Story Grid Writing Podcast

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Latest Episodes:

Beat Breakdown: Analyzing Writing Line-by-Line - Part 3 Jun 09, 2022

Show notes

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.

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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

This is our in-depth analysis of the short story EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain: https://amzn.to/3Q2UpqV

Beat Breakdown: Analyzing Writing Line-by-Line - Part 2 Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

In this episode, Danielle continues walking Tim through every single line of Ed McBain's EYE WITNESS to help him identify the beats and what they are doing.

This is a perfect episode for the story nerds!

Beat Breakdown: Analyzing Writing Line-by-Line - Part 1 May 26, 2022

Show notes

Now that we have finished up the Story Grid 624 Analysis of Ed McBain's EYE WITNESS (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WLiCyxIsCk), it's time to dive all the way down to the line-by-line writing.

In this episode, Danielle begins walking Tim through every single line of the short story to help him identify the beats and what they are doing.

This is a perfect episode for the story nerds!

624 Review + Trope and Beat Introduction May 19, 2022

Show notes

We have wrapped up our 624 analysis of Ed McBain's short story EYE WITNESS. In this episode, Leslie does a review of the 624 then Danielle does an introduction for Tropes and Shawn follows up with introducing Beats.

Five Commandments of Storytelling - Part 3 May 12, 2022

Show notes

Continuing our 624 analysis of Ed McBain's short story EYE WITNESS, we are talking through the Five Commandments of Storytelling.

This is the third in a three part episode as we deep dive through each commandment. In this episode, we go through the Climax and Resolution.

Five Commandments of Storytelling - Part 2 May 05, 2022

Show notes

Continuing our 624 analysis of Ed McBain's short story EYE WITNESS, we are talking through the Five Commandments of Storytelling.

This is the second in a three part episode as we deep dive through each commandment. In this episode, we go through the Crisis and Crisis Matrix.

Five Commandments of Storytelling - Part 1 Apr 28, 2022

Show notes

Continuing our 624 analysis of Ed McBain's short story EYE WITNESS, we are talking through the Five Commandments of Storytelling.

This is a three part episode as we deep dive through each commandment. In this episode, we go through the Inciting Incident and the Turning Point Progressive Complication.

What is happening in your story? (Part 2) Apr 21, 2022

Show notes

There are four story analysis questions you must answer for every scene in your story:

1. What are the Avatars literally doing?

2. What are the essential tactics of the Avatars?

3. What universal human value has changed for one or more Avatars in the scene?

4. What Story Event sums up the scene’s global value change?

In this episode we make it to the final one! Last week we covered the first three.

What is happening in your story? (Part 1) Apr 14, 2022

Show notes

There are four story analysis questions you must answer for every scene in your story:

1. What are the Avatars literally doing?

2. What are the essential tactics of the Avatars?

3. What universal human value has changed for one or more Avatars in the scene?

4. What Story Event sums up the scene’s global value change?

In this episode we make it through the first three! Next week is a whole episode on the fourth question.

Point of View: It's WAY more than 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Apr 07, 2022

Show notes

Is it first or third person? Past or present tense?

As you'll see in this week's podcast episode, Point of View is about way more than this.

See more here:
https://storygrid.com/point-of-view/

A story’s global Point of View includes the technical choices writers make to deliver the story to the reader. The POP premise and Narrative Device suggest Point of View combinations that create the effect of the story told by the Author to the single Audience member.

Person refers to the vantage point from which the written story is presented the reader.

First Person: I (or we) wrote a story.
Second Person: You wrote a story.
Third Person: Alex (or she or he or they) wrote a story.

Tense distinguishes the timeframe of the story.

Past: I wrote a scene.
Present: You write (or are writing) a scene.
Future: Alex will write a scene.

Mode: The final technical choice focuses on how the information is presented. This is the storytelling Mode.

Showing is an objective and immediate mode that creates the effect of being present and observing the events of the story. Here are some examples.

First Person: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Second Person: Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Third Person: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin, Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín, or “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway

Telling is a subjective mode that readers experience as if someone or something is collecting, collating, and sharing the events and circumstances of the story.

First Person: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, or Bridget Jones’s Diary by Helen Fielding
Second Person: “How to Be an Other Woman” by Lorrie Moore.
Third Person: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, Animal Farm by George Orwell, or Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather

Listen as Shawn Coyne, Tim Grahl, Leslie Watts, and Danielle Kiowski work through the Point of View for the the short story EYE WITNESS by Ed McBain: https://www.amazon.com/McBain-Brief-Ed-ebook/dp/B01KFBQEY4/

This is a Episode 254 of the Story Grid Podcast - https://storygrid.com/podcast

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