So we're. You're setting up very early on at the beginning, Hook, that there is a victim that Jesse has to go save. And a lot of people say, well, it's so obvious he's not dead. And, yeah, that's fine. You've set up for the reader in a victim. And it's not that it's a cliche that there's a victim. What really drives the labyrinth story is how is she going to save the victim? We need to know there is a victim in the beginning, Hook, and she needs to save that victim by the end of the novel, or the labyrinth does not work. The labyrinth plot is all about a hero saving a victim and getting out of the maze. That's it. So to add in the stuff that I suggested about, you know, the rebellion and, you know, all that stuff is superfluous. You don't need it. And in fact, you can use that in the next book because at the end of this book, she's returning home and all bets are off. Right. She kind of blew up the grid, which is even more frightening than losing the threshing.

So it's an inevitable payoff that is surprising. So I think you've got all the materials here to do a really terrific labyrinth plot. And what I also like is that this new scene that you created with the dome and the grass and the beauty and the sunshine and the number taking care of the little children, it's all. It's uniquely familiar. And that's important. Meaning it's unique in that we're not expecting it, but it's familiar. It's a familiar world that we all deep down long for. Natural world where there's grass and sunshine and, you know, people are happy and, you know, sitting on park benches and drinking sodas or whatever. It's. It's good because what you are describing is the natural world that now has to be artificially generated, which is a really interesting twist on this fantastical universe. It's sort of a Garden of Eden that has to be created through artificial means.

Right. And I think if I'm setting up, you know, a tyrannical leader, then it has to be that this small group of people is living on the backs of everybody else.

Yes.

For it to work. So, yeah, I mean, I feel much better about where I'm going. I feel like I, because, you know, I've been talking to this guy that's struggling with what to do in his business.

And I get him so. And whenever I talk to people like this, I get them to stop worrying about, you know, he called me because he doesn't know what to do for the next, like, what decisions he should make in the next six months. And I'm like, and you know, whenever I talk to people like this, I get them to stop thinking about that and think about, you know, what they want, you know, 30 years from now. Like, if they're running a business 30 years from now, what does their life look like? How many employees do they have, you know, where is their money coming from? You know, what kind of work are they doing on a daily basis? And then, you know, as I walked this guy through that and he told me what he was thinking, he spent the weekend working on it, then I'm like, okay, well the next six. That decision you were trying to make about the next six months, it's already made because you have this long term decision.

And that's what I felt like was missing when I didn't totally understand what genre I was writing in is. I didn't know what to fix in the first few scenes in the middle build because I didn't know where I was going. You know, we're now, okay, I'm writing a labyrinth. I know what that looks like, I know what that feels like. So now I can write the next few scenes because I'll just, I can point them at labyrinth instead of kind of down the middle of two different genres.

Yes.

So, yeah.

Well, I think, I think.

Just to reiterate the importance, I mean, I, I say this all the time, but your genre choice is really the critical moment for you as a writer. And sometimes, like it's happened with your work, the genre choice seems obvious at the beginning and then it evolves into more and more specificity as you're doing the work. So one of the things that you have to keep in mind as a writer is that it is absolutely okay to make a mistake. It's okay to think you're writing a thriller and end up writing a maturation plot as long as you're constantly examining the trajectory of your storytelling and asking yourself this question, what is the best, best, you know, sub genre or genre that is going to help me tell the best story. So coming down to labyrinth plot, action story, when we were talking about maturation plots and thrillers and all that stuff, is a really great evolution of this examination that you're doing personally what kind of story you want to tell.

And so I go ahead. I have a question on that, because when I was working through all this, you know, the last week I went back to my full scap that I filled out after writing the first draft and moving into the second. And I'm like, how? My question was, how did I miss this? Like, what? Why didn't I see this problem already? So I looked at my full scap and again, you know, it's online. In the spreadsheet I've been building. I had the external genre as thriller. And so I started thinking, I'm like, okay, what is, what's the difference between a thriller and an action? And I feel like, you know, what you've always said is the thriller pushes it beyond, you know, life to death. It's life to death, to fate, worse than death. But I'm like, well, the thriller, the.

Thriller makes the hero the victim. He makes it personal. And that is where, you know, in my defense now, when you made the choice to do a thriller, I was giving you advice on how to write a thriller. And the way you write a thriller is to always keep in the back of your mind that the hero has to become the victim. The, the villain has to make the hero the victim. So that is what kind of screwed us up in my shape shifting villain recommendation.

Okay, so what I was wondering is, is the thriller. If you want to write a thriller, do you still need to pick an action genre that you're sticking to? And then a thriller is almost like extending that action genre further.

Like, is it. Because I feel like the same this. So am I no longer writing a thriller because I've chosen a labyrinth? But then I think about like, what doesn't the victim, doesn't the protagonist usually become the victim because, you know, we have the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. Or am I still missing something the diff.

Yes, you're right. The hero at the mercy of the villain scene does place the hero in the victim role. The difference though is that in a thriller, it's personal. Meaning the villain has a personal grudge against the victim and they want the villain has a personal problem. Problem with the hero. And the villain's object of desire is to damn the hero to make the hero's fate to give them a fate worse than death. In the movie seven, the psychopath played by Kevin Spacey wants to damn Brad Pitt.

So all of his object of desire is getting Brad Pitt to confront a fate worse than death. And he and the villain wins in seven. So in the Silence of the Lambs, the villain, there's multiple villains, there's a three faced villain there. Generally the villain wants to co opt Clarice Starling in order to escape. That's Hannibal Lecter uses Clarice Starling in order to get his escape. And he damns her in a way by being within her psychological brain. He gets inside of her head and he makes her realize that evil, a force far stronger than good and that I don't want to get into the Silence of the Lambs. I talked for nine hours about it. But the reason why your book is not a thriller is because you're using a labyrinth plot. The labyrinth plot means, is defined by the fact that the villain does not care.

The hero until midpoint. He doesn't even, or she doesn't he or she doesn't even know about the hero until midpoint. So yes, they want to beat them in the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. But do they want the, the hero to be damned to a fate worse than death? No, that's not their object of the desire. Their objective desire like Hans Gruber and Die Hard is to get the money. You know, he doesn't care about anything but he wants the money. He wants the, you know, that's it. And that is a perfectly fine object of desire in the labyrinth plot. So you cannot really pull off a labyrinth thriller unless you're really, really incredibly gifted.

And I don't even know even if you are incredibly gifted that the majority of readers would be able to understand it. John Lecaire in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy wrote one of the most dynamic, incredible sources of spy thriller that you can imagine. It's a very complicated plot. It's extremely rewarding when you get through all of it. But it takes a certain discipline and Die Hard die hardcore interest in, in the genre for, for you to really get it. So while that was a bestseller, it's not Dan Brown, you know, it's not Da Vinci Code. So the choices that you make as a writer are, you know, literary skills often don't pay off commercially. And I'm not trying to get anybody to stop really stretching themselves. But the other reason why I think the labyrinth plot is really important for you personally, Tim, as a writer. And you identifying it now is, is that it thematically is the same as your track as a writer, right? You want to become a writer. It's a labyrinth to figure out how to become a writer, right? You go through this story grid labyrinth and you've got the guy who programmed the story grid to give you advice, but it's still a labyrinth.

I just hope my mentor doesn't have to die before I go on. Me too.

Me too.

But.

So part of the writing process is discovering the story that you, the writer, are engaging in subconsciously and how that mirrors the story that you're telling. Because when they align, they really. They really work, if that makes any sense. Subconsciously, you're trying to figure out how to write a working novel, something that you've always wanted to do. And you've been in a maze and a labyrinth and all kinds. You've tried any million different things over the past 20 years of your life. You always wanted to write fiction. And so your first novel, if that is about a labyrinth, I think thematically that is going to work to your advantage because you're familiar with what it's like to go through a labyrinth to figure this stuff out. So that's why it kind of took you a while to come to this ultimate choice. Oh, my gosh. I'm writing an action story, which is man against nature, and it's a labyrinth. Oh, my gosh. If I had only known that two years ago, maybe I wouldn't have been. But the truth is, you had to discover this through that process. And not only have you learned more about the labyrinth plot, but now you know a lot about thrillers, you know a lot about maturation plots. The maturation plot is baked into the story, and we spent a lot of time on it because the maturation plot is essentially the hero's journey. And we need. Especially in a young adult book, we need the protagonist to go through a maturation plot. So now you've got an external action epic, man against. I'm sorry, an action adventure story, man against nature. Labyrinth plot. That's your external genre, and your internal genre is still maturation.

And globally, what would you say is driving your novel? If you had to pick between those two genres? Which one would you say is the global driver?

Well, the action labyrinth.

Yes. Good.

Yeah. Because the driver is what's actually causing the story to move forward. Right.

And I would also say it's also a commercial consideration. What promise? Yeah, what promise are you making to the reader? Are you making. You're not making a promise of To Kill a Mockingbird in this story. You're making a promise of an action story in a labyrinth. You're making a Hunger Games promise.

Right. And I feel like, yeah, the people aren't buying. Won't buy the book to Read a maturation plot, therefore, it's the secondary plot device and it's the internal. And most. I mean, is. Is there an action story that's driven by the internal genre? I mean, isn't action by definition being driven by the external?

No, there. There are novels and stories where the internal. There's. There's a movie. Well, the answer to that question is yes, it can be done where the external takes a backseat to the internal. But those stories are not very commercially successful, no matter how well they're delivered. And the reason being is that in order to get people to be attracted to the story, the writer uses a sexy external genre to hook them, but then does not deliver all the obligatory scenes and conventions of that external genre because they've chosen to drive the payoff with an internal, you know, morality play, morality genre or something of that sort. So this is really inside baseball. But to answer your question, if you have people using guns and shooting each other and there's chase scenes, don't try and make your internal be the. The big, big single choice of your genre, because you're gonna. You're gonna confuse the reader. Robert Altman did a bunch of movies where, you know, you think one thing's gonna happen. Also Fellini, you know, there's any number of sort of absurdist filmmakers, or not absurdists, but postmodern or Jean Luc Godard does stuff like this. And it's, you know, it's. I guess it's fun to talk about over a cup of coffee with your friend after you go see the movie, but it's not.

It's too intellectually challenging to the point where the intellectual energy you have to exert robs you of any pleasure from actually seeing the film.

All right. Okay. So I'm gonna keep writing. So I'm excited about writing this in a way that I wasn't a week ago. So that's good. And then I've started. I'm not gonna go back and fix the beginning hook with the president in there. I just started, actually, at the bottom of my to do list, brainstorm. I create. I started a new draft. New list. Yeah, just notes. Daring Draft 2. So I put in there. Okay, I gotta go back and fix the president being there, and I'll just fix that later. And I'm just gonna keep riding forward, so.

Good, good. Okay.

All right, well, I'll keep going, and we'll talk again next week.

Okay.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything Story Grid related, check out storygrid.com make sure you pick up a copy of the book and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss anything happening in the Story Grid universe. Also, a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to do something special for our hundredth episode, which is coming up in just a couple weeks. And I wanted to hear from you. I wanted to hear what the Story Grid, the podcast the book has meant to you, how it's helped your writing help, how Sean's teaching has helped you as a writer as well. And I want you to record that and send us an audio, because I'm gonna. I think I'm gonna put them all together as the hundredth episode. So if you'd like to be a part of that. Of course, I can't guarantee that I'm going to use them all. We've already gotten a bunch of them, but we're going to listen to all of them. And it's been really meaningful to hear from you what Story Grid has meant to you over the last couple years and would just love to hear more of that. So if you'd like to submit that, you can go to storygrid.com tell t e l l so again, that's storygrid.com tell and you can upload your audio there. As always, if you would like to download the scene from this week or any of the links that we talk about, those are in the show notes@storygrid.com podcast if you would like to reach out to us, you can do that on Twitter storygrid. Lastly, if you would like to support the show, you can do that by telling another author about the show and by visiting us on itunes and leaving a rating and review. Thanks for subscribing and being a part of our work here at StoryGrid. We will see you next week.