The 8 stages of grief/writing

First off, I just have to tell you how awesome you are. So a couple episodes ago I asked you to go and leave reviews to put us over the 50 mark on the ratings and reviews inside of itunes and not only did we hit 50, but as of this recording we're at 61. So just thank you so much for your support of the show and thank you for sharing it as well. Each week our downloads and listens keep going up. They keep going up and it's really fun to see. And we're not doing any advertising or promotion for it. So what that means is you're sharing the word, you're spreading the word to other authors. So thank you so much for doing that. Now. Welcome to the Storygrid podcast. My name is Tim Grall. I'm your host. I'm a struggling fiction writer trying to figure out how to write a story that works. Sean Coyne is the creator of the Story Grid. He wrote the book the Story Grid and he's been an editor for over 25 years and he's worked on many best selling books, hundreds of authors, and he is sharing his advice with me as a struggling writer. And hopefully it's something that will be helpful to you as well. In this episode, we talk about the Kubler Ross curve and how that applies to writing. We also talk about character development and what it means, how we put ourselves into our characters and why that's an important part of the process. I also want to let you know that next week is our Christmas episode and Sean and I are doing something really cool as a gift to you that we think you'll love. We're taking the movie the Martian and we're running it through the story grid. We're going to talk through the entire Foolscap method and we're going to talk about obligatory scenes and genre and beginning hook. And we're just going to break down the entire book and walk through that. And I think it'll be something you love. So hang on for that. And then we're doing a second story that will be a secret bonus story that we're also going to run through the story grid. So two stories that you're really going to love and I think you're going to learn a lot through that. So make sure you come back next week and listen to that episode. Okay, let's dive in and get started.

So, Sean, I want to start with chapter 37 of your book because I thought it was an interesting take and kind of.

An interesting path to go on after everything we'd Come to. So, you know, we'd gone through introducing the story grid and the math and the beginning hook, middle build, ending, payoff, and then you throw this Kubler. Is it Kubler Ross?

Yes.

Is that how it's pronounced? So the Kubler Ross change curve and how it applies to story and the math of the story. So could you just tell me a little bit about what the Kubler Ross change curve is and where you found that?

Sure.

Okay. Well, there was this psychologist named Elizabeth Kubler Ross, and she was sort of fascinated about the way people kind of come to terms with death. And she wrote a seminal book, I think it was called On Death and Dying. And what she did is she spent a lot of time with people in hospices.

And, you know, relatives of people who were on the path to death and followed up with them to see how they sort of integrated this major life change in their own world. And what she discovered is that there was this sort of pattern that people would have to go through. And. And it became, you know, the Kubler Ross curve, which was about. And you've probably heard about it here and there throughout your life. And it's about sort of denial and anger and.

Sort of depression before, you know, after. There are five stages, and then you sort of come to terms with the problem and the death, and then you integrate, reintegrate your life, and you're sort of. You're a changed person by the effect of somebody, a loved one dying in your life. And so through the years, and I think that was like maybe the late 60s, 1960s, and so through the years after that, other people, even marketing people, were examining sort of this curve that she had, you know, postulated based upon all these interviews and all this data that she collected. And I was thinking about this when I was thinking about story, because for me.

I think when you really boil story down to sort of one thing, it's what separates human beings from the rest of the animal kingdom. We can speak, and we speak in terms of stories, and we relate our lives to stories. So everybody has their own sort of little story inside of their head that they're kind of operating on.

We believe that, you know, we're a victim or something wonderful happened to us and changed our life. And. Or we are sort of like the black sheep of the family. There are all these little sort of little narratives that we all sort of plug into our own brains. Oh, well, you know, we have the Eeyore guy. You know, I'll never make anything of myself. Everything is terrible. And then we have the all sorts of little stories that are deeply ingrained in our. In our brains. So when I was thinking about the story grid and I was thinking about the structure of stories, and this is, you know, this is my life's work. And what fascinate. It's what fascinates me. I was thinking, like, I wonder if there's an association between Kubler Ross's work and story structure in general.

Because when I was looking at story structure, I was comparing it to the Kubler Ross curve. I was like, wow, this is really kind of weird, because at the beginning of a traumatic event in the Kubler Ross model, we have, you know, shock. You know, we're all shocked by the death of a loved one, for example. Or say, you know, you lose the woman you love and she dumps you. That's a shock, right? So a shock is very much like an inciting incident in the story. The inciting incident is the thing that throws a lead character's life out of balance. So I'm like, wow, shock and inciting incidents are pretty familiar. And then there's denial. You know, whenever we get shocked, we're like, well, you know, she's gonna come back to me. Or, you know, my loved one, they're really still with me in spirit, and I can really rely on them being around. And whether or not they're here in physicality or not is not really the issue. And so we go through this stage of denial, and we refuse to act. We refuse to sort of do anything about the circumstances in which we are thrown. The inciting incidents of our lives shock us, and our first reaction is to deny that it even happened. You know. Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm not even going to think about that right now. I've got other things I'm going to do. So for me, those two elements of the Kubler Ross curve, shock and denial, was sort of what the beginning hook of a story is. So the very beginning of a story has this progressive movement from this inciting incident through progressive complications to this crisis and this climax of the beginning hook, which is usually, will our lead character actually come out of denial and face their problem head on, face the unbalance in their life, and recognize that there is something that they must do in order to right the world. And so I thought, wow, that's pretty cool. And then I looked further into. I did more and more reading in the Kubler Ross thing, and then there are four more stages that I think are kind of like the middle build of a story. And that is, you know, Anger, bargaining, depression and deliberation. And those sort of make up the middle of the big chunk of the middle build of your story. We get angry. We're like, well, I'm not going to take this anymore. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to call, you know, that woman who dumped me, and I'm going to convince her that I'm really the perfect person for her and she's crazy for letting me go, that sort of thing. And then maybe we'll bargain with her. Well, you know, you're right. I'm not really that, you know, that good at cleaning the house.

I'll do the. I'll do more housework. I'll take better care of the kids if you come back to me. And so we bargain with them. And then when we reach a point.

In a story, this is what we often refer to as the all is lost moment. There's a moment in pretty much every single story, every single story where the lead character realizes all is lost. They're not going to get the woman back. They're not going to get the loved one to come back to them. Things are not going to be the way they always thought they were going to be. The way they saw the world before this inciting incident happened to them.

Is just not the way the world works. And this is really sort of like the bottom moment. It's the trough of the emotional turmoil of your lead character. So, for example, you know, I talk about the Silence of the Lambs in the book. And since a lot of people have seen the movie, which is very, very close to the book, you know, the all is lost moment for Clarice Starling is when, you know, she goes to lend a hand.

To help find the woman who's sort of locked in that dungeon of Buffalo Bill. And she goes to, coincidentally, I think it's somewhere near Nashville, Tennessee. And what happens is she gets kicked off of the team. The senator, a senator's daughter, has been kidnapped. And the bad serial killer has the daughter of the senator in a really sick crypt. And the senator meets Clarice Starling, who's an FBI trainee, and says, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be involved. Get out of this investigation. You're worthless. You're not going to be helpful. So, actually, the FBI tells Clarice Starling, hey, if you continue to do this investigation and get in the way, we are going to flush you out of the program. You'll probably never become an FBI agent. And, you know, you have to remember at this point in the story, Starling has basically given up her entire intellectual life to Hannibal Lecter. To get this crucial information to help find this person. So the all is lost moment for Clarice Starling is that time when she realizes, look, if I don't stop what I really think I need to do, I'm going to not even become an FBI agent. I'm going to. Might even go to prison for what I'm doing here. And so she has to realize that the way she was viewing the world. That if she did the right things in the FBI. And if she.

She went on the right meritocracy path, that she would become an FBI. She realized that that entire way of thinking was false. That she was being sold a bill of goods. In order for her to get this crucial information from Hannibal Lecter. So that all is lost moment is a crucial moment for her. Because she realizes, the way I saw the world before this moment is false. I must change the way I see the world, my worldview. Order to become a productive person. I've got to get rid of my illusions. I have to get rid of this falsity that I've been living with. So that's the all is lost moment. And this is what happens in Kubler Ross people when they lose a loved one or a serious shock in their life happens. They realize, you know what? I can't go on believing that my arm is going to grow back. After it was cut off in a farm accident. I have to get on with my life. I am not going to be able to ever use my arm. So I need to readapt and change my worldview. I am now a person who no longer has an arm. I'm using a very extreme example. But those sort of emotional shocks that we all have, those are very similar to having to change our worldview. So after the all is lost moment in depression, we have deliberation. And what deliberation is, is, you know, what? Okay, My life is not what it. What I thought it would be. So what am I going to do now? How am I going to change my worldview so that I can function? How am I going to change my life so that I am not a basket case anymore? I refuse to live in the world of depression. And thinking that the world is out to get me. How am I going to change myself? And that's sort of the deliberation moment. And this is usually the end of the middle build of a story. And this is the moment when the lead character or the group of Lead characters comes to the realization that they have to make a serious choice. They have to change their worldview. They have to come up with a really concrete plan for the ending payoff of the story. They have to change themselves, and then they have to deliberate and figure out a strategy to fix themselves. And then the final ending payoff of the story is them making that change and acting on those choices, which brings the ending payoff of the entire story, which is the actual choice. And in the case of a Silence of the Lambs, Clarice Starling makes the choice. Hey, you know what? Yeah, I might get kicked out of the FBI. I might very well get kicked out of the FBI. But if I don't go and do everything possible to save this woman's life, I will never forgive myself. So go ahead.

So in that. Because even as you just said that, the way that you described it is a. I mean, is that one of the obligatory scenes of a, you know, horror thriller where. Where the lead characters trying to decide whether or not they're actually going to go through with this?

Absolutely. You.

Know, because. Because when you said that, I'm like, well, that's such a. You know, I'm like, oh, well, that happens in every movie is like, oh, I don't know if I'm going to do it. But, oh, you know, how about it? They did end up going after him. But somehow when it's in the middle of a great movie, you don't realize, like, oh, well, this happens in every movie where the hero is trying to decide whether or not to go through with it, even though you know they're going to go through with it.

Yes. And the beautiful part of storytelling is we all know this story. We all know story structure backwards and forwards intuitively in ourselves.

So the. The trick for a writer and a storyteller is and is to really explore specificity of your own life experience. And through specificity, you find universality. And what I mean by that is that when somebody. I'm reading right now, this incredible. I'm. I'm. I'm a huge Eugene o' Neill fan. I'm black Irish. He's like the king of black Irish people. And Eugene o' Neill was this fantastic playwright. He's the only American playwright to ever win the Nobel Prize. And what, what he was going through in his life, I sort of lost my train of thought for a second. Oh, through specificity is universality. Okay, so Eugene o' Neill is sort of like the preeminent black Irish playwright. And I'm reading This great biography about him and his life story mirrors every story, every play he ever wrote. And what he discovered for himself is that the closer he got to his own life experience, the more powerful his work was. And just to really put a highlight sledgehammer on this point, he. He decided right before he was about to die to write a series of plays that ended up being the preeminent plays of the 20th century, in my opinion. Those plays are Long Day's Journey in Tonight, the Iceman Cometh, and Moon for the Misbegotten. These three stories are pretty much autobiography, and they're horrifying stories, but what they tell. And I bet when he was writing them, he was thinking, oh, boy, nobody's going to relate to the fact that I spent a good five years drunk in a bar, and all the people that came in there were these crazy, you know, Marxists and socialists, and who's going to ever believe this thing? But he wrote it anyway. And it was through that specificity of his own life experience that, you know, today, you know, Nathan Lane was just in a production of the Iceman Cometh in Chicago. It's one of the. It's one of the, you know, greatest plays of the American theater.

And so when you say, like. So.

When I say specificity, I mean, yeah, think about your own life experience. A lot of people think that writing is about, you know, I say this all the time. The magic fairy who comes down and lands inside your brain and whispers a story to you that you've never heard of before. That's really not the way it works. The way it works is looking at your own life experience, looking deep within yourself, finding those moments in your life when you were shocked, when you were really thrown for a loop, when. When your life was completely out of balance and how you came to terms with that shocking change. This is all goes to Elizabeth Kubler Ross and the Change Curve. And if you can look at those own moments in your own life, and I'm not saying just write, spew autobiography and talk about yourself. What it means is to be inspired by those particular moments in your life and use those specific moments of your own personal experience to influence your storytelling. So Eugene o', Neill, he didn't write specifically about the specific bars that he spent his, you know, his youth in and almost drank himself to death in. No, what he did is he.

Coalesced all of that experience, and he created this fictional bar that had all of the characters that influenced his philosophy throughout his life basically walk into that bar. And what he said to himself was, huh, here's my what if? What if, you know, there was a moment in my life where everybody who ever influenced me in a very strong way was were to walk into the bar and we would all sit down and we would have a couple of drinks together. Where would that take us? How would I come up with a cast of characters from my own life experience that I know specifically? I know who these people are because I've been around them my entire life. And if I could just dramatize those particular people and give them fictional names, then that can drive. Whenever I get confused, I will think about those people in my life who are sort of the amalgamation basis of these fictional characters. So the specificity of Eugene Oneills life is what created the beauty and the universality of his art. And you don't need to know anything about Eugene o' Neill to watch Long Day's Journey into Night and say to yourself, oh, my gosh, I know that family. That family lives down the block for me. Or, you know what? That's my family. Yeah, my mom might not be a morphine addict, but my mom's a little, you know, just a little weird. Or my brother's kind of a jerk, and, you know, he kind of sucked the life out of me a little bit. And I can actually see that on the stage. And so when you go to a great production of Long Day's Journey in tonight, and I've seen a number of them, amazing ones, when you look around the audience, you see people, you know, Korean people, black people, Chinese people, all kinds of ethnicity, looking at this play about, you know, 1940s in a. In a small New England town in a summer resort, and one day in their life, and they're crying because they see what. What happened to their family back where they came from. And that's universality. But o' Neill got to the universality by plumbing the depths of his own soul and plumbing the depths of his own specific life experience. And this is why I was attracted to the Elisabeth Kubler Ross Curve, is because it's about coming to terms with dramatic change.

How do you change your worldview? Because we all have a worldview. We all have stories we tell ourselves. And there are moments in our lives where we realize those stories are baloney. They're not true. What are we going to do now? We've got to find ourselves a new story. And this is why storytelling is so important. Because the way we find a new story is we look to other people's stories, and we look to the great literature. And we look and we pose our questions in the form of stories. So, you know, you're. You probably have heroes in your mind, Tim, that you think about, and you go, you know what? That guy wouldn't. Wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. He would be doing this. If Steve Jobs were running this podcast, this is what he would be doing. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

I mean, I do that all the time. I think about, you know, like, I say to myself, well, Sam Shepard, when he was 45, you know, he had already had an Oscar. And look at me, you know, I'm. I'm shoveling dirt in my backyard trying.

You're stuck doing this podcast.

And Sam Shepard has his own stories, you know, and that's. This is why storytelling is so important, because stories are the vehicles we use to change ourselves. We change who we are based upon storytelling. So it's really important to think about that if you're a writer and if you're a storyteller, because you really need to understand how important they are. They are so important. And, you know, they're writers and creative people. You know, everybody. I know, a lot of people are, like, in the financial industry, right? And they're multi millionaires, and they're. They never have to worry about a financial problem for the rest of their lives. But to a person, whenever I talk to them, they're like, you know, I really want to be a writer, or I always wanted to make a movie. And the reason why is that we all have a story and we all want to tell it. And for those of us who dedicate ourselves to storytelling, it's really important to think about story really psychologically and deeply, because the deeper you go, the more satisfying the story experience is. I mean, we talked about a couple weeks when you were watching, like, a Garfield cartoon, and you're like, oh, my God, there's the inciting incident. And those are the things that once you sort of get into this really deep analysis of storytelling, you really start to pick out in the world, and you start to look at your own life experience in a different way. Like, boy, I don't. I don't know if. If I think that anymore. Huh? I have to. Let me think about that. I'm not really sure. You know, I used to think storytelling was like this, but now I have a different point of view. So go ahead with.

With that specific. I can't say that specificity. Yeah, I know.

It's like cinnamon, right? Well, I said it, right.

Makes Me think of in On Writing, where he talks about telling the truth. And, you know, Stephen King says it over and over. You have to tell the truth. And it's just. It's interesting to me how all of these things come together, because you have. You know, I feel like.

When I come up with story ideas, I'm more thinking about the setup. Like, what. You know, what. What will set up a good story or a good situation that I've got to get a hero out of. And then at the same time, I want to look at that person and think, like, what would I do in their situation?

And this. I don't know if we've talked about it here, though, but I've told you about this other, like, superhero novel thing I've started working on. I. Because I kind of view myself personally as a coward that constantly puts myself in situations where I'm not allowed to be a coward, right? So, like, as a father, you know, it's like, there's all these things, especially as my boys get older, that I'm just terrified of confronting. And the only way I can get myself to confront them is, like, when. It's like, there's no other way for me to escape, you know? So as I look at this character, I'm like, you know, if I were that person, I would as much as possible, avoid doing the right thing until I get forced to where I have to do the right thing. And so as I'm writing it, I'm realizing I'm writing this guy who, to me, is, like, the antithesis of what you think of as a superhero, which is like, I'm here to right all the wrongs. And I'm like, this guy's here to try to avoid that as much as possible, because that's what I would do. And so it's just interesting as. Like, as you were talking about that, and it becomes autobiographical. It's just, you know, you don't want to write. We're not writing biographies here. But it's almost like you get this setup, and then you think, well, what. What would I do in this situation? And it reminds me, too, about how I forgot where I heard this or read this. But, like, how there's no such thing as a bad guy, like, in a story. Like, everybody thinks they're the hero of their own story, so you can't just set up a villain as in, like, you know, they're just evil. You have to set them up as, like, well, they're trying to get what they want out of the world, too. And they feel like they're going about it the best way they possibly can.

And so it just is interesting to me, like, as we think through this, as you talk about telling our own, you know, being, you know, very specific about what we're dealing with, it's like you really have to go to the depths of what you believe about yourself and humanity and then kind of force that on your characters.

I guess that's exactly right. That's. I couldn't have put it better myself. And I think there's just to sort of like throw out some, some examples of the things that you're talking about. There's a great movie called Michael Clayton. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but it stars George Clooney. And every character, even the assassins in that, in that movie, every character is so believable because when you, when you look at their decision making process, you say to yourself, you know, I can, I could kind of see, you know, being in that situation and hiring somebody to, you know, to kill that guy.

And that's, I mean, Tony, I think Tony Gilroy wrote the screenplay and directed it and he's fantastic. He did the first, he wrote the screenplay for the Firstborn Identity. And that is really, you know, sort of looking at the darkness within your own soul and understanding, you know, the whole Kubler Ross thing that I was just talking about. Every character goes through this.

You mean every character in the book?

Well, yeah, every character who's a dynamic character in your story. So for example, definitely your antagonist and your protagonist. Here's a little secret about protagonists and antagonists. Like your superhero and your super villain, they're basically the yin and yang of the, the same person. So they, they sort of complement each other and they're the, they're polar opposites at the same time. So if you get stuck, I always, I always recommend people to. When they're thinking about their story and, and they sort of have this general idea of a setup or a genre like, you know, like you're set up in genre of the, you know, the, the guys on the boat to think about the bad guy first. Because we're kind of. Human beings are fascinated by evil because we're always trying to, to check our own, our own dark impulses. So when there's a character that, that actually, actually acts on their dark impulses, we can't help be attracted to it because we're constantly trying to stop our own.

Whereas the goody goody two shoes who always does the right thing, it's Sort of like they're kind of boring characters, you know. So your instinct about the superhero novel or story that you're contemplating in your own brain to make him or her.

Do everything in their power not to act is a really great instinct. Because we're all cowards.

I hate to tell you this, Tim, but you're not the only coward in the world.

That's good to know. Yeah, I'm just too afraid to talk about it.

No, I mean, that's the thing. We're all very sort of. We're all reluctant to act. And this is the thing about storytelling. That's the hero's journey. The hero's journey is about being called to action and doing everything in your power not to act. I mean, it's in the Iliad, Achilles is the greatest fighter in the history of the world, right? He's like, invincible. The only way anybody's ever going to kill Achilles is, you know, his heel, right? The gods blessed Achilles as the greatest warrior of all time in the beginning of the Iliad. And big chunk of the Iliad is trying to get Achilles out of his tent. Dude, come down and fight, man. We got. We got a big battle going. He's like, no.

I'm mad at Agamemnon. He blew me off. He didn't give me what he promised me. I'm not fighting. And so that is really instructive because even though Achilles is the greatest warrior of all time, all that talk about all the reasons why he's not going to fight is really a mask. It's a mask for cowardice.

So why are we. So why is, like a story such as Superman done so well? Because I feel like.

He'S. And maybe I'm. Maybe I haven't dug deep enough into the story. I've never really liked Superman as a superhero, so I'm just gonna admit that up front.

Okay.

But I just don't understand why. Because it's. He seems so one dimensional, you know, it's like this guy that can't be beat. If he could just stay the hell away from that green stuff, he'd be totally fine.

And.

And he's always gonna try to do the right thing. And so where I feel like.

The conflicted superheroes are the ones that are more interesting. And I know in recent years things have come around towards like, the Jack Bowers of 24 that are like, you know, always doing the bad thing for the right reason. And you have, you know, the recent Batmans are much more darker. And he's doing things for the wrong reasons in many cases. But like, why has that changed? It seems to, in my opinion, to have changed over the last, you know, 80 years or whatever from like these super. You and the heroes that were infallible and always made the right decisions to now they, the heroes always seem to be much more conflicted. And what, what do you think is, I mean, would you agree with that assessment? And then what would you think has kind of brought that change about?

Well, I, I would generally agree with that. I think the Superman myth and is very similar to the Harry Potter sort of sensibility. And that is what I would call sort of.

The hero denying their inner power. The hero who doesn't, who doesn't want to accept their otherness. So Superman is, you know, he wants to be, you know, he wants to work at the Daily Planet, right? He wants to be Clark Kent. He wants to be just like everybody else. And he's constantly called to, to, to call on his inner power in a way that makes him uncomfortable. And what I love about that, and it's the same, it's like, you know, with Harry Potter, you're a wizard. Harry, you know, Harry Potter, you know, he has to accept that he's a different kind of guy. He's got powers that other people don't have. And when you have a certain genius and you have a certain thing that other people don't have, you know what happens? People don't like you so much. You know, they don't like. I remember being in the playground and there was that kid who could run faster than everybody else and I hated that kid. I couldn't stand that kid because I could never catch him. And he had a genius that I didn't have. And no matter how hard I tried, I could not catch him. And so there's a, there's a real, you know, there's a real negative element to having a particular genius that people are out to really deny you and they really dislike you for that certain power. So Superman is psychologically, it's a story about accepting your inner genius and exploring it and doing what's necessary for the betterment of the world. And that is to express that genius. And the same thing with Harry Potter. Now, the reasons why.

We used to have these sort of one dimensional heroes from the 50s and 60s, I would say the 60s, the 1960s was really this moment in time when.

You know, the psychology and the family unit and the culture of western culture at least became really isolating in that, you know, in the 1950s and prior, prior to World War II, we lived in a world of scarcity. You know, a lot of people, they were just happy to have enough food for the week, right? They were enough, you know, to be able to put a new pair of shoes on your kid and to be able to go out to dinner once a year and maybe get an orange for Christmas, that was a hell of a great year. You know, it was a. It was a very.

We had to sort of live bound. We had to bind together as family units and as communities in order to really survive properly. There was no, you know, food was difficult to transport. Refrigeration was just at the beginning. Mass transportation was nowhere really where it is today. And then we had this explosive sort of industrial age of technology right after World War II, and the old ways of looking at the world where I must rely upon my community in order to be able to take care of myself, and I must contribute to my community to take care of myself. All of those sorts of values started to fracture, and we started to live in a world of plenty, in a world of, you know, 3,000 different kinds of flavors of ice cream. And when we started getting all these new sort of products and services and marketing and advertising and sell, sell, sell, and television channels started to explode. What the. All of that. What all of that did was isolate people, because now you didn't really have to rely on anybody else. You could be God's lonely man inside a big city and never talk to the guy who lives next door to you in an apartment building. And a lot of people are attracted to that. So, anyway, I think how all of this sort of evolved and the way stories evolved is that they're reflections of our culture and the way things are going in our current everyday world. And right now we're living in a very isolated, demanding, strange world where people can sit in their home and make a living without ever actually having to do much. I mean, physically, like, this is what I do. I type all day. I write stories, I do podcasts, and I make a living. I'm able to take care of my family this way, but I'm not required to go down to the hayloft.

Or to the blacksmith to get shoes for my horse. I don't have to talk to anybody if I don't want to. And that's isolation. And isolation is dehumanizing. So the heroes today are always very conflicted, and they're all unsure of themselves.

They.

They face these very dark questions, because that's what happens when you're isolated. And Batman's A very isolated figure. He lives in a cave. You know, his best friend is his butler. I mean, this guy has no friends, you know, So I think, you know, a lot of people make light of superheroes and superhero stories and all that stuff. But if you really want to look at the state of the culture and the difficult questions that the culture is facing, look at the most popular entertainment. And right now, it's the superhero, and it's the superhero films. And as you said, these characters are very, very multidimensional. Now, even looking at Breaking Bad, that great television series, that's a character who's extremely conflicted, makes a lot of terrible choices, and really doesn't have any remorse at the end. He's destroyed by his own desires. Right? He desires to be a powerful figure, and he longs to express his genius, and his genius just happens to be creating an addictive drug that destroys people's lives. But he doesn't care because he's the best at it. And I'm going to be the best at whatever it is that I'm going to do, no matter what it does to society. That's his attitude. And we were so fascinated by that television series because we can all relate to that. We can all say, you know, I don't really care if there's 10 less years to the environmental, if I can make my billion dollars this year.

You know, I wonder. This conversation reminds me of a couple years ago. I started going to counseling.

And.

I feel like we all have Tim. We've all got her. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like I'm safe with you.

And I feel like every therapist or counselor has their model that they kind of bring to the table. And so he ran me through all these questions and everything, and he laid out five different things, and he's like, in this one thing, you're clinical. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? He's like, people, this is what he says to me. This is my counselor. This is who I was getting, you know, uplifting advice from. He said he's like, people walking around drooling in clinics, locked up. He's like, you're like that? He's like, the only reason you're not locked up is because you're. You're pretty okay in the other four areas. And I was like. I was like, so. So what? I have problems. He goes, oh, yeah, you got problems, you know, and.

And.

But what I was thinking is, as you were talking about that, it's like, you know, I was going to counseling to kind of Level that off. Right. Like, I no longer want to be clinical, but I feel like a thought experiment for any of your characters is to take, like, one specific thing and just follow it as deep as it will go, you know, because if I think back, I forgot how many seasons I got through Breaking Bad. I just. That show just drove me insane. I mean, it was like. It was just so slow. And. I don't know. I hated that show by the end. I didn't finish it. No. But I know, like, everybody's probably cringing that's listening because everybody's like, really? Anyway, but what I. I thought was interesting, as you were saying, is I felt like the entire show was about his pride.

Yeah.

You know, like, even in the beginning, it wasn't to take care of his family. It was the fact that he would not leave anything behind. You know, it was more about what it would say about him. And so I feel like the. The whole show was just taking his pride deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And so I almost feel like the thought experiment for, you know, because what I feel like, you know, we have to do when we're telling a story is we can't rub off the edges. Right. Like, we have to go as far as we can, otherwise the story will just be bland. And so I wonder if, like, would you agree a thought experiment would be to basically take, like, one thing. Like, in mine, if I'm talking about my character is a coward, like, at every possible instance, I just make him as cowardly as possible until he has no other option and never rub off the edge of his cowardice. I mean, am I going in the right direction here?

I think you are. I mean, there's.

You know, I talk a lot about want and need in. In the. In the story grid book. And the reason why I do and want and need really drive the external and the. The internal of your storytelling.

Respectively. So, you know, the want is the external.

Driving force, and the need is the internal driving force. So in order for you to really hone in on the internal, which is the need, it is a good idea to think about what's that. You know, as.

One of the great Roman philosophers, either Cicero or one of those guys, he talked about.

The essential thing. What is the essence of that particular thing?

And so when you're thinking about your character, think about what's. What's the one big secret? What's the thing that they're doing everything in their life to compensate for, what are they hiding? So if you can find that out and in your case, what you're talking about is that your. Your lead character is a coward. And he.

But.

What does that mean? What is he afraid of?

What would happen if he acted.

And.

Contrary to his wanting to not act.

So those are questions to think about. And the other thing is, like, don't go crazy. You know, don't go think about them too much, because I'll tell you why.

Everybody who has a need and desire to write a story, every writer or script writer or movie maker or whatever, there. There's something working inside their brains that they don't really understand, and it's okay not to understand. And, you know, this is what Steve Pressfield talks a little bit about in the War of Art and in other books that he's written. And it's sort of like this force inside of you that is going to help you discover the things that are important to you. And the way that happens is like, you get a cool idea, oh, wow, this is a cool idea. I bet I could. I could sell this script to Hollywood. I'm going to just start banging this out. You know what? Go ahead. Start banging it out. Because there's something within that idea that's hiding, that will come out as the deeper and deeper you go into the work. Now, if you can. If you can figure out a way to structure it in a way that can keep you moving, you're going to discover more and more things that you hadn't thought of before. Like, one of the things I, as an editor, I've worked with so many writers, and they'll send me their. Their novel, and I'll read it and I'll go, wow, dude, boy, Great, you know, great controlling idea. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, you know, how, you know, your entire book's really about facing down your, you know, the demons within yourself and seizing the day of your own existence. And they're like, what? No, this is just the thing about, you know, this guy who lost his dog. I don't know what you're talking about. And that's the beautiful thing about storytelling is that. Remember when we started about simplicity? You know, bringing universality. Is that specificity. I'm sorry, Is that when you start really being specific about your particular story and you start envisioning it and you write it, what it does is it somehow touches this universal collective unconscious in a way. And when people read your story, and it's very specific, it brings up things in their own psyches that. That speak to them. And so I know I'm sounding kind of woo woo right now, but it's really. If I didn't have this personal experience over and over and over and over again. And that personal experience is a writer giving me their work. I read it and I see all these wonderful controlling ideas and themes and everything and I bring them up to them and they're concrete. I'm not making them up. They're in there and I bring them up and I show them exactly where these messages in their storytelling are about. They're like, wow, holy cow, I had no idea I did that. I really, seriously, I did not think of that particular moment, meaning that particular thing. But now that you bring it up, wow, I'm great. This is fantastic.

Gee, but see, I wonder if that goes back to just trusting the reader to fill it in, because yes, it does. Well, there's this short run podcast called Untitled Rothfuss that was a conversation between Patrick Rothfuss, author of Name of the Wind, who was this widely successful fantasy book that was really good. And he's friends with this guy named Max, I think it's Timke or something like that, who helped start Cards Against Humanity, that card game. And so they just did this short run where there was conversations between the two of them. And it was interesting because Patrick at one point started talking about how different the his book. So many different people had said his book meant different things. So they're like, oh, it's a tragedy and that's what this is. And they're like, no, it's. It's this classic hero story. And then it's like, no, it's this. And it's like every person that read it read themselves into the book. And so I think it's, I think it's actually because I don't like woo woo answers too, so I'm constantly going to argue with them. And so I think it goes back to this thing of like, we've all had our own life experiences. We've all, you know, read different books and we've all, again, you know, been indoctrinated with story our entire life. So when we read something, we bring all of that to the table and we're all going to read something different into it. You know, it was like last week we're talking about Bird Box and how since this, since the author did a good job giving very little description, I backfilled it with my own fear of the dark. And so then it became so much more scarier because.

I brought my own fears to the table instead of him saying no, no, you have to be afraid of it this way. And I'm going to write it this way. And so I think there's that, too, of just, you know, I think that's probably been the biggest lesson I've learned in the past few weeks is just as much, you know, I guess I felt like writing a story was putting as much as you possibly could in it. And it's almost like it's telling the story in as little as possible to let the reader fill it in because then it will seem so much more real to them.

Yes, that. That is. That is the trick is to have the least amount of, you know, stuff in there so that the. The reader. And you don't want any shoe leather or like, you know, and then he walked to the door. His feet pounded lightly on the floorboards as creaks. You know, you don't want any of that stuff.

So before we.

Before we.

I don't want to make sure we don't end this episode. I want to go back to the Kubler Ross curve. And we've talked about on the show.

How, you know, the. This thing is like Russian dolls. Right. So writing a scene is very similar to writing the entire book. So would you apply this Kubler Ross curve to a scene as well? Like, should we still. Should we have those same kind of highs and lows through a scene?

I think it's absolutely applicable to a scene, too. Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to bring each scene to the depths of human experience. What it means is that you do need to have these very.

You have to turn the scene. It has to start someplace and it has to end another. And so the all is lost moment could be all is gain moment in a positive scene. So, you know, again, they have to be progressively, you know, moving forward. So, you know, at the beginning of your story, you're going to have a really sort of humdinger inciting incident that's going to shock your lead character and shock your reader to want to continue reading and to find out what happens next. So the Kubler Ross curve is a good way of saying, you know, through the editorial process. I would not suggest that you obsess about the Kubler Ross curve as you're writing.

I know you brought up a point a couple of weeks ago, which was a very good one, that it's actually not a bad idea if you have a very analytical brain to think about, you know, the inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax and resolution in your scene. But I think the Kubler Ross thing is more of an internal as opposed to an external editorial look. So it might be something that you look at in your second or third edit to see that the emotional stakes as well as the external stakes of your scenes are progressively complicated.

But really the reason why I put the Kubler Ross curve in the story grid was to really hone in on the point that stories are about coping with change. And change, major change in all of our lives, are those moments in our life that are really, really challenging. So when you're writing a story, to think about your story as a way of creating a world that will help somebody come to terms with. Like, in the book, I talk about that. That story about the. The woman who left the World Trade Tower before, you know, it fell, and how the other people who didn't leave the Trade tower. And it's. It's from a fantastic book written by psychologist. I forget his name, but it's definitely in the book. And those other people just didn't have sort of like the moment, the story in their head, oh, this isn't good. It's time to leave now. I've got to get out of the tower. Instead, they're like, I'm not really sure what's going to happen because we get these alarm systems go off all the time, and we're usually told to stay in place. So I'm just going to stay in place.

So it's about. Stories are about helping people change themselves.

It was interesting.

You reminded me of this when you said this about, you know, thinking through each of the pieces as you write. And, you know, we talked like a couple weeks ago about, like, I feel like early on it's super help. It's really frustrating to do it, but it's very helpful to actually think through each of those things as I write. And I'm in the middle of writing a new book for my marketing business. And so I've thought, reading the story grid, talking to you, it's been mostly thinking about fiction. But most of my writing, 98% of it's been done in nonfiction and business writing. And that's a lot of the authors I've worked with, and I just haven't. You've said it applies, but I just didn't really feel it.

And so I'm like, okay, I'll just let him say that, not push back on it. Right. And, well, so I sat down to write the introduction to this new book I'm working on, and I'm basically taking one of the book launches. I worked on And I'm telling the story through the book and then teaching you how to do a book launch as you go through the book. And so I sat down and I went to write the introduction. And I immediately opened up on this story of me being on a train and how I was nervous, and I just. I just knew everything was on the line. And then I wrote the entire introduction, saving, like, kept trying to draw it out as much as possible before I told you why I was so nervous. And, like, I went back and reread it, and I'm like, I just wrote this based on all of the storygrid stuff we've been. We've been talking about. I actually have started integrating some of those story ideas into my nonfiction writing. That's like, a very. You know, the book's going to be basically a textbook on how to do book launches. And so I just. It was just really interesting how it's already. It's changing the way I write where in the past I want to get. I want to get it out as fast as possible, right? Like, I feel like I need to tell you as much as possible to hook you early or whatever. And now, as I've gone through them about a third of the way through the manuscript.

I find myself, as much as possible, like, drawing out the story.

To keep you. To kind of, like, let you not know what's going on for a little bit and not really know where I'm going. And I just thought it was really interesting how it's starting to change the way that I think about any story that I'm telling, you know, any kind of. Any kind of. Even nonfiction kind of, you know. You know, first you do this. Second, you do this. Third you do this. I'm finding myself wanting to turn it into a story instead of just kind of lay it out.

Well, that's great. And I think. I think the reason why people love their nonfiction in story form is because it humanizes it. It. You know what I mean? It shows the reader that there are actual human beings whose lives have been changed by this information. And that by. By following the story of how this information was discovered, you will get the why as. As. As much as you'll get the the what. And that is, you know, it's like anybody talking to a kid, and you say anything, and the first question out of a kid's mouth is, what? Like, well, you can't ride in the back seat like that. Why? And then you go, well, I'll tell you why. If you don't put on your seatbelt, and the car stops, it will be going at a very fast rate, and when the car stops, you will be continuing to go at a fast rate, and the car won't. So you'll crash into the front seat and hurt yourself. That's why. So then he understands that, right? He's like, oh, okay, I'm gonna get hurt if I don't buckle my seatbelt. But if you don't tell him why he's buckling the seatbelt, chances are he might not buckle it. And that's the beauty of nonfiction. If you can integrate a story into the actual practical applications of your stuff, then people. It will integrate into their brain. They will understand the why as well as the what. And I'm going to give you a little compliment here, as painful as this might be for you, but when you wrote your first thousand copies, you intuitively started that book with a story. You know, this is kind of why I'm writing this book and why it's important for you. And I've read your entire book, and I'm like, wow, this guy knows what he's talking about. He's convincing me to change my behavior. Before I read your book, I was like, I don't want to do a website. It's going to be too much work. And what's going to be the payoff, really? And so that's what you led with, as I recall with your book. You're like, a lot of people don't want to do it because of this, and this is completely wrong because of these reasons. And so when you can. When you can bring a little. And you can bring a little bit of yourself and the specificity of your own life to nonfiction, it's really powerful. And it's a lot. A lot of people just want to give you all the facts because they spent a lot of time and a lot of hard work figuring out.

The solutions to all the problems. So they just want to give you the solutions. But people want to know what the problem is and how you solved it. They want to know that story. So you might feel like, oh, I'm stringing people along here. They're interested in how you came to this into your worldview, because you're basically telling. When you write nonfiction, Tim, you're giving people your worldview. Here is what I have learned. I have gone out to learn how to do a specific thing, and I've come back. I've actually integrated and used what I've discovered in practical applications. I've had some success here. I'D like to share it with you. Here's what I learned. And that is the hero's journey. You know, that's. That's storytelling, and that's as interesting to people as a superhero.

Well, in it, it's got me thinking, too, about learning to be okay with. So back to my book. So I don't think I've talked about it here before. So it's called you'd first 1,000 copies. And I've been doing book marketing consulting for a long time. And so I decided to write a book on it, and I thought it'd be easy. I'm like, I got this. You know, I talk about it every day. Like, I get on the phone, and I walk authors through this. This is, like, all I talk about. I wake up in the morning thinking about it. I go to bed thinking about it. I can. I can throw this book together in, like, three or four weeks. And then what I ran into was like, well, how do I. I've never said this in a way where I've tried to say it all at once and with no feedback or questions. Right. So I need to take the reader along this journey.

And I've always done it where I've taught people where they can stop me and say, oh, I don't understand that. And I can go back and I can. Okay, well, let me explain this before we hit that. And so putting it all in one thing ended up being the hardest part of the whole book. And the other was too, like, I wrote the entire book, and then.

I want to.

What I normally want to do is make a really, really, really strong case why what I'm about to tell you is important. And so all my early readers were like, okay, you convinced us in the introduction this was important. And then you spent the next half of the book continuing to tell us why this is important. And so I, like, had to cut out most of the book and stuff.

But you always cut out a ton.

And what I think is interesting is. And how I want to change my nonfiction writing based on this, too, is to allow the reader, again, to fill it in with what they want to learn. You know, we've talked about Seth Godin before, and I feel like that's. I always said when I would read a Seth Godin book, it was like it would create this itch on my back. I couldn't reach. Right. Like, it would completely change the way I looked at the world. But he would not explain to you what you're supposed to do now.

Right.

And so. And it Left it to me to figure that part out where I'm always so concerned with my writing that I'm going to be misunderstood. And. But it made me think of like all the stories Jesus told in the New Testament. Right. You know, like he told this, you know, crazy story about like old wine skins and new wineskins. You know, put wine in old wine skins, you put them in new and like, and I've heard probably like, you know, a dozen different sermons on that. And I've probably heard it described six different ways, like, well, this is what he was teaching. And then it was like, no, this is what he was teaching. Well, this is. And it's like all of it is good teachings, but he's kind of like, well, here's a story. I'm just gonna let you figure it out.

Right, right.

And I think as I'm writing this new book, I want to.

Not be so concerned that people understand exactly what I'm trying to say. Like, I want to kind of tell my story, tell some of the things I've learned, but then just leave it open ended and let them figure out what it means for them.

Right. No, that's, that's a good approach, you.

Know, and you've been doing all of this with Tipping Point, and I feel like Malcolm Gladwell does that too. Because if you, if, you know, you get six people in a room to talk about Tipping Point or outliers, they'll give you six different things they learned by reading the book that are all kind of different and probably completely different than what Malcolm Gladwell thought he was saying.

I'd agree with that. Yeah. And the great thing about the Tipping Point is that he, he brings in so much, you know, wonderful data and, you know, sidekick, you know, explanations of what he's talking about. And he tells this, he tells the story in such a way that you're, you're kind of like, it's like that movie My Dinner with Andre. You know, it's like you're sitting with this guy who's telling you this great theory he had and how he came to come to it. Isn't this cool? It's not like what I have to say is the be all and end all. And this is what a tipping point is and this is how you do it. Instead, he tells you all the little, you know, tributaries he had to go down to figure out, you know, what he thought about it, what it means.

To him. And that opens it up for other people to have their own interpretations and as. Yeah, you're absolutely right. About Seth Godin's stuff. That's what he does. You know, he's a master at sort of poking you to think differently, to think about your world and your life in a way that is it's about doing, finding what it is that you are supposed to be doing and then go doing it and giving you the inspiration to have the courage to do it. And that's so powerful. It's so much more powerful than, hey, here's a formula to make peanut butter. You know, okay, what do I do after I eat the peanut butter?

I think that's the title of this episode.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast, as always. If you want more StoryGrid, you can go to storygrid.com, sign up for the newsletter, read the blog. There's all kinds of resources there that Sean makes available. Also, if you want to check in on any episodes that you've missed or the show notes, any downloads that we've had there, you can go to storygrid.com podcast I won't continue to beg you for iTunes, reviews and ratings because you really came through there. Although I'm not going to stop you if you want to go ahead and go do that, and you haven't yet. I do thank you for continuing to share the show. I check our stats really obsessively multiple times a day, so it's nice that that number keeps going up. And so if you want to continue to help the show, help my sanity, continue to share the show, I really appreciate it. Sean really appreciates it too. So I'm looking forward to next week, our Christmas episode as we Story Grid the Martian and Another Secret Story. So hang in there for that and I'll see you next week.