Scenes and Sequences for your Middle Build

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 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 start actually figuring out what the middle build is going to be. I've been doing a lot of thinking on this, researching how middle builds are built, going over the hero's journey again, and actually started putting together some scenes and sequences to build out what this is going to be. And so Sean and I dive into that and we go over it in detail. And I think it's going to be really helpful for you because the middle build is often. I mean, it's the longest part of the book. It's hard to figure out exactly, you know, how to build it in a way that's not too fast or not too slow, that introduces the right characters and the right timing. So, you know, we all are going to have to deal with our own middle build. So I think it's going to be something you really enjoy. So let's jump in and get started. So, Sean, I've been working on the scene list since last week. And just for putting together what was probably 500 words that I actually sent you, probably not even that much. It's just trying to figure out how these things should stack up has been really hard. So I sent it to you and I'll put in the show notes, but a couple things. One is I have these really kind of every sequence is three scenes, which seems a little too normal. And then on a different note or kind of similar, I guess I cannot decide what the digital world should look like. So when they plug in and they're going through these different. Because you sent me an email this week saying basically we need to make that Jesse goes through kind of three trials as she levels up. And so I was working those into my scene list as well. When I'm trying to picture what those are actually going to be. You know, I've written a couple scenes that didn't work for other reasons, but I didn't even know if they worked as far as, like, the digital world made sense. And am I just basically ripping off the Matrix? And so, yeah, so I was. The only reason I sent them to you this morning is it was like, time to send you something because I'm not thrilled with where they're at, even though I've tinkered with them for the last week. But so that's where I'm at with it. Not sure what you thought when you kind of worked through them.

Well, I just went through them this morning very quickly and my initial reaction was this is a good, solid starting point. And the question about your not knowing exactly what the virtual game, game world is going to look like or what the rules of that world are, you know, that's something that you kind of have to do, a deep kind of mind dive in and say to yourself, all right, well, what are the worlds that I'm very familiar with in prior works of story? So the Matrix is definitely one. And so the Matrix is sort of the reality of their world is being on this very strange spaceship and it's darkness. And the way they jack in is similar to the way that your characters are going to jack in, in that they literally have to plug, plug their cerebral cortex into this world in order to live inside of it. And the world inside of the Matrix is just your everyday, normal, beautiful world that only Keanu Reeves can, can bend to his will. And the only way out is through the telephone call. So that's a good thing to think about. All right, well, that's pretty cool. The other world that comes to mind for me is Ender's Game, which was much more. I didn't see the movie, so I read the novel. Orson Scott Card wrote it and it's a, it's a really terrific novel.

Yeah, I've read it.

Yeah. And so for me that world was very interesting too because he had defined a three dimensional kind of cage of sorts where all this practice happens where the, the kids sort of are able to manipulate their, themselves so that they get in these fights and they have to figure out a way past this goal. And it had a, like a three dimensional, you know, like those three dimensional chess games that kind of, that's what it pictured to me. Only the players and the, the pieces of the chessboard were actual people in a non gravity weightless sort of area. So it, to think about what's been done before is an interesting idea. So one of the things that's a good way to solve a world problem is to think of one major element that you could switch around or play with that changes everything. So for example, in the Matrix, it's the pill. You know, once he takes the pill, he goes to the real world. You know, he gets out of that primordial goo and he's on the ship. So the pillow changes his consciousness. So one of the things that comes to mind just off the top of my head now is the speed of thought. What could be interesting is to think about what if the game world required very focused neural energy. And what I mean by that is that the people who play the game the best way are those who can almost reach a Zen like place in their mind where all of the. The internal chatter filters away and their movements are done through thinking. So when one of the players thinks, I'll move to the left three places, they're automatically there. So if you thought of this world being such that the internal mind, it's almost as if when you jack into this world, you operate almost in the interior landscape of your mind, so your thoughts become the reality that you see. It's like a dream world for the people who enter this virtual reality. So the people who are the most successful inside this virtual reality are those who are capable of. Of slowing down their panic and slowing down their internal thought processes. So Jesse is very, very good at it. And I bring this up, and I'm not saying that you need to use that or play with that, and you're welcome to it if you like it. But the reason I'm saying that is one of the solutions to finding something unique and innovative in a world is, is to riff on the expectations of the audience. The audience, when they come to your novel and they're thinking of, you know, this virtual world game world where these players go inside and do battle, they're going to think of video games. They're going to think of the. I'm not a video game guy, so I've never really even played any of them. But whatever that landscape is where people go to play video games, that's going to be their first thought. Oh, this is just like, name some game. I don't even know any of the game.

Yeah, like Call of Duty.

Yeah, Call of Duty or Assassin's Creed or whatever. So the trick is to play with that idea, but give them one thing that they're not expecting so that the trick of the game is thematic too. And when I say the trick of the game is thematic, I'm saying that whatever thing. If it's the, let's just go with. At the game level, all action operates at the speed of thought. So if you think the speed of light is fast, the speed of thought is even faster. So only those people who can filter out all of the baloney in their head are capable of being present in the world. So when you Go into this world, there's all this noise. And the noise is coming from other people who are in the world too, who can't control themselves. So think about like, you know, crazy monkeys chattering around in the cage. And the only way for you not to become like that chattering monkey is to have sort of a Zen like sensibility. So part of the training that Jesse goes under is almost a Buddhist kind of training, which is one of the great things. I know this is kind of off topic, but there was this great TV show in the 1970s and it was about this Buddhist monk. What was it called again? Kung Fu. It was called Kung Fu. And this Buddhist monk from China or Tibet comes to the United States in the old west, and he gets in all these problems and all these situations. And because he's a Buddhist monk, he's able to slow down his thoughts while everybody else panics. So he uses all the, you know, martial arts to beat people up and save the day because he has this special skill of being able to slow down his thoughts. So that's kind of an interesting idea because that's usually the way game players or anybody who plays a sport, they reach, when they reach that level. It's called like the flow level. And psychologists have, have written about this flow thing before. It's when you are almost connected, you're plugged into this metaphysical state. And you know, if you pull up for that three, three point shot and you just set up right, you're gonna make the shot. And that would be kind of interesting because when video game players, when they hit that place, they know before they see the bad guy on the screen where he's going to be. And so they immediately shoot the bad guy before he even appears. So that could be kind of interesting where you think about, okay, it's this black sort of space. And when people jack into it, the trick is to not get disoriented. So that's really where they find the best players, those who can go into this black nothingness and not freak out. And Jesse, of course, is a natural. And it's only when self doubt and internal thoughts inside the brain of the player start to come in that they fall apart in the game. That could be kind of cool because just to get back to what I was saying about the thing should be thematic. One of the themes of the thriller and of the maturation plot is when your protagonist whittles away all of the unimportant things in their life and comes to some central revelatory moment. So what's required of them is to focus their energies and to really understand, you know, the problems that they're facing and how they're going to solve them. So I know I've probably gone on too long about trying to help you with your world, but I do think once you kind of figure out that neat thing, and it might not be. Players operate at the speed of thought, although that's kind of cool. I don't know if there's any other game or a story world where that is, you know, the thing it, it's possible that there could be. I'm not all that well read in the arena, but that's, you know, that's something to think about. And I like the idea of. It's like that moment in the Matrix when they have to think up all those guns, you know.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So they go into that warehouse and they're like, just white space. And he's like, think about guns. Then all those guns show up and they're like, oh, okay. So that's, that's one thing. All right, so just, let's get back to your, your middle build scenes. I'll just leave it at that for that. Okay. Remember now, first of all, what I do like is you started this out very well in that you, you've brought down the temperature and you're introducing the magical world to the reader from the very start of the middle build. So the first thing that, the first scene that you talk about is a character named as who shows Jesse around the facilities. So as I guess is sort of like the mentor or the gatekeeper who's going to walk Jesse into the facility and say, okay, breakfast is at 5am and it's this and that. So that's a really good start because now the reader is going to go, oh, this is the great part. This is when she's going to get her training.

Yeah. So AS is going to be her enemy. So he's another trainee, and so he's the one that's going to be showing her around. That was the plan.

That's good.

And then so I wanted to introduce to the real world, new world. So the new world, but the real part of that. And then the second scene will be inside of the grid. So we get to see that as part of the introduction to the new world.

That's good. And I think the other thing that you have to think about when you're mapping out these scenes is you've got a good, solid, you know, 21 scenes here or whatever there are. And When I mean solid, I mean they are rational, logical, progressively complicated, you know, movements. So now that you have that, you have to start thinking about, okay, AS shows Jesse around the facilities. How can I set that up so that I can pay it off, interestingly, later on? So I know AS is going to be one of Jesse's competitors. So if I do that scene, AS is pretty smart. And he's going to think just. He's going to make Jesse believe that. That he's her friend, right? Because he's going to want to have some ammunition to mess her up when the time comes. So you have to think about very Machiavellian figures who are going to be her rivals and how they will try and manipulate her and the reader to believe that they are on, you know, the protagonist's side. So that first scene you do, I would not give away that AS is competitive.

I want to set. My plan was to set it up where he's seen as my. That's helpful, right? And then because Jesse buddies up to him, her new partners don't like her and don't trust her because they don't like him, because he's the bad guy.

That's great, because that's exactly what mirrored that story you told me last week about when you had that job and the CEO walked you around and everybody hated you. So using that for this scene is a great idea. Remember, set something up where AS like says something like, whatever you do, don't use the purple button, you know, or whatever it is, so that Jesse thinks that he's giving her a really good tip. And then later on she uses it or does something and she gets in trouble or something. I don't know. But you know what I mean about setting up so you can pay off later. Yeah.

Okay, so well, let me just walk you through them then, since. Okay, so that was the idea. So the first three are gonna.

The.

The first sequence is gonna be her basically being introduced to all the characters in the world. And I've been thinking through again, the fact, you know, we talked about the fact that she's coming in late, right. And I've thought about even making it where she came in on an irregular year. So all the kids are a year older than her and everybody's wondering why she was recruited when she was. Because she was the only new one to be brought in because it was an on and off year, because it is the year of the threshing and people don't have time to prepare. Right. So everybody else has a lot more experience and they're older and they bring her in. So that was kind of how I was thinking that since AZ is kind of the bad guy and he's always looking for an angle, he's wanting to buddy up to this girl because he's wondering why she's there.

Great.

Because she must be special if they brought her in so irregularly. And then I was thinking through, like, instead of making it where every person's kind of on their own, and this is the part I also haven't completely worked out, but I thought about having it be teams of people where there's somebody who's actually logged in to the world or to the training simulator or whatever. And then they have a support staff. Basically, they have two support people that are doing things for them and giving them what they need to succeed in that world or in that training or whatever.

Great idea.

And so what I was thinking was she gets paired up with Ernst and Alex, these two guys, because they just lost their lead person that got scrambled out of the program. So they get paired up with this girl that's younger and has no experience. So they're just kind of forlorn that. And they think she's buddies with the bad guy. So there's. I wanted to create some tension there between what will become her allies.

Great.

So then, you know, thinking through the three tests, and when I went back and looked over my story grid of Harry Potter, there were tests in there too. So their first big test was the sorting with the sorting hat. And then there was one where the troll got loose. And so anyway, I was thinking through, like, what that would look like here. And so I was thinking, okay, so they have all these teams, but only three teams are actually allowed to be sent to the threshing. So they have to start whittling down the teams. And so they start putting them through these seven. The. I just called it the severings, where they're basically cutting out teams to get it down to the best three. So this is where there can be three tests that they have to go through in order for her to come out on top. So the next sequence is her basically getting thrown into one. They only have 24 hours to prepare. Ernst and Alex are assuming they're all going to lose because they have no time to prepare. And they're trying to come up with preparation, but they don't have anything. And when they log in, they're, you know, it's all lost because they're not ready. And then Jesse's able to pull something off and they win. And I was thinking, here is where she will, on purpose, embarrass Az in some way so that Jesse, Alex and Ernst bond over this first severing. So then it's clearly established by this point that they are friends and as is the enemy. So that will be a climactic moment. So I wanted to come down and do some more establishing of what's going on. So there's a scene where they celebrate and they all love each other and this is so great. And she finds out why they hated AZ and all of those. And then they move into training. And this is where Jesse meets somebody who knows her, but, like, it's implied that he knows her and doesn't think she should be there. And so he's really hard on her, but she doesn't understand why. And then there's a point where Jesse and as their attention comes to a head and they decide to sneak out at night and go back in and go through the same drill again to see who will win, because as thinks he can beat her, but really he's just setting her up to be caught doing something she's not supposed to do. And so this is where I want to establish the payoff that's coming in the next sequence where she logs in, he's not there, and then she ends up into this kind of anomalous space where she can't find her way back out. And we've, you know, we established in the beginning hook of this story that if you just get logged out, like, if you just get unplugged, you go crazy. And so she's stuck in this world and this weird, weird stuff is happening, but she doesn't know why. And then Ernst and Alex show up and rescue her. And then as they log off, they're caught by the drill sergeants. But instead of being in trouble, they're kind of freaking out of what was going on in the system while she was in there because they don't know what's going on either. So then the next sequence, we're entering the second test, so we're coming up on scenes 13 through 15. So I'm trying to. So this is going to be the middle point of the middle build, which is when she has to switch over from, you know, she has to switch over from not caring about her or only caring about herself to caring about other people. And something major has to happen for her to make that switch. So the next severing is announced, they begin preparation, Jesse logs in, they start fighting, but then she drops in that same anomalous place from the previous sequence. And lo and behold, her brother meets her there. And that's where her brother explains what's really going on. That he's the one that created the anomaly because he's trying to secretly talk to her. He's the one that had her brought in, and he gives her a job to do so that in the next severing, he can take control of the faction. So. But what she has to do is actually hack the mainframe. I've not figured what that's going to be yet. But in the real world, not in the grid world. So then the next scene, the severing's over. He had made it where they passed. Her brother had made it where it passed. She tells her friends what she's got to do. They agree to help her, and then they go into the hacking of the mainframe and they're almost caught by as, but think he doesn't know what's actually going on. Then the final sequence I mapped out here, which is, I didn't get all the way through the middle build because at this point, I didn't know if I was so far off track. I hate when I'm like, on a path, right? You know, and I'm like, I don't want to keep walking down the wrong path. So then the final severing, we decided this is going to be the third test. And at the end of the third test is where she has to die and then come back to life. So I also wanted to establish in this sequence where she's now kind of over her whole petulant, I'm in this just so I can go home and go back to my life, and she's actually willing to sacrifice herself. So when she gets into the severing and she goes to do the thing her brother asked her to do, as had hijacked it because he figured out what they were doing. And so she realized if she does it, she'll probably die, and she goes and does it anyway. And sure enough, she dies. But when she died in the grid, she didn't actually die in real life. And so that establishes that part, which is important for later. So that's how far I got.

I think it needs some work, but generally the movement is rational, reasonable, and there's enough play in there for you to set things up and surprise the reader. Her brother. Okay, so let me just take one step back and say this. There's a big. A big elephant in this that has reared its ugly head, and that is but maybe you know the answer to this. Who is the villain? Because remember, the middle build is all about the villain manipulating behind the scenes. So if your villain, your villain has to have some master plan. And if the master plan is to find the player who won't die in the virtual world so that they can win the threshing, or to eliminate that player so that another faction wins. I'm not saying that you haven't figured this out, but what I am saying is that you've built up a really strong mystery here, and the mystery is, who is behind everything? What is going on here? Before you answer the question, remember, what you want to do is start at levels of antagonism against your protagonist in smallish ways, and then progressively make them larger and larger and larger. So you introduce antagonism in the first scene with this AS guy. And AS becomes a personal antagonist to Jesse, so she needs to defeat AZ in order to get to the next level of the game. So whenever any of us face antagonism on a personal level, everything else almost fades in our. In our brain. We get this sort of, oh, my gosh, I gotta win. I can't let that guy beat me. And so the monomaniacal pursuit of defeating the antagonist for Jesse is enough to sustain the narrative. And especially since you have these action scenes inside the grid, I think what you're going to do is you're going to build up really strong narrative drive here. But when you do that, and that is really a great thing to be able to do, but when you do it, you have to deliver a payoff to that narrative drive in a way that is surprising and interesting and organic to the story. So after you have as, then you have to raise the stakes. So AS is at sort of the same plebe level as Jesse. So the next antagonist has to be her drill sergeant or this Craig character. And so that person has to seem to be. It's like, is it Snape in Harry Potter where it seems like he's against Harry, but he's actually training him or.

Right. He's.

So I've worked out.

So I think I've worked out some of this when I was doing the world document where I'm planning it all out.

Yeah.

So, you know, thinking through, like, Harry Potter, you know, early on in the book, it was Draco, and then it shifted to Voldemort or the teacher that was basically being controlled by Voldemort. And so what I see this at. And then, like, again, using Matrix, like, it was the villain was this machine that didn't give a shit about the people, except that they were the. The source of their energy.

Right.

So. And. But the machines were embodied by Agent Smith.

Yes.

So what I see this AS is like, as is the vill. She's the one she's focused on as until that middle point when she realizes there's something more important to be fighting. And so in the My World document, what I kind of laid out, that the faction then becomes the enemy. So I didn't put it all in there because I was just giving kind of a sketch of the scene. But my thinking is in that scene 15, when she meets her brother is when he said he basically convinces her the faction is the enemy and we have. You have to help me destroy them.

Right.

And so that's where I feel like the enemy will shift to the. The basically power structure. This world where she's up till now just living in the power structure of the world and hoping that if she obeys the power structure, she'll get what she wants, which is just to go back home. And so her brother helps her think bigger than that and say, if we tear down this entire power structure, we can go home, you and me can go home, and everybody else gets to go home, too. And so that's where she shifts from thinking about herself to thinking about a bigger picture. And that's where the villain will switch from AS driving it, who is kind of a pseudo villain like Draco Malfoy, and it'll switch to the true villain, which is the power structure. Is that.

Yeah, that works. That works.

Okay, so that was the plan, because I actually went back through that video that we talked about last week.

Yeah.

And like, made notes on it and was kind of thinking through each of those steps for my story and thinking like, okay, she does need to make that shift. She does need to make that shift from basically selfishness to unselfishness. And what's going to trigger that? And I'm not. I mean, I'm. It's still set up where her brother could end up being a bad guy, but for now, at this point in the story, he's a good guy and he wants her help and he needs her help to accomplish this bigger good. And so she can either say no to him and just stay low, or she can rise to the challenge and help him defeat something that she didn't care about before.

Hey, I think it works. You know, if you execute the scenes, it has an organic logic to it that will work. And the other thing is that you haven't thrown out any possibilities of the final, you know, twist for your ending payoff. Now, the ending payoff has to be the threshing event itself, Right?

Right.

So it's almost like the football game performance at the end of the story.

So, I mean, I know you. You tell me not to focus too much on the number of scenes and all that kind of thing, but I was thinking 30 scenes for the middle build. I hit the kind of, you know, that point where she's got to change. At scene 15, she dies. In scene 21, or between scenes 20 and 21, she dies and comes back. So then all hell breaks loose because they're trying to figure out why she was able to pull that off. And then I basically have nine more scenes to get to the threshing. So now for the next nine scenes, two things are happening. One is the faction is getting her ready to enter the threshing. And AS is going to enter the threshing as well, because he made it to the end. Because at this point, all but three teams have been severed. So I have Jesse's team, I have as his team, and then I have another team that, you know, I can kill off because they're not important once we're in the threshing. And so plus, on the back end, her and her brother are now planning what's really going to happen during the threshing. So during the threshing, normally these three teams from each of the factions come together to fight, and whoever comes out on top gets the resources like I laid out in my world document. And so that's going to happen, but at the same time, her and her brother are going to tear everything down. That's there'll be a twist where it's not just the threshing, it's the ending. Payoff will be basically a really clever way I haven't thought of yet of her and her brother ripping everything apart.

Okay, I have a suggestion about your final nine scenes in your middle build, and that is to bring back what's her name, 83. Are you still there?

Yeah, I should be able to remember that. Yeah, I'm trying to remember.

Well, yes, it's the woman from the number. Yeah. So after Jesse dies, you have to set up some and comes back to life. You have to set up some something where Jesse. Hey, look, the good news is that you're alive. The bad news is that you only have six days to get ready for the threshing. And your, you know, your vitals are terrible. And if you go into the grid, you're going to die. So you have to regroup and retrain, and you have six days to do it. It's so important that you be in the threshing that we've brought back the only player to, you know, do something in the threshing, and it ends up being 83. So 83 can come back and serve as sort of the Obi Wan Kenobi for those last nine scenes. She's going to be brutal to Jesse and teach her, you know, the ways of the Force inside, you know, the big threshing game. And you might be able to play with something like she somehow finds back to, you know, gets one more communication from her brother who says, don't trust 83. And so then, you know, then you set up this climactic thing where 83 seems to be helping her perfectly well. Her brother says not to trust her, so who's she supposed to trust, her brother or 83. And then, bang, you go into the threshing, and that. That question lies dormant underneath all of the action events.

At some point, she's gonna have to make a decision.

Exactly. And it's at that decision that she realizes something. So the revelatory moment is, oh, my God, 83 is bad, or my brother's bad or something. You've got to set up a triangle where she has to make a choice between an allegiance between her blood or somebody who isn't her blood, but has shown more kindness to her than anybody ever in her life. So she has to make a really, really crucial decision. Do I trust somebody just because we share genes, or do I trust somebody based upon their behavior? And the decision that she makes is the thing that will result in the big cataclysmic event at the end, where generally, from talking to you before it seems like the structures that are keeping the society barely hanging on Jesse will be responsible for breaking them down and destroying them. Thus, the end of the book will be far more chaotic than anybody ever imagined. Is that correct?

Yeah. And I'm thinking now I'm gonna want to go with the brother being the bad guy, and it was all so he could seize power. And so the next two books are basically.

Them both building their army to fight each other somehow, whatever that looks like.

Yeah, that's not bad, because it's on theme, you know what I'm saying? The theme for Jesse, her want is to go back in time to a nice place when her family was all together. So she wants to go back to, you know, the Garden of Eden and.

That'S the promise that her brother's giving her, which is, if you do this, we'll be able to get do that.

Right? But meanwhile, he hasn't made any contact, and he must know that his family thinks he's dead. So he needs to explain a lot of that stuff. I mean, that's a really nice scene that you can do. That's going to be tricky, too, because there's going to be a lot of exposition in it. So the brother has to kind of tell a story to Jesse, a really compelling story that will be convincing in a way. Not to bring it back to Pride and Prejudice.

But since I've been analyzing the hell out of that book recently, you know, there's this great moment where this guy named Wickham, who's this scoundrel, but very charming, comes to town, and all the young ladies in town think he's just so wonderful. And he tells this story that seems very convincing about how Mr. Darcy has done him wrong. And so all the people believe Wickham because, you know, he has the manners and the gentle nature that are appealing to people, whereas Darcy is kind of prideful and arrogant and doesn't take any crap from anybody. So everybody hates Darcy and loves Wickham, but the truth is, is that Wickham is a big fat lie. He's very charming and he tells a great story, but he has no character. Whereas Darcy is kind of, you know, grouchy and prideful and kind of doesn't really care what other people think of him. So everybody thinks he's a jerk when reality, he's. He's really the most honest and truthful person in the entire novel. So if you can set up that kind of dichotomy where you have a character like Jesse's brother, who's very charming, who can tell a story. Jesse, I've been trying to reach you for I don't know how long. So much so that I created this anomaly in the game itself. I've been living off the reservation. I've been living in the wild. I was thrown out of the program. And it's only through a lot of hard work that I'm able to come and speak to you now. But I need your help. So it's almost as if he's charming her to get her to do his bidding so that he can seize power. But we believe him because we've set him up as the victim at the beginning of the story, right? Because at the beginning of the story, we think, oh, the poor brother, he's A victim. You know, this faction has destroyed him and he's dead. When we discover he's alive, he's got to tell a damn good story that makes him seem even more of a victim. And then when he turns out to be the villain later on, it will be surprising, hopefully. Now, the great. The great thing about, you know, the scene by scene work is that if you do the scenes very, very well, you know, and I know we've read comments before, other people. Well, yeah, but a lot of people say, oh, people are gonna know immediately the brother's the villain if you do that. Well, that's not really true. If you do the scenes extremely well, people will be enamored with the storytelling and they'll fall into the reality of the story and they're not going to be thinking like, oh, here comes the villain now, and he's going to be telling a lot. They're going to want to believe the brother. So the way you've constructed this, I think, is really, really a good start. So I want to. What I think you should do is start writing these scenes and first of all, try and figure out the specialness of your world. Do some research, Find out what other worlds are already out there that are, you know, lit RPG kind of universes, and find something that's unique and different and fun and give it one little twist. Something like, people behave at the speed of thought. And then you can have, you know, when Jesse's introduced to the game and they throw her into it, they go, it's going to seem kind of, you know, dark there and you're going to be a little bit confused. Just remember, those who can control their thoughts will win the game. Those who panic lose immediately. So somebody gives her one trick and she thinks, you know, it's easy for her, whereas it's really hard for everybody else.

Well, I've been. I've been thinking through. So, you know, we've talked a lot about, like, trying to find, you know, other things that we could use as analogies. Like, you're talking about like the coal miners going off to work or whatever.

Yeah.

And, you know, I was thinking of this as if she's on a team. I was thinking of things like James Bond and he has Moneypenny and Q. It's Q. Is it Q?

Yeah.

Anyway, the guy that does all the gadgets, and so they're always providing him what he needs to stay safe. So he's the only one actually going into danger. But he would not survive without them. So I was kind of thinking about that as like one model for these kind of close knit teams where Ernst and Alex have particular jobs that they do to make sure that they give Jesse the tools she needs to survive. And so I've been thinking, you know, I want this to be something around, you know, if you think about hackers, you know, years ago I had, I was talking to a boss of mine about what hacking is. And he's like, hacking is anytime you're using a system other than what it was intended for. And he said, you know, he said when you call, like, you call any like, company and they give you the list of options and you're like, ah, this is bullshit. I'm just gonna hit zero and see if I can talk to somebody. And you hit zero and sure enough, you get somebody on the phone, even though they didn't say that was an option, that's not what they want you to do. He's like, you're hacking the system. He's like, now of course there's other deeper, more complex versions, but by and large you're doing something with the system that it wasn't built to do. I thought, well, that's interesting. And that's what I was trying to establish in those couple scenes I wrote where Jesse went off the reservation. So everybody's trying to win the training the right way, and she does something completely outside of what anybody thought would even think of doing to win. And it's dirty and messy and, and it's clumsy, but yet she wins because she does something that's different from everybody else. So they say, here's the rules of the game. Do it this way. And she just goes off and does her own thing. So I like those two kind of things. But when I try to think through how to like, put that into action into this kind of a thing, I start losing the thread of what that would look like. Is it as simple as, like, what I wrote, which is basically we load up a training simulator and they step into it and like, if you go back and read that first one with the houses and, you know, her jumping between houses and all that, like, does that work or is that just too kind of. I'm always, I was. I just keep struggling with, like, am I just making it in the real world? And that's kind of boring. Should it be some kind of.

I think what would be cool is. Okay, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna say something weird now. Years and years ago.

Years and years ago, that preface. Yeah, I mean, and this isn't, this isn't that weird. I'm sure you've heard of it. But years and years ago, I met somebody who was in a program that was run by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and it was called the Remote viewing program. And what remote viewing was and is, and a lot of people still believe in it, is a believing that people can have out of body experiences. And so I worked with this guy on this book and it was called Psychic Warrior. And it was all about how he was in the Army. He was an Army Ranger, and he was recruited for this special division that was somewhere in Langley, Virginia. And they trained him to be a remote viewer because when he was training or something, he got a concussion and he blacked out. And they were monitoring him and they thought he would be a good remote viewer. And he turned out to be a really great one. And the way it would work is they would give him just coordinates on a map, like longitude and latitude. And they would give. He would be under some sort of trance and they would give him these coordinates, and he would end up being able to travel there in his mind, and then they would interview him about what he was seeing in his mind. So anyway, what was interesting to me about that, that you could use is the. You could have like a game master. And the game master would, you know, all the units go file into the training room or whatever. And the game master would say, okay, here's today's game. And he would set up a simulation and he could, you know, he could talk about, or she could talk about. Okay. As you all know, we're preparing for the threshing. The threshing requires five skills. So we're going to do our three major skills, and we're going to do three sessions that are dedicated to each of these skills. The first session you will jack into a traditional family house. And your, you know, mission is to do something in the house. So you could set up different scenarios in this fictional grid world where the players had to go there and do a particular mission. And then once they're out, then, you know, they could debrief and the game master could explain, okay, you did this wrong. You did that wrong. When you're in the threshing, you all know what the threshing is, right? Okay, so the way the threshing works is that there's a big line down the middle of a black box. You've got to come up with the rules of the threshing so that by the time the threshing actually happens, the reader is going to have a lot of Information about the rules of the game. So it's almost, you know, if you take somebody to somebody from say France comes to the United States and they want to do something American, so you decide to take them to a football game, you know, before you go to the football game, you're going to sit down with them and say, okay, here's the way football works. There's a football. So you're gonna need to do that for your reader. And this is the middle build and this is the place to do it. And it's to inject this information, this exposition into active sequences of action events.

Yeah, I like the idea of coming up with like the three skills you need to win the threshing. And those are what each of the three tests are about, right.

And then, you know, those skills, you know, as can be. Like, you know, it's like in baseball, they have the five skills. In baseball, there's, there's hitting for average, there's hitting for power, there's, you know, speed, velocity of throwing, there's glove work, and there's speed running on the bases. So they call it the five skills of baseball. And they evaluate players based upon how good their five skills are. So you could take that, you know, take a note from that and say, okay, we've got a, you know, it's a three skill game. The threshing, it sounds simple, but those three skills are this. You've got to be able to think quickly. That's number one. The second one is you've got to be able to lose your ability to depend on gravity. You can't get, you know, motion sickness. And the third one is, I don't know. So that way we can see how certain players have certain skills, but they don't have the whole package.

Well, that gives me, I feel like that gives me something to work on because I've been just kind of lost with what each of these things should be. So if that makes a lot of sense to have like, okay, what are they going to need in the threshing? They need these three things. Okay, the first one is testing the first one. So then I just have to then coming up with something to test that particular skill is. It narrows down. It kind of can. Instead of like I can do anything, it's like I just need to come up with something interesting and thrillerish to kind of test this one thing.

Yeah, that's the way it is in all sports is that, you know, everybody says, oh, well, when I was a kid there wasn't any worry about football. And concussions. So everybody were like, oh, play football. And you would watch it on tv and you go, oh, I know how to play football. I watched it on tv. No, no, no, you don't know how to play football. When you play football, you go. And a coach says to you, okay, the first skill we're going to test is how tough you are. So everybody's going to line up and we're going to put these two bags down. We're going to have one guy on one side of the line, one guy on the other side of the line, and your job is to knock the guy on his butt. Go. And they blow a whistle, and you have to literally fight another guy inside a boundary. That's the first test. How tough are you? And it doesn't mean that you have to win each battle, but you have to show that you will get up after each battle. So that's how they see who can be a football player and who just kind of wants to be a football player. And then the next skill they teach you is how quickly can you run backwards if you play defense? And so there's all these skill sets. Same thing in basketball, same thing in tennis, same thing in hockey. They test each of the players to see their potential before they figure out where they're going to put them on the playing field. So use that concept here. And the great thing is that all of your people, they're plebs, right? These guys don't know how to train. They don't know what the threshing is. Yeah, they know what the threshing is, but they don't know how to play in the threshing. So you have to have kind of like a very central, strong figure to explain a professor, a coach, somebody to say, this is how the game is won. Let me show you. You need three skills.

I could probably just go back to that. Hacker is like, what are the skills a hacker needs? And basically use that as an analog for what I'm doing here.

Yes.

Because the whole thing is that this is, you know, if I go back to my plan, it is. There's this grid that's used to keep everybody docile and working. And when people show up that don't. That aren't easily controlled by the grid, one of two things happen. They either get sent to the numbered or they get recruited to fight in the next threshing. And so by definition, they're doing something inside this grid that they're not supposed to do. That's how they get identified. And so the threshing is the ultimate. Are you able to manipulate the grid?

Okay, those are the fun chapters to write, you know, because in your mind, you're thinking about, okay, I've got 40 cleaves sitting in front of a guy who's telling them what they're going to have to do. And the next thing is, they're going to have to go into a room and do what this guy says. What is this guy going to ask them to do? You have to make it interesting. So it's not only a mental, you know, challenge, but it's a physical one, too. So maybe one of the. One of the elements of your two helpers, maybe one guy's in control of the actual vital signs of the player in the game. So they have to monitor the player.

Maybe he's, like, putting, like, adrenaline into her, but keep making sure she doesn't die in the process. So just, like, taking her heartbeat.

Yeah.

And so, like, you know, she might come out of some of that and say, I was just ready to win that thing, and all of a sudden I lost all of my energy. What's going on? He's like, well, your heart rate was really high, and if you continued on that rate, you might have died. So Jesse's sort of the one who's like, look, I can control myself. I'm going full throttle. Don't pull back on my. You know, on my stuff. So, you know, there could be tension.

I'm getting all excited now.

Yeah. So each one of these events, these three things, are just going to be progressively more cool. And then the third, well, to me.

They'Re progressively harder on her physically, too. So it takes her longer to recover until the one where she finally just dies.

Yes. And then when she comes back, you know, it's. It's sort of like that moment when, you know, Rocky gets. You know, there's no way he's getting up off of that canvas, you know, and of course he does. But when Apollo Creed knocks him, you know, senseless and he's on the canvas, you were like, get up, Rocky. Get up. So that's. That's what. Where you want to get. And then she has to enter. She has to enter the threshing hurt. She's got to play her.

It's like the gladiator.

Yeah. And it's her brain that wins the game, that blows everything up. And the pivotal moment is when she makes the decision on who to trust. 83 or her brother. Anyway, this is. I think you're making a ton of progress here, Tim. And all of these scenes. Yeah, all these things that you're worried about. You know, I only have 21 scenes. All this training stuff you're going to write in a. In a fury of words, because it's just. You're just going to picture it in your head and you're going to bang it out.

So the general path I've laid out in these sequences I sent you, that makes. That makes sense then.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. I was thinking. So one of the interesting things in the story of Genesis in the Bible with Adam and Eve is the. Is when the snake says if you. Or when God says if you eat that, you'll die. And the snake says if you eat that, you won't die. So then they eat it and they don't die. But they do, you know, so they.

Were both pretty good story. Right.

So I was thinking that here of, like, he's going to convince her that if she tears it down with him, she'll get everything that she wants, and it won't. It'll make everything better. And so they win, but they don't win. Like, that's how I feel like it needs to end, is that they win, but they don't win.

Yeah. Of course. That's called an ironic ending. And the only way to have a sequel is to have an ironic ending.

All right?

Because if it's definitively all the questions of the story have been answered by the end, then everybody's like, oh, that's nice. The end. Goodbye, I'm done. I don't want to read anymore. But if you end it ironically where somebody wins for losing or loses for winning, then people will want to follow those characters in a new adventure.

All right, well, I'll start writing.

Great.

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