Villains and Inciting Incidents

Hello and welcome to the Story Grid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me soon is Sean Coyne. He's an editor with 25 plus years experience. He's the creator of Storygrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and he is helping me fumble around in the dark as I figure out how to write a story that actually works. In this episode, after a few weeks off where we had the Steven Pressfield episodes and the publishing 101 episodes, we're diving back into my story and we talk about the importance of villains. We talk about how to open up a story that works and really nailing that first scene and hooking people so that they stay in for the rest of the book. So we dive into that, plus a lot of other stuff. I think you're really going to enjoy this episode as we continue down this journey of helping me figure out my first book. So we're going to jump in and get started. So, Sean, after taking something like five or six weeks off, and we both were traveling, but I had these big plans of getting all this writing done while I was traveling. And I think I wrote like three days while I was on the road, but still just trying to figure out this story. And now that I'm back in the swing of things again, trying to figure out how to land on a story that is actually worth writing. So we've been exchanging some emails, which I'll share a lot of those in the show. Notes for this episode of just trying to figure out what story I'm trying to tell. So where are you at with, I guess, this thing I'm working on?

Well, the thing about it and the thing about writing and about storytelling, and this always comes back in pretty much every project I've ever worked on. And I always forget it. But there comes a moment, you know, even before you have anything finished, when you kind of think to yourself, man, this is just too hard. I'm overthinking it. I'm not really sure what I want to do. I'm not sure that this is the right direction. You know, as an editor, you know, when I'm working on a developmental project like I am with you, there's a moment that comes to me when I think to myself, you know, I don't even know if this is going to work. I don't even know if this is viable. And it's it's not a reflection on the writer that I'm working with. It's almost a reflection on my internal system sort of shutting down for a minute and I have to reboot them. And I think a lot of writers face this too. You know, especially you're at a point where you have, you've written a first draft. Let's not forget, you know, you wrote 60, 70,000 word first draft. And what we're doing now is we are trying to take the controlling idea that came from that first draft and the characters and the general world, and we're trying to reconstitute it in a very clear, decisive way that speaks to the marketplace and also speaks to your strengths, your personal strengths as a professional and a writer. And so we're trying to do a lot of different things to move to the next level, and wisely. You have not, or if you have, you haven't told me about it, you, you haven't tried to start fixing all of the, the scenes that you thought were problematic in the first draft and, and really miring yourself in the minutia of scene by scene, line by line work. So what we're doing now is we're trying to come up with a global concept, a global story that is simple and elegant and something that can serve you as a roadmap for your next draft. So over the past five or six weeks since we've been, we haven't talked since then, we've traded some emails where, you know, I was trying to do that, I was thinking to myself, well, let's go back to brass tacks. What is it that Tim wants to do and what are the principles of the things that he wants to do and that can help us come to a plan for, you know, the next draft? And, you know, the other day I shot you an email after our friend Steve Pressfield put up, you know, his take on the story spine. And, you know, it was, it was, it was like the gods heard my inner drama and said, you know, to Steve, write something for Sean so that he can clear his head. And, and it did. Because the story spine is, is so essential in, in working through a problem. And always when you get into a big, massive crazy, so many different elements are flooding your brain about what's wrong, what's right, what, how you're going to fix it. Going back to the story spine will help you fix those problems. And the story spine is as simple as, and I love the way Steve put it is that he, you know, he boiled down Moby Dick in Three sentences, you know, Ahab decides to chase Moby Dick. Ahab chases Moby Dick. Ahab loses the battle and dies trying to kill Moby Dick. That's pretty much the beginning, the middle, and the end of Moby Dick, right?

Yeah.

And that when you think of your own work that way, what it requires is it makes you think, okay, I got to start here. I've got to move here, and I've got to finish there. So I think, you know, as we're talking today, the thing to think about is what is the beginning, middle and end of your story? What's the spine of it? What? How can we tell this story in three sentences or four sentences?

Yeah, it was interesting when you sent me that, and I read through it because then it made it. You know, I keep bouncing back and forth between. I haven't dug into the old book because I kind of feel like it's just kind of dead in the. I mean, there's nothing to fix there. I'm just going to have to rewrite the whole thing anyway. So I don't want to spend time fixing something that's broken. So broken. But there's that idea of, like, I keep kind of getting caught with, like, what's the first scene going to be? Or, like, you know, what are these different pieces going to be? And so it was helpful to kind of pull back and say, okay, this is where we're starting. This is what will happen in the middle, and then this is where we're going to end. And thinking through, like, how the end has to, like, reflect the beginning and that kind of stuff. And so it was helpful to kind of pull back and look at that so that I could kind of get a sense of where we're going.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what I came up with was Jesse wants to win the game to save her family. She gets an amazing but dangerous opportunity to advance and win the game. She wins the game but loses her family.

Yeah. That is a great start.

Now, in some of the emails that we talked about just a couple of seconds ago, one of the things that you have to remember in terms of an action story, which is evolves into a thriller, and you've wisely chosen and really nailed down your genres. So the genres that you're working in are lit, rpg, thriller, coming of age. So if you were to just really boil all that stuff down to, I think your global genre would be the action story. The action story requires that the villain of the entire piece is responsible for the inciting incident.

Yeah, I think that was One of the things you hammered on in the email is the villain has to drive the action.

Yes.

And so what in that case, do. What kind of mistakes was I making? And do people often make in action movies that break that kind of rule or convention?

Well, it's an easy thing to fall victim to. And here's what they do. They become so enamored with the protagonist that they lose the fact that the protagonist is not the driving force that really keeps people reading in an action story or a thriller. And I've said this over and over again, and I always forget it myself. The. The thing that really keeps people glued to an action story or a thriller is the villain. It's the force of evil. Because the force of evil is, is that, you know, it's like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. What compelled Eve to listen to that serpent and eat the fruit of knowledge? Right? Because the serpent was so fascinating and interesting to her. And, you know, this is the primal, Christian, you know, story. And I think we have to remember that who is the serpent in this story? And how are they going to manipulate and get the protagonist to do things that they necessarily don't really want to do? So the reason why I'm saying this is that the best way to always remember your inciting incident in an action story is have the villain motivate and start that inciting incident. And here's the way I like to think about it. Now, I don't really know where your story is going, but here's kind of what I'm thinking. You have a villain who is. Before the story even begins, the villain wants something or needs something so desperately that they have finally gotten to the point where they understand that they can't get it. They can't get what they want without that protagonist. So the villain has basically hit a wall, and they are not going to get what they want without the protagonist using the protagonist to bring them something or to do something for them so that they can eventually get what they want. So the villain is at the end of their rope. This is what motivates them to do really heinous things throughout the story. It's like they are just about to grasp that brass ring and they understand, oh, my gosh, I'm just not going to get it. And until I get that protagonist to go do something for me or to bring me something or to give me information or to do something that will give them that last, last oomph to get what they want now. So this is why it's so clear to understand what your villain wants and what your protagonist wants before you start trudging along on your storytelling. And the story spine is a way to help you really clarify that. So, you know, I. When I was sending you those emails, and you're right, I did harp on. I was, you know, slamming home that the villain is the one that starts the inciting incident in an action story. So before we went on vacation, we were talking about this scene, this generic scene that is always a good one to get an action story, you know, going. And this scene, which has been done a number of times throughout storytelling, it's not anything new. It's the knock at the door scene. It's the knock at the door where somebody comes for something from somebody behind the door. And, you know, we. We've been futzing and fooling around with the notion that there's this. This ambassador of sorts who comes and knocks on the. Jesse's door. Jesse is your protagonist, and the ambassador is the person who the villain sends to do a task. So. And I know I wrote in one of the emails a great knock at the door scene, which is one of my favorites, is Inglorious Basterds, which is the film by Quentin Tarantino.

Yeah, that scene that you described with him coming in the house and everybody's in the basement. I remember watching that and, like, at one point, I just stopped breathing.

Exactly.

I was just so on edge of what was going to happen next.

That's exactly true. And what's so great about Tarantino is he knows how to string out those moments. And he does the. He innovates everything he does. So you're not going to find a person more attuned to genre conventions and obligatory scenes than Quentin Tarantino. This is a guy who's probably seen every movie ever made four times, right? Yeah. So, you know, when he was thinking to himself, I'm going to make a World War II movie, and I'm going to really blow the box off of all of it. I'm gonna really make these scenes, the music, everything, you know, everything that people expect. And then I'm gonna, you know, completely innovate it. And that's what he did in the opening scene. And he. And one of the ways he did this was by casting the right people. And before Christoph, I think Christoph Waltz, who's one of his, you know, prime players now, this was his first time doing a Tarantino movie, and this guy is given the role of the most sadistic SS Nazi bastard you can ever imagine.

So what does Waltz do? He doesn't play what we all think of as the Nazi bastard he plays. This guy is sort of, in a feat, brilliant.

Suave, smart, mannered, nice guy. Right. And so. All right, so I don't want to get too into describing the scene because anybody can watch it, and I highly recommend that they do because it really, it barrels that movie forward well.

So well, we don't have to get too deep into it. But point out specifically why that scene jumps to your mind as one of the best knock on the door scenes. Like, what is it that it turned? So we talked about the fact that, you know, it wasn't, you know, he didn't kick down the door and come in. Like, he came in as a charming, nice guy. Like, what else about that scene turned it so it was so good.

Oh, this is okay. This is great. Okay, so.

Because that's what you keep telling me to figure out is like, okay, exactly. Figure out what has everybody done and then turn it your own way. And it's hard sometimes. Like, I can think of that scene and think, that was an amazing scene. But when I try to point out exactly why, it gets fuzzy.

Okay, I'll tell you exactly why. Inglourious Basterds is an action story. The villain of the story is Christoph Waltz, the Nazis and everything that he represents. So all the way to the Fuhrer, all the way to Nazis, right? So Tarantino knows my villain is the biggest villain of all time, right? He knows the minute I get I show a guy in a Nazi uniform, the audience is going to be scared shitless and they're going to know, oh, my gosh, death is on the horizon. Death is coming. So the stakes of life and death the minute you put a guy in a Nazi uniform are on the the table. So he doesn't have to do anything about escalating mistakes of his scene because just using this villainous force gives him that. So he says to himself, okay, what are people going to expect if I open up this movie with a knock on the door and a Nazi hunter coming to kill Jewish people who are hiding from them? Well, they're going to expect this guy to be kicking in the door, beating the daughters, raping them, just really abusing everybody in town? And maybe he'll just throw a bomb in there anyway. So how can I play with the convention of the Nazi coming to the door in a way that people aren't going to expect? And what he did is he said to himself, I'm going to write the nicest Nazi ever. I'm Going to write a scene where this Nazi is so mannered and nice and really sympathetic that it's going to create so much tension in the audience that they're going to want to crawl out of their skin. So he has Christoph Waltz deliver this very nice speech. Oh, good day, sir. I. I hate to trouble you, but would you mind stepping in? Would you invite me into your home to discuss some problems that I'm having? And the farmer knows he doesn't have a choice because there are five guys with machine guns sitting in the jeep, right?

So of course he's gonna, yes, sir, I'll do that. So he invites him in. He goes, here are my daughters, and they're these beautiful young women. And you think, oh, now the Nazi's gonna go crazy. And he says, oh, what beautiful young women? Then he kisses their hand and says, now, sir, if you wouldn't mind, would you mind terribly if they went outside, because I have some difficult things I have to discuss with you. And so he sends them outside and he drinks a nice cold glass of milk. He tells them what a wonderful farm it is. Meanwhile, the audience, as you're watching, you're getting more and more anxious because you're like, when's this. When's it gonna fall? When is the bad stuff gonna happen? So, you know, it goes on and on. The villain creates the inciting incident, right? Because Christoph Waltz wants something from that farmer. He wants to know where the Jews are. Where are the Jews? I have to kill the Jews. That's my. My job as an SS bastard. And so we know that's what he wants from the beginning. So Tarantino instead, he really, really milks it, and he literally drinks milk on unseen.

I mean, just to go to the levels of Quentin Tarantino's head are just beyond it. So the turning point, and this is a brilliant decision on Tarantino's part, is he says to himself, okay, now the Jewish people who are hiding underneath the floor, they're going to know the SS officers knocked on the door, right? They're going to hear the boots, they're going to hear the SS officer. They're going to be speaking French. They're going to know everything that he says. So Tarantino says, okay, how can I make it so that it's really exciting and different and a shock when the bad stuff happens? So he has Christoph Waltz say to the farmer, oh, I hate to. I hate to do this to you, sir. I know you speak English and my French, I'm running out of my ability to speak French, you know, Appropriately, would you mind if we start speaking in English? And the farmer says, no, that's fine. So the rest of the scene is played out in English. And guess what? The French Jewish farmers underneath the floor don't understand English.

That is another innovation that. Faced with the problem of keeping this scene going so that the tension expands from the audience to the fictional Jewish people underneath the floor, I'm going to have them switch languages. And I've already established that this sadistic SS bastard is so smart that he would do that because he's allowing the French farmer to save face.

Because I remember it reached a whole new level of tension. When they start, he was basically like, they're under the floor, aren't they?

Yes.

And he says, yes, but the people under the floor don't know that.

Just gave them up. Right? And is that. I mean, can you do any better writing for. For film than that? I mean, yeah, it's. Forget. Forget it. So anyway, yeah, he's. And. And he says. And he's very nice and he says, look, I know that you probably are hiding these people, and I completely understand that, but. And then he tells this very long, you know, story about vermin. And it was. It was just raising the tension, like, to such a degree. And then he says to the man, the turning point. Either, you know, we. We know I'm an SS officer, right? You know what my nickname is, which is the Nazi hunter, the Jew hunter, I think he says it. And he says, yes, yes, I. I do know. So, you know, I will not be denied what I need. So either you can give me what I need now, or I'm going to have to. I'll have no alternative but to abuse you and your family to a degree that will be very, very, very unpleasant. So you understand why this man, because he's Tarantino, had three daughters in that house. If it was just a man without three daughters, then the guy would. Giving up the Jewish people underneath the floor would seem like he was a coward, but he was saving his daughters because he had established this really tightly focused family so quickly. So this is a great knock at the door scene which is driven by an inciting incident by the villain. The villain wants to get the Jewish people underneath the floor. But the big turn, the big, big turn, you know, every scene has to have a turning point that is unexpected and yet inevitable, is that they shoot up the floor and they kill most of the Jewish people, except one girl, one young girl who somehow is able to escape underneath the house and run across the field. It's an open field, though, right? So Christoph Waltz, he enjoys this. He's a sadistic bastard. So he walks outside and he opens up, gets his Luger out of his pocket, he takes aim and you know he's going to kill her, but his gun jams and the girl gets away. And that's the end of the scene. And you. And so the. The audience is like, oh, my gosh, that girl got away. What's going to happen next? Do you think they're anticipating the next scene that he created such a great opening knock on the door scene that it allowed him to completely shift gears. And the next scene is Brad Pitt playing the American, you know, Special forces guy who. Who pulls this group of Jewish guys together to go and do the exact same thing to the Nazis that the Nazis are doing to everybody else. So he's using Tarantino's, using these life and death stakes on both sides of the equation. On the force of evil and on the force of good. So what's really great about this opening scene, it establishes the stakes of the story. So the reader or the viewer of Tarantino Inglourious Basterds knows, hey, we're going to see some people die in this movie. We're going to see some really sadistic stuff. So I'm ready for it. In fact, I'm anticipating it. So they're not going to be shocked when later on in the movie, Brad Pitt abuses somebody to get some information out of them.

Right.

You're not going to be shocked when somebody uses a baseball bat to beat somebody to death because they've already experienced what's in store. And that opening scene is. It's terrifying, suspenseful. Life and death stakes are already established, and it leaves you hanging at the end to want to know. I got to know that this guy gets what's coming to him. And I'm going to stay in this entire movie until that Nazi bastard gets what's coming to him and Tarantino gives him what's coming to him in a way that is so satisfying, I don't want to give it away.

Yeah.

So your question was, Sean, you tell me to do this, all these things, and when you show me, you know, the way people do it and the ones that are great. I totally agree. I don't know how to do it, though. So my advice to you is this. And I think I write this in the book every now a few times, but it's really, really a good idea is let your brain write the scene without any kind of intellectual manipulation. What I mean by that is write the scene where the Nazi bangs on the door, kicks in the door, rapes the daughters, beats everybody up, gets kills all the Jewish people, and then the woman escapes. Okay, that's your first impulse. Now, this is probably what Tarantino did. And then he looked at and he said, okay, everybody's going to expect that, expect that, expect that. What's the opposite. What is the opposite thing I could do instead? Okay, instead of having, you know, like, Woody Harrelson playing the Nazi and beating everybody up, I have this really nice sort of.

Swiss guy who's very mannered. I'll do that. Why don't I try that? And he wouldn't do that. He would do this, and he would do this. But his goal is still the same as a really sadistic guy. So at every turn, he does the opposite.

Yeah, I did that. Actually. I wrote an entire scene that was the first thing I thought of. And it's so not unique at all.

It's like the guy kicking in the door, the dad trying to save Jesse, all these different things. And then what I actually did is I took out a piece of paper and I wrote location. And then I just started branching off all the different places that the first scene could take place. And then I did Ambassador, and I said, who sent them? And I put a couple different things. And then I put, are they nice or are they mean? And then I did the same thing with the dad of, like, is the dad weak or is the dad. You know, is the dad trying to protect her? The dad doesn't try to protect her, and basically, like, she gets away. She doesn't get away. And, like, trying to come up with all the different options that I have so that I can kind of choose and pick the ones that I think will go together in the most interesting way, I guess, because, yeah, that first scene, I hit, like, 1600 words, and it was just kind of fine, you know, because I sent you that. I had actually forgotten about it until I was writing this scene again. I have a short story and a collection of short stories based in this world of another author. And so I sent you that story that was basically the knock on the door scene. And I had actually. So I've actually published one of those before. It's the only thing I've ever published before in fiction.

Isn't that weird?

Yeah.

So, yeah. So it's.

And that scene works. That scene works. The one that you sent me in the anthology works. And there's a reason why the guy who invited you to write in that anthology, you know, accepted it because it works and it gives rise to a lot of suspense and tension in the reader. And it's in. It's a really interesting world, too, because it's sort of like a alternative Amish world where it's. It's not dissimilar to, you know, the kind of thing you're trying to create here. Now, I'm gonna. I'm just gonna quickly give another example because the knock on the door scene is. I love it. It's a very difficult one to innovate. But I'm gonna. I'm gonna tell one other one because I had a thought for you that you can use or not use or whatever, okay? And it comes from. And I think I had mentioned this to you before, either on in the podcast or offline, but in the scene in Marathon Man. Marathon man is one of the greatest thrillers ever written. And the film actually is. Is. Is as good as. As the novel itself. And it was written by William Goldman, who's a genius. I mean, one of the greatest storytellers of my generation and anybody's generation. And there's a scene where Dustin Hoffman plays this young guy. He's been brought in to be interrogated by this, again, a Nazi, sadistic Nazi bastard. And the Nazi's not getting what he wants out of Dustin Hoffman. And he thinks, oh, he's holding. He's just really great at taking torture. So I need to psychologically manipulate him in a way that will really get him to give me the real information that I need. So we don't understand this at the time, and you don't really. It's not revealed too much later on in the story. So what the Nazi does is he. He goes to one of the people he works with, and he says, look, I want you to come in and rescue him. So you break in, you fire off some shots, and there'll be blanks in the gun, and we will. And I want you to rescue him so that he feels as if you are. Have gotten him out of this torturous situation and everything's going to be fine. And then as you've got him in the getaway car, you ask him questions that I need answered so that he will feel that you have rescued him. Therefore, he should give up all the answers to you because you're the one who made his life better. So that's exactly what happens. We do not discover that this is a rescue scene until much later on. So William Devane plays this CIA character, and he comes in and he rescues Dustin Hoffman. So it's like a knock on the door. Bang. The door bangs in. William Devane rushes in. He takes the restraints off of Dustin Hoffman, who's had his teeth drilled into without any anesthetic. This is how he's being tortured. It's one of the great dental scenes of all time. And so William Devane goes, come on, come on, we got to go. And he starts firing the gun. And as the audience is watching, you're thinking, oh, the good guys have. Right? Isn't this great? And that's the way Dustin Hoffman feels. And he drags Dustin off, and he throws him in the back of the car, and he skids out. And they start driving around Manhattan. And all of a sudden, William Devane turns to the back seat and he goes, hey, what was he asking you? What is it? What information did he need? And Dustin Hoffman's like, I don't know what you're talking. I don't have any information. I don't know what he wanted. I don't know anything. And so finally, William Defane's like, he really doesn't know anything. I'm just gonna take him back and let the Nazi kill him. So he drives him back to this torture station, and he leaves him there to be killed by the sadistic Nazi. And the reason why I say this is that what the expectation of the audience is that William Devane is a good guy. So when you can have a good guy who never really was a good guy, but we didn't have that information, you create a way of really giving a suspenseful gut punch to the audience. So this is one of the reasons why it's a great idea to chart out. Like you just said, you were doing the scene. What does the ambassador know? Who hired the ambassador? What is the ambassador's, you know, are there any restrictions on what he can do to get the information that he needs? And if there are, what are they? What's the world that we're living in? What? Who are the people who are powerful, who are the weak? What's the father really like? Is he really going to, you know, bend over backwards to save his daughter when his son is already dead and his wife's in an emotional wreck? Or is he just had enough? Has he gotten to the point where in his life where he's just had enough? So these are really interesting things to do and also to map it out in your mind and say, okay, here's the inciting incident of my entire freaking story. If I can get this thing to A level that's surprising to me that really knocks my socks off. And it establishes all this information that is somehow going to come to light by the end of this story.

Then I've got a real, real good shot of being able to propel myself from beginning, middle to end. And you're also, by the strength of your inciting incident, global inciting incident, of your first scene in your book, you are also going to know how this thing is going to end because you're going to say to yourself, well, whatever happened at the beginning is pretty much going to be kind of the opposite of how it's going to end. Maybe my protagonist isn't so interested in being taken away at the beginning. And at the end she becomes the triumphant hero. She's going to arc from somebody who really doesn't care to someone who does care. I'm not saying this specifically for your story, Tim. I'm just globally talking, so don't feel like I'm saying that's the way it has to be for Jesse, right? Because we have established that there's sort of this, this world that she's living in is a very interesting world that is almost like today, only exploded to the nth degree. And it's all built on a lie. It's all built on a game. And, you know, I think there's a reason why, you know, the lit RPG genre is starting to come forward is that, you know, the literary role playing game, novels, it seems kind of strange, right? Like people who play games when they're reading novels for. I thought they love games, right? Why would they go to a novel to. To get entertainment. And I think the reason why this genre is starting to come to the fore is that the more games you play, the less fulfilled you are. That and it makes you play more games. So if you have stories where people are so obsessed with games and yet they discover a real innate, you know, purpose inside of the character, it brings them a little bit of relief. So if you can read a lit RPG novel and discover that the character that plays video games all the time or whatever, games, reality games or. I'm not really, I'm not an expert on the game world. If they discover that those people have an inherent thing that is required in society too, by the end of the novel, it gives them a sense of, oh, well, maybe, you know, maybe this game stuff isn't so bad. I don't know. I think you can. All I'm saying is that the arc of character from a role playing game into somebody who cares More about humanity than games is an interesting sociological development for me, because I think that's a story that people who are obsessed with games want to hear, and they want to read a great story that tells them that.

So the story spine is basically three sentences that describe the beginning hook, middle build, and ending hook.

Yes. And it should be driven. Ideally, what you're going to do is you're going to. In your beginning hook, you're going to establish the stakes, and it's going to be driven by the villain. The inciting incident is driven by the villain. So the villain sends one of their flunkies to Jesse's house because she needs Jesse to do something for her or him. So that means that the inciting incident has started. It's a causal inciting incident. It's not a coincidence. It's not the, you know, the Martians landed and she has to fight to the death with the Martians. It's a causal incident where the villain has purposefully sent somebody to collect her so that she can do something for the villain to get what they want. Now, the other thing that you have to think about is the stakes of this story. How dark are you going to go? Are you going to have people die in this story? Are you going to have people tortured in this story? How far along that sort of physical, psychological darkness are you going to go? Because if you are going to go there, you damn well better get that in the very beginning of your scene. The inciting incident of your scene has to at least threat. There has to be a very strong threat of life or death. Or what will happen is you will mislead your audience and they will say, oh, this is kind of cool, but I don't think anybody's going to get hurt, though. And you don't want that, because if you hurt somebody later on after they believe that nobody's going to get hurt, then you've got a big problem. They're going to not like your book, and it won't work. But if you. This is why Tarantino used the Nazis so effectively. If you go see Inglourious Basterds, which has a swastika on the poster, you know, people are going to get killed. And if you go see Finding Dory, you know, chances are people aren't. Fish aren't going to get killed in a Disney story.

Well, so where is it in, like, we. We've talked a lot about Hunger Games. And where is that threat of death? Yeah. Is it the fact.

It's the. It's the very opening you know, it's. It happens within the first two pages. I believe it's written in first person, where Katniss describes the reality of Hunger Games. What's the Hunger Games? Oh, here's the Hunger Games. Every year, the 12 districts, or whatever they are, have to offer up a kid to fight to the death in a game that's televised. That happens within the first two pages of that novel.

And in fact, that's threat of. That's the threat of violence. Well, yeah, you know, fulfilled later in the. In the book.

Yeah. You know. Oh, my gosh, I can't wait till they get to the Hunger Games scene where these kids fight each other to the death. You know, you don't say that literally in your mind, but emotionally, you know, remember what I said earlier on. We are attracted to darkness more than lightness. I'm sorry to say that, but it's just kind of true. So if you are afraid of the darkness, if you're afraid of writing really compelling villains and it gives you the heebie jeebies to take yourself to, you know, the fate worse than death, or at least threaten death, then you shouldn't write an action story. Write a love story. I mean, plenty of love stories go to that level, too. But all I'm saying is that I think it's. We have to realize as writers what really gets people's, you know, juices flowing. What makes them want to. What compels them to. To continue to read stories is the threat of darkness. Because we all have darkness within us, and very few of us give into it. And when we see other people give in to their darkness, we get some kind of, you know, charge out of it, as we say, you know, if I. If I really went and really dark with what's really in my mind, I could see why I would want to run for president, you know, or something like that.

Okay, so the darkness. If you ever make a mistake, always go on the side of darkness. If you can make your villain so monstrously compelling, you're in, man. Your story's gonna work. I mean, this is what makes horror so great. You know, horror stories, there's no character development in horror. It's all about the devil. It's all about the demon. It's all about the monster. And the bigger the monster you can create and the more compelling the monster is.

This why, like, Jurassic park works so well? Because the villain is these dinosaurs that, you know, so captivating and dangerous.

Yeah, there it's. It's sort of like the indifferent universe theory. You Know, you have these. These dinosaurs who will eat anything. They don't care about human beings, and they don't. You give them an opportunity to. To kill you, they will. They don't care. It's like Anton Chigurh in no country for Old Men.

Yeah, I watched that movie.

I can't.

Who are those guys? The Coen brothers?

Yeah, it was a novel by Cormac McCarthy, and it's, you know, right up. I think that's his masterpiece because it's such simple storytelling. And the force of evil in that book is just literally the indifferent universe who just will do whatever is necessary to win for himself.

Recently, I read a book called Alice. And it's like this almost on the edge of horror story reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. And one of the things I was struck by was, like, this book. I mean, it just pulled me all the way through it. Super compelling. It was very violent. And the villain in it was this character that all you saw, basically, was his effects on people. You never actually saw him. And it was just disaster. And what I couldn't get over was how little the author told us about anything. Like, it was this whole thing of, like, the new town versus the old town. Right? So the new town is where the rich people live, and the old town is where everybody else is kind of pushed to the side. And, like, those were the names of the towns, New Town and Old Town. Like, it was just this. There were so many things where I was just kind of like, she just kind of threw out the first thing that came into her head. But yet the villain and the mink and the protagonist were so, like, just compelling that I had to stay on to see what happened. And so it was this kind of, you know, because the thing I'm struggling with in my nonfiction right now is so similar to the thing I've struggled in my fiction where, like, you told me me, the book I tried to write was basically three books crammed into one. Because I'm over explaining everything. I'm trying to put too many things in there. And, like, it just needs to be simple storytelling. And that's what I've been trying to learn how to do. But it was. It was just this, like, everything was a little vague. There was nothing super. I don't know how to put it. I don't know. It just was simple. It was a simple story that you kind of knew what was coming because it was based on Alice in Wonderland. But it was just. It just pulled you through the entire thing, even though it was so simple. I think that was what kept kind of surprising me was how little there, like, extra things there were to this story. But it was a compelling villain, it was a compelling protagonist, and the. And all the characters in it, like, led the way down this path towards, again, an inevitable ending.

Yeah. I think I mentioned this movie before, too, a movie called Breakdown, which was Kurt Russell in it, I think.

Yeah, I saw that years ago.

Wow. Just great storytelling. Simple, lean. And the other thing is that these archetypes are so deeply ingrained in all of us, the. The villain and the good guy. Right. That oftentimes just let the person, you know, project all of their own ideas about it onto the character in your story. If you simply just tell the story as it would from beginning to middle and end. I know that's easier said than done.

I know it's the. It's these, like, constant. You know, it's like, well, you know, these stories just kind of exist, and they're out there and they're archetypes, but you got to tell it in a way nobody's ever heard before.

Right.

And it's like, well, you know, don't. Don't overthink anything. Don't put too many things in there. But, you know, it needs to be, like, a hundred thousand words long, you know, and it's like, ah.

You know, I just.

So many of these things, you know, it's finding that balance that it's just. It's hard. You know, I was telling you right before we started with this nonfiction book I'm working on, like, I thought I had it. Like, it was in my head. I knew what I wanted to say, and, like, all I've done is just flail on it and write and rewrite, and I can't even figure out what I'm trying to say. But when I'm like, I went to dinner with some people and I was telling somebody about the book I'm working on, I can explain it, and I'm like, oh, man, I can write this. And the next morning, I sit down and I just stare at the screen because I don't know how to put it down. It's just such. These creative pursuits are just so. The work is always so much different than I think it should be. And it's always so. I don't even know how to put it. It's like these things that you can't always seem right outside of your grasp, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It's absolutely true.

So what I'm going to work on as I'M thinking through this is.

I talked about the villain being part of the different factions, and I'll put this. The emails I wrote in the show notes, but having different warring factions and the villain being the leader of one of the factions and he needs Jesse to win. Do you think that works as the villain?

It's hard.

Or do I just need to, like, put it down and let you look at it?

I think it's the second one. It's hard to say, you know, a motivation for somebody who's the villain to just gaining power. That's a very strong motivation. If you're going to create a world that is, has. That's in the midst of civil war, that's a choice. But then what happens is that if, if it's in the midst of civil war, then you end up explaining political stuff and social structures and it can snowball into something very complex. And the driving force of the story gets lost in the world. So the trick is to balance the excitement and difference of the world with a very straightforward story. Girl decides to go save her brother to save her family, has to win, win something or do something in order to get him released. Succeeds or fails, the end. So that's kind of the spine of the story. Okay, will Jesse get her brother back? That's what's going to keep the reader moving forward. The more you get off of that main track or that, that span of bridge, the easier it is for people to quit on your story. Is she going to get her brother back? That should be in the mind of the reader almost throughout the storytelling. And little tangential things are okay, but once they start to lose, oh, my gosh, she's not going to get her brother back because X happened. Oh, phew, now she will, because now she's got that thing and oh my gosh, no. You know, and you escalate progressively, complicate the. The hurdles that she has to jump over in order to get her goal. And then, you know, constantly pulling the rug out from the reader. But the more you get into the motivations of the villain based upon a very complex social organization, the more that pulls away from the central part of the story. If you think of it in terms of the villain is holding her brother hostage, he or she, the villain discovers that maybe they tried to get the brother to do the thing that they needed and then in that process discovered that it's the sister who can do it. So how are you going to get the sister to. To come do the thing that you want? Oh, I know. I'LL hold. I mean, think of it in terms of the villain. If I want something and I hold somebody's brother hostage and say, hey, I'm gonna kill your brother. Unless you, you know, you go and score a pound of meth for me, then, you know, Tim's gonna go out and try and get a pound of meth because you want, you don't want your brother to get killed. And then all this trouble that you have trying to get what I want.

The further away from you getting what I want, the closer to death your brother is. That's a triangle. That's a triangular relationship that you never want to lose sight of in your story. You've got hero, villain, victim.

We've talked about that before.

Okay?

I know. It's like a microscope. The more you look at the mitochondria, the more the DNA is giving you.

Trouble, the more you and cross eyed.

Yeah.

Stories are organic things. This is why, you know, that's why we love them so much. They're, they're almost, you know, they're mind organisms. They, they live inside of us. And that's why they're, they're complex and it's simple, just like we are. We're complex and simple at the same time. We're all made out of the same four base pairs of DNA. All of life. It's amazing.

So before we end this, I just have to ask this question, like, does this ever get easier? I feel like now I'm working on to get a working story idea for something like four or five months. I mean, surely it won't be that hard to come up with a working story forever.

Well, let me put it to you this way. Think about the great writing writers in our history. They've written maybe two, three outstanding novels, right? Yeah, but, but they published 12 to 15, so it's not easy. It's never easy. And you know, I mentioned William Goldman earlier. William Goldman hasn't published a novel in decades. He faces the same difficulties as everybody else. And he might have gotten to the point where he said, ah, I got enough money in the bank. I'm. I'm not gonna, I got a face with Tim Grohl's face in right now. Not for the, you know, all the money in, in the world will he do that. But this is what a, you know what Steve, in our conversations with Steve Pressfield a couple of, you know, weeks ago, he said, you know, if you want to be a writer, and this is what he was talking about. I think he said, you got to give up everything to be a writer. And you. And I kind of took a little bit of issue with that because we're like, well, we have families and we were able to write, too. But I think this is what he was talking about. This is the struggle. This is the thing that you have to dig into and accept about the craft and about writing in general is that, no, it does not get easier. It doesn't. It doesn't. So you'll be able to. I mean, you know this in your nonfiction. You're able to bang out 5,000 words of something in. In a day, and it's workable and it's okay. But if the. The more you elevate your game, the more you try and get better, the harder it's going to be. So it's not going to. And the fact that you're spending four or five months on a concept for a story that may or may not work. Yeah, it's. It's frustrating. I find it frustrating. I find it. This is why I've never published any fiction. I mean, it's. It's scary. And you can. You can turn around and lose a year of your life and say, yeah, man, that just never came together. I mean, Steve Pressfield has seven, eight scripts in his drawer. Nine, ten, who knows? Every. Every writer has so many aborted ideas that, you know, but they get excited each time, too. Yeah. And it's fun to think about the possibilities. I mean, look at Quentin Tarantino. He keeps going after it. Some of his movies are better than others. You know, it's just the way it is.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Story Grid podcast. As always, you can find everything story grid@storygrid.com if you want to look back at any past episodes, any show notes. I mentioned a lot of show notes in this episode, so if you want to access any of those, that is all@storygrid.com podcast. As always, if you want to continue to support the show, there are two things that you can do. The first thing is to go into itunes, find the show, and then leave a rating and review. We read every one of them because I apparently am codependent with you as my listener, and we just enjoy hearing what you think about the show. And it's also a way that other people find the show by seeing those reviews and ratings. The second things you can do is to post it on Twitter, on Facebook, in any writing groups you're in. Continue to. To spread the word about the show. We really appreciate any way that you get the word out about the show. So thanks for listening, and we will see you next week.