Shawn's First Read of Tim's 2nd Draft

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 a creator of Storygrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. This is the 146th episode of the podcast and I've been waiting approximately 146 episodes for Sean to say to me what he said in this episode. I turned in the draft of the final 18,000 or so words of the second draft and sent it to him. And in this episode he gives me his feedback, so I won't say anything more. Let's just jump in and get started.

So, Sean, last week I promised to send you the finished second draft of the book. You know, I don't know why I feel like sometimes I see how painful I can make it on myself because, like last week my dad was in town, the kids were off school, I had to go speak at a conference, and I also had to finish this book. So I promised to send it to you over the weekend and I think I sent it to you at like 9pm on Sunday night.

Yes.

So I sent you. I finished it. Sent you over 18,000 words. You hadn't seen any of it because I decided just to finish it, see if I could finish it on my own without you looking at it, you know, every sequence or every scene. And I am pretty happy with how it came together. I feel like, I don't know, I just feel like I hit all the points I was trying to hit. You had me make that plan a few weeks ago, like make a plan and the plan worked. You know, I stuck to the plan and know finish the book. I tried not to draw things out that didn't need to be drawn out. And I think the whole draft is at like 75, 76,000 words right now. So anyway, I sent it to you. You said you had a chance to read through it. So what do you think?

Yeah, I think you did a nice job. I really do. I think the action scenes are well done. There's a lot of really great bookending that you pulled off. And what I mean by that is I think we started this podcast a couple years ago and one of the first things I ever said is that a story has to be inevitable but surprising. So when you start a book or a story and you know what the genre is, you pretty much already know how it's going to end. So if it's an action story, you know that the hero is going to win somehow. They're gonna win by the end of the story, or it probably isn't gonna, you know, be published or you'll never hear from the writer again. Because that's for better or for worse. That's the convention of an action story, is that the ending is a. As Tolkien would say, it's a EU catastrophe, meaning something is. Seems to be an impossible situation that is going to destroy everything. And for one reason or another, something arises that changes the course of evil. So, for example, in Lord of the Rings, you know, it's when Gollum bites the ring off Frodo's finger and falls into the fiery pit. And there we go. It's like this moment when Frodo refuses to give up the ring. We think, oh, my gosh, he's come all this way and. And then there's old Gollum, who we thought should have been killed six times before this, that bites off the ring because he's as passionate about having this ring as Frodo. And he falls into the fiery pit, destroys the ring. Brilliant ending, right? Because Tolkien had brilliantly made Frodo and Sam constantly, you know, oh, you know, we can't kill this wretched creature. Oh, he's such an irritant. But, boy, we feel sorry for him. We have empathy for him, you know. And they kept letting Gollum live. There was real grace and mercy which ended up saving the world. Mercy saved the world. So that's what a EU catastrophe is. We know, at the beginning of the Lord of the Rings, and things are going to work out okay. Our hero is going to win. So when your story starts, we know Jesse is going to win somehow. So the way that she wins is what's going to be interesting to us. And the fact is, is that, you know, obviously we're going to spoil your book here, but the pivotal moment is when she goes into the threshing with Az and Craig. So it's the three of them, they land, and it's the fiery pit of hell that they've descended into. It's a reflection of what happened in the world prior to this dystopia rising. And so the sun is beating down, extremely painful just to walk around. And what does Jesse remember? She remembers the numbered. She remembers her time with the people underground and the people who clean up all the mess of the people who are, you know, coding or in the grid all day. So it's that really nice moment where Jesse uses something that happened at the very start of the book. Right. So what you did is you used all of the setup, all of the interesting details about the numbered at the very beginning of the book, and you paid it off in the ending so that she uses that knowledge of that ability to relate to the numbered in order to save them. It's one of the steps, one of the progressive steps that she uses to solve the riddle of winning the threshing. So I was really happy when you did that. You mentioned that a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know how you're going to pull it off. And I think you did pull it off well, it's not easy the way she solves the problem. And also you created a moment that progresses the action even further because it's not all roses and sunshine down there. After she figures out how to get the numbered protective gear, you know, Craig dies in that moment. So I was really happy that you did that because there's a tendency on drafts for you to solve the problem and then just like, don't progress it any further after you've solved that one problem. So the fact that one of the numbered, you know, awakes and attacks Craig, and I also love the way that you. You had Jesse describe that to AS that, that's false. This is a fake representation of what the number really are. Really nice. That was a really nice moment because Jesse is coming into her own mind now. She's coming into her own point of view, her own worldview that is extremely nuanced. Now she can understand that people manipulate things to appear black and white when they really aren't. So thematically, she's really acting heroically in these final scenes in a way that is in character. You know, she's not acting like Arnold Schwarzenegger. She's acting like herself. She is strong but vulnerable. She understands that AS is not her best friend in the world, but in this moment, they're a teen and she communicates that to as too. So that AS actually figures that out too. So, you know, I think you did a really, really nice job here. And let me just talk some more about the other things that I liked about it. I really liked that you didn't over dramatize, overdo, flog her death. She does die, you know, momentarily. I mean, it's not a massive, big moment. And I think that was a good choice. She dies in the grid. She goes off page, you move to third person omniscient, where she is not the center of the narrative any longer. It works because this is the climactic ending payoff of the story. She wins the threshing. You have a double ending. You're hitting your obligatory conventions and obligatory scenes. Marcus has them. You've got the, you know, the evil speech. You know, the speech and praise. And the villain at the end, he makes perfect sense. You've got Randy in there. I mean, obviously we can tweak the writing and the, and the stuff, but globally, you really did do the things that were necessary in the ending payoff. Because you need a double ending in the ending payoff of an action story. Well, this is action thriller dystopia. I mean, there's a lot going on here. It's coming of age, it's maturation plot, it's ya. It's a lot of different things. You've got a lot of balls in the air. And I think you, you let them settle. Well, you know, the threshing action scene is also reflective of the very first severing. And you have a little joke there, right? You have a moment where there's a tower and as and Jesse look at each other and Jesse says, why don't we just burn it down? You know, it's kind of fun. And he's like, yeah, funny, because, you know, the task is to get to the top of the tower. So again, it's a payoff of a setup that you did at the very start. And it works. I think it works because the severings are. Are basically calculated, probabilistic computer renderings of what possibly could happen in a threshing. I mean, if you're, if you're going to look at it from a theoretical point of view, what would Marcus and the faction do in the severings? They would want to create setups that mirrored and were as like most probable to the final threshing. So the fact that there's a tower at the very end that she has to ascend to, and it goes all the way back to the first severing. I don't think when you look at the story globally, I don't think it was a cop out on your part. I think the reader will actually go, oh my gosh, I get it. So they were pretty close in their rendering of what the threshing was going to be. The American faction, that Marcus is really smart, right? So it actually elevates the strength and the intelligence of the antagonist as opposed to seeming like a cop out on the writer's part. Hopefully by this time, when the readers in this Part of the book, they're not thinking about Tim Grohl the writer anymore. We never think of John Green or any of the people who write really fun books in the moment of the ending payoff, because we're in the story. So they're not going to be like, oh, Tim Grohl copped out. He just repeated the tower element. And it's great because you refer to it.

That's kind of why I put that in, is I wanted to not pretend like I was getting away with something.

Yeah. And it was smart because. And you know, this is a tweak that you can do. Early on in the book, when somebody's explaining to Jesse how the severings work, they say, well, we have artificially intelligent computers that do their best calculations to figure out what in all likelihood could possibly happen in the threshing. And then she could say something like, well, how accurate is it? And they go, well, not that accurate, but we do the best we can. And so when it actually appears that Marcus has sort of brilliantly figured out, anticipated what the threshing would be, it builds him up as an antagonist. Right. He's no idiot. This is a guy who figured out what the threshing was going to be before it actually happened. So I like that, too. And you probably didn't even consider that as part of your thing because as you were writing it, you said, well, I'll just put the tower in because that would be pretty cool to wrap it up. And I better just make a joke about it because. Blah. Anyway, so I like that too. You know, the action stuff, the killing and the beating up and all that is what it is. Again, we can look at that in closer detail on a line by line situation. I did think that when she was in the elevator with the dying girl that she. We would have a Fatal Attraction moment where the girl takes one final lunge at Jesse before she can rise. You don't do that. You're probably right. I think the reader will anticipate that moment. And instead you went with a more comforting moment where Jesse comforts the dying girl, as opposed to Fatal Attraction moment where she has to kill the thing dead. Again, I think that's a. You zigged when the reader is going to think they zagged. Will some people be disappointed by that? Maybe, but I think it's probably the right choice.

You know, it's funny because one of the things that I want to. That this will go. Writing the second draft, especially towards the end, I was figuring out a bunch of stuff that I'll have to go back and add, but I really like, because in one of the scenes, she was ready to die and she was kind of okay with it because then at least this girl would get to live. And then as kills her, you know, kills the girl that's killing her. And she's kind of upset about it, even though.

Yeah.

And so that's why. Because I honestly thought that's when I was first writing the very, very end of the threshing. I thought that's what was going to happen was the girl was going to lunge at her one more time.

Right.

But then I felt like, you know, the whole point of this is that Jesse never wanted to be here in the first place. And so she doesn't have to finish somebody off. She's just not going to because she doesn't want to. So I felt like it was better to have her in a position where she's still kind of sad.

That it came to this.

Yeah, it's almost. It's a military warrior moment where guys in the military who fight wars, they know that the guys that they're fighting are pretty much exactly like they are. Right. So they would be probably friends if they were in the same country, but just by happenstance, they're in different nationalistic societies that are at war. Right. So there's a great reverence for your opponent in the warrior ethos because you understand that that man or woman you're fighting is, you know, is you. You know, so that, I think worked really well. And I also like that, you know, you have Jesse state or think, you know, these. These kids are exactly like I am. This is weird. And no, I don't want to kill Marcus because Randy tells her at one point that, you know, now your goal is to kill Marcus anyway. So I. I think the action scenes work. I think catapulting her directly from the third severing into the threshing is a good choice. Again, you don't want to draw out because the reader knows that's what you're doing. It's just like a delaying tactic so that you can prepare your set piece, your final thing. And I think you can't do that anymore. And you don't. I loved when you brought back 83 at the very end, when Jesse is theoretically dead. And I loved her speech to her. I thought it was really, really spot on. I thought it was a very thematic moment that worked because she was trying to explain to her just what a genius she was. And throughout the book, Jesse still believes that she's this lucky sort of thing that, you know, people are always bailing her out and Randy's much better than she is and I'm just got lucky and, and to have 83 say to her, well, no, that's not true. And when she said we don't recognize our gifts as gifts, and your gift is extraordinary, I thought it was really, really good. It really made the point, you know, not that you wrote this book to give young adult readers a moral message. I think organically a moral message came to you when you wrote this book that is not just for kids, it's for everyone. And I think that's a damn good message, is that we tend to. We. When I say we, I mean every single person on the planet tends to actually use their gift all the time, but fails to recognize their special ability. It's like, you know, that whole superhero thing. Like Lil would, if you were a superhero, what would be your superpower? You know, and I think people look at superpowers in a way that are ridiculous. And just being a hard working, strong willed fighter who's willing to do what's necessary to move forward in life, that's a gift. So Jesse's gift is herself. It's who she is. It's the way she looks at the world, it's the way she can code, it's the way she can think through problems that other people can't solve. And to have 83 explain that to her, I thought was really, really great. And also she's like, yeah, we set you up. Yeah, we wanted you to. And there's a reason why we set you up. It's because you aren't Randy. You are you. You're the one that we knew could get out of that severing. You coded your way out of that severing in the second severing. And I thought that was a really nice moment because basically Jesse is believing a big fat lie about herself and in the entire novel. And to have that lie destroyed and obliterated at the very ending was great because that's the point.

It's funny, that scene was the hardest one for me to write. I could not. It was one of those, like, I'd write a couple paragraphs, delete it, write a couple paragraphs, delete it. And at one point I just, this weekend I just stopped and was like, okay, I'm going to have to come back to this. And I went. I was speaking at a conference here in town over the weekend. And so Saturday night I went to the speaker's dinner, and it was Jeff Goynes tribe conference. And Jeff had everybody answer a question that was there. And the question was, what's the best advice you've ever gotten? So everybody's going around the table and giving it. And one of the speakers, she said she heard it from somebody else, that your greatest gift to the world is the thing you do the easiest and think it's no big deal. And I was like, boom, that's it.

And so I came home and then just wrote that scene in one sitting. It was like one of those mystical moments where I could not figure out what I was trying to say in this scene. And I go to this dinner on this random air quote, random weekend air quote, random thing. And. And the woman says this. And like, that's what I'm trying to say. And I just went home and wrote almost verbatim that line, well, it was great.

It was great. And you absolutely owe her a lunch, a dinner or whatever. But the other thing that I'd like to just say about that is that's what a writer does, Tim. A writer is paying attention. So think about all the times that we're in a particular situation. You know, I'll just speak for myself here, but you and I did the tribe conference a couple of years ago, and Jeff is awesome. And I love the tribe conference, but I really don't like performing and going on stage. I feel very uncomfortable about it. And what's even more difficult for me is when I have to go to a dinner with other performers, because that's part of. Part of the deal. And so just speaking personally, the fact that you were able to go to that dinner where you probably weren't all that thrilled about doing since if your dad was in town and you're, you know, you probably just wanted to go home, have dinner with your family and go to bed, but you went to the dinner, and instead of thinking about, oh, geez, I'd really rather be home with Candace and watching a movie, you're actually present and you were listening. You are paying attention to all of those people who came from all around the country and all around the world to be at that conference. And when Jeff wisely said, tell me the one thing you would want to tell everyone the best piece of advice that they ever heard, you actually sat there and listened. And that is what a writer does. Because in your mind, you had a big problem and you had to put it away into the back of recesses of your mind to solve it at another time. And because you were paying attention in that specific moment, you heard the words that turned out to be, I think, the tear jerky moment of your novel. It's really, really a great message to get across to people that the thing that we can do with ease, that we think is ridiculous and sort of like, man, who cares? Is actually our gift. And I can say, personally, I always thought that I wanted to be a big cheese publisher. I wanted to have a corner office in New York and I wanted to go out to lunch and be a big deal and have all kinds of stuff. And so I put all of my energy towards that goal. Goal. And really my gift was a story nerd. And so I was always like, yeah, everybody can edit anyway, I'm going to be a great publisher. And it turned out that, geez, I was actually an editor. I actually, my gift was the thing that I was, you know, taking for granted. So it really spoke to me when I read that. And I think it will speak to a lot of people when they read that. Wow, if you had to wrap up the moral of this story, that would be it. You know, pay attention to the things that you don't think are worth much because they really are anyway. So I love that moment. I love that it was delivered by 83, because again, it go and went back to the beginning of the story. She's sort of the, for lack of a better description, Glinda, the good witch of the story. She's the woman who gets Jesse through the ordeal of the numbered. She's the one who risks her life to save. She's the one who gets Jesse to go on the adventure. And she is the one who returns to Jesse when she's in, you know, another world. And she's the one to point out to her what her gift is. So she's sort of the goddess of the heroic journey. In your story she meets. And this meeting with the goddess as the ultimate payoff of your novel is very innovative because usually the meeting with the goddess in a heroic journey happens around midpoint. And I used to think that when she met with Randy, that was her meeting with the goddess. But no, that was not the meaning. This is the meaning. And I thought that was really, really great. It's a really great innovation. And these are the things about the hero's journey and storytelling and story structure. And I talk about it all the time and I go, no, you got to do this and this and this and this. And then I always, you know, preface that by saying, but to be really good, you innovate. You use the conventions and, and then you innovate them. And I think you did that here. I think you put the meeting with the goddess in a place that is completely unexpected. And you deliver a moment that will allow us to believe that this young girl has now reached maturity and she has an understanding now. She has a faith in herself that will give her the strength to become the faction president. So at the end of the book, when she does become that president and she takes over from Marcus, we don't have a problem with it. I didn't. I'd be like, yeah, she's ready for it. Yeah, she's going to figure this shit out. She understands that she is really good at solving problems. And, you know, that moment of near death allowed her to get that gift. That's her gift. She now returns after getting this gift, which she had all along. Just like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz, you know, she was in Kansas all along.

You know, it's nice. You know, I think this is a really, really strong, strong ending that is not dependent upon CGI generated action. Although, of course you. There's plenty of action in here that can be CGI'd and all that stuff. But my point is, is that you didn't try to have a double ending to your action story by purely relying upon coming up with a new kind of car chase or a new kind of death, you know, method. It's a very internal coming of age maturation plot that's happening here at the ending that actually, in my opinion, even goes bigger than the action sequence. And I think that's a little bit risky. And I think it's what we need now. And I think did a really, really nice job. I think this. 18,000 words, you know, by the time we're done with it, we'll probably go to 20, tops. I wouldn't add any more scenes in here. I think it, it reads extremely quickly now. You're at 75,000 words now. It's like you've got a manuscript now, a draft that, you know, I can see. This is going to be a really good book. I'm going to be, you know, really proud to put my name as your editor on this book. I think it's really, really good. So congrats.

Thank you. Wow, that's awesome. I just, you know, I felt okay. I felt pretty good sending it to you, but, like, you know, you never know because.

No, I confess, I read it one time. I read it quickly. But that's how everybody reads, right? So a lot of editors, professional people who analyze things. The tendency over time is that you start to stop trusting your first read as much as you should. So it's the great problem with becoming an editor is that there are so many ways to rip apart and criticize something, and the more of them that you learn, the more you start to fall in love with those tools, right? So as an editor, the thing that I rely upon is my ability to trust my first read. And sometimes, oftentimes, probably 95% of the time when I'm really super excited about something after a first read and I share it with another editor, a lot of the time they're not excited about it and they can really rip it apart in ways that I can understand. But then I'll say, yeah, you're just not seeing what has to be fixed here order to iron out those problems. The core of the story is very good. And so the trick for an editor is to learn how to trust your first read. Your gut instinct, this is how you acquire well as an editor, is on that first read, you know, you just got to say to yourself, did I like it? Was it good? Was I captivated? Did I think that the right notes were hit at the right time? And if you can say yes to that and your blood gets a little bit, you know, flows a little bit, then you can fix the thing. I was going to say something a lot nastier, but you can, you can help the writer fix the other things that are in its way. But it's almost like you can see, you know, like Lord of the Rings, right? You can always see the glow. Something that has life in it. That's something that has a thing in it. And when we first started working, you know, the, the first couple of things that you wrote didn't have any fire in them. They were very heady. I could see your brain working very hard to write sentences and put one after the other, etc. Etc. But over the years, and especially in this last chunk of 18,000 words, the writing is flowing. It's almost as if there's a fire in there. There's a story in there, and the story is about this young girl coming to understand who she is. And yeah, it's an action story, of course, but that is underneath the action, you know, external stuff so strongly now that that's the stuff that's really hard to put in an action story. And when you have that, you can fix the action, external stuff relatively easy. But if you don't have the heart and soul of the point, you have the theme of this story, with the theme of this story, you know, the controlling idea of your novel now, to me is very clear. Justice prevails when we discover our natural abilities as the wondrous gifts that they already are. Something like that. That's a pretty damn good controlling idea. It's a really great idea because we all forget them. And the fact you're writing this in YA is even better because kids always feel that they're not good enough, that they're not going to go. They're not going to make their parents happy going into the right college. They're not the best kids in Little League. They're not very good at math. They're the worst swimmer on the swim team. They always think that. They always pick out their own vulnerabilities and failures, and they think they're letting their parents down. They've given up hope and they just quit. So a story that tells young readers, hey, you've got it. You've got a gift. You use your gift all the time, but you just don't see it yet. Hang in there. And like Jesse, you're going to find it. You're going to see what your gift is. And once you do, watch out, because you will be very powerful. And that, to me, has really come to the fore at the end of your book. And guess what? You didn't have this four months ago when you wanted to throw away the book.

You didn't. And you could have really thrown this thing away without ever getting here. So it's like the, you know, the Kubler Ross thing. You gotta meet the pit of despair. It sucks. It's really horrific when you hit that pit of despair and go, I don't know what I'm doing. And you wanted to do that three months ago. You said. You literally said, I want to quit this book. And I've been trying to figure out ways to tell you, Sean, how I'm going to quit the book.

Yeah, I've thought about that several times as you've talked today.

Yeah. And guess what? And I told you at that time, you are in a great place. And you were like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really? Sure. Thanks. This is really great. But I knew you were in a great place because that's the moment it's hit or miss at that point. Right. You're either going to find it or you're not going to find it. But you found it, and you found it by going back to the core basics of why you were doing it in the first place. You know what? I'm going to Finish it. Because you're basically like, you know what? I've spent the time here. I'm just going to finish it. How do I finish it? What are the tools necessary for me to finish this book? And we talked about, well, write these scenes. Figure these things out. Do it one by one. You can write a scene. You can write two scenes, you can write three scenes. Do the micro work. The micro work, the micro. And then you did. And you were smart enough the other day when you said, you know what? I haven't figured out this scene yet. I got to step away. I got to get a macro. I'm going to go do the conference. I'm going to put my mind away from this for a while and we'll see what happens. But I'm not going to jump off a bridge because I can't figure it out. This one scene. I figured out scenes before. I'll figure this out or I won't, but whatever. I'm going to do the best I can, but let me move away from it. And then you went and you did the conference, and then you went to the dinner when you probably didn't want to go. And then you paid attention, and then you got the answer to your problem, and then you got home and you wrote the answer to your problem because you paid attention. And that's what a writer does. They pay attention. They hit really rock bottom moments. So a lot of people don't want to write or they quit writing because you do have to hit rock bottom. And I remember years, maybe it was a year and a half ago, you had an episode of the Story Grid podcast where you asked me, do you have to be depressed to be a good writer? And at the time, I wanted to say to you, yes.

But I didn't. I didn't say that, because it's not about being depressed. It's about reaching a moment at the end of the envelope of your cognition. It's like being Chuck. Yeah, You're. And pushing the envelope of what you know, going as fast as you possibly can, and you're going to hit that demon in the sky that is going to be very, very disorienting. And it's going to send you into a pit. It's going to make you depressed. It's going to make you feel that all is lost.

But you don't want to tell people that when they have an ambition because they'll get too scared of it. But yes. And I remember very early on when we met with Steve, you once said to how do you Be a writer. And Steve was like, the only way to be a writer is that's all you can do. I would not wish writing on anyone because it's extremely painful. And you're like, oh, come on, that's ridiculous.

And in the back of my mind, I'm like, yeah, just you wait, dude.

So it's not about being depressed, but what it is about is pressing forward into the unknown in such a way that. That you get so disoriented that you want to quit and you think there's no way to get out of it. And that's what you hit three months ago. You know, I confess right now, I've hit this with a project so badly right now that all I want to do is mow the lawn and, you know, do manual work because. And that's what I am doing, because that's the way I can get away from it. But that's what writing is about sometimes. But when it hits. The muse came to you in a way that gave you the answer not just to a scene, not just to your book, but to an entire series of your. I mean, who knows what the theme of your next novel is going to be? But if this is a trilogy, I think by the end of this novel that people read, they will say, I can't wait to read the. Let's see what happens next. Because she won, but she lost. Now she's got an even bigger problem. I wonder how she's going to handle it. But they're going to think, like, I think she can handle it. So, anyway, look, we've got a ton more work to do, and this thing is far from perfect, but you've got a real glow, a heartfelt center to the story now, that you didn't have before.

And my publishing philosophy is, it doesn't matter now, right? Like, we're gonna make it really good. We're gonna shine it up. We're gonna, you know, do everything possible to make this the best book it possibly can be. And then we're gonna publish it. Guess what? Then it's on its own. But I think you've given it a lot of effort. You didn't quit on it. And no matter what happens, if you sell 10 copies, it really does not matter. I know that's ridiculous to say, but it's the labor that brought you to a place where you now think like a writer. You're now behaving like a writer. You've turned pro. You didn't quit on the book, you didn't quit on it. And it's been almost three years now that. Has it been three years since we started this thing?

Yeah, it's been over three years.

Okay, then. Right. And I know people probably come up to you all the time, and they do to me, and they go, geez, when are you gonna sleep, Tim, alone? God, why did you publish that damn thing? Anything? I'm sure it's fine. And the truth is, yeah, I guess it was fine, but you didn't go through. You didn't find the controlling idea of the book yet, but now you have. And now. Now we can do all of the, you know, the polishing and all that stuff to. To make this line by line writing and all that stuff work better, and we can polish the scenes. But that's, you know, that's the thing that drives me, like. Yeah, I didn't care about publishing another book. I published plenty of books. I want to publish things that I know have heart in them. Whether other people see that heart is not. There's nothing I can do about that. I see it, I was moved by it. And I operate under the assumption that if I can get moved by something, other people will be, too. And if they aren't, well, I guess I was wrong. But I was moved. That works for me. That's all I can go on. That's all I have. And that's what I brought you to. To a place where you could write something that I think is very original, although it's inspired by many, many things that came before it. There's nothing wrong with that, but I think it's an original concept. I think the character is very sympathetic. I think a lot of people find themselves in Jesse. And, you know, I think it was a really, really nice chunk of 18,000 words that will pay off the book in a great way.

Well, that just. I mean, I got a little teary a few times when you're talking, because it's like. It was funny because I finished it, and I told Candace, you know, she was out when I finished it. She came home, I was like, finish the novel. She's like, oh, that's so great. And I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. Because when I wrote the first draft, it was clear I was going back into the salt mines. There was no, polish this up, and we'll be ready to publish. So a lot of people have been asking throughout the fall, the last few months, like, when's the novel coming out? And I'm like, I don't know. Like, I could get turned this Draft into Sean and he's like, yep, back to the salt mines. And that's where I'd go.

So.

But it was kind of like, you know, when I finished the draft of Running Down a Dream that became the book, you hadn't seen anything since the introduction, I think. I don't think I'd showed you anything since the introduction. And when I finished, I knew, like, my gut was saying, you wrote the book, you said what you're. You know, you said what you were trying to say, and then I gave it to you, and you confirmed it. And this was very similar where, like, I finished and I'm like, I think this was pretty good. Like, I think I hit all the notes. I think I said what I was trying to say. I think I paced it well. I think I was true to the characters, but at the same time, I'd never done this before, so I didn't know if that confidence was well founded or not. So, I mean, just to hear that you're excited to be a part of getting it out into the world, you know, that just. I'm just really excited. So, yeah, thank you for bringing me to this point. This is where I was trying to get.

Yeah, well, there's a paradox.

So what, you know, a few weeks ago you suggested writing like, a short history of the world. And I feel like that may be my next thing, but. So tell me, you know, I feel like we're going to be trying to publish this in the first quarter, beginning of second. So what should I be doing now to start now that, like, the way I'm interpreting this is I have this story, which is the most important part. And so now I've got to clean up everything to really let people see the story and not get distracted from the story. So one is that we've already established is taking the world and putting that. Grounding that reality. But what else? I mean, is this where we go back to? Like, do I need a spreadsheet? Do we need to walk through the hero's journey, archetypes and moments? Like, what. What's next?

Yeah, I mean, I. The way I would handle establishing the world, from what I understand, you have a whole bunch of notes and maybe you've written some stuff about the general, you know, dynamic concept of how the world got where it is, et cetera, et cetera. So I don't necessarily think that you have to formalize that right now. What I would do is, yes, I would go back and I would re. Spreadsheet the entire story exactly as it is now scene by scene.

Okay?

So even start on page one and do it from scratch. Don't refer to your old notes and just make sure that your scenes are turning and that all that stuff. Now after you do your spreadsheet, then or while you do your spreadsheet, I would also make notes. And this is what I did in the story grid, you know, the global story grid for Pride and Prejudice. At the very bottom of the graph, you'll see I picked out the specific scenes where the conventions and obligatory scenes of the global genre were being met. So there's the, you know, the lovers meet scene, there's the, you know, confession of love scene, there's the proof of love scene, there's the rivals. You know, all that stuff is at the bottom of the spreadsheet. So while you're going through and doing your spreadsheet, pick out the moments of where you're meeting the conventions, like what scene is the speech in praise of the villain, what scene is the double ending, etc, Etc. So look at the thriller conventions and obligatory scenes and see if you can pick out without, you know, really having to think all that hard of where they are. So that's a great check to make sure that you actually hit them all. Because sometimes you miss one or two and you go, oh, I can tweak that scene and add that thing that I need there. Then the third thing would be go through the same thing. In the hero's journey, is it clear that there's an ordinary world moving to an extraordinary world and back again again back to Tolkien? I believe the subtitle of the Hobbit is There and Back Again. So what that means is that in the heroic journey, the hero begins in the ordinary world, goes to the extraordinary world and comes back to the ordinary world with a gift. So I can just know off the top of my head that you did do that, because she does return to New York City at the end of the story. But you want to be able to clearly know that you hit those moments in the hero's journey. Is there, you know, the meeting with the goddess? Yes. Is there, is there a guardian between the world? Is there a herald? All that stuff that we've talked about ad nauseam in other episodes. And then once you have generally.

Mapped out your 60 scenes and you've detailed where you met all the conventions and obligatory scenes of the action thriller genre, it's a labyrinth plot. So there's got to be a labyrinth. And you do have a labyrinth. It's a heroic journey. So there are Three tasks or, you know, challenges that the hero has to get through. You do that. Okay, so after you basically hit all those things and you've clarified it and you know it, and you can answer your six core questions and blah, blah, blah, and your fool's cap page looks great and your scene by scene works, then you pick out where you can drop in exposition in a way that isn't cheesy or overdone.

What do you mean by that?

Well, like, because the one weakness that you have now. Well, you have a bunch.

Of. The thing that's really important, that isn't clear yet is the world. And you can make notes when you're doing your spreadsheet, add, you know, have someone mention X about the world in this scene so you can pile on the world in moments throughout the book. As opposed to having, you know, someone give the history of what happened in 3,000 words in a big clump. Okay, so you could have someone like Alex say, like, oh, yeah, that's just like what happened when blah, blah, blah happened. Oh, what do you mean? Is this like the firma gusher or whatever? You know, like. And that way it can organically appear in dialogue, you know, as a way to progressively complicate the dialogue and also give the world history inside of it. But, you know, obviously you have plenty of shitload of work to do still, but a lot of this stuff is now, like, really intense micro work and macro checks and then adding the world. And then after you do that, then you've got what I would call the working draft. Okay, the working draft. You would then go through it line by line and you would fix the choppy sentences, you would fix the cliches, you would, you know, make it so that your goal. This is like we did with running down a dream, except I. We kind of skipped this. This part for running down in a dream because we were under deadline and basically I did your line by line polishing, but you would do that polish first, and then you would give me your polish, and then I would polish your polish, and then you would read it again and you would agree or disagree with my polishes, and then we'd send it the copy of it.

Okay, that's simple enough.

I have that to you in a couple days. Yeah, yeah.

So I think the next step would be to, you know, just spreadsheet the thing and do your checks for your obligatory scenes and conventions and your hero's journey.

Okay, I'll get to work on that.

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