About Story Grid
Where serious writers learn the craft.
Story Grid teaches the skills of fiction the way every complex skill is learned: in the right order, through deliberate practice, with expert feedback in short loops.
Our story
In 2015, Shawn Coyne published The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, putting on paper the methodology he’d spent decades using inside the top ranks of publishing. That same year, Shawn and Tim Grahl started the Story Grid Podcast, with Tim as the struggling writer and Shawn as the editor.
Tim wasn’t new to books. He’d spent years in publishing and written a perennial bestseller. But for over ten years he’d tried and failed to write a novel: 12 unfinished manuscripts, a shelf full of craft books, every course he could find.
Working with Shawn, Tim finally wrote a novel that worked. Then he became obsessed with a bigger question: how do people actually learn complex skills? The research on deliberate practice and “wicked” learning environments explained why so many smart, hardworking writers stay stuck for years, and what it takes to get out.
Everything Story Grid teaches today comes from three places: Shawn’s expertise and methodology, Tim’s own experience finally writing a publishable novel, and the work we do every day with writers.
What we believe
- You don't have a talent problem.You have an environment problem, and environments can be fixed.
- Practice is not performance.Build your skills on exercises, not on the novel you hope thousands will read.
- Skills come in order.Sentences, then scenes, then short stories, then novels.
- Expert feedback, in short loops.Friends, beta readers, writing groups, and AI can't tell you the truth about your pages.
- Publishable means readers love it.A story people are excited to read, rate five stars, and tell their friends about.
86%of the books he published were profitable, against an industry average of about 35%.
Shawn Coyne
Founder, Story Grid
Shawn Coyne has spent more than 35 years as an editor and publisher, including 25 years at Big Five publishing houses, and has also worked as an independent publisher and literary agent. He is a New York Times bestselling author and the creator of the Story Grid methodology, first laid out in The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know. Across his career, 86% of the books he published were profitable, against an industry average of about 35%.
Tim Grahl
CEO, Story Grid · Co-host, Story Grid Podcast
Tim Grahl has spent 18 years in publishing and is the author of six books, including Your First 1000 Copies, a perennial bestseller for more than 13 years, and the novel The Shithead. After more than a decade of failing to write fiction, he learned the craft from Shawn, and now leads Story Grid’s mission to help writers build the skills to publish novels readers love.
“I was well on my way to being one of those 14.9-year writers.”
Shawn has acquired, edited, published, or represented work by:
- 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
- Don Winslow
By the numbers
- 35+ / 18years in publishing — Shawn and Tim.
- 86%of Shawn's books profitable. Industry ~35%.
- 100,000+writers on our email list.
- 3.5Mpodcast downloads.
See the method for yourself.
Start with the free training, The 4 Steps to Writing a Publishable Novel.