Non-fiction Conventions and Obligatory Scenes

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 the creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. In this episode, we continue talking about nonfiction and. And how to come up with the theme for your nonfiction, how to edit it. And a lot in this episode is talking about the conventions and obligatory scenes.

Of your nonfiction work.

So it's a really great episode.

I think you'll get a lot out of it.

Even if you're not writing much nonfiction.

It'S nice to hear the same ideas from a different standpoint.

So let's jump in and get started.

So, Sean, last week we looked at the six story grid questions as it relates to nonfiction, specifically the book I'm working on. And I got some more feedback in some other places about the book. And we were talking about it, and I think it's good to step back again and talk about the difference between a how to book and a big idea book, because.

Some of the advice I got was basically rearranging the book so it makes more sense. And I was kind of like, okay, so I could do that and make it flow a little better. And then when I sent that feedback to you, you're like, well, this is still trying to make the book a how to book, not a big idea book. And then I spent a little time, I wrote probably thousand words, some of it answering the questions, the six questions, and a bulk of it just kind of free writing about the book, kind of flailing around, trying to figure out exactly what it is I'm trying to say with it, and still struggling with that. But anyway, I'd like you to just talk a little bit more about, like, the difference between a how to book and a big idea book and, like, examples of each. Because before you had said, you know, this would be like a how to gardening book. You know, step by step, how to garden. But then you mentioned, oh, what? Getting things done. Which, you know, would you call that a how to book? Because that also seems like he has a particular thing like idea that he's bringing to getting things done. Anyway, just curious if you could talk a little bit more about the difference and how you see them.

Okay, well, one of the things to always remember is categorizing stories and all that stuff. It's an Important method, you know, to do to be able to help somebody make their story better. But it's also a little bit squishy, meaning some how to books have elements of Big Idea. Big idea always has self help elements within it. The big difference for me and the way I look at how to and the way I look at Big Idea is this how to is sort of expert advice. So if somebody is, you know, an expert at, you know, creating, you know, there's that square foot gardening book I bought and I forget the name of the man who wrote it. And I think he passed away recently, but he came up with this idea of how to get the most food out of, you know, a specific plot of land. And the best thing to do is to have raised planters instead of digging into the ground. Anyway, he positions himself as an expert because he's been, you know, working on farming his entire life. He came up with this theory, he tested the theory, he lived by the theory, and he presents his findings on how to grow a garden with that point of view. The point of view is I know this better than anyone else and here is what I do and what you should do if you want to raise, you know, the most food per square foot.

So he positions himself as an expert. It's almost, it's a godlike point of view, meaning he's not going to give you all the other information that other experts might have. He's going to say to you, do it my way and you will be rewarded. And so that's how, you know, we are attracted to how to books because we don't have to hear all the theories and all the stuff that he's learned or she's learned to. You know, they boil everything down into a very step by step process that teaches you how to do something. So that the point of view of how to is very much Expert Driven. Robert McKee's book story.

It'S not really a how to book, but it gives you the very, very specific grand ideas about story structure. And it's indispensable. And he's an expert. He's been studying this stuff for decades and decades and decades. And when you read his book, he, he's, his writing is very much from the point of view of an expert, as it should be. Okay, so that's what how to is. It isn't adding a lot of, you know, evidence from other sources. It's not telling stories about how you came to the idea. It's, it's just the facts, ma'. Am. It's Just this is the program. Do this and, you know, you should be able to be successful like, you know, the writer. Now, how to books are terrific. Everybody loves them. You know, I have nothing against how to books. I think they're really important, but in my stage of my career as an editor, they're not that exciting to work on. You know, as you mentioned, I think it's a lot of detail work about what the best presentation of the information is, the most, you know, useful, the best structure. And it's very bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. The end. Now, what a Big Idea book is, it's something different. A Big Idea book has all kinds of levels of investigation, and it's a story. Remember what I said, you know, months and months ago about Big Idea is that it combines the other three huge, you know, categories of nonfiction that I laid out. Academic how to and narrative nonfiction. And we'll get into in a minute how it does that. But Big Idea is not. Is not, oh, my gosh, here's exactly what you have to do. Do it. It's very much an investigation. The writer and the point of view is more equal to the reader. Malcolm Gladwell is a perfect example of somebody who's perfected his point of view. His point of view is, hey, I'm Malcolm Gladwell. I like to read stuff, and I like to think about things. And let me tell you what happened to me when I was investigating this thing that was curious. And so it's almost like a friend at a coffee shop telling you something that they've discovered. They're not an expert. They are enjoying the journey of discovery. And in that journey of discovery, it leads to the proof or, you know, the belief in a big idea. So the big idea is about one central blatant idea that the writer usually tells the reader right up front at the beginning of. At the beginning hook of their. Their book. And I always like to think of big ideas as things that. That are counter to popular belief. Usually it's debunking something that somebody that all of us believe. Then the middle of the Big Idea is actually proving and investigating why the writer has come to that conclusion. It's not talking down to the reader saying, this is what you have to do in order to get things. What it does is it explains, oh, so here's what I was thinking about, you know, this idea. And so in order to test my ideas about it, I went and I talked to this person or I read this article from Psychology Today, and this is what these famous psychologists at Stanford have found. And then they tell a short story that outlines the entire paper of a psychology experiment. And after you, when you're reading that, it's very, very fascinating and interesting and. And you're on an adventure. You're on an intellectual adventure. So the big idea is different than how to. Primarily because of the attitude of. And the point of view of the narrator. It's sort of. It's not didactic. It's very much using all of the tools available to persuade the reader of the validity of the idea. I know I'm talking in, like, very general concepts.

No, but this is helpful. I feel like it's, you know, I have to be told something like eight times before I finally understand what's being said. So I think this is helpful to hear it again and from, you know, kind of a different viewpoint.

Well, the thing, just to be a little bit more specific, when you sent me the notes, you know, your friend who read your book and had some really good points in his notes, what his notes struck me as was someone who immediately said, what's on the page right now for Tim is a how to book. So I'm going to give him notes about how to write a better how to book in. And yeah, that's perfectly reasonable. And that's sort of what you would expect from. If you were to hire a freelance editor. What interests me, though, is not so much what's on the page. What interests me as an editor is what compelled the writer to write the damn thing in the first place. So a lot of times a writer, and I include myself when I write my own stuff. You're really not sure what it is that compelled you to write this stuff. Right, right. And I think, yeah, you can fix and polish the apple until whatever it is that you cranked out is done and it's over. And you know, oh, here's my how to book about how to be creative, and that's perfectly fine. And the shelves are filled with books like that. And oftentimes what we do is if we buy a how to book on how to be creative and it doesn't work for us, we go, oh, I'll just buy another one, because somebody else has a different how to approach. So that's the reason why there are so many different kinds of how to books on being creative, how to write, how to. Well, there's this method, there's this method, there's this method, there's method, this method. And so what. What happens is a lot of people just sort of go through a million of them. Until they find the program that works for them. But that personally, that kind of, you know, book publishing that book or editing that kind of book is not as interesting to me as big idea book. And a big idea book results from self examination. What meaning? Why does the writer want to write the book in the first place? What, what is it going to give them? What is it going to bring to them? What are they trying to communicate to a larger audience? To create something is. It's not just about, here's the thing, it's done, let me polish it up and I'll get it out in the world. Yeah, sure, you can do that. And a lot of people do that and there's nothing wrong with that. But at my stage of my career, I'd rather investigate with the writer why they're writing something in the first place. So that's why I'm, you know, hammering home to you why I think you, you should pursue a big idea book, not just a how to book. Because the Graal method, you know, it connotes a how to book. Do it like I did it and maybe it'll work for you. And if it doesn't work for you, sorry. I think that a big idea book, it provides a lot of the things in a how to book. It does give practical advice. Steven Pressfield's the War of Art, that's a, you know, that's a big idea book with a lot of practical advice in there too. He talks about, you know, beginnings, middles and ends. He talks about, you know, staying away from, you know, relationships that are going to suck you dry so you're incapable of doing any work. He gives all kinds of advice in that book, but it's not about this is, you know, just do this and you know, you'll beat resistance and everything will be fine. And I think part of what attracted you to the subject matter was Steve's decision not to sort of give a very straightforward program. So that's why when I begin an editing project, I don't just go, oh well, why don't you move this over here and that over there. And you know, everything should looks like this and that. And I don't immediately do that because that's micro editing. And I don't want to micro edit until, you know, the whole thing is figured out. The most difficult thing to do is to be very, very clear about your intentions of your book. And if you can be very, very clear about what you're going to give the reader very early on in your nonfiction, the reader is going to be super engaged by that. Because if you're very clear and say, you know, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna investigate what makes things become hugely popular seemingly overnight. That's what Malcolm Gladwell promised in the Tipping Point. And that's interesting to everybody because everybody would love to create something that becomes hugely successful overnight. And we'll get into, you know, that promise that he makes at the beginning of the Tipping Point and how he delivers on that promise. He does tell you the methodology and the way things, you know, catch on in the book, but he. It doesn't end with. So there you have it. That's how you do. Ends with a paradox of, okay, now that you know that things can become very popular very quickly through these methods, you have to make some decisions about whether or not what you want to become popular should really be popular. You have to think about contagious ideas and about whether or not unleashing one into the world will end up being a good thing or a bad thing, because ideas are contagious. And at the very end of the book, Gladwell cites, you know, these studies, you know, when. When popular people in the media or in movies commit suicide and it's widely publicized in newspapers, guess what happens? The suicide rate skyrockets. People feel as if, oh, since, you know, somebody famous decided to take their own life now, you know, maybe I have permission to do it myself. So ideas are very, very contagious, and Tipping Points are very, you know, you have to be very careful about them. So the promise he makes at the beginning of the book ends up with a different payoff that is extremely meaningful and a wonderful. You know, that book is extremely well written. It reads like an adventure story, and it ends with something surprising but inevitable. So that's why I think big idea books and projects are really, you know, they're really great to work on because it makes you be very, very clear about your intentions. Your intentions beyond just, oh, I want to write a book.

So I want to plug a book while asking a question about it. So Ryan Holiday's new book, perennial seller. You know, I'm almost done going through it. Would you. Because you read a copy, a version of that, right. Or one of the drafts.

Yeah. Ryan talked about. He and I have talked about that concept for, I don't know, four years, and I didn't write the book with him in any way, shape or form. The book is all his work. Yeah, I think he did a really, really terrific job. And he did what, you know, he took a big Idea. And he delivered a paradox at the end too. Anyway, so what was your question?

Well, that was.

My question is that's a big idea book, right. So the idea is it's better to create works of art that are going to last a long time than these one off works of art. And then he dives into his, his journey on figuring out what that, what that means and how to do that. So his would be a big idea book as well.

Yes, and it's, I think it's a wonderful book because it explains to people if your goal is to just pump out a book and get it out there, okay, yeah, sure, you can do that. But what's really, really a great thing is when your work, your creative work outlives you. And a perennial bestseller or perennial seller, you know, it's something like Dark side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. You know, that album sells like crazy every single year. It's because it's a work of art. It's, you know, if, if that album came out today, or sergeant Pepper or any number of, like the classic progressive rock or, you know, standard rock albums or classical music. I mean, those are what you need to strive for if you're an artist. And it's very, very difficult in our culture because everybody wants that big hit fast. Perennial sellers usually don't become big hits. They become cultural artifacts that last forever. And Holiday talks about, hey, you know what? Wouldn't it be cool to be able to create a perennial seller instead of losing your mind over how to market your latest, you know, thing that you tossed off in a year? Yeah, so I absolutely believe that's a big idea book and I think it's an important book and I think he did a really nice job on it.

So, so looking at what I should be doing, because I feel like I'm kind of stuck now because I don't know what my big idea is. I don't know what it is exactly. I'm trying to say. So how do you go about telling somebody how to find what it is they're trying to say?

We talked about this last week. You need to think about what it is that is really at the core of your program.

What is it that could speak to people who are frustrated, who don't believe that they have what it takes to create anything? How can you teach them that through changing their behavior, they can become, you know, creative artists? What is the root of your book? Yes, this is a program to teach you how to carve out the time. What is your controlling idea again?

What I wrote down was creativity flourishes when you bring the right mindset and practices to the craft while being focused on sharing your gift with the world. I think we talked about, let's see, you had something like creativity triumphs win. And then that's where I left off. I was supposed to fill that in. So that's kind of where I'm at. I put creativity flourishes. Creativity triumphs when you bring the right mindset and practices to the craft while focusing on sharing your gift with the world.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that controlling idea so often, often.

Show me what you say right before you tell me what's wrong with it.

No, no, I mean, I think what you want to do is you want to boil it down to the simplest possible phrase. Creativity triumphs when we do our work, when we, you know, aren't precious about our work. We have to work to be creative. It's not magic. Magic does come sometimes, but only when we're working. So your, your book is. Your big idea is creativity is blue collar work. It's not magic. And here is the work plan. Is that generally what you want to get across?

Yeah. You know, when I was trying to.

Kind of remember I was saying earlier that a big idea book wants to debunk. Popular, popular notion, conventional wisdom. Now the conventional wisdom about creativity, and this is important to remember because the conventional wisdom is not all the people that you know that and you feel that this is a belabored point. It's. It's not belabored. Conventional wisdom is that creativity is magical, that certain people are capable of creativity. They're born with it.

They are chosen by the gods. And, you know, some people just don't have that talent. And a lot of people believe that if you don't have talent, you can't be creative. Yeah.

So one of the things I wrote down as I was just trying to write everything down that came to mind about what I believe about creativity is the fact that I believe creativity should be. Is much more like the scientific process than a kind of loosey goosey process.

See, I would argue that it's craft science and craft bring magic. Magic doesn't come.

Yeah, but so my point is like waiting on magic is like waiting on like, it's like planning your retirement. On winning the lottery.

Yeah, exactly.

So I wrote this down. Hold on, where'd I put it? Yeah. So basically the idea is that, you know, if you rely on waiting for the muse to show up, that's like relying on the winning the lottery to. For your retirement. Fund. The other thing I put down is, yeah, the muse is like the lottery. Sure, it's great if you win, but let's plan as if it's never going to happen. You're going to work as if the muse is never going to show up. If it does, it's great, but it's just a bonus.

Okay, well, you know, the great thing about Steve Pressfield's book, the War of Art is that it tells you the big idea in the title. Art is a war. It is not, you know, it's a war against you, against resistance. So what is creativity to you? Creativity is. Is there a metaphor that you could use? Is it a war? Is it a war to. Like when I go ahead, when I.

Close my eyes and think back over. So this morning when I was working on this, I closed my eyes and I thought back over, you know, the last decade plus of trying to figure this stuff out and I felt like there was this constant war. Not war, but flip flop between two versions of myself. So in my lucid moments I would create these kind of systems that would allow me, in my idiot moments, which were much more to still head in the general right direction. It's almost like, you know, I would switch between the scientist and the rat. Right. So the rats in this maze and I would create this kind of system that would make sure no matter how screwed up the rat was, it would still head in the general right direction.

And so that is, you know, I remember feeling a lot of shame that I didn't work hard enough or shame that I wasn't doing the right things or wondering if I was good enough or lots of procrastination. And then as I started putting these things into practice, I didn't check change. My environment changed around me. That would allow me to eventually move in the right direction.

Okay. It seems to me that, it seems to me that what you're selling is shameless creativity. So creativity without shame. So that's a really, really interesting idea because I think the concept of shame a good one. And shame is a tool that, you know, cultures and religions have used for centuries in order to get people to behave. Yeah.

One of the things I wrote down was the elite snobby, you know, tut tutters are missing the point. It's not even that they're assholes, though many are. The problem is that they think that they're are good and bad standards to creativity.

Yes.

And we try to live up to those standards.

Yes.

Yes. And also the shame element is the personal. I mean, it's It's. It's resistance beating on you. Oh, you loser. You didn't do your words today. Oh, you didn't write anything. Oh, you didn't do that project. Oh, you're so cool, aren't you? You can't figure out anything, can you? So that shameful notion is what. You know, that's a bit. Very, very large hurdle to overcome. And, you know, Steve and I talk about this all the time. I mean, we. We talk about our routines and, you know, some days I don't get much done. You know, I sit down and I've got. And I'm. I'm wasted after 30 minutes, and I just. I'm out. I can't do it. And so I have to stop and go do something else. It's. You know, I always think that Steve's in there banging out eight hours a day. He goes, oh, yeah, that happens to me all the time. So it's learning that once you start shaming yourself and saying you're not doing it the right way, you know, that's a very big thing to overcome. And I think your method, your. What you have put together in your book is a very, very smart, comprehensive way of debugging all that stuff in your head so that you're given the opportunity to be creative in a way that will actually produce stuff. So it's a very practical how to be creative. But the big idea is creativity without shame. And I think that would appeal to a lot of people, because shame does never. It never produces great stuff. It's the. It's. Once you're locked into the work that's. Everybody has had that feeling one way or the other at one time or another. So, you know, that's something to think about in terms of the overall concept of the book, Creativity without Shame. Anyway, I think. I think we're not going to crack this right now just riffing on this. I think the reason why I have those six questions is to guide me like the scientist. And the rat is to guide me, the rat, through the maze of figuring this stuff out. So the six questions always get me back on track. So I think it would be a good idea now to talk about the conventions and obligatory scenes in a Big Idea book. That's question number two. The first question is, what is the genre? We've decided it's Big Idea nonfiction. So number two is who? Well, what are the things that have to be in this book to satisfy the reader? So if we look at what this has to. What has to be in the book? We may stumble upon, you know, an even more blatant and interesting idea. So let's, let's, let's go down that road. Okay? Now, the very first thing that has to be in a big idea book is, is persuasion. And there are three ways to persuade somebody of your big idea. And this comes from Aristotle, and there are three Greek words. Ethos, logos, and pathos. Those are the three kinds of ways to persuade somebody to do something. Now, ethos is sort of like. Ethos means the ethics of the, the person, you know, giving advice or explaining an idea. So ethos is generally the, the position of the storyteller. You know, are they really an expert or are they just faking it? So I think you have to, in your, and you do do this in the book, you have to present the fact that, you know, you've. You've started a marketing company, you sold the marketing company, you've written a bunch of books, you write web posts, you do the podcast, you work on story grid stuff, you help me for the conferences. You do a tremendous amount of creative work, and you've been doing it for 10 years, you know, which is a really sweet number since you left the corporate world. And so you have the goods for the reader. If they were to take your advice.

They'Re going to learn how you were able to figure out a way to be productive creatively. So the ethos part of your big idea is firmly established. It's the kind of thing that they put on the front cover of a book, you know, Jim Smith, M.D. elaine. Elaine Bennis, you know, whatever. You know, like head of pharmacology or whatever. So the ethos part is the status of the persuader. So I'm not going to be able to persuade you about much, but story stuff, I can. You know, I've. I've got 25 years under my belt, and I'm confident that what I do and the advice that I give is good. So that's why, you know, I. And I wrote the story grid. Okay, so the next one is logos. Now, logos is just logic. What's the logical, you know, argument that makes this idea believable? So logos is all about adding additional things into the book, adding behavioral psychology, you know, papers. I'm not saying that you want to belabor the point, but. And always a great way to a great person to mimic is Gladwell, because Gladwell is capable of bringing in very wonky scientific reports and studies in an entertaining way. Those are his logos moments in the Tipping Point and in his other books. He cites psychology reports, he cites science. He cites all kinds of really important backup that, you know, fortifies the foundation of his ideas. So you have to have logos in order to persuade somebody. Somebody says, well, why do you think that is? And you go, I don't know. I just do. They're not going to believe you. But if you say, well, I read a really interesting psychological, you know, survey that was done in affiliation with Stanford and the University of Cambridge, and they discovered that if you do this one thing, the behavior of the people changes dramatically. So, you know, putting in those fun little studies is, I think, an important part of your book because it's going to support what you have to tell the writer. I mean, the reader.

Are there other forms of backing it up besides just science papers and studies? Yeah, interviewing this were like anecdotal, like, you know, this is what this person did, and they were successful?

Yes, yes, to a certain degree. Interviewing, you know, people and their thoughts about it. Interviewing other people with strong track records in the arena that you're talking about. So if, say, in your book, you interviewed Ryan Holiday and he gave you a bit of information, I mean, Ryan, in Ryan's book, he interviewed me, stuck my name in there. You know, what do I know? But he. But it did support his argument by. He cited my 10,000 reader rule. A way to support his argument that here's the way that you can become a perennial seller is don't worry about a million people. If you can get 10,000 people. And that is pretty much, in my estimation, I think, a good, you know, number based upon logical, you know, reduction of how many people read in this country and how many. The velocity of sales. Based upon 25 years of publishing experience, I came up with the 10,000 reader rule, which essentially means a publisher's job is to get a book into the hands of 10,000 people. If after 10,000 people have looked at the book and given it a chance and the book doesn't work, well, too bad. It means that the book just didn't hit the mark. But if you don't get to 10,000, you will never know whether or not something can become a perennial bestseller. So when I came up with that idea, I cited, you know, how many people in the country using statistics from, you know, reliable sources. How, what? The estimate of how many people are in the country who read at least one book a year, and it's about 100 million people. Anyway, I don't want to get into proving my 10,000 theory, but that's. That's the Point you can, you know, interview other people who have expertise in the arena. Now, the last thing is pathos. And pathos is an appeal to the emotional core of the reader. And the way you create pathos and argue with pathos is by telling a story. Pathos is storytelling, how you present the idea in story form. So ethos, logos, and pathos are the three forms of persuasion. And, you know, Aristotle came up with them. So it's a pretty solid idea.

I mean, thousands of years, and we still, you know, use those three terms for traditional rhetoric and persuasion. Do you have any questions about ethos, logos, pathos?

Not off the top, I think. I mean, I read a ton of Big Idea books, so I can, you know, see how these are at play in those books. And, you know, it seems like some of them are heavier on some than others. Right. So if I think about.

If you divide all of the nonfiction categories, academic, that's logos driven. Right. Academic books are logos driven. They're all basically logical arguments based upon logos. You know, you're not really getting much more than the real logical arguments. How to. Books are ethos driven, meaning you believe that Tim Grohl is a marketing genius. So you're going to buy Tim Grohl's marketing book. You, Tim Grohl, don't go into all of the marketing theories in your book. You simply lay out how you market a book, and that works. That's an ethos. How to. Driven, project, narrative. Non.

And so that would be like my first book.

Yeah, first thousand copies. That's. That's an ethos driven, you know, straight fastball down the middle. If you want to market your book, here's what you have to do. You don't cite anybody because you don't have to, because you did it on your own and it worked. The third one, pathos, are narrative nonfiction stories. So these are, you know, real, true, factual stories that are told in the form of a story. They use the fictional techniques in nonfiction. So Devil in the White City is a crime story. It's a thriller, and on and on and on. So ethos, logos, and pathos. Having that in a Big Idea book is. Makes absolute sense because as I've said before, the Big Idea combines all three of those other categories into a really fun, digestible, delicious package.

Okay.

When you say, though, that. So the conventions and obligatory scenes, I mean, these would be conventions.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

Okay. So are there more conventions of the Big Idea book or.

There's a lot.

Okay.

Okay.

The second one obvious, and that is you need to have a blatant idea, you have to state that idea very clearly very early on and always go back to it throughout the book. So the big idea must be blatantly stated early on in the beginning hook of the story. It has to be clear, and you need to use it as a lure to get the reader to read further. And then you have to drop back and forth every now and then to reiterate it, as Gladwell does in the Tipping Point. You know, within the first 500 words, he's told you what his big idea is. And then he tells you again and again and again and again, but not in an irritating way. He just reiterates what the purpose of the entire book is over and over again. So the blatant statement of the controlling idea and theme is a convention, too. Now, that is not what you do in narrative nonfiction. In narrative nonfiction, you use the controlling idea theme as your north star as you're writing the story. But you never go, well, Abraham Lincoln was blank, blank, blank. And because you want to tell the story of how he, you know, changed slavery and got, you know, had the Emancipation Proclamation, etc. And that was a team of rivals. That was a narrative nonfiction book about how that law was changed. Okay, so the next convention. So that's. That's the second one. The first one is you have to have the three forms of persuasion in the big idea book. Ethos, logos, and pathos. The second one is you have to have a blatant, clear, controlling idea and theme and state it clearly early on in the book and throughout the book. I'm just pulling up my notes here to find the others.

Destination, promise. You have to explain to the reader very early on what the destination of the end of this sort of adventure is going to be. You have to make them a promise. At the end of this book, if you, you know, go through it from beginning, middle, and end, you will know everything. You will, you know, not only will you understand how creativity actually works, but you will be able to use my system and create things of your own. So you have to make a promise and explain to the reader early on what the destination is. That's another convention.

Okay, Destination, promise.

The other thing is a big idea book is an intellectual adventure story. And what do I mean by that? Is, in adventure stories, action stories, and fiction, we love them because there are three characters in an adventure story, and these three characters are also in a big idea book. And those three characters are the hero, the victim, and the villain. So in order to, you know, deliver Your pathos you need to embed in your big idea book a hero, a victim, and a villain. So you need to really, really hammer home who the villain is. The hero of the story is the narrator. You, Tim. And the hero is also the reader, because you are going to be, you know, bringing them along on your adventure. The victim is also you, Tim, and it's also the reader. So hero, victim, villain are those three major figures that have to be in an action story. They also need to be in a big idea book. Before I knew this, I was the victim of X. And the real villain of creativity is blank. It's resistance. Right. It's that thing that Steve defined really well in the war of Art. But you need to figure out if you're going to use Steve's terminology of resistance or are you going to focus on one element of resistance that is the most pervasive for the amateur. And I think, you know, we answered this a little while ago when we brought up the notion of shame.

Yeah.

You shame yourself to the point of inactivity. So you abandon your projects because you've shamed yourself so much that you can't deal with it anymore. Right. This is what the amateur creative does. He says, I'm going to build a shed all by myself, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to start in the morning. And then. And then once you get. You hit some roadblocks and everything, you're not cutting the wood the right way. Nothing's level. It looks terrible. You just, you just. I'm speaking personally because I've some of the wobbliest things ever created I made.

But.

And I shame myself like, what an idiot. Why didn't you. Why didn't you do that? What? Ah, jeez. And a lot of times you just quit. You go, well, you know what? Forget it. I'm just going to buy a shed. I'm going to throw all that crap out and buy one. So the shame element is a really interesting idea because everybody goes through it. Everybody shames themselves. They're not doing it the right way. Oh, their choice of genre is stupid. They don't really have a big idea. So I like the notion of you defining the villain of your book as shame. I don't know if that works for you, if that is helping you anyway, you probably won't know until we get off this call and, you know, maybe tomorrow. And it'll work or it won't. But this is why I love going through these questions. Because if I hadn't reminded us that we needed a hero, victim and a villain. We wouldn't even know.

To really blatantly state, oh, okay, if the villain is shame, then shame has to be. In my book, I have to talk about shame. I have to talk about how it hurt me. I have to put myself in a position of being a victim. Because you were right. You played video games to avoid shaming yourself because.

And then I would shame myself for playing the video games.

Exactly, exactly. So, you know, it's not an easy thing to get over with. I mean, while you're playing the video games, your brain is obsessed with the imagery, so you can't shame yourself. So coming to terms with your own internal self flagellation. Shame is a very important step for a creative person. Until they can say, oh, yeah, I'm going to shame myself and it's just what it is. I still need to get, you know, down to the office today. Until they can get to that point, they, we need to know. Creative people or people who want to be creative need to know they're not the only person who shames themselves. It's part of the deal. That's, you know, that's part of the battle that you have to fight to create something. So hero, victim, villain are three key parts of a big idea book. And the reader is going to assume your point of view and they will start when you start talking about the shame that you made for yourself. They will reflect and they will think about what they've done and they will say, he's absolutely right. That's exactly what I do. And that is the thing that screws me up. If I could only beat shame, maybe I could create something. I'm going to read another page. Maybe it's another idea about that. So that's another convention. It's kind of an obligatory cast of characters. The big idea book. So hero, victim, villain. The other thing in a, in a big idea book is sidekicks. And what sidekicks are, are all those sort of, you know, hero's journey characters that we talked about a couple, you know, months ago. The mentor, you know, you as the writer, you know, you should bring in some mentors, bring in some colleagues, some guys that, from work, some, you know, your sister or, you know, your cousin or somebody. So the sidekicks sort of come and go. Like Malcolm Gladwell did this so well in the tipping point where he, you know, he goes, he literally has lunch with people and he brings you into the conversation with the lunch that he has with these people. One of his friend's mother is a big figure in his book. These are sidekicks who come in at certain junctures in the book that explain a particular feature of your program and what you've discovered. So sidekicks is always a good thing. It's an important thing to have in a Big Idea book because it broadens the canvas of the story. We. We get these little way station, you know, experiences, these little mini stories with these sidekicks that we, you know, that illustrate a certain point in the Big Idea. Now, the other thing that you need is a clear path and methodology to explain to the reader. You may. Yeah, here's how I came to this decision. I learned. I was thinking about creativity, and I was thinking about how people learn how to play the guitar. And the way they learn how to play the guitar is they play a bad note and they immediately know it's a bad note because it sounds terrible. So the. The path and methodology, you know, again, it's a little squishy because your sidekicks are going to be people who could help with the path and methodology. You know, after I learned that, then I went to lunch with Jim, and Jim is this famous guy who does this. And so I asked him specifically, hey, I'm on trying to figure this thing out. What do you think of that? And he told me this. So there's a path, there's a movement, there's a progression of storytelling. A big idea book that we feel confident that the writer has, you know, plotted out this journey and is explaining to us as he's going that he has a clear destination. Okay, this is a big one. This is an obligatory scene. This is the hero at the mercy of the villains. You got to have it.

Okay?

Right. So we know what the hero of the mercy of the villain scene is. It's when the villains got poor Tim down on the ground. He's got his foot on his. On his neck. There's no way. It's an all is lost moment. You've got to step up and, you know, this is the moment in your life that you're going to tell the reader. And you realized, ah, man, I gotta. I gotta figure something out here. I've gotta change my behavior somehow, some way, because this guy's foot is on my neck. And you know I'm gonna die without doing anything if I don't change myself. So we need the hero at the mercy of the villain scene. And the way Tim overcame the villain was through the Grohl method. You thought of a way of living with the shame, understanding it's gonna Be there. Okay. Hero at the mercy of the villain. Let's see. I sort of already talked about this, but it's a good thing to think about the big idea book.

I think it's kind of fun if you look at it in terms of the Kubler Ross, you know, change cycle. Because what it. What a big idea book is, it's a process of trying to persuade people to change themselves. So we learned from Kubler Ross how people actually, you know, experience change. So if you use, you know, her eight sort of moments as inspirations to drive your book and you. They will progressively lead to, hopefully your reader deciding to make a change. And those eight stages, these. These are what I call way stations. They are. I'll just go through them again. Shock. You need to have a scene.

An idea, or a moment where there's a shock. Something happens that is shocking. Denial is the second one. Third one is anger. Fourth one is bargaining. The fifth one is depression. This is the turning point of the book. This is the moment when the writer conveys to the reader. This is the all is lost moment. You know, this is like. This is the moment when they. The villain has me so down on the ground. I'm at his mercy. And the only way I'm gonna get out of this is to change. After that is deliberation. Okay, I'm gonna change. How am I gonna change? What, What's. How. What tools can I dig around and find that will help me change my behavior? Choice is the ultimate, you know, okay, now I'm going to do the program. Here's what it is. On this day, I did this. And lastly is integration. Now that I do this, things work out. They don't always work out, but I have a better hitting percentage with my projects than I ever have. At least I finished my stuff. Might not be perfect, but it's done. I created something and now it's time to ship or whatever. Now, the last thing in a big idea book is it has to have some sort of ironic ending. An ironic ending, meaning it's good and it's bad. So for, you know, I talked earlier about the tipping point. Its ironic ending was. Tipping points can lead to really horrible things too. So you might want the recipe for creating tipping points. But be careful because you really need to think about if you want something to tip or not. And if you do, you know, the tools that Gladwell provides and talks about in the book, those are things that you can use to get something to tip. But tipping stuff, you know, like school shootings at high Schools are tipping points too, and suicide rates are tipping points, and on and on. Drug use, cigarettes, all these things. So there was a real ironic ending. There is that we've got to be careful about what we put in to, you know, progress to tip. So the. The ironic ending for you is that, you know, you can go through all this process, you can create something, and it still might not work, but that shouldn't be your goal because creativity is a process of discovery. It's self discovery. This is another thing that a lot of people don't really realize about creativity, that when you put. Put yourself out there and you create something, you learn so much about yourself in the process. So just going on the journey to create something is valuable, even if it isn't commercially viable, even if you lose money or lose time or it's a valuable experience. It provides meaning. Creativity is a meaning machine. It gives your life meaning. So that's the paradox at the end of your book. I think the ironic ending is that, hey, you know what? Even if you go through all my process, I can't promise that your thing's gonna be successful.

Yeah, but I mean, the ironic ending will be. You won't feel any shame about that, though.

True. I mean, it's. The great thing about any big idea is that it has irony baked into it.

You know, So a lot of these things, you'll find that once you finish, you know, the next draft, that you've already baked them into the story. So the ironic ending isn't something that you really, really have to consciously keep in, you know, the front of your mind all the time. Oh, my gosh. I don't know if this is ironic or not, because there is irony. You. If you could tell somebody how to create something successfully over and over and over again, you would be King Midas. Right. It's just not possible. But what you can tell people is the importance of creativity. Don't shame yourself not to create because you know you have to create something or you'll never discover, you know, what's inside yourself. And walking around the planet without knowing anything about yourself is really not a very meaningful way of going through life. If you're just here consuming things and then you're gonna rot in the ground after you've consumed things, that's not really much of a life. Creating things is the process of discovery and discovering meaning in your own life. I'm getting a sore throat because of this long monologue.

Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to take it all in because I'm Trying to figure out, well, like you said, the work will be. I mean, that's. My next question is like, so is my job to just think through these things and try to get down, Because, I mean, I'm realizing I set out to write a how to book, so expanding it to something bigger, you know, I don't know how to do that, which is okay. I mean, I need to learn how to do something new, I guess. I wonder. Like, I don't even know what to ask.

It's not necessarily. You're going to have to completely rewrite and redo everything in your book. It's really about a crystal clear notion that will come into your brain and you will rewrite your book in a way that is far more entertaining and interesting because you have clearly stated who the hero, the victim and the villain is and how to combat that. And you'll use more little stories than you do presently to broaden the applicability of your method.

Yeah, the thing about shame really resonates with me. So I think I'm gonna dig around on that a little bit because it comes from so many external and internal.

Places and we have to. I do think that there's a level, and you write about this in your draft. There's a level of, oh, I'm such a loser. Look at me creating this stuff. Nobody wants this stuff. It's so indulgent to be writing this novel. Who cares? Nobody's gonna care. So that. That really, like, externally driven. Oh, well, you know, I. It's like this really horrifying way of denigrating yourself to the point where you're completely incapable of doing anything. And everyone goes through that. Everyone, everyone who sets out to do anything has internal shame. And it's usually thinking about what other people are going to think of you. And there's also people in your family will say that to you. You know, when are you going to give up that dream, dude? And when are you going to, you know, get. Get it together and get a real job? People say that stuff to other people all the time. I think a book talking about the connection between our inability to create things and this, this internal and external shame device.

Is very interesting and literally just framing the argument, like putting that in your beginning hook in the introduction of your book, saying, I set out to write a book to teach you that you're not the only one who shames themselves and why. You know, I've shamed myself to such a point that I. I got nothing done and I had to change my behavior or My kids would not have any food. Please. Yeah.

You know, I'm sit. I'm sitting here looking at this Kubler Ross, and I feel like this is the framework because it also reminds me of, you know, how, like, the second part of the middle build is when the character starts to get it, but still doesn't get it right. So they make some initial changes, but they're still stuck in the old way of thinking. So they realize I can't live like that anymore, so I'm going to make these changes. It's always like these hedging changes.

Yeah.

And I realized, like, there was this really important moment in my career where I was extremely successful for what I had set out to do. It was when I launched a book for. For Daniel Pink that hit number one on all the major bestseller lists. And then two or three months later, I had five clients on the New York Times list at the same time. And I still felt no happiness in it. So I had figured out how to get myself to do the work, but I still found zero. All I felt was more pressure, and all I felt was more like I wasn't good enough. And I've worked with the clients that have hit the, you know, hit the dream of hitting the New York Times bestseller list or, you know, getting that contract or selling a ton of books or whatever, and all it does is turn up the heat under their unhappiness because it's. It's all still just based in shame. Yeah, I think following that kind of path. So, I mean.

If I'm telling the story of my path out of shame, Shame based creativity or shame, you know, the first part of the book would be not creating because of shame. And then the second part of the book will be creating, but still in shame. And then the payoff will be creating without shame. And so, I mean, would it just basically follow my own story with other stories woven in? Like, would mine be the arc from. Because if you're saying I'm the hero and the victim, I mean, that's. That's the thing is we're gonna follow my path because other people will see their path inside of my path.

Yeah.

So should I, like, step back and just try to. Because it seems like so much of the Big Idea book is kind of tackled in the introduction, right? Yes, because it's. Instead of the 25, 50, 25 beginning hook, middle building payoff. You said it was like 10, 80, 10, 10.

Yeah, yeah.

So 10, 80, 10. So should I just step back with this and try to rewrite the introduction from this point of view and see what I come up with.

Yes. Ok. But yeah, that's what you just described about the. I call it the Is that all there is syndrome. You know, there's a famous Peggy Lee song from the 1950s. It's a great song. But when you reach that moment of quote, unquote success and you feel, oh my gosh, this is even worse, that is a really, really important moment for everybody. And that story about, you know, doing the marketing and everything for those guys, you know, that's. Yeah, I think, I think you tackling the introduction and just, you know what, read the introduction of the Tipping point. It's maybe 1500 words. He begins with, you know, hush Puppies and it ends really, really well. And it explains exactly what the book is all about. So just read like the first chunk of the Tipping Point and you'll know when, when you've hit the end of the beginning hook because then it gets into, you know, specific stuff.

Okay.

And then see if you can sort of mirror be inspired by how he did it and then take a crack at it.

Okay, I'll do it.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Storygrid podcast. For everything StoryGrid 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 Storygrid universe. If you'd like to check out the show notes for this episode or any past episodes, all of that can be found@storygrid.com podcast if you're looking for a link to Ryan Holiday's new book, perennial seller, we have a link to that book there as well. If you would like to reach out to us, you can find us on Twitter torygrid. 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.