One editor's tool to 10x reader engagement

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Here is a simple rule you can apply to your writing to immediately increase the excitement and keep readers engaged, reading, and turning pages.
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🧳 The Accidental Tourist - Chapter 3: storygrid.noti...
My name is Tim Grahl, I'm the CEO of Story Grid and I'm the author _The Threshing_, _Running Down a Dream_, and _Your First 1000 Copies_. My partner Shawn Coyne is the creator and founder of Story Grid and he's a writer and editor with over 30 years of experience.
🧰 Additional Resources
• The 1 Thing All Great Stories Have in Common - • The 1 Thing All Great ...
• 'Read a Lot. Write a Lot.' is HORRIBLE advice - • 'Read a Lot. Write a L...
• 19 Ways Writers Fail - • The 19 Worst Writing M...
• Scene Breakdown: Ready Player One - • Scene Breakdown: Ready...
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👁️ I got the black eye from sparring in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. You should see the other guy!

[@malsurvives]

Thank you. I'm halfway through writing my first fantasy novel and have struggled with "flat spots" periodically. Your video is the most helpful I've watched ... and I've watched a LOT!

[@maghurt]

I love The Accidental Tourist! I know these people, she writes them so well.

[@wasthataflute]

"To tell the truth, we can't be realistic" is a great quote!

[@kaitnip]

"...people are doing things but it's hard to tell where the scene is going" - yep, guilty as charged.

[@harpo345]

My rule of thumb is, if it isn't exciting me, it sure as hell won't excite anyone else.

[@tehufn]

You can write a story without conflict, it'll just be boring, like a textbook. Although, it'll probably be worse since at least you can learn from a textbook.

[@SarahMcAshan]

Looks like your Jiu-Jitsu practice got progressively complicated there 👁 Great advice here, and Tyler is a wonderful example to study!

[@feruspriest]

I'm looking forward to the story grid 3.0 book (I assume a 2.0 will come from Shawn) where you repackage some of these new techniques.

[@miggseye]

I’m looking for the link to Chapter 3 of the “Accidental Tourist” but am not seeing it. Am I missing something?

[@nikkinewbie6014]

It’s there now if it wasn’t before. You have to click on “more” and then scroll down.

[@StoryGrid]

Yeah @miggseye, sorry about that. I forgot to post it as first but it's there now. - Tim

[@miggseye]

@@StoryGrid Thank you!

[@theimaginarium]

(in Batman voice): ESCALATION.

[@5Gburn]

How would you approach a scene in which the character wants nothing but to d i e (not Chop Suey style, just let it happen because she's being tortured?) and her d e a t h is imminent anyway? So the entire scene she's hallucinating...and the saving is out of her control but *is* a catalyst for what happens soon after? (I've hallucinated due to dehydration, and trust me--at that point you don't have a care in the world; you're just an observer.) Would that be fine in this paradigm? The power of 10 applied to, say, a three-scene arc?

[@mcrumph]

What I am wondering is why are you sticking to the advance to the single climax? I am working on a piece where one of my protagonists moves to a new city in a new country. What does he want? Not even he really knows. Find a job? yep. Meet some interesting people? yep. Maybe romance? yep. Experience a whole new culture? Most definitely. So what I am thinking is that if you broke this down, it would look like a an ocean (offshore) full of swells. As winds increase, the swells (& thus the consequences) grow. Perhaps something doesn't work out & he finds himself back at square one(i.e. a becalmed ocean). Well, that's okay, he's intrepid & patient in his perseverance, so he simply squares his shoulders & gets on with the task at hand. Perhaps another character's story line might look more like a vortex. Everything they do seems to bring them back to the same situation; rather, a variation on a theme, always taking larger loops around the 'center of gravity' but always winding up at the same spot, until they manage (through some insight or the other), they are able to break free of their repetitive situation. Thank you for helping me put what had been percolating into actual words. I still will take your advice about the 10s, but I think it can work in many different paradigms.

[@saramichellewho]

Overall I think this is good advice but I think you’re wrong about fatiguing, or more your info is kind of incomplete. I think readers will get fatigued if every scene is ramped up and extreme and the story will actually have no where to go. I think of action movies that have explosion after explosion after gunfight on the roof of a train after explosion. There ends up being no tension or intrigue. Pacing the overall narrative is more important to me. The actions of the characters also have to be consistent with how they would act in those situations, or they have to be intentionally acting out of character, which has to have a baseline established already. Other wise the characters end up just feeing like plot points in a trench coat.

[@dreamslayer2424]

Do you have examples of books that you believe demonstrate this fatigue? I'm surmising from your comment that you had books in mind.

[@5Gburn]

Right. I feel like some scenes in novels are for character development and foreshadowing, leaving breadcrumbs in the dialogue and narrative. You'll have some of that in a scene, too, but you really can't expect 400 pages of ratcheting tension in every scene--or at least not intensely racheting tension. (Though some are in for GRRM's tension level. I really need to read at least one of his.) Dread, for example, relies on drawn-out, internal tension--on the part of the reader, if not the characters explicitly. We know something horrible is going to happen at some later time just by what is happening in a particular series of scenes. And dread isn't going to develop in one scene. Tacit agreement to horrible things happening to you can build dread--look at the average worker's life. Don't they dread going to work, sometimes to the point of a mental breakdown? I don't think the advice in this video applies to all genres or story goals.

[@dueling_spectra7270]

Ice cream? 🍨 Not worth the effort?😱 Sorry, that doesn't compute!🤯😆

[@MrNoucfeanor]

Lololol! I was just thinking of all the horrible things I'd be willing to do for a pint.

[@gzbd0118]

I think sometimes writers write something for themselves then have a hard time to see it from the reader's point of view. I recently had the experience of my wife reading a draft of my book (she's a saint) and saying X was really boring. I went back and said X is one paragraph in a whole novel. She said "yeah but I really didn't want to read it." What was it? Character background exposition. Something I wrote to get clear on something for myself, but which didn't really advance the story in that particular scene. It set up something later, but in too clunky a way. Should have shown, not telled, and doled out that info in a more dramatic way when it became relevant.

[@dameanvil]

00:00 💡 The power of 10 is a writing tool used to enhance scenes by increasing energy, tension, and conflict. 03:59 📈 The structure of a scene involves progressive complications that heighten the tension until a turning point is reached. 07:24 🛠 To implement the power of 10, writers should brainstorm at least 10 ideas to escalate the conflict and excitement in their scenes. 10:23 🧐 Writers should ask themselves how they can make each scene worse for the protagonist, keeping readers engaged. 12:39 💭 Concerns about realism in pushing scenes too far are addressed by emphasizing the importance of storytelling truth over realism.

[@cpryan127]

Very clear. Illustration helped. Thank you.

[@chelseyummali]

Are you a martial artists? I feel like you alqays look beaten up 😅 I hope that disnt sound bad.

[@bryanripple4484]

Another video, you told me to separate what I thought from my life story. It worked magnificently. Turned me from rude to .dude. thank you..

[@pauligrossinoz]

This is _awesome!_ Thank you! 👍 😊

[@bertwesler1181]

Here's a little tenion for you. I think you took wahy too long to get to the point, but once you got there it was impactful. This should have been done in half the time. And the resolution: I subscribed.

[@robertfaust7114]

So simple and so important. Well done!

[@superflysquirrel]

I know this is about working, but I noticed the bruise under your eye, and I remember in a previous video a bruise on your cheek... Are you a boxer too? Newbie to the story grid and living all the info!!! Thank you for all of the great work 🩷

[@j.munday7913]

Maybe people really hated this tip and smacked him? /joking

[@feruspriest]

He does jui jitsu, could be from that.

[@StoryGrid]

Yep, it's a brazilian jiu-jitsu bruise. - Tim

[@superflysquirrel]

@@StoryGrid very good, my mind is at ease lol 😅

[@heidihuffler9722]

I was thinking the same

[@sambakerman9406]

How do you do this in the first chapter - before the global inciting incident occurs?

[@annavernick1490]

so clear! thank you!

[@Knife-c9l]

Vid was helpful, thanks !

[@MrRosebeing]

Now I understand, thank you.

[@Jam27365]

That was excellent Tim, a practical reminder. I read The accidental tourist’s chapter excerpt; what would you say were the 5 commandments of that scene please? Was the TP when she said Don’t you curse at me? Or earlier, when she said she’d visit the jail and shoot him?

[@MrNoucfeanor]

Even cottagecore/slice of life has conflict.

[@a.allynharker835]

This might by your best video yet. Many thumbs up, lol.

[@bronzedragon3702]

Hey, I have a question about this if you have the time. You're talking about scenes, where I've seen a graph like this meant to cover the entire novel. Does every scene/chapter need to follow this type of strategy? And how do you make it work alongside the novel as a whole?

[@abhinandangurjar9826]

well, my understanding is the graph is for a whole arc of a story, but if your novel is short you can use it for novel as whole. And as he scene, make sure the character is present in the scene have something they want, not like a goal but more of an, in that particular situation what the character wants. As different character wants different things or the same thing for different reasons this creates conflict and makes the story more interesting.

[@supremekimjongun4095]

Mantap bang.

[@gzbd0118]

To give another example of a "nice" story that has tension: the "nicest" story I can think of off the top of my head is the biblical book of Ruth. It's an idyllic little pastoral love story where everyone is nice and good to each other in this tiny village (Bethlehem circa 1000bc). The meanest anyone ever gets is when that one guy (in the hebrew he is literally referred to as something like whatshisname) decides he'd rather not marry a person who he has no obligation/expectation to marry anyway. All this and yet there is compelling drama and stakes of life and death. What's more, if you read a little more into the context of when it was written (not when it was set), you'll find out that it functions as a biting genius-level political satire. All this without once getting mean. I'd talk about the other issue of telling the truth vs being realistic, but that opens up a whole other can of worms when talking about biblical literature that I'd rather not get into right now. (Spoken as someone who loves the bible, but not necessarily THE BIBLE, if you know what I mean.)

[@friendlyone2706]

One reason we love Downton Abbey is that it teaches how to have serious conflict with others and remain civilized -- and how to find unexpected solutions that give you hope about the human race. For several episodes, the seeming impossibility of a proper solution created intense internal conflict and made it impossible to quit watching. Hardened "mountain men" types in my rural neighborhood loved that series.

[@annaastrakhan1751]

Thank you very much for the Accidental Tourist dialogue example. One such example is worth hours of text about how to write dialogue.

[@BruceWayne15325]

Great content and even better advice. Thanks for sharing.

[@tedarcher9120]

The word is "Momentum", it makes you turn pages

[@aix83]

This was fantastic! Yes, scandalous plotting that dials it up to 11 is the way to go.

[@harpo345]

15:50 What you should be terrified of is boring your readers. This.

[@sonja.86]

What if the inciting incident leads directly to the turning point, like: a hunter in the middle of the woods is surprised by a storm just as he shoots his prey. I was thinking about dramatizing the arrival of the storm (first its rain, strong winds and thunder, then a lightning strike near his position turning quickly into a hurricane). But then there is no real decision to make. Its either survive the storm or die in it and it is not really up to him at that point. How do I deal with an event like this in a scene? What if the decision is made by a non-character / undefeatable force?

[@missmusic4951]

(I realize I'm not the guy who runs the channel but I think writers should generally lend their two cents if they see an unanswered question, worst case scenario is the asker disregards the answer, no harm no foul.) If it comes down to surviving the storm or risking his life to catch the prey, increase the stakes--make the prey important enough for him to seriously consider risking his safety. If he's just out for a casual hunt the stakes aren't high enough to warrant risk and the choice becomes obvious. If going home with nothing means his hungry family will starve to death, suddenly he's facing a real dilemma (and we're more invested in the outcome).

[@dueling_spectra7270]

​@@missmusic4951 Yes! This! It's called internal conflict, where the character is grappling with a choice, their morality, etc.

[@sonja.86]

@@missmusic4951 thank you for you help. 😊

[@andre_santos2181]

7:30 - I thought the rule was about arc, but you show on a scene. Not all chapters can be high energy, many of them are just setups or character building.

[@StoryGrid]

@andre_santos2181 - No no no. That's a very common misconception. Character development, setups for future payoffs, etc can, and should, all be done within the context of moving, energetic scenes that move the story forward. Having to do them separately is the mark of an unskilled writer. @sonja.86 - Given your scenario, the storm coming just as he shoots his prey is actually the inciting incident. The protag thought he would shoot the prey, take his time prepping it, carry it back, etc but it's the storm arriving that throws his life off balance. I would say the OOD is "The protagonist wants TO SURVIVE THE STORM without having to GIVE UP HIS KILL." and so he tries to make that happen until he realizes he's not going to be able to (the Turning Point). - Tim

[@lindenstromberg6859]

I noticed the shiner, Did you get punched? And if so, I hope you don't mind me asking what the story is? 😁

[@StoryGrid]

It's a super boring story. I practice brazilian jiu-jitsu and caught a finger in the eye. - Tim

[@harpo345]

The messages here are: 'Don't write boring, repetitive filler' and ''Ratchet up the tension'. True, but I don't think we need a graph to tell us exactly how each scene should be structured - that in itself is boring and repetitive. Some scenes can be quiet and reflective, others can hit you with action swinging out of nowhere, or a build-up to action which never arrives. Leave the formulaic structuring to AI.