What is a Contender Guide?

Hello and welcome to the StoryGrid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better writer. I'm your host, Tim Grall, and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He is the creator of StoryGrid, the author of the book Storygrid, and an editor with over 25 years experience. In this episode, we start talking through creating the contender guide for my book, the Threshing. So one of the things we're trying to do inside of StoryGrid publishing is one, be really clear about why we publish the books that we publish and then also make sure that the books that we're publishing, the novels we're publishing, become a way that you can become a better writer and learn more about StoryGrid and how to evaluate novels as well. So the way that we're doing that is we're creating these contender guides for each of the novels that we release so you'll learn more about what those are and this episode. So I'm just going to stop talking and jump in and get started.

So, Sean, with the threshing coming out in a couple months here, it's screaming at me really quickly. We're working on the contender guide for the threshing, which is first just talk about, because whenever we talk about contender guides, we always get questions about what they are and why we're doing them. So could you talk a little bit about what a contender guide is for the threshing and why we would spend all this time doing a whole nother book around a book that we're publishing?

Sure. One of the things that I always. It's sort of like my own white whale in my career was it's very difficult to publish fiction well. And that's because every novel is different. So if you're working at a major publishing house like Random House or something, it's difficult because you need to essentially come up with a brand new unique selling proposition to get people who might be interested in the novel within that genre. And you have to position it. You have to do a whole slew of very complex and difficult marketing. You got to do the right cover, you got to do all these kinds of things. And that's why publishing fiction is risky, because you need to have professionals who. Who have their finger on the pulse of a specific genre and know exactly what those readers are attracted to. So this is something that has bothered me for a long time, and I was trying to think of, well, in an ideal situation, how Would you create a publishing house that would meaningfully publish fiction? And what I mean by that is that when people saw the colophon, the brand of that publishing house on the spine of a book, they would start to feel like, oh, that publishing house has a real thing. And they explain exactly why it is that they publish the novels that they publish. And they've got this whole crazy methodology in which they use to evaluate work. Therefore, the probability that that publishing house will be publishing something that I would enjoy is. Is greater than me just picking something out on the front table of Barnes and Noble or doing a deep Amazon search that's been revolving around in my mind for a long time.

When we started talking about how would we publish the threshing the best possible way, what occurred to me was, wouldn't it be great to be able to share the storygrid methodology, how we go about doing things at storygrid in a way that is organic to the reading experience? So what that meant was not just publishing books, but actually giving the playbook away, showing people who are interested in writing how we come to the decisions that we come to. So my thinking was just as I did a really detailed analysis of Thomas Harris's the Silence of the Lambs and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Wouldn't it be great to have a whole library of books that we admire, masterworks that we think are at the top of their genre, and we analyze them and explain why they work and why we think they work on many different levels of analysis? So we could do masterwork guides to, you know, we already have Pride and Prejudice out there, and the Silence of the Lambs is embedded within the story grid book itself. So I thought to myself, well, that's great, but a lot of people say to themselves, well, I'd never be able to write Moby Dick. So those masterwork guides are kind of interesting, but I'd rather have a book that was inspired by Moby Dick that this publishing company published and have that publisher explain why they chose to publish that book within that genre. So that's where the concept of the story grade contender guides came from. It's sort of like if you were to look at those things at the top of the pyramid, then you also want to look at those things that just sort of came into the arena, those things that are contenders that are coming into an arena and trying to find a home among, you know, lovers of that particular genre. So if you look at each individual genre as its own sort of arena or domain, then we've Got these great things that we aspire to. They're sort of like, you know, that great teacher when you were a little kid and you knew that if you paid attention, the teacher would tell you, teach you stuff that you would never be able to come to yourself. So those are the masterworks. And then we also have like the contenders. And the contenders would be the equivalent of the really smart girl in your class who's always raising her hand, always getting A's on everything, and you look over and you say, I want to be more like her. How do I do that? And then you start to sort of model your behavior on how that really smart girl is a contender in the teacher's arena. So that's where they come from. We have like the super high, high level masterwork guides which really break down how storygrid methodology would explain why those books work. And not only work, but why they're evergreen bestsellers. So that's one side of it, and then the other side is the contenders. So that if somebody is interested in writing a novel and they're kind of curious about Storygrid, they can pick up one of Storygrid's novels, they can read it, and then if they really are into it, they can go, geez, I wonder how they would explain why they published this. So that's what the story grid contender guides are. And I think they're really important because they're very, very accessible to people who haven't. None of us is completely well read in every genre. There are blind spots in my reading that bother me and I'm a little ashamed of. Right? So if somebody says, read something by Thomas Pynchon in the meta literary thing that I haven't read, like V, I'd be like, I'm not sure I want to even go near trying to write V. But if somebody else says, well, why don't try this other book that was just published that's in the same arena as V, but you know, it's by somebody who would be your contemporary, the equivalent of that really smart girl in class who always get A's in everything. And I'm sort of struggling in the B arena. And I go, I want to be more like her. So why don't I sort of take some clues about what she does and then maybe I can reach her level of competence. So if I watch the girl at recess and she takes the time to walk into a corner and start reading a book, oh, ding, ding, ding, a bell's going to go off in my head and I'm going to go, you know what? I'm going to take 10 minutes from my recess time, and I'm going to bring in a book, and I'm going to find my own corner, and I'm going to model my behavior on hers. Right? So that's how we grow up. We're always looking. We're always looking to grow and get better. And the way we do that is we model our behavior on people who. Who have traits and qualities and skills that we admire. And it's a really, really innate component of development. I mean, Jean Piaget, who's a great developmental psychologist, he talked about this 100 years ago. And in that interim, they've done all the experimental research to actually verify that. Yes, it's encoded within our own DNA that when we are attracted to a particular kind of thing, that what we do is we start to mimic those people who can enact that thing. So if we love magic and we see a great. A little kid who's very good at magic tricks or card tricks, we look at them and we go, well, how'd you do that? And then they teach us, and then we learn. So that's the way I want to approach storygrid publishing. Right. So we're not just publishing for the end result of book sales. Yes, of course that's important.

I'm not belittling it.

But we are more concerned with the process of getting better as a writer, as leveling up our stories. Because right now in the culture, there's such narrative warfare going on, right? Some person has some narrative that they're believing in to the seat of their pants, and they say that other people who believe other kinds of narratives are absolutely wrong and should be thrown. Thrown out of the kingdom. So if we can all start to understand how narratives are formed and how to create a narrative that will change people's lives, then the narrative warfare, maybe we can dial that down a little bit. Because there is no single worldview that's going to solve the complex problems that we all encounter. Encounter in our everyday lives. No, we need multiple narratives to be able to navigate around our universe. So the contender guides are the means by which we at storygood Publishing explain exactly why we chose to publish the threshing. So anyone who's curious could say, yeah, I wonder why that idiot Sean Coyne decided to publish that Tim Grohl book. Right? So, okay, here's why. And then in this contender guide, they can see all of the deliberate hard work that the two of us did to create this work. Maybe they still won't like the book, but they'll go, okay, I get it. I get it. And yeah, I can see how that scene turned. Yes. I can see the, you know, the internal shifts and the external shifts in this story grid thing. Yeah, I see. I can make. That makes sense. Oh, wow. You know, actually, I do appreciate this book a little bit more than I did before. It actually does have. You know, there is a reason why I read the whole thing. And this contender guide can explain to people who aspire to write a young adult thriller, labyrinth action thriller, like you did. There's plenty of people who aspire to do that. So they can look at your book and they can look at the Hunger Games. Right. So the Hunger Games is the masterwork in that arena. And the threshing is a contender. We're not arrogant enough to say, oh, well, Sean and Tim spent four years and they beat Suzanne Collins, who worked on her novel for probably 20 years. No, we're not arrogant enough to say that. But what we can say is we were inspired. We were really inspired by Suzanne Collins, by the Wyciewskis, by. By the Matrix, by all of these different things. And through that inspiration, we worked together for four years to create this book called the Threshing. And here's how we did it, and we will walk you through scene by scene to explain why we chose to have that scene in the book itself. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah.

And so when you talk about walking scene by scene, like, what kind. What do you mean by that? Like, you know, if we're going. Looking at each scene, what kind of things are we analyzing and showing? Because I kind of see this as, you know, because I've read, you know, your. Your guide to Pride and Prejudice, and it helped me kind of like. Like you were just saying, it helped me look at each. Oh, this is why she did this here. This is how it ties here. This is why this scene worked. This is why this scene worked. Like, what kind of things are you looking at in each scene to help people analyze it?

Well, what we're doing in these guides is we are using very specific examples to bring people into the story grid universe. You know, when I get on the podcast and I start talking about the five commandments of story, and I go, there's this and that and the other. It's all very abstract. And so people. Probably a lot of people go, hey, that's a pretty interesting abstraction. I just really wish I could have something that's more example driven so we can actually see how Someone proceduralizes the propositions of StoryGrid. StoryGrid is a proposition that is all about recreating patterns that people see in specific life experiences in such a way that other people can identify with those patterns and use those simulations as guideposts to navigate the world. There I go again, right? Super abstraction that a lot of people are like, what the hell is he talking about? Right? So that's why we're doing these masterworks and contenders is that what we're doing is we're inviting people into the methodology, but we're inviting them in very, very practically. So what people will find in these contender guides are bolded names. And they'll be like, wonder why they bolded that name in this contender guide. The reason why we bold the names is because we're going to also provide, through the StoryGrid website, the StoryGrid spreadsheet for each one of these scenes, right? So those bolded ways are the means by which people can identify. Oh, that's where they got that thing, that column. Onstage and offstage characters. Oh, I get it now. And then at the end of each scene, we're going to walk through the process by which you can actually fill out a story grid spreadsheet. And so we understand that the concepts of coming up with the five commandments of storytelling, the inciting incident, the progressive complications that turn into the turning point, and then the crisis, the climax, and the resolution, we understand that those are abstract things that we need to be walked through. We need to be walked through those examples innumerable times before they start to become intuitive within us. So, like, for example, the story grid certified editors, from the first year, they have this locked down now. So when people send them their stories to edit, you know, they can fly through these story grid spreadsheets at a level that they. They couldn't, you know, two years ago or three years ago, however long it was that we did that. And then also the editors in the second season, they're really good, too, but they're. Maybe they're not as quick as the first season. Anyway, My point is that these contender guides and masterworks are the means by which people who aren't really interested in becoming Story Grid certified editors, they can learn the skill set that the Story Grid certified editors already know. And if they apply themselves and they go through these books and they go through the end of each chapter and they learn this process, then what happens is they will have a shared language in the event that, in time, they decide to write their own novel. And then they can find a like minded editor who can help them make it better. So the way these contenders and masterworks are structured is at the very beginning of the contender guide, we're going to explain what genre you're writing in, right? So that's what we're going to do. The first thing we're going to do is going to give a big macro presentation. What I decided to write the threshing is an action story that has the labyrinth plot device. And action stories have the following qualities, right? And then you'll outline. You'll give sort of like a cheat sheet to the global action genre. And then you'll get into some details about the choice of the labyrinth portrait plot for you. And you can also say things like, I was inspired by the Matrix, I was inspired by Suzanne Collins, so that people understand it's perfectly reasonable to be inspired by great works. Okay, so that's the introduction. And then you just get it right into the book, right? Then we lay out the book, which is the exact same final copy that is in the final book itself. And then you highlight the characters. You do all those things that we do when we story grid spreadsheet. And then at the end of each scene, what we do is teach through a series of questions. We teach the reader how to think like a story grid editor. We don't just say what are the five commandments? Instead, we walk through a process that is step by step. It's baby step. So the very first question we'll ask at the end of each scene is what are the characters literally doing? So for example, the very first scene in. Well, let's walk through yours. Let's talk about your very first scene in the threshing. So just give me a. As I recall, the very first scene in the threshing is Jesse is in the middle of the a heist. And she is trying to get credits from people who have a lot of credits. So in her journey to collect these credits, she discovers that she's been watched. And in fact, at the end of the scene, there's someone on the other side of the door that has been waiting for her and is going to confront her about her breaking the law. Is that pretty good? Is that generally what happens?

Yes. Good memory.

Okay. All right, so let's talk about these five questions. What are the characters literally doing? So how would you answer that question for your first scene? Like, what are they literally doing?

What they're literally doing is Jesse is breaking into the high rise so that she can break into one of the elite's apartments so that she can steal credits, and then her partners in crime are supporting her from afar while she does that.

Right? Okay.

Yes.

So that's the literal action in the scene. Now, the next question, what you want to ask is, what is the essential action of what the characters are doing in this scene? So the essential action is what is behind these literal actions? Meaning why is she going through this procedure to steal credits?

So, well, I think it's twofold. I would say it's both so that they can survive kind of off of the grid the way that they're trying to survive, and also for vengeance against the elites who they see as corrupt.

Okay, cool. So if you combine those two things, I think you could say her essential action is rebellion. So she's rebelling against.

The structures of the social world in which she lives in because she finds it corrupt and inequitable. So I think the essential action is that Jesse is rebelling. Okay, so that would be the second question to think through, the third thing. So basically, what the essential action is, it's the subtext, the core of what's behind the literal actions.

Is it like the why of what's happening in the actions?

Yeah, it's sort of the reason why we do things is for to progress toward a goal. And Jessie's goal at this point is to literally just be a fly in the ointment and to outsmart and to express herself in a way that's rebellious. She's a kid. Right. So what do kids do? They like to be rebellious. They like to undermine the structures. They don't want to go to bed at 9. They want to go to bed whenever they can get away with it. Right. So that's the core action underneath the literal action. It's the essential action. Okay, so the next question to ask is what life value has changed for one or more of the characters in the scene. So the life values are things like happy to sad, life to death, slavery to freedom, getting away with something to getting caught.

I have that. Jesse and the group's tension grows as she makes her way to the apartment and goes through various roadblocks until she's finally able to log in and steal all of the credits. So from tension to relief.

Okay, at the very end of this chapter, does it end with her just winning the credits, or does it end with something else?

Well, yeah. Ends with her basically be like a prelude to her being caught.

Okay, so I think what you're saying works.

So I. So I struggle with. I think this is actually good to Talk about. Because I struggled with this, so. Because when I looked at the five commandments for this scene, the crisis was a best bad choice. Should she bail on the job and lose opportunity to steal the credits, or should she stay and keep looking for the panel, but could get caught as a result?

Right.

So this is when she kind of goes through a couple roadblocks and then she can't find the panel that she needs to log in, and they tell her just to leave and give up on the job. And so the crisis is, does she stay or does she leave? And then the climax is she connects with Balaam and gets the location of the panel.

So she stays.

And then the resolution to that would be Jesse steals the credits. So I almost feel like the end of the first scene where she. The voice, you know, you hear the voice from the living room is like the inciting incident for the second scene.

Yeah, you're right.

That's exactly right.

So then if we're looking at it as well, the scene actually did end, not the actual. Like where the words end for that chapter, but the scene ended when she successfully stole all the credits. So then the life value is tension to relief.

It could be tension to relief, but I think you could. Yes, so that works. So I'm not saying, no, you're wrong.

Okay.

But a lot of times, if you can, the more specific you can be about the life value, the better. So it could be something like threatened to. Or at risk to successful. What's the opposite of successful? Failure to success. Right. So it looks like she's going to fail and then she succeeds. So tension to relief is accurate. Yes, that's true, but that's more of a psychological feeling state. And if you could keep it actively discussing the action in that scene as specifically as you could. So she was facing failure, but she ended up succeeding. So that's more of like a procedural action than tension to relief. Like, we don't. We experience tension and relief, but it's a little bit amorphous.

So I would go. If, you know, if it were up to me, I would say I would move more towards the failure to success as the life value then. Because one of the ways to think about a story is a global movement toward attaining a want. So what Jesse wants in this moment is to succeed getting the credits. So if you focus on the want in the actual scene, that would be helpful for you to determine the value. Does that make sense?

Is it tied to the genre as well? Like, should I be looking at the value shift of the genre? Because if we talk about tension to relief, that's a little internal, where you're kind of saying, you know, let's look at the external, you know, failure to success, which is closer to what the genre is of life and death.

Yes.

Okay.

And also, I mean that you bring up a really good point there because I maintain that the 15 spine scenes must move on the global value of the genre. Right, Right. So the global value at stake in action is life and death.

So if we're going to say this is the inciting incident scene of the entire novel, which it is, then we should be able to pinpoint how life and death, the global value, is in play here.

So this is obviously she's moving dangerously to incarceration death. So it starts out in terms of life and death, more on the gradient of risk, risking death, and then it ends with more vital life.

And the procedure of her. The reason why it works and it's not, it's because what she's doing is basically a capital offense. We don't know that yet as the reader, but we suspect that what she's doing is really high level heist kind of stuff.

Right.

So it works in terms of the global life death value as well as the micro failure to success procedural value.

I can see why people get confused about story grid. Right. But the bottom line with your scene, this is one of the reasons why I always say don't worry about story grid unless you have to. Right. We've gone through this scene that we're talking about right now. Probably a good two hours.

Yeah. @.

Least. And it works. Yeah. And the scene works. Right. So when we're doing this contender guide, what's good is that when you start going through these procedures to do the contender guide itself, you're doing kind of like an after action report. Right. So you're analyzing the results of a particular event. The event is you finished your novel, it's been deemed publishable, it's already in the works. And now what you're doing is you're looking at, oh, well, let's look under the hood here and see how everything went. Maybe I can take some lessons away that I didn't, you know, fully integrate when I was writing the book. So this discussion that we're having about, you know, the, the trajectory of the scene, the value at stake, the bottom line is the scene works and it feels. Right now we're just trying to explain specifically why that's the case. Why does it feel right? Well, it moves from tension to relief. That's true. It moves from failure to success. That's true. It moves from risking death to generating more life. Oh, cool. So it's working on multiple values. And the key to StoryGrid is just identify one value. That's why I didn't take you to the woodshed when you said tension to relief. Because you're right. And this is why my contender guide to your book would be different than yours. Neither one of us is wrong. We are just picking apart what's salient. What we're paying attention to in terms of life value is idiosyncratic to our subjective experience.

So when I'm moving around on levels of analysis and saying, well, let's look at it from the point of view of the global value at stake, life to death, does it work at that level? And I had to think through it, and it does work at that level. And it does work at the emotional level. Tension to relief. And it does work at the procedural level, failure to success. So this is the beauty of the story grid is that it makes you at least identify one value, right? It makes you think through multiple levels the more you look at something. So we should move on to the next question. But I think this was a really important point for StoryGrid people to understand because a lot of people are just looking for, well, I guess I was wrong because Sean's value shifted differently than mine. And I always say, no, that's not true. Especially in our Story grid certified editor training. A lot of people, I can see their shoulders fall when I tell them my value shift because they're like, oh, I blew it again. Right? And then I always make a point of like, you know, Leslie, what was your. What was your value shift? And she'll go, well, I'm so stupid. I came up with tension to relieve. And I'm like, that's valid. She goes, how can it be valid when yours was failure to success? And it's a. And I think Leslie understands this now, as all the Story grid certified editors do. But it's really multiple levels of value at stake. Because I'm just going to say one small thing to back this up. There is this phenomena in science which I find fascinating, and we like to think that when we measure for one specific variable like temperature, that we're only measuring temperature. So, for example, if we measure temperature where I live, Yesterday it was 17 degrees. Today it's 28 degrees. So there's a shift. There's a movement from 17 to 28. Now, what's also fascinating is that if we map the Same like barometric pressure. If we map the sunlight variable, that measurement from 17 to 28, it goes across phenomenology. So that when we think we're measuring one thing, but we're actually measuring a whole slew of phenomena. So when we're pointing out and we're measuring the value shift in the scene, yes, we're focusing on that one, like temperature shift, but we're also pinpointing multiple other levels of analysis without really knowing it. So phenomena occur at multiple levels of analysis and there's patterns that repeat. So if it's 17 degrees and it moves to 28 degrees, the barometric pressure is going to have the same fluctuation in character as the temperature shift. Does that make.

Sense?

Yes. I think I'm getting a little bit wonky. But my only point is that you may have measured temperature and I may have measured barometric pressure. But we're both in the arena of a shift. We both were identifying a shift in movement from one point to another point. And that's the key point in the scene. Something has to change in the scene. So as long as you can identify and be confident in tension to relief, you're okay. Okay, so that's the third question. The fourth question is, so which life value should I highlight on my storygrid spreadsheet? Now, just in that discussion we just had about those three different value shifts, what do you think we should highlight on the storygrid spreadsheet if we are abiding by sort of like the global story grid.

Principles? Well, it would be the one that closely matches the genre, which would be failure to.

Success. Yes, that would.

Work. Or if you really wanted to.

Be literal about the life death shift, I would say, you know, risking death to increasing life value. So, you know, failure to success. Yeah, that's.

Fine. Well, because, I mean, at the same time, if, like, when I've looked at other spreadsheets, if it's ties too tightly to the external genre, it'll just be life, death, death, life, life, more life death, more death. Like, it would just be life, death constantly instead of. You still want nuance inside of there.

Right? Yeah, that's why I said it's. You're right using failure to.

Success.

Okay. Because what you're doing, you're really delineating and making the specificity of that one scene stand out as opposed to saying. And I think a lot of people make this mistake, they just sort of give these generic terms that. That are applicable, but they're not specific enough. And so as you said, you could make the mistake of moving from death to life, life to death, death to life throughout the entire story. And people will be like, this is ridiculous. So using failure to success, I think is good. Okay, so after that fourth question, now. Now we've sort of warmed up the engine of our mind into the story grid sort of realm. That's why I like to answer those first four questions. And they actually came from an acting methodology that I learned 35 years ago from David Mamet and W.H. macy. William Macy. And that's what actors do when they try to figure out what the hell they're supposed to do in a scene. They're trying to figure out how are they going to embody behavioral shifts so that it matches the intention of the writer. So when they know I'm moving from failure to success, they can figure out, oh, well, what happens? What do I do when I'm failing? I get nervous. How do I express my nervousness? Well, like, I move around like a hamster. Right. So they could go into a scene and they go, as I'm losing more and more, I should be behaving in a way that's more nervous or something like that. So that's why we do those first four questions, is that it gets us into the realm of the intention of the writer. And now we can sort of just lay out the five commandments of storytelling. And so the first one, let's just say, what's the inciting incident of the scene? I.

Have. Jesse climbs a ladder into the apartment.

Building.

Yes. And is that causal or.

Coincidental?

Causal. Causal. Great. Okay, so what we have is the beginning of someone who's made a choice. It's like, in the middle of her action. And this choice is going to incite this entire novel. So her choice to be robbing credits is a vulnerability that will start the engine of this novel. So that makes sense. Okay, so the next one that you want to identify is the progressive complication, turning point. Now, progressive complications are things that events that happen in the story that raise the stakes, but not irreversibly, so until they reach a turning point when the value is threatened to shift. So let's just identify what's one progressive complication in your scene before the turning.

Point.

Okay. A progressive complication. One is all the stairs she's got to climb to get there in.

A limited amount of.

Time. Right, Right. And she also has to step through all those weird people who are hooked into the Matrix.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah. So you can see all of these things progressively getting more difficult so walking by people who aren't conscious isn't that difficult. Climbing 38 flights of stairs is difficult. Once she gets up there, then what.

Happens? The key card doesn't seem to be working, so she has to mess with that to get into the.

Apartment. Okay, great. So that's even a higher progressive complication than climbing up the stairs. Once she's in, what happens.

Next? So she. I wouldn't have put this as a progressive complication, but maybe it is. It's when she basically walks to the window and looks out on the city. And it was a way for me to show the reader where she's at and what it looks.

Like. Yeah. So the complication in that case.

Is. Would it be a.

Complication? Well, it is a complication. It's a psychological complication. It's a clue into the way that she frames the world in such that she looks out over there and she's like, I will never have this. She doesn't know that that's what she's doing. But it's like a way to feed your resentment. It's not fair. I will never have an apartment like this. So that's a progressive complication because it's going to make her do risky things that she may not otherwise do because she's resentful. These rich people who have this incredible apartment. So it is a progressive complication. It's more of a psychological one. And it's also a more difficult complication to overcome than just not being able to get in the door. So I think it works in a really nice way because you've changed the tenor of the progressive complications. Before, they were all external. Now this is an internal progressive complication. This girl is resentful and she wants what she doesn't have. Pretty cool. So the next one would be.

What? She can't find the.

Panel. I think that is what turns the scene. Right, because. Because she can't find the panel and she's running out of time. It raises. It brings forth the crisis of the scene. Right. And what's the crisis of the.

Scene? Should she turn back and run or stay and try to make it.

Happen? Right. So that is definitely the turning point complication. She can't find the panel, which shifts from. It brings in. So far things have been. She's been overcoming her obstacles, so she's on the road to success, but. But now it's shifted to imminent failure. Does she accept the failure of the moment or does she press on in the hopes of succeeding? That's the crisis. And she Actively makes the choice. Because again, now, this isn't stuff that you were thinking about when you wrote this, but the fact that she just took a big, long look at how beautiful this apartment in. Psychologically, it raises the resentment, which when you are resentful, you want to act out. So she. It makes sense. It's in character. She decides that she's going to act out and she's going to stay there no matter what. And so the climax is she figures out where the panel is through a third party help, and then she gets the credits and that's the end of the scene. So getting the credits is the success and it's the resolution of the scene. Does that make.

Sense? Yeah, that's what I have.

Down.

Yeah. Great. So all you have to do is what we've done here for the last hour, 63 more.

Times.

Well, so in. In the Pride and Prejudice, when you have this section for.

Notes.

Yeah. And what are you putting in there? Because these other things are helping you? I could really. I could see pretty quickly, like, okay, when I go to make the spreadsheet, it's gonna be pretty easy. Once I've done all this work, I just kind of have to shift everything over. But what are the notes.

For? What's the point of.

Those? Well, the notes are sort of the interpretation of someone who has 30 years of experience analyzing storycraft. And they would be the equivalent of what I said about when you said, you know, is that really a progressive complication, her looking at the beauty of the view from this apartment? And then I said to you, actually, it is. And the reason why it works is because it's a psychological and internal progressive complication that's not on the nose. You don't write. Jesse felt jealous of how rich these people were and all the beautiful things in their apartment. Did you?

No. Right. That would be on the.

Nose. People do do that all the time. It's the mark of an amateur writer, is that they don't allow.

The reader to put two and two together intuitively when they're reading. So when she is looking at this landscape, the reader who reads a lot of these kinds of novels can.

Understand. Oh.

Right. Oh, my God, that must be horrible to be living in a shack. And then you go up to these apartments and they're incredible. And so that progressive complication is a really crucial one because it adds a variety to the scene itself in such a way that the reader. It makes it believable, even though it's a fantasy. It makes it believable because there is a moment of internal stress. So that's the kind of thing I would put in the notes. Notice how the author takes the moment to have her look at the beautiful view from the wealthy people's apartment. This is a tool that he uses to express her building resentment about the inequity of the society she lives in. And then people would be like, oh, how do I solve the problem? All of my scenes seem to be external, progressive complication. Then another one, then another one, then another one. How can I mix it up? Is there something. What do I do in an action scene when they're actually trying to rob someone to express some internal conflict without it taking a long time or. And literally having that moment, that small moment actually did that for you in this scene. So those are the kinds of things I would put in notes because they're micro tools that the thoughtful writer will steal or be inspired by when they read other people's work. Stephen King does stuff like this all the time. And like, I think of this moment in the Shining when he sets.

These things up so.

Well. It's at the very beginning of the Shining, and Jack Torrance is down in the boiler room with the Scatman Cuddlers character in the movie. I Forget his name, Mr. Something. But he's like the expert guy who's been taking care of this place forever. And he's explaining to Jack Torrance the notion of the boiler. And he says, you got to be careful with this.

Boiler. You got to come down here.

Every day and check it, and you got to let out some.

Steam. Because if you don't let out.

Some steam, it's just going to keep generating more and more pressure and the thing can.

Blow. So every morning, first thing, come.

Down here and let out some steam so that it doesn't.

Blow.

Right. And what is that? That's Jack. That's Jack. Jack is the boiler. He's explaining to Jack how to prevent himself from murdering his family in Chapter One. You, sir, gotta let out some steam every now and then or you're gonna freak out on your family. And that setup, that external setup, is emblematic of Jack Torrance's internal landscape. And that is something that Stephen King does all the time. Now, if we ask Stephen King, oh, that's really cool how you, you know, you made that analogy between the boiler and.

Jack. I would say nine times out of ten that you go, oh, my.

God, I didn't even realize they did that. I just thought it would be.

A cool idea to have this boiler.

Because I need the boiler to blow up at the end of the, you.

Know. And so that.

Is. That's where you put notes in as an editor, right? Because if you read Stephen King thoughtfully, you can pick out things that.

He does that he doesn't even know.

He does, and then you can use those answers to problems later on in your own work. You might be like, okay, how am I going to come up with an analogy that will be interesting here that is more internal than external? And you would do something like that. So that's why the notes are in.

There. Thanks for listening to this episode of the StoryGrid podcast. For everything StoryGrid related, check out storygrid.com make sure you pick up a copy of the book and sign up for the newsletter so you don't miss anything happening in the Story Grid universe. Also, we still have some spots available for our Big Ideas Nonfiction seminar that is happening in February in Nashville, Tennessee. It's going to be a really great three days together, and if you're writing nonfiction in any way, it doesn't.

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