How to plot and outline your story

Hello, and welcome to the Story Grid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. My name is Tim Grohl. I'm the host, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to write my first novel and make sure it's a story that actually works. Joining me in a minute is Sean Coyne, the creator of Storygrid, author of the book Storygrid, and he is the sage that is helping me figure all of this stuff out. In this episode, we dive into many of the problems that you may be having trying to flesh out your very first novel. I'm doing it myself, running into all kinds of roadblocks, trying to figure out everything from character names to how many scenes I need to have in a sequence. And we talk through all of this stuff, plus a lot more in this episode. So it will definitely help you start planning out your story and making sure it works before you spend time writing 100,000 words on a story that doesn't work. So we're gonna jump in and get started. So, Sean, I have a lot of things to grow you on this week, because I've actually been working almost, I think, every day the past week I've worked on my book, and I've hit so many roadblocks that. Well, first of all, I just want to point out, like, this is hard.

Maybe this is why I'm an entrepreneur. Anyways, I always assume I'm like, oh, yeah, I got this. And then you get into it, and you're like, oh, this is gonna take me 10 years. But it's such a weird thing to really sit down and go after this for real. So I finished. So the Harry Potter story grid is up, and it's been neat because every time I've logged in, because I've used it in my daily writing and planning, every time I log in, somebody is in there looking at it. Like, I can see, like, how many anonymous people. So it's been ne have, like, the listeners in there watching it, looking at it while I'm looking at it, and I've actually been working on it while they've been looking at it too, which has been interesting.

Yeah.

So I want to talk a little bit about that and then go into me transitioning that into building my own story. So the first thing is, you know, it's like, I know you know what you're talking about. Right. But to actually see it play out in the real world is like, oh, Shawn does know what he's talking about. Because when I looked at the story. So I was looking at it.

My breakdown of Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has a little over 77,000 words. And my scene count was 54, which was like, that's like almost right on the number that you say it should have. And then when I was like, okay, well, where does the beginning hook start in? Well, I know where it starts, but where does it end? The middle build and then the. The. I'm already laughing. Any payoff? It was exactly 25%, 50%, 25%. Like within percent. A couple percentage points.

Sure.

And I'm just like, oh, this is how it works. You know, and seeing it mapped out like that was just so much different than like reading it in the book and you just saying, oh, this is how it works. I don't know. I don't know why that surprised me, but I was like, that was. The thing that popped in my head was like, oh, Shawn does know what he's talking about.

Well, it's not that I know what I'm talking about. It's what a lot of other people have been saying for years and hundreds of years and that I sort of discovered and have re related to the world. It's not what I'm saying. It's just based upon a lot of deep thinking by a lot of really brilliant people. And it is. I find myself in exactly the same position that you are, Tim, in that when I sit down, I always think I'm going to prove myself wrong. And I was looking at To Kill a Mockingbird a few months ago, and I was like, I don't know about this one, but it does work that way. And there are external and internal genres To Kill a Mockingbird, as there are in Harry Potter. But that 25, 50, 25 is a really, really important thing to remember because if you get stuck, you can just say to yourself, hey, you know what? It worked for Harry Potter. It worked for Silence of the Lambs. It worked for To Kill a Mockingbird. It worked for all the great big blockbuster movies I've ever loved and believed in. So why don't I just. Maybe I don't fully believe it, but let me just try it and see. And I think we've talked before about how Stephen King works and other writers who don't talk about all the nuts and bolts that I do, but you see that their story structure is in the same percentage, and that's through tens of thousands of hours of hard work on their part. So J.K. rowling and Stephen King, they've learned that craft through hard work and diligence. And it's now become so a used muscle in their. In their writing repertoire that they do it without thinking about it anymore. It's like a jazz musician who knows how. How to hit the high C without thinking about it anymore.

Yeah. And like intuitively knows when to turn the song, you know? Yeah. It's just.

Yeah. You can just imagine Stephen King saying, okay, now's the time to really put the hammer down.

Yeah.

You know, now's the time for my all is lost moment. And they just do that because they have the feel of the story like somebody who has, you know, like a great golfer has a feel for the game. They know just the right kind of spin to put on the ball so that it pulls up and goes three feet from the cup. And it's exactly the same thing with writing. And that's the great mystical element of things that come to you after you do all that blue collar work that you are doing now. Timing. Because these are the moments when you need to be grinding the analysis in your head while you're at your desk writing. So you're right, it is hard work. It's going to take a while. And it's going to take a while for you to feel the force when you're doing the work. And for some people, it takes longer than others. But to know that there is a process that you can use that uses one side of your brain while the other side of the brain is catching up, that's a great thing to know. And you know it and you're working it.

Yeah. So that's been enlightening seeing how, you know, somebody that had never heard of you or the story grid, wrote a book that was wildly popular and it's like, matches what you wrote in the story grid was just. Because I also did. I also found somebody broke down like the average word count by chapter. When I did the math against that, it was within a thousand words of like, what, you know, I'm like, what is going. It's like, she's like, kind of wish.

I had done that work. It just.

It just like I was. When I did that. And like, I did the math, I actually did it twice because I'm like, no. And so anyway, so. So that was cool. So then what I wanted to do, you know, this whole idea was I was. I was going to take the framework of Harry Potter to help me flesh out my story. Because every time I tried to take my idea for my story and build it into a novel, it just Fell apart at the seams. It was like trying to catch sand in my hand. And so what I've started doing is I'm actually using Scrivener for this. And it's a really great tool because you can lay out things. It looks like little note cards that you're laying out. And so it's like you're creating note cards for each scene, and then you kind of give a. You can write in a synopsis for each one. And then I create labels that are color coded for like, a light green is minus to plus, a dark green is plus to plus plus. And then a light red is plus to minus, and a minus to double minus is a dark red. And so now. And I label each of those note cards by which one it is so I can actually look and see the polarity of each scene.

Smart.

And then in the comments for each scene, I'm putting the value shift. So I'm working on that. And I've run into. So the first thing is that it feels like you gave me a box of puzzle pieces that don't fit together. And I keep having to kind of cut and reshape and remold to get them to fit together. So, like, I've had one character in particular that is flip flop between a bad guy or a good guy like three times because I don't know where to put them.

Mm.

And this is where looking at Harry Potter has been helpful because I'm like, okay, I need somebody that's fulfilling this role, you know? And so it's like, well, how can I do that? And how can I turn it? How can I make sure it's not like Harry Potter, but I fulfill that same story necessity. So, I mean, I'm not to the end yet, but I. I feel like what I thought would happen, which was like, you know, just mapping out something like Harry Potter would give me the structure to get my story put together is definitely helping in the early stages here because of that. The other thing is, I feel like I'm just blabbing, but hopefully.

Go ahead.

Well, just to back up a second about the puzzle pieces that seem to be a little. That you have to shave and meld. What are the things about creating a novel that I don't go that deeply into, if at all, in the story grid is the notion of the cast of characters and what the point is of specific kinds of characters in your novel. And I think I do write some about this in story grid bonus material on storygrid.com, which is all for free. But here's the thing. I think there's something called casting the thriller, which is about this very thing. And what you're doing is you're casting sort of the epic story, the epic hero's journey through the prism of Harry Potter. Now, the great thing, one of the great things about Harry Potter is that the characters that are all supporting and all around Harry, they all play practical roles in the hero's journey. For example, you have the mentor figure. You have a whole series of mentor figures in Harry Potter. Now, who. Who is the character? He's sort of like the one who says, you're a wizard, Harry. You know, he's playing.

So what's his name again? Hagrid. Hagrid, right. What's interesting is I noticed this too. I wanted to mention this. I should have made notes because, like, I have all these things I want to talk about. Because what's interesting is in book one, Hagrid is the mentor. But in the arc of all seven books, it's Dumbledore that's the mentor. But in book one, Dumbledore is very much a kind of background character. He only shows up a couple times to, like, specifically deal with Harry while the rest, the rest of the journey is guided by Hagrid.

That's fine. And the reason why that's fine is that you have levels of mentorship and whenever you get stuck, just think of your own life. You know, we all have series of mentors. I can think of the saxophone teacher I had in third grade. I can think of the football coach I had in fifth grade. And I can think of the professor in the organic chemistry lab when I was in college. And all of those people sort of picked up the baton of mentorship as I got older in my own journey to where I am today. And if you think of your protagonist and your lead character in a similar way, especially if you're. If you're mapping out something grand like a Lord of the Rings sort of world or Harry Potter, just think of mentor as sort of a spirit, you know, a kind of thing that can. That. And mentors can also be bad guys too. They can be antagonists who teach the lead character about certain things. And the only way for the lead character to progress in the. Into the magical world they might. Might have to overcome the mentor figure who could be somebody who's trying to undermine them for their own evil deeds or whatever. There's a great movie from the 70s called the Eiger Sanction and it was based upon a novel written by A guy named Trevanian. That was his pen name. And it's the story of this mountain climber. And Clint Eastwood plays the mountain climber in the film. And it's, you know, it's one of those great 70s thrillers where, you know, this hired assassin, this assassin comes out of retirement to do one last job, you know. And so Clint Eastwood plays the assassin, and he's sort of out of shape. You know, he's in his 50s now, and he has to go climb the Eiger Mountain, which is in Switzerland. And so he has to go find his old, you know, climbing partner who's going to get him back in shape. And the climbing partner's played by this great character actor named George Kennedy, who just recently died. But George Kennedy is like this big, strapping guy who's 6 foot 5. He takes no crap from anyone. And you just fall in love with this character the minute he comes on screen. And then, of course, he teaches Clint how to get back. And he finally goes up the mountain, and they're ready to take this one final shot at this bad guy. And of course, George Kennedy turns on Clint and is about to kill him and drop him off the mountain after he's led him up there. And he turns his characterization from the mentor figure to the hidden antagonist. So these are things to think about, too. And this is what I talk about when I talk about innovating story, traditional story structure stuff and often called cliches, right?

So that's what J.K. rowling did. A lot of times you think, like, forgive me, all of you out there who are Harry Potter aficionados. I do not have the depth of knowledge in Harry Potter that I really should. But as I recall, there's the character Snape, who seems to be this evil figure who ends up being a righteous, good, solid citizen by the end of the series. And so that's a great way, you know. And he's played by Alan Rickman in the movie. And Alan Rickman, another guy who recently died. Yeah, just a great character actor. So that's the other thing to think about when you're. When you're writing novels is to think about all those great character actors that, you know, you see on. In your favorite movies or on television, like Mark Rylance, who just won the Academy Award for Best Supporting actor in Bridge of Spies. Fantastic character actor. And it's in the characterizations that character actors bring on film and on television that you can really be inspired by, because they. They bring these little tweaks and quirks and Weirdness that you just wouldn't think of first off, when you're creating your own character. So I think we're getting a little bit off track. But the point is that when you're looking at specific characters in a story, the supporting cast around your protagonist, all of those people need to play a very specific role, meaning they need to push your character further down the magical road on their hero's journey. They either have to try and push them away from the journey or push them towards it. So when you're creating characters, remember they have to have a purpose. You just can't have somebody come on for fun. They need to be doing something to your character to push them to some choice that will move them further down, you know, the yellow brick road.

Yeah, that's. You know, what I struggled with was not knowing what roles needed to be filled.

Right.

And that's where having another story to kind of point those out to me has helped me take these kind of nebulous. I kind of want this to happen. I kind of want this to happen and solidify those down into certain people inside of the book that will each have their own role. And I'm now getting much more clear on, like, this is why this person's in the book. This is why this person's in the book. This is where they're going to take them. So I also want to mention I've started so two tools in particular that you've mentioned on earlier episodes that I got to use. So one is basically just starting with like taking what you've heard and just flipping it over and seeing what it would be like to have the opposite. So my story is set where I'm doing. I've had this idea for a superhero novel. We went over that one of the scenes a couple weeks ago. So one major change I made is my hero. I made my hero a woman instead of a man. So that was the first thing I did was switch that around just based on your feedback of, like, you need women in your story. And when I was trying to figure out who should be play the woman in my story and I thought about the hero, I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna do that. I think that fits. The other thing I did was where Hogwarts is the symbol of good, the school, and Harry's kind of working for Hogwarts in a way, like, I'm doing the opposite where Jesse, my hero, is basically inside of an evil organization trying to work against it. And so what that's meant is like, so many Things I kind of have to turn over because now the things that Harry does in Harry Potter won't work in my story because it would be. She would be helping, you know, the Evil Organization. And so it's just been really fun to just take like, okay, what. And I've asked myself that question, okay, here's what's happened. What would be the opposite? So I started there. The other thing is, you know, there has to be this kind of world ending device. You know, if this device gets into the wrong hands, you know, all is lost. So in Harry Potter, that's the Sorcerer's Stone. And so I'm like, okay, I got to come up with something else. Because mine is more like science fictiony. Well, the first. What? Go ahead.

Well, what, what you're describing is a very important element in thrillers and crime stories. And it's what they call the MacGuffin. And the MacGuffin was coined by Alfred Hitchcock back in the 40s or 50s. And I think he was on a TV show like Jack Parr, one of those early late night television shows. And he was being interviewed. And the interviewer said, so what's this? You know, you mentioned this word MacGuffin. What, what does it mean? And Hitchcock said, the MacGuffin is the thing that the bad guy wants so desperately that he'll do anything for it. And then the interviewer said, well, what's the. I'm not sure what that means. And he said, well, that's exactly what the MacGuffin is. It's the thing that makes complete and total sense to the antagonist that will get them whatever it is that they want. So when you're talking about the Sorcerer's Stone or you're talking about, you know, the nuclear codes in the thriller, where the. There's a famous story in Hollywood, there was a pitch done, I think it was back in the 90s, called the man with the Football. And nobody has ever, to my knowledge, nobody has solved this, this riddle. But the idea is this. The President of the United States, there's a man who always trails him. I don't know if this is true or not, but here's the setup. There's always a man who's within reach of the President of the United States, and what he has are the codes that will launch a nuclear strike, basically Armageddon. And the codes are in a briefcase that are chained to his arm. And that briefcase is called the football. And so somebody sold a pitch to one of the major Hollywood studios years ago just based on that. MacGuffin so there's. And it was called the man with the Football. And to my knowledge, nobody has been able to crack like an incredible thriller based upon that concept yet, because the MacGuffin is just. It rings cliche, even though it might be true. So when you're creating your MacGuffin, you can often become so obsessed with the MacGuffin itself that it becomes too large in the presence of the story. And you'll find yourself constantly trying to explain the MacGuffin. I want to make sure that my reader understands the MacGuffin and what can often. You know, I've read so many thrillers when I was, you know, acquiring books from major publishing houses that suffered from the explaining the MacGuffin problem. And oftentimes it's best to introduce the MacGuffin and forget about it. And that's what Hitchcock did all the time. Like some of his great thrillers like north by northwest, the MacGuffin is microfilm that's stuck in some replica. It's either the Eiffel Tower or, you know, the Statue of Liberty or something.

Man, it's been so long since I've seen that movie. I'm trying to remember, right?

It doesn't. The MacGuffin really doesn't matter because what, what's really engaging is watching Cary Grant be, you know, just thrown into this maelstrom of misunderstanding. And so, you know, the bad guy's played by James Mason and he does such a great job and all he wants is that microfilm inside the Statue of Liberty, you know, tchotchka. So Hitchcock was great because what he'd do is somebody would mention that's what they want and that would be the end of it. And then it becomes this chase of getting the MacGuffin. But the MacGuffin really doesn't matter. So don't. All of this very long winded, multi tiered story about MacGuffins is just to tell you, don't overwhelm yourself with coming up with like, the perfect MacGuffin. Think of something that makes sense and use it. Introduce it as quickly as you possibly can, get it in the story and then let it go. And if you need to fix it later on, if you read your first draft and you discover, oh, geez, my MacGuffin's kind of weak, you can tweak it in a way that can make it more believable. But remember, your reader wants to attach to characters and character actions when they're reading a story. They don't necessarily have to completely totally buy in to the MacGuffin. Here's another example. In Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's masterwork, the MacGuffin is that thing inside the back of the trunk when they open up the trunk. And it's the briefcase. Yeah, it's the briefcase.

Right.

We never know what's in that briefcase. It doesn't matter. And that was. What's so brilliant about Tarantino is that he understood what the MacGuffin was. It made.

All that matters is that everybody wants it.

Exactly.

So what I struggled with. I'm just going to tell you what I did because now I feel like, well, maybe I shouldn't have been doing this, because I was trying to think of what it should be. So what the MacGuffin should be, using your terms. And.

The first thing I thought of that popped in my head was weapons grade plutonium. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, that's like the worst.

It might not be the worst. You know, worse things have happened.

Okay, so cliche, right?

It is cliche, but it's a cliche for a reason. Sometimes it just works, you know, Sometimes I just.

I couldn't bring myself to do it.

That's fine.

So. So I started doing the thing where I made a list of 15 things.

Great.

And so I listed out a bunch. I, like, asked my buddy, who's a big time nerd, to, like, help me list out a bunch. He's, you know, just as much of a nerd about this stuff as I am. And listed out a bunch of things. We hit like nine. I think I've got what I'm gonna do. And I wasn't trying to. Let's see. I don't think I spent too much time on it, but it was like, oh, here I have my list right here. It was like weapons grade plutonium was like the first thing. Another was virus.

Yeah, that was on there.

Again. All these things that are just very, you know, I've seen a hundred times. And that's what you said would happen is like, you know, the first 10 things that come to your mind are all cliches. And you've got to just kind of move past all those in order to get to something that's actually useful. Right. So I actually have in my little notes, I have world ending device, question mark. I have electromagnetic device, selling a nuke to a warlord, some kind of serum that turns soldiers into super soldiers, interdimensional wormholes. And then the one I think I've landed on is something out of Inception. Did you see that movie?

Yes.

Where basically, you Know, the whole thing is, can they implant thoughts to change people without them knowing it?

Yes.

And so that's what I'm landing on right now because I have a backstory for that. But so it was interesting to be like, okay, I've got to stop and do this and just start listing out all kinds of things. So that was one thing. The other thing is how much time it's been to find good names for my characters. So here's what I've done and you tell me if this is just a waste of time. So I basically tried to think of what's a defining. What do I want people to know about this person? And then I go and I look up names that have that as like somewhere in the meaning of the name. And that's where I get, that's where I'm pulling my names from.

That's, that's valid. Names are, you know, some of, some of the great, you know, series characters in fiction have really cheesy names and it doesn't. Jack Reacher. That's a good name. It's not, it's not overly, you know, thought provoking. It's not, you know, a lot of people, you don't want to get too cute with it.

Well, so like, I went. So for my character that's kind of like this like the real nerdy, kind of uncomfortable in his own skin character, I went and like searched the hundred scientists that have changed the world. And like somewhere in the middle of the list I found this guy named Ernst. And his name is Ernst Mayer. Yeah. And you know, he's so he's, he was this evolutionary biologist that came in after, like cleaned up some of Darwin stuff, it seems like. And so I like named him Ernst, you know, and like basically his parents are both professors and super nerds. And so of course they named their son Ernst and because that's like one of their favorite scientists. But it had, it couldn't be Einstein. It had to be some kind of obscure, more obscure scientists that they were fans of. So it was like that kind of stuff.

Yeah, that's a good way of doing it. I mean, look at Harry Potter. Harry's named after Prince Harry, you know, Henry V.

Harry is just a great royal sort of name that of course it's Henry, but Harry was, is a great British name of. Has a lot of historical significance to it. I think Ernst is a good name for character who's. And you've got a nice, you already have a built in sort of backstory about that. So I think doing the Work that you're doing in terms of the names is going to be helpful, not just to get the name, but it's going to give you a little place to build a character from. Because just that explanation you made of being named after Ernst Mer is, you know, you can stick that in the book as a little off handed aside and it adds texture and interesting, you know, stuff to the, to the narrative.

Yeah, I have actually a moment in there where like basically they make fun of his name and he's like, what can I do? My parents were nerds, you know.

Right. Yeah.

So it's just.

It'S been, what's, what's been some 17 scenes in and I have had to stop and go back a hundred times and like fix already. Like I'm. When I was eight scenes in, I'm like, oh, well that doesn't work because of that. And I gotta go back and fix that. And that doesn't work because of that. And then it's like, well, I gotta introduce this character, but I don't have a name yet. So I gotta stop and like think through a name. And then like 30 minutes later I'm like, why am I still working on this? You know, and it's just been so yesterday I worked an hour and a half and this is like, I know how to like lock in, right. So I shut down email, I shut down any chat stuff. I like silence, my phone put on headphones and I am locked in for an hour and a half. I got one scene planned. You know.

That'S a good day's work.

Well, I sat down this morning. Oh, what was funny is yesterday afterwards I was driving and I kept having all this stuff pop into my head. So like at every stoplight I'm like pulling out my notebook and like scrawling out notes that are popping into my head because I'm still, I was still trying to like figure out my main character, what angle she should be coming into this as. And that's where like later in the book when I see one of the things I thought was brilliant about Harry Potter is how she dropped in clues that you would never pick up until the very end. And you're like, oh my gosh, she's been telling me this the whole book. Like I should have known this was the bad guy instead of Snape. And so I like, I keep, I hit this point. I'm like, wait, I didn't establish that yet. So I got to like go back through my scenes and like re establish something earlier on.

Yeah, that's a system of set that's called a setting up and paying off. And now I will say one thing. Don't be afraid to put a TK in your book.

To come. It's the copy editors, Mark, for it means to come. So like for instance, when you're. When you're designing a book and you haven't done the copyright page, you know, you write TK copyright page TK which means it's going to come later. So to write TK when you don't know a specific name and then let yourself. That's sort of like, that's. That's the ice cream work in writing. You know what I mean? In that. Well, there are certain things about writing that are easier than others, and one of them is to do obsessive research and to obsess over minute details that will get you out of the flow of creating your inciting incidents, progressive complications, crises, climaxes and resolutions. Because a lot of times it's far more fun to go look up the 15 most famous scientists of all time to come up with a name than it is to crack that crisis question. You know, so oftentimes, if you find yourself constantly being distracted by the minutia of the story and wanting to go back and fix things all the time, that's a signal that's called resistance. And what you were doing, there's got.

To be a level of like.

Of what?

I don't know, because I also, like, once I picked the name, I could keep moving forward. Like, I. That wasn't the end of my work and I didn't. I don't know. That's the work of the writing is like figuring out. I'm. I guess I'm trying to find, like there's a middle ground there of stopping to do something is fine, as long as it's not avoiding what you're actually supposed to be doing.

Well, yes, and these are the things that. That are very specific to the writer. Some people would find what I just described as resistance, and I'm sort of one of them. Because.

The real, real difficult work is in just getting a scene that works and then once it works, making it work better. And if you're concentrating on the minutia and the technicalities of writing, like names of characters and what kind of breakfast they had that morning.

And what, you know, flavor of smoothie is their favorite. Yeah, you're not really doing much. You're. You're just sort of fiddling in the wind. Whereas coming up with a situation where, where your lead character is in mortal danger. That is not a cliche. And they have to pull out some sort of superheroic feat of brain power to get themselves out of the situation that nobody has read before. Now that's a problem. That's a problem that you're going to have to fix. That is really difficult.

So, you know, when I say that's ice cream work, I'm not being derogatory about it. I think ice cream work is really fun and important. But what I suggest is sometimes what you should do is save the ice cream work for when you're dry.

So say you're really grinding it one day and you know you've got 300 tks of some character's name and you're grinding and you're not being able to really get into the flow. Use that ice cream time to work on that problem then so that you're not blowing your entire day by not getting anything done.

Yeah. As we were talking, have you heard of the pomodoro technique?

No. It's a, It's a tomato, right?

Yeah, yeah. It's a productivity thing where you basically. It's a way, it's. I use it when I need to churn through very well defined to do's. Right. So it's useless for writing because it'll just break your flow. But for things like I gotta answer these three emails, put these four things on my website, email my accountant that like certain to like very well defined. It's a really great productivity thing because it's basically like 20. I forgot. Exactly. There's like 20 minutes on, five minutes off. You basically get a set amount of time to work and then you get a break and then a set amount of time to work and you get a break. As you're saying that what I may start doing is like setting a timer on something, like when I. When I hit something like that and say, okay, I got 10 minutes to make a decision or move on. And it's like, you know, and that will force me because the truth is the name doesn't matter all that much. As long as it doesn't suck, it's fine. And so I can come up with something that doesn't suck in 10 minutes. I can also come up with something that doesn't suck in an hour and a half, you know, like so. So putting that in there, that's well put. That's well put.

Yeah.

So I wanted to run another thing by you here. So again, I'm using this as my structure. And my problem is, is that right now so what I've done with the Harry Potter, I added a summary sheet to that spreadsheet where I basically say, okay, scenes two through four accomplish X, and then scenes five through 12 accomplish this. And so it's basically, you know, how each scene you write a summary. Yeah, okay, that's right. Yeah. Okay, you've written about this, so. Yeah, so I'm basically.

Trying to find those sequences and then I'm mapping that. So I'm basically taking the scenes, locating the sequences and moving those to another sheet so I can keep track of that. What I found is I am currently 10 scenes behind where I should be according to the Harry Potter story grid. Right? So, like, I'm on scene 17, but what I just accomplished in scene 17 was accomplished in scene 27 in Harry Potter. So I'm basically 15,000 words behind where I should be. Is that something I should worry about now or is that something I should worry about later?

No, don't. Don't worry about that.

Okay? Because it's really bothering me.

Well, I love numbers and I love analytical approaches to things. But when. When you start grinding and worrying about word count, you know, within. Within limits, you know, the fact that you're 10 scenes behind it, it doesn't concern me that much. Because what you might find in draft two are little places where you can do mini scenes that will better establish and further refine shifts in polarity from one place to another. So you might find, you know, like J.K. rowling did a great job of establishing the ordinary world before she took you to Hogwarts. And you might find that you can do something like that later on with a little mini scene that you can fill in. It's been my experience that if you are really, really disciplined about accomplishing specific goals in the least amount of words, it's far better to do that than to waste five scenes to get from boy meets girl. The boy really likes girl. Because a lot of people drag out a sequence beyond anybody's reasonable interest. So those are the times when you get a lot of shoe leather. And shoe leather are those scenes where somebody writes about how somebody walked across the floor to turn the knob of the door to open it to reveal the long lost brother of Kate Meckersham or whatever. And what all of that exposition is, is worthless. Nobody wants to read about somebody walking across a floor. And some scenes that you put in, you will discover are completely worthless and beside the point. So write lean. You can always pad later.

See, I guess that's what's worried me because, like in on writing, Stephen King says, you know, he said, what was it? It's like, second draft equals first draft minus 10% or something.

Right.

And so I'm like, if my first draft only gets me to, like, 50,000 words, I'm in trouble. Right. Or is there writers that do it the opposite, where they write it too lean and go back and fill it out?

Yes, I write about it in story grid. Who does this? Starts with an outline, very short, and keeps broadening it and broadening it and broadening it. A famous writer, Ken Follett. Ken Follett.

It's funny, I'm in the middle of reading the blockbuster novel. What was it? Oh, Al Zuckerman's book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, he writes all about the man of St. Petersburg and how he.

Eye of the needle.

Yeah. And Ken Follett's a terrific writer who's really good at maintaining the interest of the reader. And there's somebody who starts sort of with a one page or a concept and slowly expands it until he's got an outline of 200 pages, and then he's got his outline that tells him everything he needs to do. And then he goes and he pads it with all kinds of wonderful exposition. And when he's done with that, he's got an epic novel of 500 pages. And so that's a perfectly valid way of working.

Okay.

Stephen King is not somebody who has trouble generating words.

He'd be the first one to tell you.

Yeah.

So his job, what he does, he finds the difficult part ripping all the stuff that he doesn't need in there.

Okay. Because my whole goal with this is I want to create something where when I'm done with my outline, I sit down. You know, I finish my outline on Friday. So Monday morning I sit down, and all I have to do is generate 1500 words that does scene one, and then the next day, all I got to do is 1500 words to do scene two, you know, and just have these. I need my whole thing in this is I have to create something where I have scene. I create items that can be done in one session.

Yes.

And so what's worried me is, and I guess as I've said this, like, this is probably a little bit of that whole, like, you know, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, where, like, no matter how much time I spend on my outline, it's going to fall apart when I actually start writing.

May or it may not. You don't really know yet what. What I think will happen is that you're going to have a really great plan and you're going to start working. And just so many incredible, interesting, tangential ideas are going to occur to you that they're not going to completely destroy your outline, but what they will do is they will broaden your focus. That sounds oxymoronic, but it's not really. They're going to broaden your ability to be more specific and you're going to discover things that are mystically wonderful. And it sounds silly and woo woo, and Sean's crazy and all this junk about the muse is just baloney, but it's, it's kind of true.

Now, you know, I've read, I think I mentioned this last week. I've read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert and she firmly believes it is actual, real Hogwarts style magic, like, you know, the muse. And so to Steve.

Yeah, so to Steve Press World. Yeah.

And so I'm more from a Christian point of view. And so like I kind of have to meld all this together into like, is it intuitive? Is it like the Holy Spirit dropping something in my brain? Is it, you know, that works some ancient spirit that's like following me around, like throwing things at me. But I've already picked up on those things in my other work before writing this novel. Learn to trust. And that's why I've been like I was saying, I have my notebook with me at all times. So when something drops in my head, I immediately write it down because I know I'll lose it.

Right.

Elizabeth Gilbert tells this crazy story of this poet who would hear the poems coming over the landscape almost like a storm. And when she would hear, hear it coming, she would take off running for the house so she could get a pen and a paper and write it down as the poem came through her. And the one time the poem came through her and she reached out, she, she got to the pen too late, but she reached out and grabbed the poem, pulled it back into her and transcribed the poem. Exactly. Perfect word for word, but backwards.

Wow.

And you know, and I'm just like.

Okay.

You know, but I understand that feeling of get it down. We all do when it hits me or it's just gone forever. So I've already had those moments in this, as I've tried to piece together this story of all of a sudden it drops in my head. I'm like, oh, okay. That's the, that's it. That's what I'm trying to think, Tim.

That all of these moments are starting to happen, happen to you. When you're working hard. Yeah. You know, when you're not working hard and when you're daydreaming and you're not laying down the story grid. Baloney. And Sean's crazy. You know, all this idea about 25%, 50%, 25% and sequences and scenes and polarity shifts and all this junk that I talk about. When you're not doing that, you don't get really many of those mystical moments.

Yeah.

But when you are grinding it and you are thinking and you are structuring it and you are studying a masterwork and you are appreciating the craft in a way that you never have before, it's so you're, you're being flooded. And Steve Pressfield talks about this and Elizabeth Gilbert and a number of other people were immensely talented, but more importantly, hard working artists is that the harder they work, the more genius comes to them. So I think what you're experiencing is that initial wonderful moment of incredible energy that happens when we embark on a great new vision or project. And you've got to ride that wave because there's going to be a lot of obstacles ahead for you. So now is the time to really embrace those moments that come to you. And writing everything down is a great idea. And setting aside and planning your work as diligently and as specifically as you can, which you are doing, is a great, great thing to do because you're going to have that stuff when the shit hits the fan later on and it will prepare yourself.

So how long should this outline take me?

It depends really. I mean, I think what you need to do is to have the courage to have a general outline, not something that is 65 scenes perfectly outlined with everything that you need to do. Okay.

That's what I've been trying. But that's okay.

That's okay too. I'm not saying that that's absolutely wrong because that's probably what I would do too. And the reason why I would do that is because I don't have the faith that Steven Pressfield and Elizabeth Gilbert have. And maybe that's a failing, maybe it's not a failing, but it's just the truth. So I know who I am and I know what makes what works for me. And what works for me is a football coach screaming in my ear to do 10 more push ups or I'm not going to get my water break right. And I think you're similar. So it's okay to say to yourself, I know what works for me. I'm going to plan my 75 scenes. Okay, so let me, let me say I'm going to plan three scenes for and my hour and a half work a day. How many days of work will get me to that 70 scenes? And then work it that way. And you're going to find you're going to work it out on a calendar and you're going to hit your marks. And by the end of that time, you're going to have 73 scenes done, because that's just what you do. And then once you have the 73 scenes done, you say to yourself, okay, today is the first day of my draft for scene one. And then you go through scene one, and then you do your 73 days of drafting your scene. That's a perfectly smart and valid way. And guess what's gonna happen when you're in the car? Somebody's gonna whisper in your ear, hey, in scene 63, instead of having the guy do that, have him do that. And then you're gonna write it down. And when you get to scene 63, you're gonna go, didn't I have an idea about that? And you'll find it in your notebook and you'll change your scene and you're still going to be touched by the muse and all that great stuff, but you're going to control it in a way that makes you more comfortable.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. Now, if you are interested in looking more deeply into my story and my process, I have put up two resources on our website. The first is the full SCAP Global Story Grid, that one page outline you do for your story when you when you're first planning it out. And I've also kicked out the first 17 scenes I've planned out on my story as well. So of course all of this will change over time and it's not very good. But if you want to follow along with my process, I put both of those up@storygrid.com podcast under the notes for this episode, episode 21. So you can see those there. Also, I mentioned that I have the entire Harry Potter story grid I worked on that is up under storygrid.com podcast as well. The link is under episode 20. So all of that is@storygrid.com podcast. If you want more Story Grid, you can see all of that@storygrid.com make sure you buy the book. Make sure you sign up for the email newsletter. There's a lot that Sean's doing that doesn't make it into this podcast. And you don't want to miss that, so make sure you do that as well. Thanks as always for sharing this with your friends, telling your writer friends about it. Share it in your group. Share it anywhere that you talk to other writers. We love doing the show. We love being able to do it without advertising or anything like that. So any way you can help us spread the word, we really appreciate it. So thanks as always for listening and we will see you next week.