I listened to the Story Grid podcast when they verrrry first started out (like day one following their content) and gradually fell off for a few reasons, largely that the longer the "academic" work of Story Grid went on, the greater the strain on the efficacy on the core concept became. The pivotal moment for me was when they started analysis a non-fiction manuscript on the podcast and just nonnnnne of the Story Grid worked at all. That and so much of it is just the marketing exercise of slapping a proprietary name of something from the Anatomy of Genre and calling it new IP. I will say I completely agree that denoting characters as following sub genres rather than books is by far and away the *most* useful mechanistic conceit put forth in the Story Grid write-large. On the point you make around 15 min I've never seen any written piece of Story Grid content adequately explain value shifts which is so weird - I think partly because it's always soooo contextual, which is part of why the very early eps of the podcast are great because Shane has to help Tim to understand the concepts so that Tim can implement them in his first book. Curious if you've listened to any of the podcast and if so what you thought?
I also started listening to the podcast right around the time it started, probably Sept/Oct 2015 - I remember because it was my first year of uni haha! But I fell off as well. The earliest episodes were useful - I especially loved when they shared Tim's work in the podcast notes so we could read and follow along. The ones where they were dissecting Tim's stories were the best - and for a while it was the most practical podcast on writing out there. I LOVED seeing the process up close and dissecting his story. But I completely agree with you! I listened regularly until 2018ish when they started launching their courses (certified editors and story grid university) and it became SO theoretical and, like you said, academic that it wasn't helpful anymore. I haven't listened to much of the non-fiction stuff, because I considered it irrelevant :) Always, though, the genres, 5 commandments & value shift continue to be very helpful (even though, yes, I was surprised when I read Robert McKee's book Story that the content wasn't as unique to story grid as I originally thought)
@@NicoleWilbur Oh my god the auto-correct on Sean vs. Shane my phone did! Eeek, thanks Tim Cook! I literally referenced Sean Coyne in my first academic book and my phone has betrayed me. Oh my god yesss it was course launches that threw for a spin where it suddenly became sort of an MLM. Like get certified as a story-grid-er and you can certify others type thing. On the note of the non-fic stuff being irrelevant I feel like half of my career has been made by punishing myself consuming bad and irrelevant stuff put out by projects I like. I think that content informs so much of the pathos behind the Story Grid in the first place. They spent soooo much air time and energy trying to square the circle, e.g. make the story grid work for non-fiction, and it just doesn't outside of creative non-fiction (think about the back third of Stevie King's On Writing, that defs forms to their ideas). I could talk about this for hours on mic (and have) but when I first got a commercial editor for the Maynard Trigg series was right around 2016, so same era - I finished my writing degree in 2015 so I was bright eyed and bushy... And I remember me and this new commercial editor were having a pint after a structural editing session, and we tried to find the "thing" that the Story Grid relies on that it can't say out loud. We gestured vaguely at it's a system designed to codify creativity into things that are good and things that are wrong. I *think*, with half a decade and change of thinking over many more pints, is that the Story Grid attempts to unify a dozen existing standards and so becomes a new standard. And as with all standards, for a competent practitioner it becomes a crutch (think about Brandon Sanderson walking ass backward into becoming the bland Marvel movies fantasy book equivalent), and for artists it becomes part of the fundamental toolkit that ought to be challenged and subverted with purpose and elemental need. And indeed to Steve Pressfield, Coyne's alumn client, every method is inevitably underpinned by the spiritual. The mythic. And because it's America, god and angels and whatnot. There is like an auto-critique built into these frameworks that when they run into edge cases they have to fall back on "but art sometimes be... magic" and like give me a rest... you can't have it both ways. Which by definition makes it unsuitable for new writers and borderline mundane for practitioners. Because if you're a new writer it tricks you into a safe template and if you know what you're doing it's just another set of (useful) tools that replicate work done by others. HOWEVER, the valence shift and a much more peeled back spreadsheet approach (I use miro these day not excel) to map scenes during the *edit* is a no-brainer godsend that I'm unwilling to give the story grid credit for. The idea of it as a prescriptive way to write books instead of a diagnostic tool is the most capitalist-pilled rebranding someone else's work nonsense. Anywho, essay over for now
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I didn't know about these books, thanks!
Hope you like it!
❤
I listened to the Story Grid podcast when they verrrry first started out (like day one following their content) and gradually fell off for a few reasons, largely that the longer the "academic" work of Story Grid went on, the greater the strain on the efficacy on the core concept became. The pivotal moment for me was when they started analysis a non-fiction manuscript on the podcast and just nonnnnne of the Story Grid worked at all. That and so much of it is just the marketing exercise of slapping a proprietary name of something from the Anatomy of Genre and calling it new IP.
I will say I completely agree that denoting characters as following sub genres rather than books is by far and away the *most* useful mechanistic conceit put forth in the Story Grid write-large.
On the point you make around 15 min I've never seen any written piece of Story Grid content adequately explain value shifts which is so weird - I think partly because it's always soooo contextual, which is part of why the very early eps of the podcast are great because Shane has to help Tim to understand the concepts so that Tim can implement them in his first book. Curious if you've listened to any of the podcast and if so what you thought?
I also started listening to the podcast right around the time it started, probably Sept/Oct 2015 - I remember because it was my first year of uni haha! But I fell off as well. The earliest episodes were useful - I especially loved when they shared Tim's work in the podcast notes so we could read and follow along. The ones where they were dissecting Tim's stories were the best - and for a while it was the most practical podcast on writing out there. I LOVED seeing the process up close and dissecting his story.
But I completely agree with you! I listened regularly until 2018ish when they started launching their courses (certified editors and story grid university) and it became SO theoretical and, like you said, academic that it wasn't helpful anymore. I haven't listened to much of the non-fiction stuff, because I considered it irrelevant :)
Always, though, the genres, 5 commandments & value shift continue to be very helpful (even though, yes, I was surprised when I read Robert McKee's book Story that the content wasn't as unique to story grid as I originally thought)
@@NicoleWilbur Oh my god the auto-correct on Sean vs. Shane my phone did! Eeek, thanks Tim Cook! I literally referenced Sean Coyne in my first academic book and my phone has betrayed me.
Oh my god yesss it was course launches that threw for a spin where it suddenly became sort of an MLM. Like get certified as a story-grid-er and you can certify others type thing. On the note of the non-fic stuff being irrelevant I feel like half of my career has been made by punishing myself consuming bad and irrelevant stuff put out by projects I like. I think that content informs so much of the pathos behind the Story Grid in the first place. They spent soooo much air time and energy trying to square the circle, e.g. make the story grid work for non-fiction, and it just doesn't outside of creative non-fiction (think about the back third of Stevie King's On Writing, that defs forms to their ideas).
I could talk about this for hours on mic (and have) but when I first got a commercial editor for the Maynard Trigg series was right around 2016, so same era - I finished my writing degree in 2015 so I was bright eyed and bushy... And I remember me and this new commercial editor were having a pint after a structural editing session, and we tried to find the "thing" that the Story Grid relies on that it can't say out loud. We gestured vaguely at it's a system designed to codify creativity into things that are good and things that are wrong.
I *think*, with half a decade and change of thinking over many more pints, is that the Story Grid attempts to unify a dozen existing standards and so becomes a new standard. And as with all standards, for a competent practitioner it becomes a crutch (think about Brandon Sanderson walking ass backward into becoming the bland Marvel movies fantasy book equivalent), and for artists it becomes part of the fundamental toolkit that ought to be challenged and subverted with purpose and elemental need.
And indeed to Steve Pressfield, Coyne's alumn client, every method is inevitably underpinned by the spiritual. The mythic. And because it's America, god and angels and whatnot. There is like an auto-critique built into these frameworks that when they run into edge cases they have to fall back on "but art sometimes be... magic" and like give me a rest... you can't have it both ways.
Which by definition makes it unsuitable for new writers and borderline mundane for practitioners. Because if you're a new writer it tricks you into a safe template and if you know what you're doing it's just another set of (useful) tools that replicate work done by others.
HOWEVER, the valence shift and a much more peeled back spreadsheet approach (I use miro these day not excel) to map scenes during the *edit* is a no-brainer godsend that I'm unwilling to give the story grid credit for. The idea of it as a prescriptive way to write books instead of a diagnostic tool is the most capitalist-pilled rebranding someone else's work nonsense.
Anywho, essay over for now