May 27, 2025 • 36 mins
Master the fundamental building block of fiction writing with this one exercise that's helped writers break through years of stalled progress in just weeks.
Ever wonder why some writers seem to improve rapidly while others stay stuck for years, despite writing every single day? 🤔
The difference isn't talent or luck—it's deliberate practice.
Most aspiring novelists think that accumulating word count is the path to improvement. But here's the truth: without targeted practice and expert feedback, you might be reinforcing bad habits rather than developing good ones.
Tim Grahl is the CEO of Story Grid, author of six books, and has analyzed over 2,000 scenes from aspiring writers. What he's discovered about skill development might completely change how you approach your writing journey.
In this episode, you'll hear us talk about things like:
- [24:45] Why most writers don't improve even when they write every day—and the missing piece that separates writers who progress from those who stay stuck
- [02:11] The surprising shift Story Grid made from teaching big-picture structure to focusing on scene-level fundamentals instead
- [10:02] The 3-step framework for creating a deliberate writing practice that builds real skills instead of just word count
- [15:16] The three most common scene-writing mistakes that kill narrative momentum—and how to avoid them
- [24:27] Why getting expert feedback (not just writing in isolation) is the crucial element most writers miss
Whether you're staring at your first blank page or you've got a drawer full of unfinished manuscripts, this episode will show you exactly how to break the cycle of starting and stopping and finally make meaningful progress on your writing!
🔗 Links mentioned in this episode:
- Story Grid’s Scene Checklist (Free Resource)
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If you loved this episode, please take a moment to follow the show and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Your review will help other writers find this podcast and get the insights they need to finish their books. Thanks for tuning in to The Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast! See you next week!
FREE GUIDE: 5 Writing Roadblocks Keeping You Stuck (& How To Break Through)
👉 Looking for a transcript? If you’re listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, scroll down below the episode player until you see the transcript.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you look at the very first scene of Pride and
(00:01):
Prejudice, elizabeth Bennett,darcy, they're not in that scene
, it's Mr and Mrs Bennett.
Well, somebody has to be theantagonist.
And the antagonist is theperson that causes the inciting
incident that knocks theprotagonist's life off balance.
So it's Mrs Bennett.
When she comes to Mr Bennettand is like hey, you got to go
down the street and see this guythat just moved in, right, yeah
?
So yeah, it's understanding.
(00:27):
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
villain, it is the whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week, I'll bringwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week, I'll bring you abrand new episode with simple,
actionable and step-by-stepstrategies that you can
implement in your writing rightaway.
So whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:55):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
Have you ever wondered why somewriters seem to make rapid
progress while others stay stuckfor years?
Well, the secret isn't talentor luck.
It's something calleddeliberate practice.
And in this episode you'regoing to hear from Tim Grawl,
(01:16):
who is the CEO of StoryGrid,about what he learned from
reading and giving feedback onover 2,000 scenes from aspiring
writers.
He's going to share theeye-opening shift that happened
at StoryGrid when they realizedthat teaching the big picture
story structure wasn't enough,and why they now recommend that
writers master the fundamentalsof scene writing first.
You'll learn why most writingadvice keeps you stuck in
(01:39):
endless loops of starting andstopping a specific exercise
that can transform your writingin just weeks, and why getting
expert feedback, rather thanjust writing in isolation, is
the missing piece that separateswriters who improve from those
who stay stuck for years.
So, whether you're juststarting out or you've been
stuck in cycles of starting andabandoning manuscripts, this
(02:00):
conversation will show youexactly where to focus your
efforts to finally start makingreal progress on your writing.
So let's dive right in.
Okay, so, tim, I wanted to askyou a question before we get
into the details about writingscenes, and the question is that
, in the past, storygrid hasalways talked about starting
(02:20):
with genre.
So what is your genre?
How can you then use genre toinform the rest of your story?
And I know now that StoryGridhas switched their position on
this just a little bit.
So, yes, of course, genre isimportant, but now StoryGrid
actually recommends startingwith learning how to craft a
really solid scene.
So can you talk about that alittle more before we get into
all the details?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, we realize now that starting at that macro
level is really putting the cartbefore the horse and I think
the reason this happened was,you know, sean Coyne was the
founder of StoryGrid, createdStoryGrid and when he created
StoryGrid he was an editor atmajor publishing houses.
So by the time manuscripts gotthrough all the gatekeepers and
(03:01):
hit his desk, the writer knewhow to write line by line in
scene writing.
They could write a workingscene and most of his job as the
editor was to fix big macroproblems.
So this is where he starteddeveloping his big global macro
understanding of how story works.
When, at StoryGrid, we startedteaching this and trying to get
(03:22):
people to understand this, whatwe started seeing is people
trying to get people tounderstand this.
What we started seeing ispeople could understand the
macro movement of story, butwhen we looked at their
individual scenes they wereunreadable, and mine was too
Like.
This is where we had the bigkind of turning point in story
grid several years ago now where, like I kept turning and
writing to Sean that line byline was unreadable.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so what does unreadable look like?
Because I'm sure some listenersare wondering, like, what does
that actually look like in reallife?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It means a lot of things right.
There's always.
There's way more ways to messsomething up than to do it right
.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So you have to understand what the reader is
wondering is what happens next.
That's what you're trying toalways get them wondering and
fulfilling.
Is them constantly like whathappens next?
That's what you're trying toalways get them wondering and
fulfilling.
Is them constantly like whathappens next?
What happens next?
So anytime that you stop toexplain something, you tell, you
put in description, you put inbackstory, you're pulling up the
emergency brake on thatnarrative drive.
(04:23):
And so what I mean is, ifthey're not wondering what
happens next and you're keepingthem constantly wondering what
happens next, even when youresolve something in a scene, it
still leaves an open loop thatthey have to fill.
So they turn the page.
You're going to lose them.
So, this is where I'll seepeople that can write beautiful
(04:44):
description.
I mean way're going to losethem, yeah.
So this is where, like, I'llsee people that can write
beautiful description I mean waybetter than I can write and
then I'm halfway through it andnothing has happened yet.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You're like what's the point?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Okay, cool, I just wanted to make sure, cause the
word unreadable can mean so manydifferent things, so it's it's
more like it just was failing todo what you needed the scene to
do, and there's many reasonswhy it could have failed.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Think about like music, right.
So there is, let's take TaylorSwift, all right, you may love
Taylor Swift, I may hate TaylorSwift, right?
My favorite artist is JackWhite.
A lot of my wife hates JackWhite's music.
Okay, jack White or TaylorSwift, it's objectively working
music.
It works.
(05:26):
It actually sounds right.
As music Now is subjective,it's like no, it's not.
I actually just rewatchWhiplash again about music and
(05:50):
one of the characters wastalking to.
The protagonist is like, well,it's just subjective, right.
And he's like no, it's not.
And in writing the same way andwriting is the same way.
So I think when I'm sayingworking, it has to reach an
actual objective standard ofthis is a working piece of
(06:10):
fiction and then it can becomesubjective, Like I don't like
reading horror, but I can lookat a horror scene and decide
whether or not objectively itworks.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right which I think should be almost reassuring for
some people that if I can learnhow to write a scene then it's
up to the reader right so wejust we're talking about the
mechanics of does it work or not, objectively, and then let
people decide.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, also, a scene is a practicable length.
Right, you're talking athousand to 2000 words, where
you know you can't iteratequickly on a novel, right, you
know so.
And this is I mean we could getinto the theory of this.
But, like, the more that peopleunderstand how to structure
scenes, the easier it is forthem to understand how to
(06:52):
structure longer pieces offiction.
So I stopped working onanything but scene writing for
two years and then, when I cameback to plan out a novel, it was
so much easier because Iunderstood how stories work,
because I knew how to write areally good scene.
One of the other rules that wemade in our programs was you're
not allowed to work on your workin progress because, like,
(07:13):
you're too emotionally attachedto it and you keep trying to
shoehorn this big thing into asmall thing.
So what we're learning more andmore is like can you write one
scene a thousand words or less,with an antagonist that wants
something from a protagonistthat the protagonist doesn't
want to do, and write it inthird person limited?
(07:35):
Can you do that in a way whereit's interesting, it's fun to
read?
You don't tell instead of show,you don't put a bunch of
backstory in there and a lot oftimes people will at first will
be like what?
I just got to come up with thisstuff from scratch and then
somehow make it work in a scene.
It's like, yeah, you got to,you have to be able to do that
and so you can get better atthat, to learn skill, just like
(07:58):
everything else.
And so we try to constrain itdown and say can you do that?
Try to constrain it down andsay, can you do that?
Because if you can't do that,you probably can't write things
that are much more nuanced andcomplicated yeah.
So, for instance, a A studentwas asking yesterday well, can I
just write a scene two peoplehaving coffee?
And I'm like, yeah, but it'smuch harder than one person
(08:22):
trying to chase and get a holdof another person, right, like
it's just a harder thing towrite.
And again, I don't think weunderstand like there were like
easy things to write and hardthings to write and then really
hard things to write.
So the number one thing peoplehave to learn how to write is
the physicality of what'shappening on the page.
So people always want to go upinto characters' heads or do a
(08:44):
bunch of backstory or exposition, and I mean the word for this
is boring.
And again, this is coming fromsomebody who did this for years
and years and years wroteterrible writing, just reams of
it, and so if you can't get thephysicality on the page, then
nobody cares about anything else.
I could go into all kinds oftheory about why that is, but
(09:05):
it's just true.
It's how we interact with life,as I'm sitting here watching
you, picking up on your cues,trying to understand what you're
thinking and feeling by doing agood job, right.
So if you think about twopeople having coffee, the
physicality of that is much morenuanced than two people having
a fight right.
A physical altercation.
There's so much morephysicality to describe than two
(09:28):
people having coffee, so it'seasier to start with something
where there's tons ofphysicality and getting that on
the page than the more nuancedlike where somebody's eyes go or
how their ear twitches, likethat's just a harder thing to
write.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, cause there's subtext and there's all this
other stuff.
Okay, so now let's go back tothe part you said about.
There are things you tell thesewriters who are doing the
practical exercises youmentioned.
There's a character who wantssomething and an antagonist in
the scene who wants somethingdifferent, or who wants the same
thing but for different reasonsor whatever.
Right, yeah, okay.
So you mentioned there arepractical exercises that you
(10:04):
lead writers through in theseworkshops.
Can we talk about that a littlemore?
And let's just pretend we'reguiding listeners through one of
these exercises.
So what is our first step here?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
The number one thing you have to learn how to do is
get the five commandments ofstorytelling in with a clear
object of desire.
So that means something haschanged in the scene, and in
order for something to change,there has to be conflict, and so
a story without conflict isn'ta story.
It's a list of things thathappened, right.
And so the way that you getconflict in, and the first thing
(10:50):
to practice is two charactersthat want different things,
right, and I'm the antagonistbecause I want something from
you and you don't want to do itfor me.
I was the inciting incident byasking you for $50,000.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Now we decide.
Well, how far are each of usgoing to go to get our object of
desire?
So why do I need $50,000?
Is it because I want a newTesla?
Or because my daughter waskidnapped and if I don't have
that money to them by 9 amthey're going to kill her Right
Now.
How far will I go to get that$50,000?
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, which means we need that strong motivation.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, yeah, and you could see it could become
physical between us.
If that's how bad, I want that$50,000.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
So it's like can you write that very simple setup of
a scene that changes to thepoint where either you didn't
give me $50,000 or you did giveme $50,000.
Somebody has to win the scene.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
And so that's where we start writers is, can you
write those types of scenes, andthen you can start getting more
nuanced.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, and I'm sure there's discussion around like,
okay, yes, you can write it.
And I see this happen sometimes, where they'll be like you gave
me a budget of 1500 words and Ijust got to the inciting
incident at 1500 words, and soit's like, yes, you can write it
, but it also needs to bebalanced with the descriptions,
the showing and telling, the youknow, action, things like that.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, we actually start people at 800 words.
I started when I was runningthe workshops at 1500 words and
what I found is, if you can't doit at 800 words, you can't do
it at 1500 or 3000 or 4000 words, and straining it down does is
it forces you to cut out all ofthe fluff and get right to the
point.
Right.
Then what we found is, oncepeople can do that 800 words and
(12:30):
we start loosening up the wordcount, they get right into the
point and the scenes actuallybecome better and better and
better.
If we start somebody at 2000words and they just fill it with
fluff, it's so much harder toget through and get feedback on.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, and I think most of us probably will fill up
the 2000 words if that's ourbudget.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, you know, because we like to write, so
yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, so I'm hearing you say so far, I'm just
thinking for the people who wantto practice this, you get 800
words and we want to start with,like the five commandments, of
course, but and also thinking,what do these characters want?
Who's the protagonist in thescene, who's the antagonist,
what else?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, so that's the first thing, and somebody has to
win the scene.
So, the protagonist got whatthey wanted, or the antagonist
got what they wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
at the end, and actually can I interrupt you
Because this is something thatwe saw come up with the Harry
Potter analysis that writerswere surprised about, and it was
this idea that someone like aNeville or Hermione could be the
scene antagonist.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So do you find in your classes too, that like
writers are like?
Well, the antagonist isn'tpresent in this scene.
So what do I do?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, so this is where, like when you're looking
at a scene, you have to evaluatethat scene all by itself, right
?
So the antagonist is not thebad guy and in fact, in our own
lives we need to change.
Right, there's things about usthat aren't what they need to be
, and whatever is making uschange is a form of antagonism,
(13:54):
and we usually don't like them,whether they're our spouse or
our best friend or our dog,right?
So antagonism is not a badthing.
All it is is whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
So, if you look at the veryfirst scene of Pride and
Prejudice, elizabeth Bennett,darcy, they're not in that scene
, it's Mr and Mrs Bennett.
(14:16):
Well, somebody has to be theantagonist, and the antagonist
is the person that causes theinciting incident that knocks
the protagonist's life offbalance.
So it's Mrs Bennett when shecomes to Mr Bennett and is like
hey, you got to go down thestreet and see this guy that
just moved in, right?
So, yeah, it's understanding.
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
villain.
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
(14:39):
villain, it is the whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, okay, cool.
I think that's important forpeople to hear, because we tend
to get overwhelmed and think,well, if the antagonist isn't
there, then what do I do?
And you know, the best friendisn't really a bad person and
it's like, yeah, it's okay, it'sjust for this scene.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So then, what were you going to say is next yeah,
and let me say one more thing onthat Often the global
protagonist in a scene will fillthe role of antagonism in a
scene.
So I was actually talking toAlison Fairhurst, who we both
know, and we were talking aboutcrime stories and we're like,
well, all the scenes where theglobal protagonist is
interrogating somebody, they'rethe antagonist of that scene,
(15:15):
you know, yeah, so once peoplehave the five commandments and
an object of desire, they have aworking scene right.
So we think of it as signal andnoise.
So I always think about, likewhen you're tuning in those old
radios trying to find thestation, and it's all noise.
If you don't have anythingchanging, no conflict, no
tension in your scene, it's allnoise.
(15:35):
But once you have the fivecommandments and object of
desire, you have a signal butthere's still probably noise.
So now we got to figure outwhat's causing that noise.
The first thing that I oftensee is that people are telling
instead of showing, so wherethey want to just tell the
reader what's happening insteadof just showing the reader and
(15:55):
letting the reader understand.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
This is like a big one.
That took me a really long timeto understand, but that's the
first one is the writer juststarts telling the story to the
reader instead of showing themthings and letting them decide
what's happening.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And do you have an example of that for someone who
might not know what that means?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
So an example would be like hewas feeling anxious, right, and
what I always say is like, hey,if you were at a coffee shop and
you looked across and you saw aguy and you realized he's
anxious, how did you know?
Because he didn't come over andtell you he was anxious and you
didn't see a thought bubbleover his head saying I am
(16:34):
anxious.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Right, it would be the drumming his fingers and his
foot moving on.
Right, it would be the drumminghis fingers and his foot moving
on the stool.
It would be like the way helooked and like the way he kept
cutting his eyes at the door.
Yeah, and so our definition ofshowing is it's simply
describing what is observable.
So, whatever I can pick up withmy five senses, that's what I'm
allowed to put on the page.
So I wouldn't say he wasanxious.
(16:56):
I would say he drummed hisfingers on the table, his legs
shook and he kept glancing atthe door every three seconds.
Right when he picked up hiscoffee, he shook and it spilled
over and he like hurriedlyspilled it up.
You know, it's like all I'mdoing is describing what I can
observe.
Right, you know he's anxious.
So it's like you're painting apicture and letting the reader
decide what that means.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, Right Must well have context from the scene and
potentially the setup beforethat.
So, yeah, it's kind of like letthe reader interpret everything
and form their own conclusion,versus having a thought bubble
above the character's head.
That's like hello, I am anxioustoday.
Somebody help Makes total sense, All right, so so far we've
talked through a word count.
You said about 800 words.
(17:38):
We've talked about having ascene, protagonist and
antagonist and then includingthose five commandments of
storytelling, as well as showingreaders what our characters are
doing.
So what's the next thing that awriter would need to think
about at this stage?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So the next two things I would say are pretty
even, and I would put infodumping and bad dialogue, and so
let's just take them one at atime.
So info dumping is simply whenyou're giving the reader
information they don't need toknow.
They don't need to know or theydon't need to know yet.
Yes, so this is where, like atthe beginning of a scene, you
like give me a bunch ofbackstory or you just describe a
(18:15):
bunch of things that I may needto know, but, as the reader
remember, I just want to knowwhat happens next, and we're
writing for the reader, not forourselves.
So what I like to say is dojust-in-time exposition.
If I have to know something asthe reader, don't tell it to me
until right before I need toknow it.
So, like, if a major characteris this person's father, don't
(18:41):
tell me in chapter one about thefather.
Tell me about him right as heenters the stage.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So save that exposition and drip it and weave
it into the action.
Don't give it to me all at once.
Right, drip it and weave itinto the action.
Don't give it to me all at once.
And usually what you find is,if I have people, if I see info
dumping and I get them to weaveit in, at least half of it just
gets cut because the readerdoesn't actually needs to know
it, and then it's woven into theaction in a way where the
(19:08):
reader is just kind of smoothlygoing through it.
It doesn't feel like thehandbrake's being pulled up.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Right.
It feels more like invisiblecontext in a way, because you're
skimming through it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Okay, so that's info dumping.
And if I'm a writer listeningand I'm going to do this
exercise, I might be thinkingokay, you're asking me to make
up a scenario and write thisscene.
How do I know what's relevantif I don't know?
Like a bigger picture, which iskind of the point, right,
because we don't need to knowwhat else is relevant, we just
need to know what's happening inthe moment.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
That's right.
I mean, think about again.
If you're out on the street andtwo people start having an
argument you don't know theirbackstory, you don't know who
they are, you don't know wherethey're from You're going to
look at them, how they'redressed, how they're acting,
what they're holding.
You're going to start alreadyfilling in the gaps of who they
are, why they're fighting.
(20:00):
You know, taking what they sayand you automatically fill in
Just have things start happeningand they'll keep up with it.
We do this every day in ourlife, automatically, as we
(20:23):
automatically fill in thedetails, just based on dropping
in right when something happens.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, yeah, and it could be as simple as a word
heard in dialogue.
That gives us a ton of context.
So I think you're right.
Give us like the least amountwe need to know and exactly when
we need to know it.
And then what was the otherthing you said after info
dumping?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Bad dialogue.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Bad dialogue.
Okay, so what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
All right.
So there's two, the two bigmistakes I see in dialogue.
The first one is puttingexposition in the dialogue, and
the way I think about this isyou have the characters talk to
the reader instead of each other, right?
Yeah, probably one of the worstI ever saw was somebody.
There was a daughter talking toher dad and she's like as you
(21:11):
know, father, you were mean tome my whole childhood, all nine
years that I lived with you, youknow, and it's like he knows
that he's her father, he knowsthat they lived together for
nine years.
She would never say that to himin real life.
And that's the writer trying toget information to the reader
in the dialogue.
Yeah, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is agreeabledialogue, and this is 95% of
(21:34):
most people's conversations,right?
Especially any like, hey, how'sit going?
Oh, I'm doing pretty good,how's your day?
You got to cut all of that out.
And what I usually tell peoplejust go watch any TV show and
pay attention to where thedialogue starts and ends, right?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
They never hang up the phones, which drives me nuts
, but I get it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well, and they never pick up the phone.
It's hey, how's it going?
Oh, pretty good, you know, it'slike it starts right away.
And and I mean agreeable toowhere you can't have two
characters that want the samething having a conversation,
because there's no conflict it'sthe point, yeah yeah, and so
basically, every action andevery piece of dialogue your
(22:14):
character says, every actionthey take, every piece of
dialogue they speak, has to bethem pursuing their object of
desire, which will automaticallycreate conflict if the other
character is doing the samething, only only actively.
So when you read through, whenyou're editing, this is what I'm
looking for.
Is that them pursuing theirobject of desire?
(22:35):
Is that?
If not, we need to cut it.
And I find this in my writing.
I often will write the firstphrase and then I go to write
the next phrase.
I was like, oh, there's like noconflict in this, so I just cut
both of those and startedwhatever the next line was going
to be.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And you're like oh, it still works.
And I could almost hear peoplethinking they do this.
I see this a lot in the storiesI edit.
But they'll write things likethe hello, how are you?
I haven't seen you in 10 months.
And they're like but that'srealistic, that's how we do it.
What would you say to that?
Because I see that all the time.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
So the point of writing fiction is to not write
real life, right, it ishyper-realism, right.
So it's taking all of theinteresting bits of life and
putting them together.
So if you're trying to writesomething that's real life, you
should just write a biographyand be done with it, right.
A textbook biography wouldn'tbe done with it.
If you're trying to write astory, you're showing something
to your reader, helping themunderstand something really
(23:37):
important in their life andhelping them solve a problem in
their life, and so you want tocut out all of the boring stuff
and focus on the parts thatactually change something in the
character's life.
So, if you're realistic is notthe point, that is not what
we're trying to do as writers iscreate something realistic.
(23:59):
Otherwise, there would be noscience fiction genres, no
fantasy genres, like moststories, wouldn't ever work,
because they would be realistic.
You know what real life is mostof the time, boring, yes, and
it's not that interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
If you think back on your life at the points that
stand out, it's because therewas conflict.
Your life was probably burningdown in some way.
Like that is the parts thatstand out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, okay.
So now let's say that we'vedone this exercise.
We've written our 800-ish wordscene.
We have characters who wantsomething, they're pursuing
their goals, we have the fivecommandments, we have dialogue.
That is not bad, and we don'tinfo dump, or maybe we do.
What do we do with this?
Like, how do we know if we'regetting better?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So the number one way to do this is to get feedback,
and this is what I think wasmissing for me for the longest
time is I was just writing andwriting and writing and the only
like feedback I could get wasfrom writers groups.
That was usually.
It was vague, it was verysubjective of like well, I like
that or I didn't like that, anda lot of times it was even
(25:07):
contradictory.
So one person would say onething and somebody would say, no
, I actually like that part andit's like well, now I have more
information and no way toactually make a decision.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And so this is why, like about a year and a half ago
at StoryGrid, I decided I'mjust going to give away as much
of our training as possible.
So that's when I startedputting all the videos on
YouTube, because I'm like,really what people need is
expert feedback, and that's theone thing that we can do is we
actually have a rubric and I canlook at somebody's writing now
that I've done it hundreds oftimes and be like, oh, that's
(25:41):
what's wrong, fix that.
And so if you Google deliberatepractice, you'll probably find
James Clear's site and whatdeliberate practice is.
And it's not mindlessrepetition, it's not just
getting your thousand words inevery day.
It's breaking a complex skilldown into individual skills,
trying it and then havingsomebody give you expert
(26:01):
feedback on what you did right,what you did wrong, and then
what you need to do to try again.
And so, like when I waslearning how to do Olympic
weightlifting so the clean andjerk and the snatch I would go
into the gym with my coach.
He would sit there with a cupof coffee, I would do a snatch.
He would be like you did thatright, you did that wrong, try
it again.
(26:21):
And I'd do it again, and thenI'd do it again and I kept
getting better and better andbetter.
Writing is the same way.
It's like write something short, give something short.
Give it to somebody that is anexpert and can look at that and
tell you that's what you didright, that's what you did wrong
, here's what you need to workon next week.
So when I first did this, weran a six week workshop and I
(26:42):
did it all by myself and I waslike I have no idea if this is
going to work and people wouldsend in their scenes and I would
send them feedback and I'm likeI don't know.
And by the end of just six weeks, people had made more progress
than they made six years ontheir own.
Now we've had like we're comingup on like 400 people have gone
through our workshops and overand over and over, we just see
(27:06):
it work.
I'm just so confident in it.
Now it's like this is whatactually makes a difference,
because we're all out here onour own trying to read books.
Listen, this is what actuallymakes a difference, because
we're all out here on our owntrying to read books, listen to
the podcast, watch my YouTubechannel.
But we're doing it all byourselves and we can't tell if
we're doing it right, and sothat's the big key that's
missing for the vast majority ofpeople.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, and not only have you seen it work with your
students, you've also lived it.
This was literally your realityfor those two years.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And I agree that you have to get feedback.
And I know there are going tobe some people that are thinking
feedback isn't nice to have orlike maybe I can't afford it or
whatever.
But I'd like to think aboutwell, what's the flip side of
not getting feedback and you'rejust going to ingrain these bad
habits or these things?
Like, let's say, you're a biginfo dumper, you're going to
write 40 scenes full of infodumping and then that's the
(27:52):
practice you're putting intopractice.
Right is info dumping?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, in a specific way.
People will say, like well, youknow, that's not how Stephen
King learned how to write.
I'm like well, let's talk aboutStephen King.
He started writing when he was10 years old.
He started submitting stuff tomagazines and getting rejections
, so he kept, and every time andhe talked about this in on
writing if they just wrote himlike one line of don't do this
(28:17):
draft minus 20% equals edited orsomething whatever that was,
and it took him 15 years to getto the point that he wrote
Carrie and it got picked up andpublished, and so it's like I
can walk into the woods andwander around and eventually
(28:38):
maybe end up where I want to be,on the other side of the woods,
right, maybe?
Maybe let's say I don't die inthe process and most writers die
.
This is the thing People don'thear from the people that gave
up.
Yeah, maybe let's say I don'tdie in the process and most
writers die.
This is the thing People don'thear from the people that gave
up.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right, where?
What if you had somebody thatwas a professional orienteer,
that went in there with you andwhen you went to make a wrong
turn, they're like oh no, don'tgo that way because of this
reason.
This is how you know, this isthe right way Great, this is how
you know, this is the right way, great, okay, let me keep going
and try again.
Oh, don't make that mistake.
It's like you would still.
It would still be hard andfrustrating, but it would take a
(29:13):
lot less time and energy, right, right.
So, of course, people can learnwithout feedback in this kind
of way, but it takes 10 to 20years of just like blind effort,
and this is the same thing it'slike.
When I learned how to play theguitar, what did I do?
Well, we didn't have theinternet then.
God, I'm old, but I bought themagazines, I got a guitar
(29:36):
teacher and I did all of thesethings, and I didn't just pick
up a guitar randomly, putstrings on it and start trying
to strum and figure out bylistening to music and trying it
randomly.
That would work.
I would eventually learn how toplay, but it's like the worst,
most painful, inefficient way toplay.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And that's assuming you didn't give up before you
learned how to play, becausethat's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, so I totally understand that, and it's
interesting to me too, alsobeing someone who edits a lot of
scenes.
It's so cool sometimes to seethat there could just be one
thing, like a lot of people,it's the crisis moment in the
five commandments that they'relike, if I can just nail that in
every scene.
Everything else filters downand starts to work, work.
(30:27):
So it's just amazing that,depending on how your own
writing, those listening likeTim and I probably have
different things that we wouldneed to work on in a scene and
you do too but you won't knowwhat that is until you get
someone to tell you if it'sworking or not.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and what I found is writers tend to like go
to two ends of a spectrum.
So a lot of writers I see theseare the ones that have usually
been writing a long time ontheir own.
Their line by line is reallybeautiful but nothing happens,
and getting them to actuallymake something happen in the
scene is a lot of work.
(30:57):
I'm always jealous of thembecause I couldn't do that for
the longest time.
That was like the biggest pain,because I was the other type of
writer.
I could figure out how to makesomething work in a scene, but
the line by line was sounreadable you didn't care by
the time you got there, and somost people fall in one of those
two camps.
One of those comes morenaturally and it's always
(31:18):
getting them to cross the chasmand be able to do the other side
.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah, and balance it out more.
So I think it sounds like we'resaying step one is do this kind
of deliberate practice whereyou're writing in a container
with certain things you'retrying to achieve, and then step
two is getting some kind offeedback, ideally the right kind
of feedback, and then I knowyou have a free resource for
people to download as well.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, so this is the checklist that we use to check
people's scene and it's astorygridcom slash checklist, so
really easy to find, and I alsohave like our method, how we
use it and then a little videowalkthrough on how to use it as
well.
But this is that thing of likeit's an order.
I always say it's an order ofegregiousness, so it's like the
thing at the top is the mostimportant, that's the five
(32:01):
commandments all the way down toI think it's like
well-developed setting andcharacters.
And I put that at the bottombecause when I put it too high
people, it gave people a chanceto info dump.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
So it's.
It's really helpful.
In every workshop we've everrun, the last thing we teach
them is how to run writersgroups, and so literally every
single one of them has spun offwriters groups that they, we, I
still.
There's still a group of fivewomen that meet every week from
my very first workshop over ayear and a half ago.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
Okay, so we'll put the link tothe checklist in the show notes
and also, I think it'sworthwhile.
You have a ton of videos onYouTube that are breaking down
scenes.
So if you're like I don't knowif I'm ready to try the 800 word
exercise, then at least just golisten and start to get the
terminology in your brain andthings like that.
And we're also going to post alink I believe you gave this to
(32:51):
me about where we can find moreinformation on your workshop if
listeners want to, but is thereanything else that you would
like to tell people, especiallythose who are just starting out
about writing scenes or gettingstarted?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, first of all, I want to say it is a learned
skill, so you're born withcertain levels of talent and
different things, but you canalso learn how to do things.
And I think there's thispervasive feeling that, like I
mean and again Stephen King saysthis in on writing that you
can't become a good writer ifyou're a bad writer.
And I am living proof thatthat's not true, because you can
(33:27):
go back on our podcast, look atmy early writing, completely
unreadable, and then you canread my most latest book and
it's a really good andwell-written book, and so I
think that's the first thing isthat this is a learnable skill.
The other thing is I think it'sworth learning right.
So I've gotten lots of reallycool emails from people that
(33:48):
have read my book.
But, like, I've gotten somereally touching emails from
people where, like, they'remaking really positive life
changes because of reading myfiction novel a fiction novel
called the Shithead of allthings, and it's like those are
the kind of things that, like, Idreamed of doing, of writing
something that changed people inthe way that writing changed me
(34:09):
, and so I love it so much.
And my favorite thing is when Iwatch a writer get better and
they see it, cause that's theother thing is, you go from not
being able to write to beingable to write something and you
can see the difference and thatfeeling of I've wanted to do
this since I was 14 and I justactually got better.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
It's huge, yeah, yeah .
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And it's you know.
To go back to what we firststarted talking about and echo
what Tim said about it islearnable and it's worth
learning.
There's a way to do it whereyou're going to feel overwhelmed
and a way to do it where you'regoing to learn systematically,
and I think this is one of thosethings that it's like if you're
going to put the effort in putit into something that we're
telling you is useful and canmake a difference, instead of
(34:54):
Googling all the differentcharacter profiles and filling
them out ad nauseum and doingthings that just aren't going to
help you get better.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So all right, Well, we will post all the links to
everything we talked about inthe show notes.
Thank you so much for joiningme again.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, thanks for having me Savannah.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So that's it for today's episode.
As always, thank you so muchfor tuning in and for showing
your support.
If you want to check out any ofthe links I mentioned in this
episode, you can find them inthe show notes listed in the
description of each episodeinside your podcast player or at
savannahgilbocom forward slashpodcast.
If you're an Apple user, I'dreally appreciate it if you took
(35:33):
a few seconds to leave a ratingand a review.
Your ratings and reviews tellApple that this is a podcast
that's worth listening to and,in turn, your reviews will help
this podcast get in front ofmore fiction writers just like
you.
And while you're there, goahead and hit that follow button
, because there's going to beanother brand new episode next
week, full of actionable tips,tools and strategies to help you
(35:53):
become a better writer.
So I'll see you next week anduntil then, happy writing.
If you look at the very first scene of Pride and
(00:01):
Prejudice, elizabeth Bennett,darcy, they're not in that scene
, it's Mr and Mrs Bennett.
Well, somebody has to be theantagonist.
And the antagonist is theperson that causes the inciting
incident that knocks theprotagonist's life off balance.
So it's Mrs Bennett.
When she comes to Mr Bennettand is like hey, you got to go
down the street and see this guythat just moved in, right, yeah
?
So yeah, it's understanding.
(00:27):
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
villain, it is the whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week, I'll bringwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week, I'll bring you abrand new episode with simple,
actionable and step-by-stepstrategies that you can
implement in your writing rightaway.
So whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:55):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
Have you ever wondered why somewriters seem to make rapid
progress while others stay stuckfor years?
Well, the secret isn't talentor luck.
It's something calleddeliberate practice.
And in this episode you'regoing to hear from Tim Grawl,
(01:16):
who is the CEO of StoryGrid,about what he learned from
reading and giving feedback onover 2,000 scenes from aspiring
writers.
He's going to share theeye-opening shift that happened
at StoryGrid when they realizedthat teaching the big picture
story structure wasn't enough,and why they now recommend that
writers master the fundamentalsof scene writing first.
You'll learn why most writingadvice keeps you stuck in
(01:39):
endless loops of starting andstopping a specific exercise
that can transform your writingin just weeks, and why getting
expert feedback, rather thanjust writing in isolation, is
the missing piece that separateswriters who improve from those
who stay stuck for years.
So, whether you're juststarting out or you've been
stuck in cycles of starting andabandoning manuscripts, this
(02:00):
conversation will show youexactly where to focus your
efforts to finally start makingreal progress on your writing.
So let's dive right in.
Okay, so, tim, I wanted to askyou a question before we get
into the details about writingscenes, and the question is that
, in the past, storygrid hasalways talked about starting
(02:20):
with genre.
So what is your genre?
How can you then use genre toinform the rest of your story?
And I know now that StoryGridhas switched their position on
this just a little bit.
So, yes, of course, genre isimportant, but now StoryGrid
actually recommends startingwith learning how to craft a
really solid scene.
So can you talk about that alittle more before we get into
all the details?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, we realize now that starting at that macro
level is really putting the cartbefore the horse and I think
the reason this happened was,you know, sean Coyne was the
founder of StoryGrid, createdStoryGrid and when he created
StoryGrid he was an editor atmajor publishing houses.
So by the time manuscripts gotthrough all the gatekeepers and
(03:01):
hit his desk, the writer knewhow to write line by line in
scene writing.
They could write a workingscene and most of his job as the
editor was to fix big macroproblems.
So this is where he starteddeveloping his big global macro
understanding of how story works.
When, at StoryGrid, we startedteaching this and trying to get
(03:22):
people to understand this, whatwe started seeing is people
trying to get people tounderstand this.
What we started seeing ispeople could understand the
macro movement of story, butwhen we looked at their
individual scenes they wereunreadable, and mine was too
Like.
This is where we had the bigkind of turning point in story
grid several years ago now where, like I kept turning and
writing to Sean that line byline was unreadable.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
And so what does unreadable look like?
Because I'm sure some listenersare wondering, like, what does
that actually look like in reallife?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
It means a lot of things right.
There's always.
There's way more ways to messsomething up than to do it right
.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
So you have to understand what the reader is
wondering is what happens next.
That's what you're trying toalways get them wondering and
fulfilling.
Is them constantly like whathappens next?
That's what you're trying toalways get them wondering and
fulfilling.
Is them constantly like whathappens next?
What happens next?
So anytime that you stop toexplain something, you tell, you
put in description, you put inbackstory, you're pulling up the
emergency brake on thatnarrative drive.
(04:23):
And so what I mean is, ifthey're not wondering what
happens next and you're keepingthem constantly wondering what
happens next, even when youresolve something in a scene, it
still leaves an open loop thatthey have to fill.
So they turn the page.
You're going to lose them.
So, this is where I'll seepeople that can write beautiful
(04:44):
description.
I mean way're going to losethem, yeah.
So this is where, like, I'llsee people that can write
beautiful description I mean waybetter than I can write and
then I'm halfway through it andnothing has happened yet.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
You're like what's the point?
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Okay, cool, I just wanted to make sure, cause the
word unreadable can mean so manydifferent things, so it's it's
more like it just was failing todo what you needed the scene to
do, and there's many reasonswhy it could have failed.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Think about like music, right.
So there is, let's take TaylorSwift, all right, you may love
Taylor Swift, I may hate TaylorSwift, right?
My favorite artist is JackWhite.
A lot of my wife hates JackWhite's music.
Okay, jack White or TaylorSwift, it's objectively working
music.
It works.
(05:26):
It actually sounds right.
As music Now is subjective,it's like no, it's not.
I actually just rewatchWhiplash again about music and
(05:50):
one of the characters wastalking to.
The protagonist is like, well,it's just subjective, right.
And he's like no, it's not.
And in writing the same way andwriting is the same way.
So I think when I'm sayingworking, it has to reach an
actual objective standard ofthis is a working piece of
(06:10):
fiction and then it can becomesubjective, Like I don't like
reading horror, but I can lookat a horror scene and decide
whether or not objectively itworks.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Right which I think should be almost reassuring for
some people that if I can learnhow to write a scene then it's
up to the reader right so wejust we're talking about the
mechanics of does it work or not, objectively, and then let
people decide.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Yes, also, a scene is a practicable length.
Right, you're talking athousand to 2000 words, where
you know you can't iteratequickly on a novel, right, you
know so.
And this is I mean we could getinto the theory of this.
But, like, the more that peopleunderstand how to structure
scenes, the easier it is forthem to understand how to
(06:52):
structure longer pieces offiction.
So I stopped working onanything but scene writing for
two years and then, when I cameback to plan out a novel, it was
so much easier because Iunderstood how stories work,
because I knew how to write areally good scene.
One of the other rules that wemade in our programs was you're
not allowed to work on your workin progress because, like,
(07:13):
you're too emotionally attachedto it and you keep trying to
shoehorn this big thing into asmall thing.
So what we're learning more andmore is like can you write one
scene a thousand words or less,with an antagonist that wants
something from a protagonistthat the protagonist doesn't
want to do, and write it inthird person limited?
(07:35):
Can you do that in a way whereit's interesting, it's fun to
read?
You don't tell instead of show,you don't put a bunch of
backstory in there and a lot oftimes people will at first will
be like what?
I just got to come up with thisstuff from scratch and then
somehow make it work in a scene.
It's like, yeah, you got to,you have to be able to do that
and so you can get better atthat, to learn skill, just like
(07:58):
everything else.
And so we try to constrain itdown and say can you do that?
Try to constrain it down andsay, can you do that?
Because if you can't do that,you probably can't write things
that are much more nuanced andcomplicated yeah.
So, for instance, a A studentwas asking yesterday well, can I
just write a scene two peoplehaving coffee?
And I'm like, yeah, but it'smuch harder than one person
(08:22):
trying to chase and get a holdof another person, right, like
it's just a harder thing towrite.
And again, I don't think weunderstand like there were like
easy things to write and hardthings to write and then really
hard things to write.
So the number one thing peoplehave to learn how to write is
the physicality of what'shappening on the page.
So people always want to go upinto characters' heads or do a
(08:44):
bunch of backstory or exposition, and I mean the word for this
is boring.
And again, this is coming fromsomebody who did this for years
and years and years wroteterrible writing, just reams of
it, and so if you can't get thephysicality on the page, then
nobody cares about anything else.
I could go into all kinds oftheory about why that is, but
(09:05):
it's just true.
It's how we interact with life,as I'm sitting here watching
you, picking up on your cues,trying to understand what you're
thinking and feeling by doing agood job, right.
So if you think about twopeople having coffee, the
physicality of that is much morenuanced than two people having
a fight right.
A physical altercation.
There's so much morephysicality to describe than two
(09:28):
people having coffee, so it'seasier to start with something
where there's tons ofphysicality and getting that on
the page than the more nuancedlike where somebody's eyes go or
how their ear twitches, likethat's just a harder thing to
write.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, cause there's subtext and there's all this
other stuff.
Okay, so now let's go back tothe part you said about.
There are things you tell thesewriters who are doing the
practical exercises youmentioned.
There's a character who wantssomething and an antagonist in
the scene who wants somethingdifferent, or who wants the same
thing but for different reasonsor whatever.
Right, yeah, okay.
So you mentioned there arepractical exercises that you
(10:04):
lead writers through in theseworkshops.
Can we talk about that a littlemore?
And let's just pretend we'reguiding listeners through one of
these exercises.
So what is our first step here?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
The number one thing you have to learn how to do is
get the five commandments ofstorytelling in with a clear
object of desire.
So that means something haschanged in the scene, and in
order for something to change,there has to be conflict, and so
a story without conflict isn'ta story.
It's a list of things thathappened, right.
And so the way that you getconflict in, and the first thing
(10:50):
to practice is two charactersthat want different things,
right, and I'm the antagonistbecause I want something from
you and you don't want to do itfor me.
I was the inciting incident byasking you for $50,000.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Now we decide.
Well, how far are each of usgoing to go to get our object of
desire?
So why do I need $50,000?
Is it because I want a newTesla?
Or because my daughter waskidnapped and if I don't have
that money to them by 9 amthey're going to kill her Right
Now.
How far will I go to get that$50,000?
Right?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, which means we need that strong motivation.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, yeah, and you could see it could become
physical between us.
If that's how bad, I want that$50,000.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
So it's like can you write that very simple setup of
a scene that changes to thepoint where either you didn't
give me $50,000 or you did giveme $50,000.
Somebody has to win the scene.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
And so that's where we start writers is, can you
write those types of scenes, andthen you can start getting more
nuanced.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah, and I'm sure there's discussion around like,
okay, yes, you can write it.
And I see this happen sometimes, where they'll be like you gave
me a budget of 1500 words and Ijust got to the inciting
incident at 1500 words, and soit's like, yes, you can write it
, but it also needs to bebalanced with the descriptions,
the showing and telling, the youknow, action, things like that.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah, we actually start people at 800 words.
I started when I was runningthe workshops at 1500 words and
what I found is, if you can't doit at 800 words, you can't do
it at 1500 or 3000 or 4000 words, and straining it down does is
it forces you to cut out all ofthe fluff and get right to the
point.
Right.
Then what we found is, oncepeople can do that 800 words and
(12:30):
we start loosening up the wordcount, they get right into the
point and the scenes actuallybecome better and better and
better.
If we start somebody at 2000words and they just fill it with
fluff, it's so much harder toget through and get feedback on.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, and I think most of us probably will fill up
the 2000 words if that's ourbudget.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah, you know, because we like to write, so
yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Okay, so I'm hearing you say so far, I'm just
thinking for the people who wantto practice this, you get 800
words and we want to start with,like the five commandments, of
course, but and also thinking,what do these characters want?
Who's the protagonist in thescene, who's the antagonist,
what else?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, so that's the first thing, and somebody has to
win the scene.
So, the protagonist got whatthey wanted, or the antagonist
got what they wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
at the end, and actually can I interrupt you
Because this is something thatwe saw come up with the Harry
Potter analysis that writerswere surprised about, and it was
this idea that someone like aNeville or Hermione could be the
scene antagonist.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So do you find in your classes too, that like
writers are like?
Well, the antagonist isn'tpresent in this scene.
So what do I do?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Yeah, so this is where, like when you're looking
at a scene, you have to evaluatethat scene all by itself, right
?
So the antagonist is not thebad guy and in fact, in our own
lives we need to change.
Right, there's things about usthat aren't what they need to be
, and whatever is making uschange is a form of antagonism,
(13:54):
and we usually don't like them,whether they're our spouse or
our best friend or our dog,right?
So antagonism is not a badthing.
All it is is whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
So, if you look at the veryfirst scene of Pride and
Prejudice, elizabeth Bennett,darcy, they're not in that scene
, it's Mr and Mrs Bennett.
(14:16):
Well, somebody has to be theantagonist, and the antagonist
is the person that causes theinciting incident that knocks
the protagonist's life offbalance.
So it's Mrs Bennett when shecomes to Mr Bennett and is like
hey, you got to go down thestreet and see this guy that
just moved in, right?
So, yeah, it's understanding.
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
villain.
The antagonist isn't the badguy or the evil person or the
(14:39):
villain, it is the whatever isgetting between the protagonist
and what they want.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, okay, cool.
I think that's important forpeople to hear, because we tend
to get overwhelmed and think,well, if the antagonist isn't
there, then what do I do?
And you know, the best friendisn't really a bad person and
it's like, yeah, it's okay, it'sjust for this scene.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
So then, what were you going to say is next yeah,
and let me say one more thing onthat Often the global
protagonist in a scene will fillthe role of antagonism in a
scene.
So I was actually talking toAlison Fairhurst, who we both
know, and we were talking aboutcrime stories and we're like,
well, all the scenes where theglobal protagonist is
interrogating somebody, they'rethe antagonist of that scene,
(15:15):
you know, yeah, so once peoplehave the five commandments and
an object of desire, they have aworking scene right.
So we think of it as signal andnoise.
So I always think about, likewhen you're tuning in those old
radios trying to find thestation, and it's all noise.
If you don't have anythingchanging, no conflict, no
tension in your scene, it's allnoise.
(15:35):
But once you have the fivecommandments and object of
desire, you have a signal butthere's still probably noise.
So now we got to figure outwhat's causing that noise.
The first thing that I oftensee is that people are telling
instead of showing, so wherethey want to just tell the
reader what's happening insteadof just showing the reader and
(15:55):
letting the reader understand.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
This is like a big one.
That took me a really long timeto understand, but that's the
first one is the writer juststarts telling the story to the
reader instead of showing themthings and letting them decide
what's happening.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
And do you have an example of that for someone who
might not know what that means?
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah.
So an example would be like hewas feeling anxious, right, and
what I always say is like, hey,if you were at a coffee shop and
you looked across and you saw aguy and you realized he's
anxious, how did you know?
Because he didn't come over andtell you he was anxious and you
didn't see a thought bubbleover his head saying I am
(16:34):
anxious.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Right, it would be the drumming his fingers and his
foot moving on.
Right, it would be the drumminghis fingers and his foot moving
on the stool.
It would be like the way helooked and like the way he kept
cutting his eyes at the door.
Yeah, and so our definition ofshowing is it's simply
describing what is observable.
So, whatever I can pick up withmy five senses, that's what I'm
allowed to put on the page.
So I wouldn't say he wasanxious.
(16:56):
I would say he drummed hisfingers on the table, his legs
shook and he kept glancing atthe door every three seconds.
Right when he picked up hiscoffee, he shook and it spilled
over and he like hurriedlyspilled it up.
You know, it's like all I'mdoing is describing what I can
observe.
Right, you know he's anxious.
So it's like you're painting apicture and letting the reader
decide what that means.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Yeah, Right Must well have context from the scene and
potentially the setup beforethat.
So, yeah, it's kind of like letthe reader interpret everything
and form their own conclusion,versus having a thought bubble
above the character's head.
That's like hello, I am anxioustoday.
Somebody help Makes total sense, All right, so so far we've
talked through a word count.
You said about 800 words.
(17:38):
We've talked about having ascene, protagonist and
antagonist and then includingthose five commandments of
storytelling, as well as showingreaders what our characters are
doing.
So what's the next thing that awriter would need to think
about at this stage?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So the next two things I would say are pretty
even, and I would put infodumping and bad dialogue, and so
let's just take them one at atime.
So info dumping is simply whenyou're giving the reader
information they don't need toknow.
They don't need to know or theydon't need to know yet.
Yes, so this is where, like atthe beginning of a scene, you
like give me a bunch ofbackstory or you just describe a
(18:15):
bunch of things that I may needto know, but, as the reader
remember, I just want to knowwhat happens next, and we're
writing for the reader, not forourselves.
So what I like to say is dojust-in-time exposition.
If I have to know something asthe reader, don't tell it to me
until right before I need toknow it.
So, like, if a major characteris this person's father, don't
(18:41):
tell me in chapter one about thefather.
Tell me about him right as heenters the stage.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
So save that exposition and drip it and weave
it into the action.
Don't give it to me all at once.
Right, drip it and weave itinto the action.
Don't give it to me all at once.
And usually what you find is,if I have people, if I see info
dumping and I get them to weaveit in, at least half of it just
gets cut because the readerdoesn't actually needs to know
it, and then it's woven into theaction in a way where the
(19:08):
reader is just kind of smoothlygoing through it.
It doesn't feel like thehandbrake's being pulled up.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
Right.
It feels more like invisiblecontext in a way, because you're
skimming through it.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
Okay, so that's info dumping.
And if I'm a writer listeningand I'm going to do this
exercise, I might be thinkingokay, you're asking me to make
up a scenario and write thisscene.
How do I know what's relevantif I don't know?
Like a bigger picture, which iskind of the point, right,
because we don't need to knowwhat else is relevant, we just
need to know what's happening inthe moment.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
That's right.
I mean, think about again.
If you're out on the street andtwo people start having an
argument you don't know theirbackstory, you don't know who
they are, you don't know wherethey're from You're going to
look at them, how they'redressed, how they're acting,
what they're holding.
You're going to start alreadyfilling in the gaps of who they
are, why they're fighting.
(20:00):
You know, taking what they sayand you automatically fill in
Just have things start happeningand they'll keep up with it.
We do this every day in ourlife, automatically, as we
(20:23):
automatically fill in thedetails, just based on dropping
in right when something happens.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, yeah, and it could be as simple as a word
heard in dialogue.
That gives us a ton of context.
So I think you're right.
Give us like the least amountwe need to know and exactly when
we need to know it.
And then what was the otherthing you said after info
dumping?
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Bad dialogue.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Bad dialogue.
Okay, so what does this mean?
Speaker 1 (20:44):
All right.
So there's two, the two bigmistakes I see in dialogue.
The first one is puttingexposition in the dialogue, and
the way I think about this isyou have the characters talk to
the reader instead of each other, right?
Yeah, probably one of the worstI ever saw was somebody.
There was a daughter talking toher dad and she's like as you
(21:11):
know, father, you were mean tome my whole childhood, all nine
years that I lived with you, youknow, and it's like he knows
that he's her father, he knowsthat they lived together for
nine years.
She would never say that to himin real life.
And that's the writer trying toget information to the reader
in the dialogue.
Yeah, so that's the first thing.
The second thing is agreeabledialogue, and this is 95% of
(21:34):
most people's conversations,right?
Especially any like, hey, how'sit going?
Oh, I'm doing pretty good,how's your day?
You got to cut all of that out.
And what I usually tell peoplejust go watch any TV show and
pay attention to where thedialogue starts and ends, right?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
They never hang up the phones, which drives me nuts
, but I get it.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well, and they never pick up the phone.
It's hey, how's it going?
Oh, pretty good, you know, it'slike it starts right away.
And and I mean agreeable toowhere you can't have two
characters that want the samething having a conversation,
because there's no conflict it'sthe point, yeah yeah, and so
basically, every action andevery piece of dialogue your
(22:14):
character says, every actionthey take, every piece of
dialogue they speak, has to bethem pursuing their object of
desire, which will automaticallycreate conflict if the other
character is doing the samething, only only actively.
So when you read through, whenyou're editing, this is what I'm
looking for.
Is that them pursuing theirobject of desire?
(22:35):
Is that?
If not, we need to cut it.
And I find this in my writing.
I often will write the firstphrase and then I go to write
the next phrase.
I was like, oh, there's like noconflict in this, so I just cut
both of those and startedwhatever the next line was going
to be.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
And you're like oh, it still works.
And I could almost hear peoplethinking they do this.
I see this a lot in the storiesI edit.
But they'll write things likethe hello, how are you?
I haven't seen you in 10 months.
And they're like but that'srealistic, that's how we do it.
What would you say to that?
Because I see that all the time.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
So the point of writing fiction is to not write
real life, right, it ishyper-realism, right.
So it's taking all of theinteresting bits of life and
putting them together.
So if you're trying to writesomething that's real life, you
should just write a biographyand be done with it, right.
A textbook biography wouldn'tbe done with it.
If you're trying to write astory, you're showing something
to your reader, helping themunderstand something really
(23:37):
important in their life andhelping them solve a problem in
their life, and so you want tocut out all of the boring stuff
and focus on the parts thatactually change something in the
character's life.
So, if you're realistic is notthe point, that is not what
we're trying to do as writers iscreate something realistic.
(23:59):
Otherwise, there would be noscience fiction genres, no
fantasy genres, like moststories, wouldn't ever work,
because they would be realistic.
You know what real life is mostof the time, boring, yes, and
it's not that interesting.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
If you think back on your life at the points that
stand out, it's because therewas conflict.
Your life was probably burningdown in some way.
Like that is the parts thatstand out, yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, okay.
So now let's say that we'vedone this exercise.
We've written our 800-ish wordscene.
We have characters who wantsomething, they're pursuing
their goals, we have the fivecommandments, we have dialogue.
That is not bad, and we don'tinfo dump, or maybe we do.
What do we do with this?
Like, how do we know if we'regetting better?
Speaker 1 (24:46):
So the number one way to do this is to get feedback,
and this is what I think wasmissing for me for the longest
time is I was just writing andwriting and writing and the only
like feedback I could get wasfrom writers groups.
That was usually.
It was vague, it was verysubjective of like well, I like
that or I didn't like that, anda lot of times it was even
(25:07):
contradictory.
So one person would say onething and somebody would say, no
, I actually like that part andit's like well, now I have more
information and no way toactually make a decision.
Speaker 2 (25:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And so this is why, like about a year and a half ago
at StoryGrid, I decided I'mjust going to give away as much
of our training as possible.
So that's when I startedputting all the videos on
YouTube, because I'm like,really what people need is
expert feedback, and that's theone thing that we can do is we
actually have a rubric and I canlook at somebody's writing now
that I've done it hundreds oftimes and be like, oh, that's
(25:41):
what's wrong, fix that.
And so if you Google deliberatepractice, you'll probably find
James Clear's site and whatdeliberate practice is.
And it's not mindlessrepetition, it's not just
getting your thousand words inevery day.
It's breaking a complex skilldown into individual skills,
trying it and then havingsomebody give you expert
(26:01):
feedback on what you did right,what you did wrong, and then
what you need to do to try again.
And so, like when I waslearning how to do Olympic
weightlifting so the clean andjerk and the snatch I would go
into the gym with my coach.
He would sit there with a cupof coffee, I would do a snatch.
He would be like you did thatright, you did that wrong, try
it again.
(26:21):
And I'd do it again, and thenI'd do it again and I kept
getting better and better andbetter.
Writing is the same way.
It's like write something short, give something short.
Give it to somebody that is anexpert and can look at that and
tell you that's what you didright, that's what you did wrong
, here's what you need to workon next week.
So when I first did this, weran a six week workshop and I
(26:42):
did it all by myself and I waslike I have no idea if this is
going to work and people wouldsend in their scenes and I would
send them feedback and I'm likeI don't know.
And by the end of just six weeks, people had made more progress
than they made six years ontheir own.
Now we've had like we're comingup on like 400 people have gone
through our workshops and overand over and over, we just see
(27:06):
it work.
I'm just so confident in it.
Now it's like this is whatactually makes a difference,
because we're all out here onour own trying to read books.
Listen, this is what actuallymakes a difference, because
we're all out here on our owntrying to read books, listen to
the podcast, watch my YouTubechannel.
But we're doing it all byourselves and we can't tell if
we're doing it right, and sothat's the big key that's
missing for the vast majority ofpeople.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, and not only have you seen it work with your
students, you've also lived it.
This was literally your realityfor those two years.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
And I agree that you have to get feedback.
And I know there are going tobe some people that are thinking
feedback isn't nice to have orlike maybe I can't afford it or
whatever.
But I'd like to think aboutwell, what's the flip side of
not getting feedback and you'rejust going to ingrain these bad
habits or these things?
Like, let's say, you're a biginfo dumper, you're going to
write 40 scenes full of infodumping and then that's the
(27:52):
practice you're putting intopractice.
Right is info dumping?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, in a specific way.
People will say, like well, youknow, that's not how Stephen
King learned how to write.
I'm like well, let's talk aboutStephen King.
He started writing when he was10 years old.
He started submitting stuff tomagazines and getting rejections
, so he kept, and every time andhe talked about this in on
writing if they just wrote himlike one line of don't do this
(28:17):
draft minus 20% equals edited orsomething whatever that was,
and it took him 15 years to getto the point that he wrote
Carrie and it got picked up andpublished, and so it's like I
can walk into the woods andwander around and eventually
(28:38):
maybe end up where I want to be,on the other side of the woods,
right, maybe?
Maybe let's say I don't die inthe process and most writers die
.
This is the thing People don'thear from the people that gave
up.
Yeah, maybe let's say I don'tdie in the process and most
writers die.
This is the thing People don'thear from the people that gave
up.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Right, where?
What if you had somebody thatwas a professional orienteer,
that went in there with you andwhen you went to make a wrong
turn, they're like oh no, don'tgo that way because of this
reason.
This is how you know, this isthe right way Great, this is how
you know, this is the right way, great, okay, let me keep going
and try again.
Oh, don't make that mistake.
It's like you would still.
It would still be hard andfrustrating, but it would take a
(29:13):
lot less time and energy, right, right.
So, of course, people can learnwithout feedback in this kind
of way, but it takes 10 to 20years of just like blind effort,
and this is the same thing it'slike.
When I learned how to play theguitar, what did I do?
Well, we didn't have theinternet then.
God, I'm old, but I bought themagazines, I got a guitar
(29:36):
teacher and I did all of thesethings, and I didn't just pick
up a guitar randomly, putstrings on it and start trying
to strum and figure out bylistening to music and trying it
randomly.
That would work.
I would eventually learn how toplay, but it's like the worst,
most painful, inefficient way toplay.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
And that's assuming you didn't give up before you
learned how to play, becausethat's frustrating.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
Yeah, so I totally understand that, and it's
interesting to me too, alsobeing someone who edits a lot of
scenes.
It's so cool sometimes to seethat there could just be one
thing, like a lot of people,it's the crisis moment in the
five commandments that they'relike, if I can just nail that in
every scene.
Everything else filters downand starts to work, work.
(30:27):
So it's just amazing that,depending on how your own
writing, those listening likeTim and I probably have
different things that we wouldneed to work on in a scene and
you do too but you won't knowwhat that is until you get
someone to tell you if it'sworking or not.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, and what I found is writers tend to like go
to two ends of a spectrum.
So a lot of writers I see theseare the ones that have usually
been writing a long time ontheir own.
Their line by line is reallybeautiful but nothing happens,
and getting them to actuallymake something happen in the
scene is a lot of work.
(30:57):
I'm always jealous of thembecause I couldn't do that for
the longest time.
That was like the biggest pain,because I was the other type of
writer.
I could figure out how to makesomething work in a scene, but
the line by line was sounreadable you didn't care by
the time you got there, and somost people fall in one of those
two camps.
One of those comes morenaturally and it's always
(31:18):
getting them to cross the chasmand be able to do the other side
.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Yeah, and balance it out more.
So I think it sounds like we'resaying step one is do this kind
of deliberate practice whereyou're writing in a container
with certain things you'retrying to achieve, and then step
two is getting some kind offeedback, ideally the right kind
of feedback, and then I knowyou have a free resource for
people to download as well.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Yeah, so this is the checklist that we use to check
people's scene and it's astorygridcom slash checklist, so
really easy to find, and I alsohave like our method, how we
use it and then a little videowalkthrough on how to use it as
well.
But this is that thing of likeit's an order.
I always say it's an order ofegregiousness, so it's like the
thing at the top is the mostimportant, that's the five
(32:01):
commandments all the way down toI think it's like
well-developed setting andcharacters.
And I put that at the bottombecause when I put it too high
people, it gave people a chanceto info dump.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
So it's.
It's really helpful.
In every workshop we've everrun, the last thing we teach
them is how to run writersgroups, and so literally every
single one of them has spun offwriters groups that they, we, I
still.
There's still a group of fivewomen that meet every week from
my very first workshop over ayear and a half ago.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's nice.
Okay, so we'll put the link tothe checklist in the show notes
and also, I think it'sworthwhile.
You have a ton of videos onYouTube that are breaking down
scenes.
So if you're like I don't knowif I'm ready to try the 800 word
exercise, then at least just golisten and start to get the
terminology in your brain andthings like that.
And we're also going to post alink I believe you gave this to
(32:51):
me about where we can find moreinformation on your workshop if
listeners want to, but is thereanything else that you would
like to tell people, especiallythose who are just starting out
about writing scenes or gettingstarted?
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, first of all, I want to say it is a learned
skill, so you're born withcertain levels of talent and
different things, but you canalso learn how to do things.
And I think there's thispervasive feeling that, like I
mean and again Stephen King saysthis in on writing that you
can't become a good writer ifyou're a bad writer.
And I am living proof thatthat's not true, because you can
(33:27):
go back on our podcast, look atmy early writing, completely
unreadable, and then you canread my most latest book and
it's a really good andwell-written book, and so I
think that's the first thing isthat this is a learnable skill.
The other thing is I think it'sworth learning right.
So I've gotten lots of reallycool emails from people that
(33:48):
have read my book.
But, like, I've gotten somereally touching emails from
people where, like, they'remaking really positive life
changes because of reading myfiction novel a fiction novel
called the Shithead of allthings, and it's like those are
the kind of things that, like, Idreamed of doing, of writing
something that changed people inthe way that writing changed me
(34:09):
, and so I love it so much.
And my favorite thing is when Iwatch a writer get better and
they see it, cause that's theother thing is, you go from not
being able to write to beingable to write something and you
can see the difference and thatfeeling of I've wanted to do
this since I was 14 and I justactually got better.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
It's a big deal.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
It's huge, yeah, yeah .
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And it's you know.
To go back to what we firststarted talking about and echo
what Tim said about it islearnable and it's worth
learning.
There's a way to do it whereyou're going to feel overwhelmed
and a way to do it where you'regoing to learn systematically,
and I think this is one of thosethings that it's like if you're
going to put the effort in putit into something that we're
telling you is useful and canmake a difference, instead of
(34:54):
Googling all the differentcharacter profiles and filling
them out ad nauseum and doingthings that just aren't going to
help you get better.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
So all right, Well, we will post all the links to
everything we talked about inthe show notes.
Thank you so much for joiningme again.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Yeah, thanks for having me Savannah.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So that's it for today's episode.
As always, thank you so muchfor tuning in and for showing
your support.
If you want to check out any ofthe links I mentioned in this
episode, you can find them inthe show notes listed in the
description of each episodeinside your podcast player or at
savannahgilbocom forward slashpodcast.
If you're an Apple user, I'dreally appreciate it if you took
(35:33):
a few seconds to leave a ratingand a review.
Your ratings and reviews tellApple that this is a podcast
that's worth listening to and,in turn, your reviews will help
this podcast get in front ofmore fiction writers just like
you.
And while you're there, goahead and hit that follow button
, because there's going to beanother brand new episode next
week, full of actionable tips,tools and strategies to help you
(35:53):
become a better writer.
So I'll see you next week anduntil then, happy writing.
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Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.