Scene 1, Book 2

Hello, and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grohl, 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. As we continue just wading through this pandemic, I'm continuing to work on the second book in the threshing series.

So we jump back in, and Sean.

Gives me some feedback and advice on what to do next with book two in the series. So I think you'll enjoy it. So let's jump in and get started.

So, Sean, I have officially started working on the next book in the threshing series, which I'm just calling the Burning for now, just so I have something to call it other than the second book in the threshing series. And so my homework last time was map out the beginning hook and then write the first scene. And so I wrote an entire first scene, and it was super boring. And I just remembered how some of the feedback I've gotten on the threshing is how much people like just the pacing and how there's so much movement and action. And I just remembered all the times I would write a scene or a sequence, and you're like, okay, now go make it interesting. You know, like, you know, you used the example of, like, the first episode of Mad Men, where instead of them just meeting for coffee and having a conversation, he, like, walked her through the office. So there's always movement, right? So I had this. I wrote this scene that this is kind of boring. And then I was, like, thinking about it later and was like, okay, how could I just make it exciting, an exciting entry into it? Because, you know, stepping into the threshing, it was three scenes of action, basically. And so I rewrote the first scene. It was, like 1100 words. And that, I hope, was exciting. And then I mapped out what I thought the sequences of the beginning hook could be and sent those over to you. So, thoughts?

I thought the scene worked really well. I thought it had that narrative velocity from the start that made you as a reader just connect to what was actually going on on the ground as opposed to thinking about what had happened in the interim between the end of the threshing and the beginning of this book. So I think you're definitely on the right track there. I also love the way you've set up a lot of conflict and tension already about Harry and about the fact that Jesse is sort of like the young queen in that her conciliaries, her, you know, her second in command are the people that the. Just the rank and file people who report to the queen sort of take their cues from as opposed to the Queen. So I love that. I thought that was really insightful and really a good point. Generally, the idea of sort of this destabilized world where the scavengers who have been literally outcasts from the global society as represented by New York City and the grid, et cetera, that they are now seizing the opportunity in the destabilized world after the grid has been shut down to attack the elites in the cities was really good too. And all of that was established just through the action of that scene. So I think you're absolutely on target with the scene. I think the arena that you're talking about in terms of what happened after the threshing is on the money too. It actually reminded me of, you know, I know a lot of people who have served in the military and in many different, you know, functions. A lot of Special Forces people. And, you know, recently I've had some discussions with them and one of the guys I was talking to about, you know, after the fall of Iraq and just how some bad decisions that were made at the time and he. And the way he put it is like every guy on the ground knew that the worst possible decision to have made was to fire all of the Iraqi kind of military forces. Because what that did is it was a massive destabilization of people who were very nervous and now they were thrown into chaos. Whereas if they had been sort of brought into the American equation, it would have kept a lid on the, you know, the buildup of anti American attitudes at that time. There was a very short window, you know, after Saddam Hussein was thrown out of power for the American forces to prove themselves, you know, empathetic to the average Iraqi citizen. And the way Hussein's, you know, global social structure worked was the majority of people were employed in some kind of military function. So when the decision was made to just basically fire everyone who was part of the military because they were the people that were, quote, unquote, conquered by the military forces, that that would be a good idea. And it was actually a terrible idea. So it reminded me of. And also there were these safe sort of perimeters within Baghdad that the American forces established that provided perimeter protection of those inside of the perimeter. And it Seems to me that what you've created here is a destabilized environment similar to what Baghdad was like during, you know, right after the fall of Iraq. And, you know, what has to be done is really strong leadership to be able to navigate this very, very delicate balance between keeping everybody stable without it degrading into absolute revolutionary, you know, chaos. So this first scene that you wrote reminded me of that because you can see that it's very, very unstable. But for whatever reason, Jesse has been capable up to this moment of holding a lid on things, that things are really, really at a fraying point. But she's very, very an extremely talented and intuitive leader who knows not to just sort of like, you know, not pay attention to the scavengers. So all of this is to say that I think this is a really, really good start. It's very, very action oriented, which it should be because life and death is really at stake here. It's a prime moment in pulling people into your story that didn't read the threshing. Right. So if someone comes to this and reads this first, seen not having read the threshing, they're still going to want to know, I wonder what happens next. This is weird. There are these. This is like a post apocalyptic world where these people are under attack. They have to reach this safety zone inside of literally across a bridge into a perimeter secured area in Chicago. So I mean, I think this is a really good start. I'm sure you're shocked to hear that.

Well, it was nice because I had written that.

Version you never saw and nobody will ever see. And it was sitting on it and then kept thinking about it and kept thinking about it, kept thinking about it and was like. Because it started with her basically just landing in the city and then like doing what she's there to do. And so I kept like, well, what if, like it was really hard for her to even get there in the first place? Like, what would that look like? I'm like, oh, well, you know, I already established in the first book that the scavengers will attack transports as they're coming into cities. So what if that happens and they have to crash land, you know, a mile from the parameter and they got to get there. Like, what would that do? That would be interesting and exciting and all of those things. And then as I wrote it, and that's where I started to having those little things happen where, like, as I was writing it, I was like, oh, you know, probably like the guards would default to Harry because he knows what's going on more than this little girl does. And, like, that would be annoying for her, but she would also realize, like, they're not going to listen to her anyway. Like, so all of that started to come into my mind as I was writing this. And so I was. I was pretty happy with how it turned out. So I actually did think you would like this one.

Oh, good.

So, and then did you look at. I just mapped out. Did it even make sense, the stuff I sent you for the. The rest of the beginning hook?

Yeah, it does. And I like, again, I think you're on a good, good track here because. Okay, so you open up with this action sequence where, you know, probably through quite a bit of insightful strategic and tactical planning, Jesse and Harry probably gets credit for it because the people think that all these ideas are coming from Harry. They actually make it into Chicago. Okay, so that's good. And then.

What you have planned here is that Jesse has a really, really comprehensive understanding of the mechanics necessary to power up the grid in a way that will get people back online. So that's a great bit because she's now relying upon her. Her complicated worldview that works. So she's extraordinarily capable and we get to see her expertise in action. So she's kind of like, you know, if we think that maybe Harry is leading the charge at the beginning just to get them into the perimeter. Now she really shows her stuff when she's able to splice together a system that will, you know, calm the people inside the perimeter. So that's good. And then she's going to meet with the person who is presenting himself as the leader of the Chicago area. And. And there's a tie there because it's as his father, which is great. So she's going to have feelings about this guy even before she meets him, because she had mixed feelings about as. You know, she really did not like as, but as proved to be a critical ally at the end of the threshing. So whatever results there is going to be interesting because you're somehow going to be able to create some tension there. And she's going to expect his reaction to be one way and it'll probably be another. And he's a political figure, so we can't really trust his. Whatever it is that he's doing in that moment. So I think you've got a lot of juicy stuff to play with there. And then she, you know, then the big sort of global, unexpected event, the fear event that will drive this second part. You've Embedded in this unit of story when there's a message from the reapers, and the reapers are these sort of godlike figures from a very protected space that don't just contact anyone. And what you've also baked in here is that she's been ignoring dealing with the Reapers out of probably necessity, right? So she can't deal with these super high level godlike figures in some other environment that's obviously protected when she's responsible for the lives and the survival of massive numbers of people in these cities. So her ignoring the reapers is a great character, active way of showing that she has her heart in the right place. So she's solving problems for the many before dealing with the requests of the few, which is great. So now that she gets this message now what's really great is that you're going to have an action sequence which is going to be even more intense because the scavengers are going to actually attack Chicago. So what's even better is that the leader of the scavengers is going to be revealed at this moment as Jesse's former mentor, Balaam, which is awesome. So you're really embedding a lot of really great deep stuff in this beginning hook that will really drive readers of the Threshing and excite them while also I think it'll be strong enough as standalone action to bring in people who didn't read the Threshing. So I think you're on track there. And then, then you've got this moment where at the end of this beginning Hook, what you want to set up are all of the like, sort of the Fellowship from the Threshing. You've got Harry, Alex as his father, and Jesse. They understand that, you know, for whatever reason, they. They have to secure the. The leadership people. So they're trying to get them out of the city so that they don't get killed during this attack with the scavengers. And what happens is that they're overrun and they kidnap Jesse. So that's a really, I think, pretty exciting beginning Hook, where at the beginning of this beginning, Hook, Jesse's a very powerful figure who demonstrates her power over and over again. And then at the end of the beginning Hook, she has now been held captive and she's now, you know, agency deprived. So she's going to lose her power at the end of this beginning Hook, which, when she loses her power, that threatens everything. And the forces that are going to take her are the powerless. So that's cool too, because she's gonna move from her ordinary world, which is generally this sort of post meta modern, post apocalyptic city like infrastructure. And she's going to move from that into the desolation of the wastelands outside of the city, which are run by this supposedly horrifically brutal group called the Scavengers.

So that's a pretty good map. I think you've got a pretty good map here for your beginning hook. Okay.

So one piece that I must have been unclear on was I was planning on the Reapers actually kidnapping her and taking her because they're trying to restore order. That was my actual plan.

Well, I don't think you want to go there this quickly.

Okay.

And I think one of the things that's going to be interesting about this book is that you're reversing the movement, the liminal space between the ordinary world to the extraordinary world. So in the threshing, Jesse moves from an ordinary world to a super high tech, extraordinary, sort of, for lack of a better word, paradisical kind of existence in that place that has grass and sunshine, etc. And in this book, she's going the other way. So she's moving from some sort of like, generally ordered world, you know, where the cell phones work and people are able to text each other, into like, she's going back 150 years into like, sort of, you know, late 19th century America. Right. Where nobody has anything. So it's a scarcity. It's a scarcity mentality among the scavengers. And you can also kind of play along with her relationship to Balaam. Right. So when she's in the scavenger world, it's ruled by her old mentor, Balaam, so she's going to have to kind of go back in time in her own sort of mind and metabolize why she was attracted to Balaam in the first place as a disruptive force in her former world and what that actually means and what Balaam means as a mentor force in that space.

So Balaam absolutely is going to want to kidnap Jesse, because when they have Jesse, the scavengers are finally going to get some leverage and some power. Right? Right. So Balaam, probably you got to think through, like, is Balaam a good guy or a bad guy or what? And who is the force of antagonism? So I think the Reapers are kind of your uber shadowy figure villains. Right? Right. So the longer you can delay their actuality on the page, I think the more effective it will be because then it. It just shows the power divide. They're so powerful that they don't even have to go near all this ridiculous stuff on the ground. They live in a place that is just so perfectly, hermetically sealed that they don't. It's sort of like, you know, when you. When you ride on a plane and you're kind of in coach and your knees are cramped and. And then you look out the window and there's some, you know, jet setting billionaire getting on his private jet. And you look over there and you're like, God, those people don't even know what it's like to have to sit in coach. Like, to them, that's normal. Just to go on your jet and look at me. What's normal for me is to be in coach. Why is there such a separation between the way they live their lives and the way that I live my life? And so that's kind of what you're trying to create here is we've got these people who are, you know, in the worst seats on the airplane, and then they look outside and there are people who don't even get on the plane. Like they get their own thing, you know. And so I think that's the way you want to present the reapers as sort of like this uber incredibly privileged class of people who don't even have any understanding of what it's like for those people beneath them. And the way to get there is to not have Jesse confront those reapers or go into that world until some critical time in the story. And I don't necessarily think you have to figure that out right now, other than I think it makes more sense for her to have to go into the wasteland and learn the ways of the scavengers. There's a wonderful movie from the 1970s. I'm sure it's super dated and probably I haven't seen it in 30 years, so. But I remember seeing it as a kid and it was a movie called A Man Called Horse. And it was the story of this sort of British officer who is in the United States helping out the cavalry, fight, quote, unquote, the Indians. So it's a super old, you know, way of looking at the world. But what was really interesting about the movie is that there's a battle and he survives the battle, but the cavalry gets wiped out and he becomes the prisoner of this Native American tribe somewhere in middle America somewhere. And the whole story is about how he integrates himself into that culture. So this British sort of fop ends up understanding the ways of this Native American tribe. And the Native American tribe is such that they're open to unique beings joining them. So this man slowly becomes part of that Native tribe, and he goes through the cultural necessities and the indoctrinations of the tribe, and in order to prove himself worthy of being a member. And there's amazing, you know, these things that he has to go through to prove himself that he's truly, you know, part of the tribe. And so he goes through these rituals that are extraordinarily powerful. So I think you have an opportunity here to do something like that with Jesse. It's almost as if she's. She's been kidnapped by this Native tribe that has a way of integrating into the reality of the world in such a way that they're capable of surviving and even thriving in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. So, thematically, this is a great sort of movement for your story, because now she's going back to the roots of what it actually means to be a human being. It's not really, you know, having really great skills. Coding, computers and all that stuff is really great. But when push comes to shove, you need to know how to find out where the water is. You need to find out where the places that you can find shelter are, where the vegetables are, where, you know, all that stuff. And so what you can do in this middle build, probably the entire middle build, it's kind of up to you, is have her experience.

This Native way of attuning to the reality of the natural world. So her prior kind of worldview is attuned to the virtual creation of virtual worlds. So the virtual worlds of the grid and the reapers and the elites and the threshing and all that stuff is superimposed virtual reality on top of and ignoring of the natural reality of life on Earth.

So if you can get her into having to adapt to the natural environment and to use the scavengers as the means by which she learns those skills, that could be really, really effective. Because then you can see how her complicated worldview that has worked for her before is not going to work in the natural world. And so she's going to reach, like, a point of no return where she has to blow up her old ways of looking at the world, and she starts to be able to open up her mind to the idea that we need to sort of attune ourselves to the natural reality of life on Earth, as opposed to trying to create virtual reality environments that can trick us into believing that we're safe. So the Reapers, as the sort of malevolent, shadowy force you know, are going to be able you know, they're going to be tracking. You know, I think they'll be tracking where she is because they have that ability. And, you know, they're going to present.

Somehow the force of antagonism that's going to force her to confront them. Or alternatively, you just keep the reapers in book two as this superstructure, untouchable, you know, in some realm that she will never be able to reach. And then that could be, you know, book three. You know, she finally, you know, transitions into having to confront the power systems that seemingly control the world in another realm. So this second book could be about that return. The clash between virtual reality in Chicago in New York versus the natural reality of the scavengers. And Jesse is the force that somehow is capable of integrating those two worldviews in an integral fashion that is threatening to the reapers, you know, wherever they are. Is any of that tracking?

Yeah, no, that. That makes sense, because the big thing that was in my head as I was planning this out was the Empire Strikes Back, the. You know, the second Star wars, which was Episode five. And the opening scenes were them on. They had this outpost, the Rebels, you know, after they destroyed the Death Star, they had this outpost. And then there's this little action scene in the beginning where, like, Luke gets caught by the monster and then has to escape, and Han rescues him. And there's, like that. And then there's a regrouping, and then there's this giant battle where they all have to evacuate the planet. And that's when they get split up, where Luke goes to see Yoda, and then Han and everybody else ends up in Cloud City. And so my thinking was, like, I did want the group to get broken up because everybody's got stuff to learn. And I like this idea of her getting integrated into the scavengers, because that will end up being the force that they use. But I do want to, because what I'm trying to figure out here is who's the villain in this book, and then who's the villain in the entire series? And I had pretty much planned on the villain in the series being Randy, her brother. And so this is where this book will probably. I'll probably follow. I mean, right now, I'm counting four different storylines. So we'll have Jesse, we'll have 83, we'll have Harry, and we'll have Randy. And we've got to follow their storylines and see where they all end up. And I like. Because my thing is the Reapers, in my mind, they need the America's faction. So this idea that they just don't even care, and it's like, okay, well, that's fine. Well, why were they helping them in the first place? Well, I think it's because they need them. And the thing I'd come up with a long time ago was basically all of the field hands that were logging to the grid every day were actually running all of the systems that the Reapers were relying on. So now that one of the three factions have gone offline, everything is falling apart back at the Reapers because they need that going on, otherwise they. They lose what they have.

Right.

So to me, there has to be some kind of force of the Reapers trying to get them to fall back in line, right? Because if I look at it from the Reapers side of things. So if I was telling the story of the Reapers, the inciting incident of their story, and is suddenly the entire America's faction disappears off the grid, and that means a third of their systems go offline. So now they're scrambling to try to figure out what went wrong. Why can't we get ahold of President Marcus and we need to figure out how to get them back online. So what are they doing? And that's where I thought they would basically try to, like, Randy tries to make a deal with them. They try to help reinstall him as the guy. Does that make sense?

It does. I was just like. As you were talking about that, one of the fun things to do.

In storytelling is.

What could be cool is the reapers think that either Harry or Randy was the mastermind of the, you know, the grid falling apart during the threshing. So what could happen is that. And this is a. This is a really cool concept is the misdirection of, like, people assume, like, there's no way that girl had anything to do with it. Let's take that guy Harry. Right. So the Reapers were the ones who sort of like, somehow were able to encourage the scavengers to attack Chicago. And their idea was they're going to take Harry and bring Harry to them. Or maybe it's Randy, or maybe it's somebody else. I'm not sure yet. But they make the mistake of not knowing that it's actually Jesse who's the brain behind the operation. So Jesse ends up, you know, behind enemy lines and is brought into the scavengers because. And then you could follow a storyline where Harry or Randy goes to, you know, they're like, to the Reapers or something. I'm not really sure yet, but I just want to put that little kernel Thought in your mind is to create an unexpected event in the story is the reapers are fully committed to getting America back online. All we have to do is find the person who is responsible for breaking the grid. We'll bring them back, we'll co opt them to our advantage, we'll give them, you know, whatever President Marcus had and then, you know, everything will be fine. And they make the mistake of picking the wrong person and think that it was Randy or Harry who were were actual forces behind the win at the threshold. And then they come to the realization later on, oh, this guy's a fraud. And then they target finally Jesse, or Jesse targets them in the meantime. I'm not trying to complicate it overly, but I did want to let you know that's a good way of. Because to the reader it's obvious that Jesse's the mastermind, right? But to the reapers it's not right. And they would underestimate a 12 year old girl and go, oh, she had nothing to do with it. She was just the puppet that somebody else was using to manipulate the system.

So I like the idea of you taking the reins of this story and moving it probably out from the beginning hook into almost third person omniscient so that you could follow multiple lines of story in the middle build. So Jesse could be one track of story where she's with the reapers and then you could track.

Harry or as his father or you know what I'm saying? So you can branch from beginning hook into third person omniscient with three or four different storylines that can converge at the end of your middle build into your ending payoff. So those four forces, they move into different lines of story and then they converge at the end of the middle build and flush you into the ending payoff so that the group is back together again fighting a common enemy, something like that. So I do encourage you to branch out, but I think probably the best course of events is for you to just flow with the gasoline that you already have. Okay. And I think you've got a lot of gasoline to keep you busy for a while. So it's good to talk about this middle build coming up, but why don't you just let it kind of percolate in your mind? And these options of using the scavengers, using Randy, using Harry, using the reapers, looking at the world through the reaper's point of view, but on the ground, just start working scene to scene using these four sequences that you've come up with that you've already shared. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So not get too caught up with trying to have the whole plan in place, but be thinking about it while I'm actually writing the scenes that I kind of know where I'm going with.

Exactly. And then as you shared the scenes with me week by week, we can discuss. Oh, that's a cool development. What do you think that's going to do to the middle build? Is there. Right. Like, what is going to be the arc of that second or tertiary storyline in the middle build? What happens to Harry in the reaper world? Well, do we need that or should it be someone else? Maybe it's as his father goes to the reaper world because he's a political animal. And maybe. Right. Like, maybe Harry is attempting to free Jesse from the scavengers so we can track him on. Kind of like trying to get the hero back into the thing. Right. So all of that, I think, will become more interesting as you're plugging along on the beginning hook. Okay.

Okay, well, I'll keep going on that on the beginning, but I do, I.

Really do suggest that you write down notes and thoughts about the middle build. Not just like, let them sit in your head when you have an insight, just have like a notebook. I know your. Your super duper notebook will come in handy. Yeah, but your notebook use a thing and just go, middle build thoughts. You know, there could be a mistaken identity of Jesse, so they take the wrong person to the reapers. That's one thought. Second thought, maybe. What are the three storylines I want to pursue? Do I want to do two or three? I want to move into third person omniscient in the blank. Right. So just, you know, write down all the stuff that occurs to you as you're building your beginning hook. And, you know, one of the things that I've recently kind of come to in terms of action story is that the force of antagonism can be rather nebulous in the beginning hook. And the middle build, they often say, belongs to the villain. And that's because I think the villain finally comes to the realization of who is really upsetting the balance of their building on their ideology. Like, they figure out who the hero is or the luminary agent. So the villain takes over the middle build because the luminary agent becomes visible to that villain, and then the villain reacts to the rise of the luminary agent. So at the beginning of the story, the work of the villain, shadow agent is just embedded in all of the action that occurs. And then as it transitions into the middle build, the shadow agent villain becomes more higher resolution so that the reader starts to understand there's a focal point on who is behind all this, or there's a narrative drive for the reader to discover who is behind it. So I don't think it's a bad idea to not worry so much about perfectly defining the forces the literal shadow agent in this book yet until you get to the middle build, but allow yourself to think through and make notes about what the possibilities are.

Okay, well, I'll keep writing on it and have some more to show you next week.

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