Still... Critiquing Tim's Beginning Hook

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 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's the creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. In this episode, we continue talking about the scenes in my beginning hook. So we went through four or five scenes last week, and we're diving into the rest of them this week and again, getting in the weeds, talking about specific scenes, how they turn, the value shift, all of those things that make the story better. So, once again, there's some highs and there's some lows, but I hope that you learn alongside me as I'm trying to figure out how to make these scenes actually string together into something readable. So let's jump in and get started. So last week, we started talking through some of these scenes. I sent you, I think, 11 scenes, and we got through the first four of just talking through that, plus some other things. And, you know, I've been thinking about it, obviously, this last week, and just, you know, I. It's that whole difference of, like, reading the theory and then seeing it practice, and how as soon as you started running my scenes through the spreadsheet, it immediately showed all these problems. So, like, the. The scene I should have thrown away, I felt that I should throw it away, but it was more of just a feeling and not like a, you know, a good reason. And you're like, well, you know, it doesn't have a value shift, and there's nowhere that it turns and, like, it, like, automatically. And I was just thinking later, I'm like, that's, you know, seeing again, even, you know, after we've been doing this almost a year of just how powerful it is. Like, once you just, like, run it through the spreadsheet, it immediately shows these issues that are feelings, which is the whole point is to get it out of that space where an editor kind of vaguely thinks something's wrong and can point to something that's wrong.

That's exactly right. And as I said last week, I don't enjoy creating the spreadsheets. The spreadsheets require very intense analytical thinking that's almost scientifically based. And, you know, people who love to write and people who love to read, they just kind of want to go with the flow. So turning on that part of your brain that makes you sit down and say, okay, what happened in this scene? I need one sentence to say, what happened? And when did it turn? You know, when. What is the value at stake? All of those things require, you know, intellectual capital that is very important for you to get better as a writer. So once you start training yourself and forcing yourself to go through the spreadsheets scene by scene and go through every single column and be honest with yourself, you're going to find things that are so obvious and easy to fix that it takes you right out of. Oh, boy, I hope Sean likes my scene, because it's. It's not really about whether I like the scene or not. I. The scene first has to work. And working means it has to have a value at stake. It has to have a shift, has to have a turning point. It has to be clearly a revelation turning point or an action turning point. Because the more clarity you bring to the scene, the tighter and easier it is for the reader to follow your story. And that doesn't mean giving them exposition. It means being very clear about a valence shift of a value from a positive to a negative or a negative to positive.

And also they need to know that moment when it changes, you know, when the value moves, actually does move, at what point? It's that decision that they made or it's that thing that they said, or it's when he punched him in the face. You know, literally that. So I'm glad to see that once I forced you to put your own scenes under the spreadsheet, you started this, you know, obviously. See everything that I was talking about last week?

Yeah. So we talked about. We got through scene four, and the biggest thing we talked about was, you know, turning that kind of exposition into an active thing where she's taking her around town. So now we're in scene five, and we're just going to pick up there as we continue to work through this.

Yes. And I'll. I'll talk more about, you know, that. That note I gave you about having 83 take Jesse on the rounds and show your. Show her the hell that she has now been. Been. Is now subjected to. That's an important thing because we have to remember, and you have to remember as the writer, is that 83 has her own world. Right. She has her own motivations, and we can use the fact that she has her own things that she wants out of the world to surprise the reader later on. Okay. So anyway, let's go to scene five. It's 1249 words. It's nice. You've got a nice you know, you got potato shape length scenes here, which I think is a really, really good thing. And what I mean by that, I mean the scenes aren't dragging on and on and on. You're trying to get your players on the stage. You know, nail the value at stake, move the story forward in as few words as possible so that the reader feels a narrative momentum and velocity building. And part of doing that is literally through the word count. So 1249 words. Now, what's the event in scene five? What I have down is, and bear with me if I forget some of this stuff, because I read all this stuff last week and I'm just going on my memory and I did review it. But anyway, what I have is Jesse goes home. So that's the core event of the scene. And the value moves from free to captured. So that means that she actually begins captured, moves to free, and then goes free to capture it again. So at the very beginning of the scene, Jesse is leaving the numbered compound and she's on her way home. So she's free, she broke away, and then, you know, she reaches home. So it moves from a negative of being captured at the very, very beginning of the scene to free, which is a negative, to positive. And then by scene's end, it ends up captured again. So it moves from negative to positive to negative. And that. That's perfectly valid. And that works. In fact, it's a nice little thing to even make this scene have a little bit more juice to it. So the polarity shift, again is negative to positive to negative. The turning point is on an action, and the action is when 83 arrives at Jesse's house to confront her. So Jesse thinks that she's sort of sneakily gotten away, and then 83 gets there to tell her, hey, I know you're here and you got to come back. The point of view is third person omniscient through Jesse's eyes. The period time, you know, I've got down two days after the shaming, which is either close or not close. But that's something that, you know in maybe draft three or draft four, when you're going through to make sure that everything is reasonable and rational. Rational and easy to figure out if somebody really wanted to do it. You want to make sure that your time is very clean.

Yeah, I. That was another thing as I was thinking about our discussion of. I'm afraid to commit to that stuff.

That's okay. That's okay.

Okay.

It's okay not to commit to it now because you may. You. You don't really know. You have. You know, when we talk about the. The Foolscap global story grid, what we're talking about are places on a map. So if I want to go from New York to Los Angeles, and I say, okay, I want to go to Pittsburgh first, and then I want to go to Chicago, then I want to go to Denver, and then I want to get to la, that doesn't mean that I have to take all the interstates, you know, so you're trying to give yourself a really nice global map, but you're allowing yourself to make detours as the story comes to you as you're writing. So you're leaving the door very, very widely open for the museum, but you're also. You're also having a map so that, you know. You know, if you're stuck one day, you know what? I've got to get to Pittsburgh now. Okay, where am I now? I'm in New Jersey, so I got to move from New Jersey to Pennsylvania. That's what. That's my goal today. So that's a way of keeping yourself as a writer, writing. But you do want to open yourself up and keep the door open for the muse, you. And the fact is, is that this is early days in your draft, and you. You don't want to get fully reined into a specific time period. So that's perfectly reasonable. These are decisions that you can defer to later. And you just put a big TK there to come, which is the copy editor's mark. Okay? So after that, the duration of this moving from, you know, the compound, of the number to her house, I say it's about two hours, maybe it's shorter than that. And then the setting or the location is the courtyard to Jesse's house. So it begins in the courtyard as she's already gotten away from the compound. In fact, she slips a little piece of paper underneath a brick at the courtyard, and then it progresses to Jesse's house. On stage, characters are Jessie, two men who are sort of in the courtyard area, who she's concerned about. Her father, bald man in the window, Jesse's mother, another bald man, and then 83. So again, you know, later on in another draft, you really want to sort of nail down all of these figures. So it's not bald man in a window. It's 97 or whatever that. That other guy's name is who helped lead her away from the shaming earlier on. But you can deal with that later. So, you know, the number of people on stage is. Let's see, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8. I don't know why. I have. I've marked down 4 on my spreadsheet. I don't know why. Okay, so it's eight. And then the off stage characters, I didn't really pick up any. It doesn't mean that there aren't. But I did this spreadsheet. Not quickly, but I always go through a spreadsheet probably two to three times to double check my work. And even then things creep by me. So anyway, this scene of Jesse escaping the compound and going home is a good scene. It works. It hasn't.

Just wait, you were going through all that. I'm like, okay, just tell me if it's any good.

No, it totally works. And it also makes sense if the prior scene is the scene that I suggested you revise of the previous scene where 83 takes her into hell. You know, what's a kid gonna want to do once they're faced with this horrific future, but run home to mom and dad? So it makes perfect sense for her to do that.

Okay. Yeah. I was trying to establish both the youngness of her character because the first thing she wants to do to feel safe is go home, but at the same time show that like the first, her first reaction to any rules is to do the opposite.

Right, right.

So as soon as she was told she's not allowed to leave, she's like, well, screw that, I'm leaving.

Yeah. The thing you have to be a little bit cognizant of is you are writing a coming of age story. And coming of age is this really interesting genre where you want, you want to give your lead character a rebellious streak in some way, shape or form, but you can't escape and you can't run away from the fact that there's still a child.

So children have a lot of rebellion within them, but when faced with darkness and repercussions of their actions that are going to be really bad, they, you know, they go back into their childhood behavior and they get frightened. So it's good to have the rebellious streak, but you have to remember this is still a child who's going to have fear. I mean, adults have fear too. But coming of age is about confronting things that don't make sense, coming to a painful truth, understanding that truth, and then it's a change of worldview from naivete to worldliness. Right.

Because I mean, part, I think we've talked about this before, like part of her growing up is going to realize that she has to take care of herself if nobody and so that's something else I was trying to establish here. Like, she keeps trying to go home and make her home life what she wants it to be, and it's just. She's never gonna find it there.

Yeah, I mean, the. The. And I think that works. And I think the father in this. In this scene is. He's in character. He's sort of a milquetoast kind of figure who. Who truly does love his daughter, but isn't, you know, doesn't want to break the rules. You know, he's. He's very much tied into the society. The only. The only real minor note I had on it was that the mother howling at the end seemed a little over the top. I think she would be more of a catatonic presence, like she's been before. Sort of like your aunt, who's a little bit old, who's like, oh, you know, it doesn't really understand what's going on all the time, and, oh, hi. Why are you at the house for, like, well, it's time to take you to the doctor, you know. So that worked. So this. This is a scene of her running back home, and she's caught in the end. It's not really surprising that she's caught in the end, but it's okay. It's okay that it's not so surprising. And the fact is that you. You set up the fact that she's easily going to be caught with this beeping that only she is hearing. And I love that notion that there's this beeping.

Did that work where I, like, drop it in and don't explain it?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So that worked. That was one of those, like, am I being gimmicky or am I doing something that will, like, catch the reader's attention and they'll want to keep reading to figure out what the hell that beep is.

Yeah, I think it's the second part. I think the beep works. Okay. So that scene works. Okay. Scene six works, too. But you've got to be a little bit careful here because it's a little bit repetitious. And when I say repetitious, you know, Jesse escapes again and then surrenders again.

So at the end of the previous scene, you know, 83 catches her, and that's almost the end of the scene. I think that may be the end of the scene. So it's like a cliffhanger.

So, like, the door flies open and 83 says it's time to go.

Right. And then in the next scene, Jesse escapes again. And then is hunted down again, is caught again.

So she moves from free to captured again. So it moves from positive. Okay, so you see where I'm going with this? Yeah, you're kind of repeating the same thing. And my suggestion would be.

Lengthen scene five to include scene six. And the way you could do that is when 83 comes, they finally bang through the door. You know, Jesse's not standing there. She's already scurried away. And then you can keep the narrative momentum going by having them go chase her.

Okay, so she's never caught that first time.

No, like, she.

So, like, as soon as that head shows up in the window, she's out of there, she bolts.

Yeah.

Okay.

And she would. She'd be like, shit, I gotta get out of here. She wouldn't wait for the door to. You know, she might even accidentally knock her mother over on her way out. And her mother could be blocking 83 and the other people's way of, you know, it might get her a little time to escape under her rabbit hole, you know. So I'm thinking that works well if you can combine those two scenes in a way that are quickly paced and action filled. I like, as I recall, she ends up in the shed, and 83. 97. Or the bald guy says to 83, we don't have any time. We got to get the hell out of here before our lights change. And she says, well, I'm gonna stay. Now, the fact that 83 stays is a setup, right?

Right.

Because we want to know later on, why the hell did she stay? What is she getting out of this? Because the truth is, in the adult world, maybe not the childlike world, in the adult world that we live in today, very few people do anything unless they get something in return. So when you have an adult sacrifice themselves in some way, they're either the hero of the story or. Or they're going to get payback somewhere from somebody else.

And what I want to do later, I was thinking at the beginning of the middle build, is have her tell a story about losing her daughter. But that sets up at the end. The whole reason she sold Jesse out was to get back to her own daughter.

I would strongly recommend that you avoid backstory stories. And the reason why.

Well, I wasn't gonna, like, put a scene in that, like, tells this whole story. I want, like, Jesse to ask why. And she just alludes to, like, she lost. She lost a daughter. That's why she has stuck up for her and stayed with her. Or is that not.

Hey, it could Work. I'm not. First of all, I'm not saying that what I'm gonna suggest or think is any better than yours. That could work. A lot of people like that, sort of. She's attached to her because she lost a daughter herself. My gut, though, is that you are writing a dystopian action story that's coming of age. And in a dystopian universe, people live at the very selfish level. So for this woman to act heroically seems counterintuitive to the dystopian world. And I think it's fine if she redeems herself at the end, but at the beginning, I think she's got to be a sort of a Judas figure. She's going to trade, you know, sort of doing the duty for the faction to get Jesse to go to the Capitol. She's going to do that duty in exchange for a reduced sentence or money or something. Later on, she may redeem herself. And I think she would by, you know, sort of. It's usually that great moment in action stories where the hero shows up and he's all. Or she's all by herself, and there's 20 guys there and 20 women ready to beat her up. And then the old crusty guy, ah, you know, I had nothing to do anyway, so I'm gonna.

You know.

And he shows up. Yeah, exactly. Ah, you know, I figured I was in the neighborhood, and it's that great moment. You're like, oh, I knew he was. It was like that moment when Jack Nicholson shows up at the end of the Terms of Endearment, you know, and he's like, you know, what can I say? I love you. Here I am. And people love that kind of moment. And I think you could. You could build that moment with this character where the reader may come to sort of despise her in a way, for selling Jesse out at the end of the beginning hook or whatever it is. Maybe it's not that, but that's another alternative. I'm not saying that's what you have to do. And a lot of people would say the notion of her attaching to Jesse because she lost a daughter is a good one. But deep down, my gut is dystopian worlds require very negative humanity surrounding the hero. But we can table that.

Okay. We'll table it.

Okay. All right. So at the end of this scene, it's a great cliffhanger at the end of the scene, because the back of their heads are going off, right? It's turning yellow. And we don't know what the hell is going to happen if they're the back of their heads turn red and so they're running back and they have to get in within their compound limits for the. For the numbered compound before those that beeping turns into a red light. Correct.

So, and this is where. Yeah, and so this is where you said, I need to kill one of the guys.

Not necessarily. What I think needs to happen is somebody's light has to go to red. It doesn't necessarily mean that they die.

That was what I was thinking, was that when it goes red, they're done.

Well, I do think that's the way you could explain to the reader this is a kill warning. So you could have one of the bald guys that we don't care about die.

He's like the red shirt in Star Trek.

Yeah.

And that way it gets. It gets information to the reader without having to explain the kill thing. So somebody can explain it to her later. But the reader will have witnessed what happens when the head goes red. So I actually thinking now that's probably the best way to go. So maybe you have that scene where the 97 bald guy says, I'm out of here, I gotta go. And 83 goes, go ahead, go ahead. And for whatever reason, he decides, ah, hell, I'll just, you know, I'll stay and wait five more minutes. And he waits there to egger on. And then those two, Jesse and 83 make it across the border, but he doesn't. And. And he. His head explodes or something. I don't know, depending upon how you want to do it. Or maybe somebody materializes and. Or he just falls dead. I don't know.

That's what, that's what I was kind of picturing is he. He actually waited. Jesse comes out. They're all running back and Jesse's behind because she's short and slow and she sees his light turn red and he just like goes limp and just. And then when she stops, 83 just like drags her to keep running and just leaves them behind because it's too late anyway. And they, then they're in danger too.

That's good.

Like, that was kind of what I was picturing.

That works. Okay, that's good. Okay. But the flashing lights on the back of the head are pretty cool. And you can see it, you know, in your mind's eye. It's a cinematic moment, especially with those metal caps on their head and they're bald. It has a real early George Lucas, you know, kind of feel to it. If you ever saw that movie, his first movie, I think, was called TX THX19 or something. It's a really dystopian universe where everybody's bald, Robert Duvall is the lead character, and everybody's sort of drugged out. It's a really, really interesting movie, and I think it was his first one he ever made. Anyway, it reminded your story. Kind of reminded me of that in a way. Okay, so that's scene number six. Let's go to scene number seven, which is 14, 20 words. And Jesse is safely home, and the rats arrive to help. Now, you began this scene. You left scene six with the cliffhanger, and you made a mistake at the beginning of scene seven. And the mistake. The mistake that you made is that you flash forwarded to Jesse's safety. And that bummed me out because you had established this note, you know, this through line, straightforward narrative momentum. And then you flashed forward where she's all safe and snug. And if you're gonna stop with whether or not they make it, then you stop with maybe the guy going limp or, you know, the red light is beeping on the guy, and you cut the scene. And then you begin the next scene with the exact next moment.

Okay?

But having Jesse sitting on her bed saying, oh, close call, you know, or whatever that was that she did and sort of thinking about what happened as opposed to having it happen on the page, that's a mistake.

Okay?

And, you know, this scene doesn't move. It starts positive Jesse's safe in her bed, and it ends positive the rats come to help.

So you know it. So when. When you have no movement, sometimes it feels okay because it's like you feel like you're. You're putting a place mark in the story and you're filling in some exposition and you're getting some things done, but you got to really look hard at it and you say to yourself, okay, let's see, what's the value at stake? Let's see, is it freedom? Jesse starts free, Jesse's captured, then she's captured at the end still. Okay, so it's not really freedom that's at stake. Is it.

Learning new information or, you know, uninformed versus informed? Yeah, but that's not exactly it. I don't. You know, it just doesn't feel. It doesn't move because you can't. You can't move. It doesn't feel good when the scene is about getting information to the protagonist. And as I recall, in this scene, 83 explains a lot of things to Jesse. She explains what the. What the lights on the back of the head are. She explains that you die if your thing goes red.

Yeah.

So I think you need to look at this scene and get something at stake. Now, the rats. I think the rats are an important element to get in here because I have an idea about tweaking some of the stuff that you have in the final here. But I would suggest if you can just get the rats in.

Shortly, maybe even when, Maybe even in the scene where 83 takes. I think it's scene three or four where 83 takes Jesse on the tour of hell, maybe just before they begin their tour, the rats are there. And that way you can establish that these rats are coming for her to help. And then, you know, Jesse will probably shoo them away because she doesn't want to get in trouble. But then later on, when she puts that note underneath the rock, you know, that establishes that she's taken up the. The communication again.

Yeah, you had mentioned that last week about establishing them earlier in the story than I did.

Yeah. And I'll tell you why. Because you have a great moment where the rats are discovered by, you know, the bad guys, and the rats are, you know, thrown into being shamed themselves, which puts Jesse in a terrible position because she's basically doomed her compadres, she's doomed her friends, which is a way to get her to change her behavior for the good of somebody else. You know, one of the things that you also have to remember is that, you know, and this is something to think about for when maybe this is the scene. Let me back up for a second. Okay? So the scene that has no movement, this is the scene that we're just talking about when the rats arrive. Okay. If you establish the rats earlier on, you could make this scene about the consequences of her running away. Okay? So it's not both rats. Maybe it's not even a rat that was introduced at the very first one. And here's what I'm getting at. Back in the funeral days when they had young kings, and so somebody who's 7 years old, you know, becomes the king of England or the king of France or whatever. What they used to do to these kings when they got in trouble because they were still children, right? What they used to do to the kings is they would bring one of their friends out and they would say, oh, King George, you were a bad boy today. So now we're going to beat your friend because you were bad. And because they can't beat the king because he's the king. Right. So they beat people close to the king to make him feel bad. Now, what you could do here is something similar with Jesse after she finally, she makes it back in 83. They barely make it back. And now 83 may say to her, okay, here's the situation. I've been alerted by the faction that they found somebody who. Who must suffer for your running away. And you could even make 83 to be the one who suffers. And so Jesse has to watch the only person who seems to care about her be hurt in some fashion. And that will raise the stakes of the story. Establish that man, the consequences. Not only was she shame, but now it's getting darker and darker and darker, and it can lead up to the bringing of the two rats into the center of the community to be shamed. And I think Jesse needs to witness that. She needs to witness those two friends of hers have their hair cut off being put in the stockade. Etc. Etc. And that's got to be the thing. It's almost like the moment in the Hunger Games when Katniss sacrifices herself for her sister. And that's when Jesse's just gotta be like, okay, enough is enough. Enough is enough. I'll do whatever you want me to do. You. But you have to. You have to save my friends. They cannot be shamed. And, you know, we were talking about using the fact that Jesse's brother is still alive as the climax of the beginning hook. And my thinking today is it might be interesting to save that as the inciting incident of the middle Bill. And that way the beginning hook would be more organic about the world from which she is coming without having to pull the world in which she is going into that world to get her to go there, if you know what I'm saying. Okay, so that's a thought.

All right, so this is what starts to worry me about how we're doing this. So. Because, I mean, that's fine, but that completely trashes the next four scenes that we're gonna go over. Next five scenes.

No, it doesn't.

Like, do. It doesn't.

No.

Well, because. Okay, well, then we're on. I mean, which is fine. I don't mind that. It's just like. Do we keep going and talk about scenes that will probably completely.

Yes, we do, because we need to explain why. Why these scenes need to change.

Okay.

I'm not just doing it willy nilly. The reason why I sort of am suggesting that is because when I was going through. Through this, I said to myself, okay, Tim, is we have another scene where Mason visits Jesse in somebody's house.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, my gosh. What are we gonna do that? Yeah. Oh, no.

So we repeated a scene. A couple of these scenes don't move. I'm not saying they're not well done. I'm not saying that they're terrible, but they don't. They're not working. They're not pushing the story forward in a way that's gonna make your reader go, holy crap, what is going on? This is incredible. I got to keep going. Because once you have that scene where Mason shows up again and they have another conversation, the reader may not know intellectually, but inside themselves, they're going to be like, this seems familiar. Didn't I already read this? And again, Tim, this isn't to put you over the irons. This is what first drafts are about. This is why you do the spreadsheet. Because then you can say, oh, my God, I have the exact same scene here. Oh, I just have to fix that.

Oh, this scene doesn't move. Oh, I gotta fix that.

Okay, so we're on scene seven, and that's the one where there's just too much of explaining. And it ends good because her friends are there instead.

I think what you need to do is you can't just push forward without talking about that incredible action scene and the consequences of that action scene. So just keep your. Keep your focus and say to yourself, how do I do a scene that will move from. Let's see, the previous scene, it ended negatively. Well, it ends positively because they escaped the kill. So this scene has to begin positively and end negatively.

And this is where it begins with, they've. They're safe. But then would it end with 83 getting punished for it?

Yeah, I think so. And establishing getting 83 punished for it will make the reader sympathetic to 83 even more so. Okay, so if and when 83 betrays Jesse.

I mean, you got to remember the greatest story ever told. As they say, Judas was like the best disciple, right? I mean, until he sold, you know, Jesus down the road for the. For the coins. So that was a big surprise for people when they first hear the Jesus story. So anyway, what you want to do is you want to build up sympathy for 83 so that it gives you the opportunity to pull the rug out from the reader later on by having her not be so great or being very Machiavellian. And she can explain herself, too. You know, like, geez, you know, I have the option of getting out from being a numbered person and having to manage all these people by just doing a Couple of things and maybe getting a couple of, you know, whip strokes on my back. I'll trade that anytime. Sorry, sweetheart. You're a little kid. You know, when you're older, you'll understand. Put in the same position. And the other thing about being a writer, which is so much fun, is that you can have these conversations with yourself and you say to yourself, well, geez, if I was in a situation where I was basically in prison and they bring this. They tell me there's this little girl who's coming who refuses to go eat ice cream all the time, could you help us go and get her to eat ice cream all the time? You go, yeah, sure. What do I get? And I go, okay, well, we'll half your sentence and we'll give you a ton of money. And all you have to do is get her to go become really, you know, socially accepted and gets all kinds of ice cream. And you'll say, yeah, sure, she's just being a little brat. I'll do whatever I have to do to get her do that. And so people will understand why 83 does what she does. Because we can understand that reasoning. We can understand the reasoning of her in her position. So anyway, let's move on to the next scene. So if you were to make scene seven move from positive to negative, Jesse and 83 are fine. 83 at the end suffers a. Some kind of humiliation for the act, for the punishment for both Jesse and herself. So scene nine would have to begin negatively. And you, you have Jesse cleaning some. The house of people who are plugged in.

No, so scene eight is. So scene.

Oh, scene eight. Sorry.

Okay. Yeah. Scene eight. So scene seven ends with her friends showing up, the rat showing up at the door.

Right.

Scene eight was the one where they had the conversation.

Yeah, yeah. And so Jesse basically gives them orders. And there's no real movement to the scene again because it's her giving orders to her underlings. And it's. It rings false because Jesse has been through so much trauma at this point that her seizing her rebellious powers again and, you know, commanding the night brigade just does not seem believable. Okay, she's in a hole, and in that hole is getting deeper and deeper and deeper. And this is a man in the hole, you know, sequence. And so you. What's really nice about this sequence is you are getting her deeper and deeper into this very dark, dystopian world that she had no clue was she thought her life was bad as sort of a member of the blue collar life. And holy cow, I had no idea about these other people, these numbered people. It's even worse. I mean, not just worse, but like, I want to jump off a cliff worse.

You know? All right, so scene eight is. It doesn't move, and it's exposition heavy, and it just seems like the writer trying to set something up for later.

On, but it's so hard to do it otherwise.

No, all you have to do is get those two little rats to visit her. And then, you know, she drops that note under the rock. Right. The reader picks that up. They know what's going on. The reader does not need you to tell them that Jesse put a note under a rock. You told them that she did that. They know. They know. Okay. She's trying to communicate with somebody. What are you. Why would you put a piece of paper under a rock unless you wanted somebody to read it? So the very action of her putting a note under a rock tells the reader she's communicating with somebody. The end. You don't have to say anything else. And if you introduce those rats earlier on, and Jesse says to them, get away from me. I can't deal with you. Don't look at me. I can't help you. And then she puts the note under the rock. Now we know. Oh, she's taken up the communication with the rats again. So that's all you need. So that's planted in the reader's mind that she has reached out again to teach the rats. Now all you have to do is pull those rats out in the middle of the compound and have them shame. And you don't have to do any of this exposition.

Oh, okay. So this is part of that trusting reader.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's the reader. So smart. It's.

It's incredible. And, you know, I've never seen it where if you've constructed your story and it makes sense to you and you write it all down and then you pull it all. You pull 98% of it out. The reader is going to get it. It's just. They're going to get it. They know what she's doing. So to tell her to tell them what she's doing, it pisses them off because they're like, I know. Well, you think I'm stupid, Tim. I know. Okay, so, all right, so scene eight, you know, you can do without. Scene nine is that moment we were talking about earlier where Mason returns again to speak with Jesse and tell her.

In the exact same way he did before.

Well, okay. Yeah. And so instead of having that scene, here's another thing that you could think about doing. It goes to what I was saying before. You could have Jesse cleaning the bedpans of these people. And I think that's pretty gross and pretty cool. So I think you could. Yeah. So go ahead.

Let me ask a question here. So one of the things that I've struggled with is, like, I remember this was months ago now. We were talking. I was like, you know what? So each scene you could sum up in a sentence. So what do I do for that other 1483 words? And you're like, you know, you brought up the Willy Wonka. And you're like. You established, you know, who wrote that. I forget now.

Roald Dahl.

Yeah. So he establishes this, like, amazing world with all of that other. And so. And then, as I've. You know, I'm trying to pay attention as I can, you know, as I just read books on my own, of, like, well, what are writers doing here? You know, Like, I was reading this book, and it was describing the guy coming home, and, you know, he's always. He never gets to see his son. And so he wanted to go upstairs and kiss him before bed. And as he walks up the stairs, he. He skips that fifth step that creaks, you know, like, little establishment, you know, And. And so that's what I was trying to do at the beginning of chapter nine, which I'll probably move a lot of this into Chap. Or scene four.

You know, of, like, describing the chores she's doing. But that was what I was trying to do is like, establish that it's hot. Establish that. You know, she has this really crappy job of pushing this wheelbarrow or whatever out to the edge of town, and she's cleaning. She's cleaning out bedpans. You know, she's. This is her job now.

Yeah.

I mean, so does that part works?

Yeah. And have. Have fun with that stuff. Okay. Because. Yeah. You want to. You want to paint a picture into the reader's mind of this world, because this is, in terms of the hero's journey. This is the ordinary world. This is the world from which she is going to move. She has to leave this world to go to the capital. Now, the Capitol is going to be a completely different universe with new rules and new ways of behaving. Another thing to think about in terms of this stuff, and I was thinking about this yesterday, is that when you write a dystopian novel, a great thing to do. And this is what Suzanne Collins did so well in Hunger Games, which is to Establish to use historical references as fun little detail into your story. And what do I mean by that? What I mean is instead of having these people like inventing a complete new language, you could use historical references from the past that could make sense. So when was the last time that there was this big moment in history when there was such a division between social classes? Well, it was at the turn of the 20th century when the robber barons were around and Carnegie and Standard Oil and the Rockefellers, they used human capital in a way that was exploitation. And what rose to defeat that or to counteract that was trade unionism. So the unions came around to collectively organize the blue collar people against the 1%, you know, zillionaires who owned all the means of production, the factories, etc, etc. So I was thinking for you, because this is like a blue collar world versus this deluxe, incredible Gold Coast 1% universe of people who live in the capital, you could use some of that language, that era. And the language was rank and file workers versus management. And the management were people who worked for the very, very ultra wealthy. And they separated themselves from the rank and file workers because they thought they were special, but they were really under the same thumb as the rank and file workers. So you would have these divisions of class, rank and file workers, shop workers, and then you would have management and then you would have the owners and the means of production or whatever, the robber barons or. And so what I was thinking is that if you used, instead of the numbered, you could call them the rank and file or something like that so that it reflects a truth of history in the future. Because what does history do but repeat itself? History is, you know, it repeats itself in different ways. It rhymes, it doesn't repeat. I think somebody said that, but that was a thought that I had. That could be a way of honing in on these social classes in a way that could be instructive to the reader and be fun for you to, you know, you could research what, you know, what were the coal mines like for little kids back then? Then? And these could be virtual coal mines, right? These could be, you know, you, you mentioned that these people have to go into these, into this digital world and do mining in order to earn their, their keep. Those mines in the digital world, what would they look like? Would they be similar to the mines in West Virginia in 1896? You know, they might be, I don't know, but it's something to think about and it's a way of adding truthfulness and veracity to a fictional world.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. So scene nine is 14, 16 words. And it works. It's a scene where Mason basically blackmails Jesse into going to the Capitol. And then scene 10 is the actual what happens order to get her to do that. Angel and Aaron, who are the two rats. Not only have they been shamed, but now they're being traded into slavery. I think you're gilding the lily here, and I think you can just do the one scene of them. You know, what do you.

I don't know what that word.

Oh, gilding the lily. It means that you're. You're adding too much on top of something. So not only were they shamed, not only was she responsible for. For them being shamed, but now they're going to be traded to another faction. And that could work. I'm not saying it doesn't work, but in the present draft, it doesn't feel organically truthful, because I think once those kids. Once Jesse understands that those kids are shamed because of her.

She is going to feel great guilt. But if you could have Jesse save them from being shamed.

Then she would gain stature in the eyes of the reader, and she would start to feel better about herself, too.

Okay, so the way that she regains stature is by trading. Going to the Capitol for getting her friends out of the shaming.

Yes.

Okay. Because at this point, she's. Because I'm trying to think, you know, we have to dig her deeper and deeper into the hole. So she's been shamed. Then she caused one of the number to die, and then 83 got beat, and then her friends get shamed, but she stops Pretty.

Yeah, she stops the shaming. So you have three.

Now, does she stop the shaming or does she get them out of it after the fact? Because right now I have her getting them out of it after they've already been shamed.

You know what? It probably. I think you're right, because if you have another shaming scene, then the reader will be like, oh, I already saw this scene, so you could use. You know, so I'm going to go back and what I said about you gilding a lily. So.

Maybe.

Because right now I think. Let me pull it back up here. I think I actually skip.

I don't re. Show the shame.

No, you don't. You don't. Which was a good choice. But having them back at the compound in the bed, don't do that. You got to come up with something equally weird and strange. That it's like, enough is enough. At this point, Jesse sees them they're being carted away or whatever they're doing to. To send them to a different world. And Jesse goes to 83 and says, Contact Mason at the faction. Tell him I'll do whatever the hell he wants. But you've got to, you know, they've got to get these kids back to their parents. And that could be the end of the beginning Hook. And it's sort of. She is defeated. So we need to end this as. Remember what we said at the very beginning of this process, at the very beginning of this story, a positive inciting incident occurs. The positive inciting incident is that Jesse has been chosen to go to the Capitol and become a manager or part of management for the great billionaires of the universe. And she turns it down. So the end of the beginning Hook has to go negative. So it begins positive, and it ends negatively. It ends negatively because Jesse, in her rebellion, has been defeated. She is not going to be able to be the little rebel and everything will work out for her. No, she has to give her. She has to give in, and she gives in in a good way. It saves her friends, but it ends negatively. She didn't want to go to the Capitol, but she's going to the Capitol. She assumes the call, her heroic call, because she has to sacrifice for somebody else, and that's a good way of getting her there. Now, it doesn't mean that she has any confidence of being successful when she goes on this calling. Right. Which is good.

I mean, that fits the theme, you know, that we found months ago now, of, you know, sacrificing yourself for others.

That's right.

So she's going to sacrifice herself for others, and it's got to bite her in the ass. I'm not kidding. I mean, because, you know, when she goes into the middle build, you know, she's going to discover some really heinous, horrible things. She's going to fall down a bigger hole, believe it or not, because we're going man in hole. Man in hole. Cinderella, you know, tragedy.

As our friends at the Hedomina would say. But again, don't overwhelm yourself with that. I'm keeping track of that in my mind so you don't have to worry about that.

Okay.

So anyway, does that make sense?

Yeah. So I have a couple questions.

Okay.

One is. Is 11 scenes because, well, we've cut it down to, like, 10. Like, is that long enough?

Well, it's not something to worry about. Now, the thing that you have to remember is that the most important thing you want is narrative. Velocity. You don't want to put in scenes just to have scenes because that just slows down the read. And unless they are scenes that are going to pay off in a huge way at the very end of the book, they're just. They're filler. It's fat. And when you're doing, you know, this isn't going to be your final draft also remember that. So what you're going to find out is that as you're doing the middle build and ending payoff, you're going to make notes to yourself and you're going to say, oh, okay, I need this. There's going to be this great payoff, but I need to set it up. So I'm going to. I'm going to drop in a setup scene and in between four and five, that will set up this great moment. And then you're gonna put tk, you know, TK scene to come where the dragon eats the bullion or whatever. I just made it up.

That's what J.K. rowling did over and over so well in the Harry Potter books. Going back to those is, there were so many of these little kind of throwaway things, like all the way back to the first book when right at the beginning, he meets the professor that ends up being the bad guy. The professor won't shake his hand. And that's because at the very end of the book, he wins by just touching the professor because it burns him.

Yep.

You know, and so. And I've always, like, she had to add that later like that. You know what I mean?

Like, definitely.

So what she did.

I don't know what she did, but I'll tell you what, I think she did okay. Because it's such.

We should get her on the show. Oh, yeah, just ask her to come.

She has nothing else to do.

Both of you are absolutely stupid. You know.

But what she did is she. She focused on the. The spine of the story. She's focused on the narrative arc of her lead character. And then later, once she nailed that, then you can pepper in all these other scenes that will add word count and volume and depth and etc. Etc. Later on. But right now, honing in on the narrative story spine of the hero's journey of your lead character in a coming of age, this is the right process for this draft because if you get this correct and you get this to hum in a really, really great way, then you can add all that other stuff later on that will even increase the innovation of the global story later on. But if you're worrying about setting up the professor at the very beginning, you're going to get lost in the weeds of your. It's like, Beethoven didn't write the Ninth Symphony the first time he wrote a symphony. The ninth Symphony is just a genre smashing, amazing, phenomenal thing. He, you know, he wrote the first Symphony, the Second Symphony, and each symphony that he wrote. It all built to this moment when the Ninth Symphony came out, and it just was shattering. Listen to it today, and you're like, wow, holy cow. How did he think of adding that chorus at the end?

So that's what Rowling did, is she did her story spine, and then she filled in later on with scenes TK to come. That would increase the innovation and the crisis moments and the climaxes later on. And then it tumbles you all the way back to the very beginning of the story. So did Thomas Harris. The very first scene where we meet Hannibal Lecter in the Silence of the Lambs, he literally tells Clarice Starling where Buffalo Bill is. He says, oh, that's my painting of the Belvedere in Italy. And where is Buffalo Bill? Belvedere, Ohio. And that is the first time we meet Hannibal Lecter. And so after you read that book 90 times, like I did, you see what Thomas Harris did. Now, most people who read the Silence of the Lambs didn't get that reference, but what they did get was a perfectly organic setup for the introduction of Belvedere, Ohio, in the ending payoff of the story.

So focus on your narrative spine, your narrative arc of your protagonist, your hero's journey in your first draft. Really, really hone in on it, like we're doing now. So, okay, so you're gonna have nine scenes in your beginning hook. Maybe 11. Who knows? Maybe nine, 10. Let's keep moving. Let's keep the narrative momentum going and get into the beginning, the middle build, because you've hit the points. You've done your man in the hole, and you got her out of the hole, and she got herself out of the hole by sacrificing herself, which will create sympathy for her in the reader and will make them want to know what's going to happen next.

Okay, so it's my job now to basically go back and rewrite the different scenes. We rewrite, just basically make all these changes we just talked about.

Well, that's really your choice. My recommendation would be. Yes, would be to do that now. Now, later on when you're writing your fifth novel, you might do these 11 scenes as your beginning hook and say, okay, let me story grid, spreadsheet these and see how they're doing. And then you'll do that and you go, oh, I got a problem there, problem there. And you'll make notes to yourself and you'll say, okay, rewrite scene six this way. Rewrite scene nine this way. Shit can scene three. And then you'll put those notes in a file and then you'll move on to your middle build. But for now, because it's fresh in your mind, I think it's a good idea to redo these scenes with interesting, you know, innovations in the action so that when you do start your middle build, you're going to feel like you, you know what? I'm really, I've got a concrete foundation and if, if things go wrong in the middle build, I know at least I can throw out my middle build and I'll still have a concrete foundation to start again. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, I'll get to work. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. For everything StoryGrid related, check out storygrid.com make sure you pick up a copy of the book and sign up for the newsletter so that you don't miss anything happening in the StoryGrid universe. If you'd like to check out the show notes for this episode or any past episodes, all of that can be found@storygrid.com podcast if you would like to reach out to us, you can find us on Twitter torygrid. Lastly, if you would like to support the show, you can do that by telling another author about the show and by visiting us on itunes and leaving a rating and review. Thanks for subscribing and being part of our work here at StoryGrid, and we will see you next week.