Multiple Storylines in One Book

Hello, and welcome to the Story Grid Podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Krall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He is the creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book StoryGrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. Before we jump into this episode, I wanted to let you know that if you go to storygrid.com if you haven't been there and browsed around in a while, we now have a book section where you can see all of the books that we published through storygrid Publishing so far. So far we have seven books up there that are available. You have smaller books that are focused on writing an action story, writing nonfiction. We have the Story Grid Masterwork guide to Malcolm Gladwell's the Tipping Point. We also just put up the story grid analysis of my book the Threshing. And of course, you can get a copy of my book the Threshing there and as well. And we just put up a coupon code.

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Okay.

In this episode, Shawn and I talk about the first full sequence that I wrote for the next book in the threshing. And this is the first time I'm delving into writing multiple storylines. So we talk a little bit about that as well. But for those of you that have enjoyed following along as I've written a novel, this is another one of those.

As I'm trying to kind of flail.

Through what this next novel is going to look like. So let's jump in and get started.

So, Sean, I so last week I had sent you the first scene and a kind of outline for the beginning hook, and that seemed to go okay. So I press forward. I wrote, I think, four scenes that I sent you. And the biggest thing, I think that was different on this. That was definitely different from the first book in the series was I'm splitting out storylines. So I wrote a scene, just the second scene with Jesse, and then I jumped to 83, who is in New York trying to hold things together. And then I jumped to Randy, who is still in the Capitol and is in prison there. And then finished with the scene with Jesse.

So it was my first time kind of jumping. I'm going to have multiple storylines, and I had a couple questions about it, but I just wanted to get your thoughts on the scenes in the first place.

I thought they worked. And I also think that the way you're approaching this book is a very good idea because you're expanding the social world to include different voices and different points of view. The first novel in the trilogy, you're establishing sort of the protagonist, you know, luminary figure who is going to be creating change in the global universe of your setting. And because she's so young, you also are doing a maturation plot.

And with those two things required, moving.

Back and forth with different story strands and points of view would have been a mistake, because the initial novel, you know, it's the entry point into the trilogy, and the reader is really going to need to have a deep connection to Jesse. So that first book is all about establishing a deep connection and empathy for Jesse. The second book is a good idea to open up that social structure so that we can see the way this world really is beyond just a single point of view. So doing that and referring back to.

Characters who were part of the first.

Novel early on and establishing that is really important, because I think what we.

Discussed last week was maybe not doing.

That until we transitioned into the middle build, but you wisely sort of didn't do that, and you tried it here, and it works, and that's the best.

Way to do it.

Because upon reflection, if you waited until the middle build to do that, it would have been too shocking. It would have been too shocking to the reader, and they may be like, what's this?

I thought this was this first person.

You know, story about Jesse again, and we're just continuing that story. And instead, when you do this early on, you're telling the reader that this is a different kind of thing, which is really smart. I also think it's a good idea not to worry so much about whether or not these first readers of your second novel. So all those people who didn't read the first novel, coming to your second novel, not knowing who these figures are at this point, you can get lost in backfill early on. So the fact that you didn't even worry about that was a good choice, because later on, what you can do.

Is, and I don't recommend you do.

This all that often, you could always get some beta readers because you And I have such a deep connection to all these people that it would be.

Difficult for us to understand what other.

People wouldn't know who are coming in cold. So down the road, after you have a draft, a draft that's reasonable, not perfect, you could get some beta readers and not even tell them that there's.

A first novel and just ask them.

What they think of it, and they might be like, it's too weird. I don't understand who these characters are. Then that would be an indication that you have to come up with some sort of integral, transitional narrative context to support the read for someone who's never.

Read the first book, okay?

So that's not something to worry about. And a lot of people probably do. That's not something to worry about until you've got a draft and you can share it with other people. So one of the really difficult things.

About writing is when to know when to worry. You know when to.

When you should be concentrating on something and fixing something and what the right.

Stage for that fix is.

And you don't want to be worrying.

About stuff like that.

Now, you know, as Steve Pressfield says.

That the importance of the first draft.

Is really just momentum.

You know, you just want to cover the canvas, not worry so much about.

Global or micro problems. You want to go scene to scene.

And just kind of sketch it out.

So I like what you're doing here. I think you're intuitively figuring out a new way of approaching story that's a broader lens than the single protagonist point.

Of view that you did in the first novel.

So I think you're definitely on the right track. And, you know, I love to criticize, but there's not really a place to be doing that right now.

I thought you were going to give a. You started to say, the only thing I would say is. And then you went to something else. Or did I?

My point was, the only thing I would say is, don't worry about integrating.

Yeah, okay. Yeah. Because, well, what I keep telling myself is the only thing that matters now is to get a story that's working, like, 70%, because then you can tighten it down. Because you've said that, like, you just need the story that works, and then you tighten it down later and you fix all the other stuff. So I've. Because I tried to drop some backstory in. I actually tried to drop a little bit of new backstory in, like, with 83, whose name is Clarissa. I kind of allude to, like, what her story is and how she ended up where she's at. But one of my questions was how much? Because as I started writing. Oh, first of all, I don't remember you telling me not to do that. So I just, I just did.

I didn't specifically say not to do.

It, but when we were talking about.

It, I did mention you might, you know, in the, in the middle build, start branching out. But.

Oh, okay. Well, what I got excited about is that, you know, my favorite fantasy trilogy is the Night angel trilogy by Brent Weeks. And he has like, you know, seven different storylines spun up and he was really good at like, cliffhanging you and then jumping to a completely different storyline. So now you're like, I just got to get through this fucking storyline so I can find out what happens, you know. And so that's where, like, I tried to do that after the second scene where like, basically Jessie ends up all by herself and she's running and then it's done and then I switch over to somebody else's storyline. So I thought, like, oh, that would be fun to be able to do a little bit of that where I can like, cliffhang some different things as I jump around. But.

Well, just something occurred to me because I worked on a very big novel recently. I mean, 280,000 word fantasy novel. And one of the things the author.

And I kept not worrying about was.

To think about when you introduce specific storylines with specific characters, in sort of looking at and framing the action from that one particular character's point of view, you need to think of the cast as reflective of sub personalities within your protagonist. So what I mean by that is Jesse has sort of, as we all do, sub personalities within her psyche. So there's part of Jesse that's very stubborn and only thinks that she is the only one who can solve a particular problem. She likes power. So that character would be what would be called her shadow within herself. So that shadow figure within herself is represented by another character in the story. And in this case, the shadow figure is usually the antagonist to the protagonist in the story. So in the Threshing, the first novel, Jesse's shadow figure within herself was externalized and exemplified by President Marcus.

So this is a good tool to remember when you're constructing multiple strands of story, because each of those strands you need to be able to map back into a particular archetypical subpersonality within the protagonist.

And this can get a little heady because what it essentially means is that we all have all of those archetypical personality figures that Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell came up with. Within ourselves. And so the story where someone has to confront those. They're basically confronting elements of themselves throughout their lifespan. So 83 would be representative of the sub personality, just based on what I read that you've written here. She would be representative of the vulnerable psychic subpersonality within Jesse that longs for being protected. So then when you're doing these other strands, it's a good idea to think like, which subpersonality does this character represent?

Now there are, you know, tertiary secondary figures, people like the prefect who's as his father, who wouldn't necessarily be mapping back to Jesse's subpersonality. But it's important not to give too much stage time to characters who aren't reflective of Jesse's sub personality. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, yeah, because I. Are you talking about the ones that will have that the story will be from their point of view?

Yeah. Like, I assume you're gonna have maybe five, six, seven scenes, or, you know, anywhere between three to, say, five to seven scenes that feature the 83 storyline. And then you will have three to five to seven scenes that feature the Randy storyline.

Right.

So in the threshing, you did shift point of view two times. One time you shift it to Ernst late in the game. And that was a very good choice because you wanted to keep the action moving but also reveal that he was the shapeshifter in the story that, you know, was a spy for the other faction inside. So, you know, it might be like chapter 56 or something.

Right, right.

Then at the very end, you shift POV to Marcus and we see Marcus coming to the revelation and realization that Jesse has actually not died in the grid and in fact has built a coalition while he was, you know, out to lunch and she takes over.

Right, yeah, I forgot about that.

So those two point of view shifts are fine, but it would have been mistake if you had two or three scenes that featured Ernst and featured Marcus so late in the game.

Right, right. It would have been jarring.

Right. So you might have one scene in this novel from the prefect Alifar's point of view, Alucar, whatever his name is.

But you're not going to want to.

Go multiple scenes with Alucar because he's not really reflective of a subpersonality within Jesse. He's more reflective of external antagonism in everyday life that is more of an irritant in our lives than.

Deeply seated things in our psyche.

Yeah, I was thinking of it as a way of basically showing different parts of the world That I can't do from just one perspective. So I was thinking like I need to.

That's fine, right? Yeah. That's just another way of looking at what I was saying. The trick is, is that when you know that when you do decide to broaden the, the story world by going into other points of view to broaden it, you have to understand that you just can't willy nilly pick a character.

Gotcha.

They have to map back into the sub personality psyche of your protagonist.

Okay.

Or the reader will go like, why is there seven scenes from the point of view from Alucar when it just, it would seem strange? Because Jesse really isn't sort of a bureaucratic figure who is, you know, she's more shadow, she's more vulnerable than that. So these like, just to take it back to the, the fantasy novel I worked on, we had sort of these yin and yang figures who were representative of actual full bodied cultures. So we had a male, female, female, male representation from each of these massive cultural, like the east and the West, Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy. So each of those characters were embodying philosophical approaches from these two realms. So we didn't just willy nilly pick a couple of characters and say, oh well, there's one of those things. We'll just, you know, follow them. Each one of them you have to think of in terms of the archetypical representations of a single individual and how they are expressed through multiple characters.

Okay. Because when I was trying to think who it should be told through, I was thinking, well, what parts of the world do I need to expose a reader to that would be hard to do through Jesse's point of view. So the first thing I thought of was, well, I want to show how everything is breaking down under the pressure of what happened in book one. And so I thought, well, Jesse's gone, so there's going to be somebody in charge of New York City and it's going to be slowly coming unraveled from the inside and the out. And so who can we watch that through? And so that's where I thought of 83. And so.

Yeah, so I was actually really happy with how that scene came together. And basically having the field hands I was thinking of that burned himself alive, you know, so. Well some, a lot of them have done it now, but the iconic one we have the picture of. And so, and then I was thinking, well, we need to get a glimpse into what's happening on the reapers side of things. And that's what I was going to use. Randy For.

Right.

But that's interesting, thinking about it. More of the. As the sides of the protagonist. Yeah.

And I. I also think you might want to consider introducing a brand new character, a character from one of the other factions. And that way, what that will embed in the reader's mind is that Jesse and this character are going to intersect at some point. And whether or not that character is on Jesse's side or opposing Jesse's side will be interesting to see. You might want to take a character from the scavengers or another social class from another faction, because the other level that you want the reader to experience here are different cultures clashing, different social classes clashing, and sort of the fragmenting and the trembling of the greater social structure is under a lot of stress.

So you might want to come up.

With a brand new character in the Europa faction or the Far east faction or the Southern faction who is intent on perhaps getting justice. So that's another way of complicating your story is to add a sub genre story within it. So each one of these strands you also have to think about, like, is this a strand that will result in a love story or a crime story? You know what I'm saying? So that way you can add a lot of wonderful variety to this second novel that will expand the values at stake. So that first novel that you wrote is an action story, Purely an action story. It's all about the life and death value and how one person has to navigate the world in the best possible way while they're integrating into the larger society.

So that's generally what an action story is. And then this second novel in this trilogy, if you just sort of bring out the old bag of tricks and do another labyrinth action story, then the readers of the first novel will be like, oh, I already kind of read this one. This doesn't seem very fresh, even if you change the labyrinth.

Right, Right. Yeah.

So I'm not trying to freak you out, but if you were.

If you.

Were able to put in a subplot where there's a crime that's been committed, this is like, Charles Dickens was great at this. Right. So what he would do is he would dump in some sort of crime that would be inside an action society novel. So like, what is it? You know, the famous Oliver. Oliver Twist. Right. So in Oliver Twist, there's the crime. Oliver is caught shoplifting and he must be brought to justice. But instead he. It's like this opportunity of a lifetime because he's actually.

I don't remember the plot Perfectly well.

And I'm probably simplifying it from the.

Musical, but I think he's.

He's actually.

It's almost like the. Everything is, you know, the Annie plot where he's adopted by a wealthy family or he's integrated into a wealthy class.

Yeah.

So the crime story is a really terrific subplot device when you're trying to do a broader social action story. So what you could do is have a mystery about, you know, maybe someone's robbed something and somebody, like, maybe a character in another faction is robbed. And what they're robbed of is something that's critical for them to take care of their family. So then they become obsessed with retrieving that which was lost. So there's a famous movie called the Bicycle Thief, which the entire movie is based upon getting back the bicycle, because the bicycle was like a critical post World War II mechanism for someone in Italy to be able to survive without the bicycle. The man's family might die. So something like that. And then what we do is that on that strand of plot, we follow that character desperately trying to retrieve what was lost. And then eventually you can use a really cool thing where the collision between, like, Jesse goes to that faction for some kind of thing. And when that secondary character actually retrieves that which was lost, it is a revelatory moment that turns the global story in such a way that, for good or for ill. I know I'm speaking very abstractly, but considering adding a subplot of, you know, you could also go love story. Love story is tricky because when you have subplot of love story, it can often start to be so compelling to the audience that they start to not.

Care so much anymore about the action.

Well, and it's tricky because my protagonist is 13 in this story.

Yeah.

It doesn't necessarily have to be her love story. It could be. And you do reference that. Actually, you do reference the love between 83 and Randy from a prior. You know, earlier on, 83 was. Was attracted to Randy, you know, years ago, under a previous threshing, she thought.

She was in love with him until.

She realized that maybe she wasn't. Maybe Randy manipulates 83 because he knows that she always had a thing for him. And maybe she wants to believe that Randy isn't the figure that he is now, but more of the innocent figure that when he was as a younger man. That's a really good way. And then that's a good device to put in some doubt into the audience's mind. Maybe Randy is. Maybe he has Reverted back to his good old self. Anyone who loves great storytelling should absolutely. I know it starts out a little slowly, but Better Call Saul is just so good. And the creators of the show are constantly playing. That is Jimmy McGill, who actually is Saul Goodman. Is Jimmy authentically trying to be in a loving relationship, or is he playing someone? So that's always a good character manipulation.

And Randy seems like the perfect. I mean, he's incarcerated, so he's got.

To find some way to get unincarcerated. And one of the things that you.

Have to do when you're incarcerated is.

To, you know, put forward that you regret your crimes.

You have to do it in such an authentic way that people buy it.

Hook, line, and sinker.

So that's another thing you could do for Randy. So you could have that love story and play with that a little bit more. And you could add a mysterious crime element. You need to introduce that in the beginning hook, though, because if you're going to have. Let's see, if you want to have Jesse's, you got to have her strand of plot. You've got to have 83. You've got to have Randy. So that's three. A fourth one would work. And if you are going to do the fourth one, it would be important to introduce a brand new character.

Well, the first one that came to my mind was it's not brand new, but I mean, he was only in the first book for, like, a paragraph. Was Balaam.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can definitely do Balaam.

Because that's interesting that. Because I'm like.

But then again, I mean. Yeah, I'm weighing the fact, like, how.

Broad do you want to take this?

Because Balaam would be in the Americas.

Faction, so you're still just staying in the America's faction. Unless maybe you move him outside.

Well, he's not in any faction. Right. Because he's in the scavengers, which aren't considered. So my whole idea for this book, and I haven't figured it out yet, but I think this may have helped, was basically Jesse gets caught up doing something that's really important in this book. And so she's off taking care of that, but while she's off taking care of that, Brandy is undermining her. And so the end of the book will be her taking care of whatever she needs to take care of, but she basically lost her power in the process.

Right.

And so then the third book will be her fighting him to regain control of everything. And so what it could be. Because I was thinking as you said that of like, how many times, you know, an entire story is based on. There is this thing we have to find and we don't know where it is, or we know where it is, but it's really hard to get to. Like, the one that popped in my head was, oh, shit, what was that? It's like the Star wars movie, the most. One of the most recent ones that tells the story. There's like one line in the first Star wars movie where they're like, a lot of people died to get this information. And then they did an entire movie, which was basically a tragedy on that line. And it was arguably the best one of the new Star wars, man. I'm sure everybody listening is like yelling the name. But the whole thing was there was this one thing they needed to find, and the whole movie is just tied around them trying to find that one thing. And they go here and then they go here and then they go here and they get help along the way and all of that kind of thing.

To the Death Star.

Yeah, that's what it was. But I can't remember what the name of the movie was.

Yeah, I don't remember it either.

I'm going to Google it while we. I think we're both Googling it.

Star wars new movies. What was it, man? How can I not. Rogue One. That's what it was. Rogue One. Okay, so now that that's solved, because the whole thing as you were talking, what came into my head was, okay, the beginning hook is her getting basically kidnapped and taken to Balaam. And then what if there was something in another faction, so another part of the world that her and Balaam were basically forced to work together to go do or go get or go take care of something, because they kind of were warring against each other. But if there was something I could think of that would make them have to work together to go do something so that would bring together kind of two worlds.

Yeah, I don't know that's a good idea.

Okay, I'll have to think of what that thing could be, but. Oh, I did have just one kind of technical question.

So I remember when, like, the many times we talked about, like free indirect style and how you can correct me if I'm wrong here, and I'm thinking specifically about the Silence of the Lambs, Right?

Yeah.

So the whole idea was like, you can tell a story from multiple characters point of view, but you can only go into one character's head.

Right.

So as I was writing, I felt like I was going into all Three characters, heads. But I don't really know what that means because I also was just kind of telling backstory as if I'm the omniscient character that knows what's going on.

Yes. All right, so that's fine. That's still third person. Omniscient. Free and direct style is when you sort of move that godlike presence into the background so that you literally hear their thoughts. So in Silence of the Lambs, when she, Clarice Starling, is meeting with that strange guy who runs the insane asylum, and he's hitting on her, we actually read on the page, you're disgusting. You know, things like that. So we're actually.

Okay.

Yeah. So it's not set up like Clarice thought he was disgusting. It just says, you're disgusting.

Okay.

You get it.

And then it's usually I tell for a while, and then once it. I mean, the use of it in Silence of the Lambs is brilliant. So. And it's also not a good idea to start in free indirect style in chapter one. So we don't get that free indirect style in Silence the Lands until, like, the third chapter.

Okay, so the way that I'm writing it so far, it didn't jump out as you is like, okay, he's. Okay. Okay, cool. Okay, so I'm just gonna keep rolling with the plan as of now while I'm thinking about. Because I'm kind of writing right now, I'm just writing to the end. Like, the only thing I can see is the end of the beginning hook, and everything else after that is just a dense fog. I have no idea what's going to happen. So I'm going to just keep writing in the direction I'm going while thinking about what this. Because the end of the beginning hook will be whatever this thing is that they have to go do or have to go find. And then the middle build will be them going to try to do that. Right, right. And then, you know, whatever the. I can't even think about. And I also am thinking this book may be longer because the last one, the threshing, was 90,000 words. This one will have multiple storylines, which, even if each one is just an extra 5 to 7 scenes, that's an extra 10 to 14 scenes just with two storylines.

Yeah, it's just.

Just.

Yeah, yeah, I know.

I'm.

I wasn't. It's not worrying. It's just thinking, like, this is probably going to be longer because I just kind of plugged into Scrivener 100,000 words. And as I'm writing, I'm like, I think this one's going to be longer. So I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, one of the choices that you're going to make with these.

Secondary subplots and characters.

Is, you know.

How are they going to integrate into.

The global arc of, you know, the like, are you going to use one of these characters?

They're going to have to intersect with Jesse at some point. Right. So let's just get that on the table there. Once you introduce a secondary plot line, you need to have the primary plot line intersect with it at some point. So if it never intersects, the reader will say to themselves, why is this thing in here? Yeah, so those intersection points, when Jesse and that secondary character in the scene together, you need to figure out like at what point in my sort of 20 scene skeletal thing. Recently at Storygrid, we've expanded the middle build from being a five scene skeletal structure to a ten scene skeletal structure. And the reason why we've done that is from checking back with all of our Storygrid certified editors and the recurring problem that they've been running into with their clients is of course, the squish.

You know, the very difficult middle.

And so we've divided the middle into Middle Build one and Middle Build two. And we've added an additional five structural scenes in Middle Build one to help writers navigate between the beginning hook to the middle build through the ending payoff. So now it's, you know, generically, it's 25% of the story, each one of these units. So anyway, back to my point about the intersection. So knowing these sort of 20 skeletal scenes, you're going to want to think of when are these subplots going to intersect and at which one of these really important scenes will they do that? Because you don't want a subplot to just intersect in a non important scene. We can get into this later. I'm not trying to overcomplicate things, but knowing that at some point your subplots are going to have to intersect, that's good thing to know going into the problem.

Right. Okay. No, that's. That's a good thought too, because I've never had to deal with that before.

Right. It's very helpful, actually. It sounds like it's like an impossible thing, but sometimes when we're trying to hit a really important moment in a story, we can just drop in. Like all of a sudden Randy shows up and then.

It'S hard to abstractly say, but these problems can end up.

Being solutions to even bigger problems.

So it's good.

Okay. All right, well, I'll just keep writing for now and then we'll keep going.

Okay.

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