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readerturnedwriter 's review for:
The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know
by Shawn Coyne
Story Grid is a writing craft book that outlines the author’s method for getting a book published. He talks about making your book “work” for readers, though he heavily focuses on making your book publishable. It also has a focus on outlining (he calls it a Foolscap, which is simply a one page outline broken up into three or four sections for the different acts). I love outlining, but I know not everyone does.
His method is to ask yourself 5 different questions:
What is your genre?
What key scenes does that genre need?
What is your POV?
What are the objects of desire?
What is the controlling idea/theme?
You format your book with these questions and then you use them in a detailed scene-by-scene chart as you edit your book.
The first half of his book then goes into depth on the questions. The second half of the book shows you how to chart the ideas he’s talked about through the book and gives an example (Silence of the Lambs) of how a book would look charted that way.
There was some good information in the book. Particularly his genre breakdown seems useful and fairly unique. When I say genre here, it’s because that’s the term he uses. While he talks about what traditional genres are known as (fantasy, thriller, etc.) he also puts other categorizations under the term. For example, he categorizes different themes your book could have and calls them genres as well.
I think his book would be useful to own a physical copy of as a reference simply for that.
I will say his book is simply a starting point, as he only breaks down a couple genres (such as action and thriller) in detail and the rest he either gives a cursory glance or completely ignores. As someone who isn’t going to write a thriller or action, this was less than helpful.
He was obviously most familiar with genres like thrillers and action books. The examples he used mostly came from them, using examples I’ve heard of but am not familiar with. He also used a lot of movie examples. One reason I love Save the Cat Writes a Novel is because she uses a wide range of examples from different genres and they are all examples from novels.
As a book to read, I found it hard to get through and understand and not as helpful as other craft books I’ve read.
His tone was a little pompous. It felt to me like he was saying if you don’t do it his way, you’re doing it wrong. I think it’s great when you believe in your writing process, but I also think it’s important to remember that everyone has a different process.
“If you’re a writer and you tell me you have no interest in bringing the audience to catharsis, you’re lying.” I think he’s probably right in most cases, but he can’t know that for sure and calling your reader a liar is probably not the best strategy.
“Whether you know it or not, your desire to write comes from the urge to not just be “creative,” it’s a need (one every human being on earth has) to help others.” I’m so glad he knows me better than I know myself. In my case, I actually agree with him. I personally want to write both to help people and to be creative. My issue comes with the way he says it and his attitude around it.
The other problem with this tone is that what he is recommending isn’t that unique. Everything he talks about in his book, I had already learned in other places and oten I liked the way it was explained more in other places (that doesn’t mean it was better there, but that it worked better for me personally).
He says disparaging things like, “This is probably the last thing they’ll tell you at the Iowa Writers Workshop, but it’s a reality worth considering.”
His focus on publishing made it feel more like a business book than a writing craft book at times. He even compares writing to Apple and Steve Jobs. If you are looking for how to make your book better as a creative endeavor, this isn’t the book for you. If you are frustrated that you aren’t getting published, you are his target audience.
I felt it was hard to follow or grasp the concept at times. This might be because I simply need to study it further. There were two things that I felt would have helped me.
First, I wish that he had provided more concrete examples at times. Sometimes he had plenty of examples, but other times, he was explaining a concept and I didn’t know what he meant in practical terms. Often, his most specific examples were with things commonly understood, like what an inciting incident is.
Second, I felt he over complicated things at times. There were even concepts that I understood before coming in, but the way he explained it wasn’t easy for me to follow. It could be learning style/preference. It could also be how wordy his book was. When explaining what a scene is (which I think pretty much all readers understand), he spent five pages on it. If he really wanted to include a definition, it could have been done in one paragraph. He also repeated himself often.
He does rehash a lot of well-known writing advice, but he does credit where he learned the information and presents it to make sure the reader understands the information in order to use his chart.
The chart itself, which he spends the end of the book explaining, wasn’t as useful to me. While I can see why it would be useful, I don’t think I personally will use it. I already have a system for editing that currently works for me (though I’ve never published a book, so maybe I’ll try it sometime).
Overall, I think the book has some good and useful ideas and I can see how his method could be useful to people. I only wish it had been edited more to make it concise and easier to understand. It will also be most useful to people who love the thriller/action genres.
Some ideas/quotes I found really helpful:
“Identifying the problems in a Story is almost as difficult as the writing of the Story itself (maybe even more difficult).”
“I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read where the scene just never shifts. They never turn. And when the scene doesn’t turn, it’s not a scene.”
“If you want to get stronger, you don’t think about the proper way to lift weights. You learn the proper way and then you actually lift weights.”
“Just because a book becomes a best seller doesn’t make it something to emulate.”
“In their desire to be unique and powerful, creative people become their own worst enemies.”
“At its most basic, a scene starts one place and ends another.”
“Change, no matter how small, requires loss. And the prospect of loss is far more powerful than potential gain.”
“A Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. Genres simply manage audience expectations.”
“As every Story must progressively complicate, a crime Story needs to begin in one place, get more and more difficult to solve, and then end in a surprising but inevitable final solution or conundrum.”
His method is to ask yourself 5 different questions:
What is your genre?
What key scenes does that genre need?
What is your POV?
What are the objects of desire?
What is the controlling idea/theme?
You format your book with these questions and then you use them in a detailed scene-by-scene chart as you edit your book.
The first half of his book then goes into depth on the questions. The second half of the book shows you how to chart the ideas he’s talked about through the book and gives an example (Silence of the Lambs) of how a book would look charted that way.
There was some good information in the book. Particularly his genre breakdown seems useful and fairly unique. When I say genre here, it’s because that’s the term he uses. While he talks about what traditional genres are known as (fantasy, thriller, etc.) he also puts other categorizations under the term. For example, he categorizes different themes your book could have and calls them genres as well.
I think his book would be useful to own a physical copy of as a reference simply for that.
I will say his book is simply a starting point, as he only breaks down a couple genres (such as action and thriller) in detail and the rest he either gives a cursory glance or completely ignores. As someone who isn’t going to write a thriller or action, this was less than helpful.
He was obviously most familiar with genres like thrillers and action books. The examples he used mostly came from them, using examples I’ve heard of but am not familiar with. He also used a lot of movie examples. One reason I love Save the Cat Writes a Novel is because she uses a wide range of examples from different genres and they are all examples from novels.
As a book to read, I found it hard to get through and understand and not as helpful as other craft books I’ve read.
His tone was a little pompous. It felt to me like he was saying if you don’t do it his way, you’re doing it wrong. I think it’s great when you believe in your writing process, but I also think it’s important to remember that everyone has a different process.
“If you’re a writer and you tell me you have no interest in bringing the audience to catharsis, you’re lying.” I think he’s probably right in most cases, but he can’t know that for sure and calling your reader a liar is probably not the best strategy.
“Whether you know it or not, your desire to write comes from the urge to not just be “creative,” it’s a need (one every human being on earth has) to help others.” I’m so glad he knows me better than I know myself. In my case, I actually agree with him. I personally want to write both to help people and to be creative. My issue comes with the way he says it and his attitude around it.
The other problem with this tone is that what he is recommending isn’t that unique. Everything he talks about in his book, I had already learned in other places and oten I liked the way it was explained more in other places (that doesn’t mean it was better there, but that it worked better for me personally).
He says disparaging things like, “This is probably the last thing they’ll tell you at the Iowa Writers Workshop, but it’s a reality worth considering.”
His focus on publishing made it feel more like a business book than a writing craft book at times. He even compares writing to Apple and Steve Jobs. If you are looking for how to make your book better as a creative endeavor, this isn’t the book for you. If you are frustrated that you aren’t getting published, you are his target audience.
I felt it was hard to follow or grasp the concept at times. This might be because I simply need to study it further. There were two things that I felt would have helped me.
First, I wish that he had provided more concrete examples at times. Sometimes he had plenty of examples, but other times, he was explaining a concept and I didn’t know what he meant in practical terms. Often, his most specific examples were with things commonly understood, like what an inciting incident is.
Second, I felt he over complicated things at times. There were even concepts that I understood before coming in, but the way he explained it wasn’t easy for me to follow. It could be learning style/preference. It could also be how wordy his book was. When explaining what a scene is (which I think pretty much all readers understand), he spent five pages on it. If he really wanted to include a definition, it could have been done in one paragraph. He also repeated himself often.
He does rehash a lot of well-known writing advice, but he does credit where he learned the information and presents it to make sure the reader understands the information in order to use his chart.
The chart itself, which he spends the end of the book explaining, wasn’t as useful to me. While I can see why it would be useful, I don’t think I personally will use it. I already have a system for editing that currently works for me (though I’ve never published a book, so maybe I’ll try it sometime).
Overall, I think the book has some good and useful ideas and I can see how his method could be useful to people. I only wish it had been edited more to make it concise and easier to understand. It will also be most useful to people who love the thriller/action genres.
Some ideas/quotes I found really helpful:
“Identifying the problems in a Story is almost as difficult as the writing of the Story itself (maybe even more difficult).”
“I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read where the scene just never shifts. They never turn. And when the scene doesn’t turn, it’s not a scene.”
“If you want to get stronger, you don’t think about the proper way to lift weights. You learn the proper way and then you actually lift weights.”
“Just because a book becomes a best seller doesn’t make it something to emulate.”
“In their desire to be unique and powerful, creative people become their own worst enemies.”
“At its most basic, a scene starts one place and ends another.”
“Change, no matter how small, requires loss. And the prospect of loss is far more powerful than potential gain.”
“A Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. Genres simply manage audience expectations.”
“As every Story must progressively complicate, a crime Story needs to begin in one place, get more and more difficult to solve, and then end in a surprising but inevitable final solution or conundrum.”