This will be the final episode of the Story Grid Podcast for the foreseeable future. Tim gives some background on why this decision was made along with an update on his current writing project and other happenings around Story Grid.
Access the full Story Grid analysis of Crazy Rich Asians at https://storygrid.com/crazy . What can writers learn from studying this 2018 film? This is the final in a four part series analyzing Crazy Rich Asians . The screenplay was written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim and the movie was based on a 2013 book of the same title written by Kevin Kwan. This episode is hosted by Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl, writer and CEO of Story Gr...
Access the full Story Grid analysis of Crazy Rich Asians at https://storygrid.com/crazy . What can writers learn from studying this 2018 film? This is the second in a four part series analyzing Crazy Rich Asians . The screenplay was written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim and the movie was based on a 2013 book of the same title written by Kevin Kwan. This episode is hosted by Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl, writer and CEO of Story G...
Access the full Story Grid analysis of Crazy Rich Asians at https://storygrid.com/crazy . What can writers learn from studying this 2018 film? This is the first in a four part series analyzing Crazy Rich Asians . The screenplay was written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim and the movie was based on a 2013 book of the same title written by Kevin Kwan. This episode is hosted by Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl, writer and CEO of Story Gr...
Access the full Story Grid analysis of Crazy Rich Asians at https://storygrid.com/crazy . What can writers learn from studying this 2018 film? This is the first in a four part series analyzing Crazy Rich Asians . The screenplay was written by Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim and the movie was based on a 2013 book of the same title written by Kevin Kwan. This episode is hosted by Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl, writer and CEO of Story Gr...
Access the full Story Grid analysis of John Wick at https://storygrid.com/wick. This is the final in a four part series analyzing the movie John Wick using the Story Grid methodology. This 2014 movie, written by Derek Kolstad, is a genre leading action movie. Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl start by looking at the Story Grid Five Leaf Genre Clover before diving into the quadrants and controlling idea....
Access the full Story Grid analysis of John Wick at https://storygrid.com/wick. This is the third in a four part series analyzing the movie John Wick using the Story Grid methodology. This 2014 movie, written by Derek Kolstad, is a genre leading action movie. Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl start by looking at the Story Grid Five Leaf Genre Clover before diving into the quadrants and controlling idea....
Access the full Story Grid analysis of John Wick at https://storygrid.com/wick. This is the second in a four part series analyzing the movie John Wick using the Story Grid methodology. This 2014 movie, written by Derek Kolstad, is a genre leading action movie. Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl start by looking at the Story Grid Five Leaf Genre Clover before diving into the quadrants and controlling idea....
Access the full Story Grid analysis of John Wick at https://storygrid.com/wick. This is the first in a four part series analyzing the movie John Wick using the Story Grid methodology. This 2014 movie, written by Derek Kolstad, is a genre leading action movie. Story Grid Certified Editor Rachel Arsenault (https://www.rachel-arsenault.com) and Tim Grahl start by looking at the Story Grid Five Leaf Genre Clover before diving into the quadrants and controlling idea....
We're down to line edits on Tim's iteration of the masterwork Eye Witness by Ed McBain. Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie provide final feedback on how to clean up the last few error messages still coming through. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Yma-xAE77UnQMNAjTyOUPxF21P_DaFxuNXyQin-0gHo/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-283 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Stor...
Now that Tim has had a breakthrough on his iteration of EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain, we're getting down to fixing individual Beats and checking to make sure he's adhered to the Story Grid 624 Analysis. You really see the Story Grid Tools shine in this episode as Leslie and Danielle apply them to Tim's writing to find places still left to fix. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b-RzszE7YzLEn5fSlWAqVQ_OkXhuJg3cxfZImXzIkYI/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this...
Does Tim Actually Get It Right? How to Nail the Narrative Device On Tim's 10th draft, he finally makes a breakthrough on his iteration of EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain! And it ended up being a simple practice that got him over the hump. Listen in as Shawn, Danielle, Leslie, and Tim discuss how to nail the narrative device. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RRmqjv90vYpi20B7kbxgdHQwdhFRvB3pESZD6Y52XEg/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https...
In this impromptu episode, Tim and Danielle discuss the ongoing problems with the work on the Ed McBain EYE WITNESS scene and why Tim can't connect with his characters.
Shawn takes a crack at rewriting Tim's scene to help him understand what he's missing on the Narrative Device. Then we hear Leslie and Danielle's edits and feedback on what he got right and wrong. When they ask Tim what he thinks of all this, lots of emotions start coming out including his feeling that he's not writing anymore... he's pretending to write. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QZGyUNetvNGfKAjwyfF3m4r9RPoMQN4g3Q18oWXoLOw/edit?usp=sharing To see the tr...
There are lots of insights in this week's episode of the podcast. We look at the emotional connection between the hero and victim, ensuring there is conflict at every level of the story, and how better to lock in to the narrative device. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V6ja3HN4uKuS0J4x6pvWBUwkZUiE5uJov5jM3Gj-Yvw/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-278 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The Fir...
Nobody is innocent in your story. Everyone is hiding something. You must adjust these levels correctly in order for your reader to connect with the right characters. This is the focus Danielle, Leslie, and Shawn take on Tim's scene this week. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M_rP2ARaDQbSlGBmNRESszzYuNN-nrxa0pdJjt0qQRU/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-277 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: Th...
Who is the Hero, Victim, and Perpetrator in your story? What are the relationships between each of them? The more vague or ungrounded each of these relationships are, the more the story will not read as believable. This is the focus Danielle, Leslie, and Shawn take on Tim's scene this week. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OQd5NxTcn2JLwrphueCX91A4wXN9BEQFBYwbyN7NJ1M/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-275...
Figuring out your Story Theme is the key to unlocking the entire roadmap of your story. Scott Mann is the author of the new book → Operation Pineapple Express: The Incredible Story of a Group of Americans Who Undertook One Last Mission and Honored a Promise in Afghanistan . Randall Surles is a Story Grid Certified Editor and worked with Scott to develop and produce the book under an extremely tight deadline. In this interview, they discuss what went into writing the book, how they worked togethe...
How do you ground your characters in a reality that your reader will believe even though you are making the whole thing up? This week Tim makes the mistake of sterilizing his protagonist to the point where he is no longer interesting or believable. Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie walk him through the steps of using character development and a strong narrative device to fix these problems. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10bdr_tF4ASohz0cHoNjlbNmsLOVXiDpFw54ugHYLZI8/...
Who is telling your story? Who are they telling it to? Why are they telling it? This is the Narrative Device! The Narrative Device consists of three main components: Author: The Author is someone who is capable of telling the POP premise as a story to shed light on the problem another person has. SAM: The Single Audience Member is a person with a problem related to the one the protagonist faces in the POP premise. Problem: A specific problem that the POP premise can shed light on. What Shawn, Da...
Shawn, Leslie, Danielle and Tim face a hard question... Is the Story Grid Podcast still worth doing? You might be surprised by what they have to say.
What happens when you can't connect to your protagonist? This week Tim makes some progress on his scene, but it's still missing something. The soul in the writing isn't there. Shawn, Leslie, and Danielle talk through how to use emotional pain to connect into the story.
There are times in your story when you need to switch out the protagonist. This can even happen in the middle of a scene or short story. But how do you do it the right way? This week Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie look at Tim's draft to see how you can hand off the protagonist to a different character without confusion. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T9K3Reuspp3oXJdBm_Aj8QLuUXv0Lcj7wPTG9SZKKGI/edit?usp=sharing To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https:...
Great stories always answer two-factor problems. In this episode we see how Tim's mistake of choosing the wrong protagonist messes up the two factor problem. Shawn, Danielle, and Leslie help him sort out how to fix this problem. Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNGyDX5dkbchjT6UcrixUNv_2PI_WT7GrZn04H0nIh0/edit To see the transcript of this episode, visit: https://storygrid.com/episode-269 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of...
In this episode we start comparing the Story Grid 624 Analysis of the first draft of Tim's scene to EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain. Pretty quickly we see that Tim made one small mistake that ends up having a huge impact on the rest of the scene. In EYE WITNESS, the author switches the protagonist near the beginning of the scene. Tim doesn't do this and, as you'll see, this causes a lot of problems! Click here to read Tim's scene: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yNGyDX5dkbchjT6UcrixUNv_2PI_WT7GrZn0...
Tim has written a first draft of his scene based on the in-depth analysis of Ed McBain's EYE WITNESS. Listen in as Shawn, Danielle and Leslie give their feedback and start diving into the analysis of the first draft. For the transcript and downloads for this episode, visit https://storygrid.com/267 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com This is Episode 266 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/pod...
Tim has written a first draft of his scene based on the in-depth analysis of Ed McBain's EYE WITNESS. Listen in as Shawn, Danielle and Leslie give their initial feedback and start diving into the analysis of the first draft. For the transcript and downloads for this episode, visit https://storygrid.com/266 — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com This is Episode 266 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid...
How do we use all of this masterwork analysis to actually iterate our own short story? In this week's episode, we look at the 624, Beat, and Trope analysis for the short story EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain (https://amzn.to/3Q2UpqV) and start discussing what kind of short story I might write based on all of the analysis. This is where things start to go off the rails. As you'll see, Shawn and Tim aren't always on the same page and struggle to communicate with each other. We decided to leave this episo...
What are Tropes and how can they actually help your writing? Tropes are a toolbox of common components to build a certain kind of story. You can put these building blocks together to create a story that meets the reader expectations for your particular GENRE. Most lists of tropes are a grab bag of story types and/or their components and aspects. They don’t fit together, so they don’t provide a process for consistently crafting scenes and stories that satisfy readers. In the Story Grid Universe, ...
Learn how your line-by-line writing can be improved by the Story Grid Beat methodology. In this episode, we show you the final line graph generated by our beat-by-beat analysis and how this can help you write better scenes. — Get a free copy of our book Story Grid 101: The First Five Principles of the Story Grid Methodology: https://storygrid101.com For episode transcript and downloads: https://storygrid.com/episode-263 This is Episode 263 of the Story Grid Podcast: https://storygrid.com/podcast...
