WHAT IS THE STORY GRID?The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It’s like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what’s not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify … identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult.)
The Story Grid is a tool with many applications:
1. It will tell a writer if a Story “works” or “doesn’t work.”
2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story…the Story) has failed.
3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story’s problems.
4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer.
5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.
Shawn Coyne is a twenty-five year book-publishing veteran. He’s acquired, edited, published or represented works from James Bamford, John Brenkus, James Lee Burke, Barbara Bush, Dick Butkus, Harlan Coben, Nellie Connally, Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, Ben Crenshaw, Catherine Crier, Brett Favre, David Feherty, John Feinstein, Tyler Florence, Jim Gant, Col. David H. Hackworth, Jamie Harrison, Mo Hayder, William Hjortsberg, Stephen Graham Jones, Jon Krakauer, David Leadbetter, Alan Lomax, David Mamet, Troon McAllister, Robert McKee, Matthew Modine, Bill Murray, Joe Namath, John J. Nance, Jack Olsen, Scott Patterson, Steven Pressfield, Matthew Quirk, Anita Raghavan, Ian Rankin, Ruth Rendell, Jerry Rice, Giora Romm, Tim Rosaforte, William Safire, Dava Sobel, Michael Thomas, Nick Tosches, Ann Scott Tyson, Minette Walters, Betty White, Randy Wayne White, Steven White, and Don Winslow among many others. During his years as an editor at the Big Five publishing houses, as an independent publisher, as a literary agent both at a major Hollywood talent agency and as head of Genre Management Inc., and as a bestselling co-writer and ghostwriter, Coyne created a methodology called The Story Grid to teach the editing craft.
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The Story Grid goes on my list of essential references for story structure. I found three topics extremely useful: the discussion on character arc progression; the linkage of story building blocks to not just the global story and acts, but to beats, scenes, and sequences as well; and the format of the story grid itself, which I adapted to build my aforementioned spreadsheet for The Outlands.
Great reference for writers and developmental editors.
There are a lot of writing craft books out there for writers. I’m sure many of them are useful for fledging writers to get better at their craft of writing fiction. However, I realize that a certain writing craft book comes into a writer’s life at the right time.
The Story Grid by Shawn Coyne is that book for me.
I published my third fantasy novel, Diondray’s Roundabout, and I have reached the point where I want to learn how to tell stories better. I want to learn how to tell stories from the ground up. To write stories that want to make people stay up all night to read them. Stories that make people tell their friends how much they loved that book and recommend they read it too. I want to craft stories that have a special connection between writer and reader. Stories that matter in a reader’s life and something they will return to repeatedly.
How does one learn to write stories in such a fashion? Well, I believe The Story Grid by veteran editor Shawn Coyne has created an exhaustive blueprint for story writing. Coyne has edited some of the biggest names in the publishing business during his twenty-five-year career and created a tool with The Story Grid to reveal what every successful story has regardless of genre.
The Story Grid explains the importance of choosing the correct genre for a story, the five commandments of storytelling, and how each unit of a story (Beat, Scene, Sequence, Act, and Subplot) work together to create a cohesive work of fiction. Coyne provides The Foolscap Global Story Grid and The Story Grid Spreadsheet as tools to show how a writer can breakdown their story into the proper components to write a better novel.
He uses those aforementioned tools to show why The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris is one of most innovative and groundbreaking thrillers ever written.
The Story Grid is a detailed writing craft book and provides a lot of information on how a story can come together from the first page until the end of the book. Coyne makes the point throughout the book that The Story Grid is a tool, not a formula. It is a tool to help writers become their own editor and learn fundamental story structure.
The Story Grid will become an indispensable reference tool for my writing and a must for writers who want to understand what makes a story work. Highest recommendation.
The author, an editor for twenty-years for a publishing house in NYC, pulls back the veil and shows what makes a story truly sing. It’s best for the writer who has already written their book, and is now ready to put on their editing hat and magic their workable story into a page-turning tale.
A must for every writer!
I become aware of the Storygrid podcast through another podcast I listen to, and after listening to a couple of episodes realised I needed to get the book.
Initially, I thought it was a bit pricey – but the book is almost A4 in size and as soon as it arrived I realised why it is a little bit more than other books on storytelling craft, and trust me, it’s so worth it. Make sure you do get the paperback copy rather than the ebook as you will want to use it as a textbook, scribble all over it and study the graphs and templates that are difficult to view as an ebook.
As a self-published author working without a structural editor (that mythical dying breed of editors that are becoming increasingly extinct or you have to pay thousands to review your work), I had questions that I wanted answered and Storygrid has helped me clearly identify where some of the issues lie in my own books. I was considering paying thousands of pounds to a complete stranger to try and help me – my advice now – DON’T. READ THIS INSTEAD!
I thought I was an expert in my genre, but with Shawn’s help I’ve realised the differences in the nuances in my external and internal genres across my three book series and what obligatory scenes were missing from my current WIP – and I cannot tell you what a revelation that has been for me. I only wish I’d found the Storygrid sooner. It would have saved me 50K wasted words scrabbling around in manuscript no-mans-land in my current novel.
In the book many of the examples are based on the thriller genre and specifically Silence of the Lambs, but he does cover off all of the templated points for all of the other genres. And once you know what you’re looking for you can find some of the more specific detailed stuff on his blog – eg the obligatory scenes for the three different types of Love story (my genre) and the obligatory scenes for a mini-plot based on a Worldview internal genre. But you need the book first otherwise you don’t know what you don’t know.
Much of his teaching is about pacing, using his formula of The Five Commandments, which you can break down at a micro level to ensure a beat, a scene, a sequence and an act is working, as well as ensuring this structure exists in your overall Global story, and I found the mapping of this to be sooooo useful. I realise now the problem lies in my Middle Build.
Honestly, I cannot rave about this book enough. This is a MUST HAVE writer’s resource and in my opinion, should be made mandatory before anyone is allowed to self-publish anything on KDP! It’s that good.
Get it. Study it. Scribble all over it, and you will improve not just your craft, but also the speed at which you will be able to write, publish and turn your writing ambitions into a professional career.