Tim has finished the first scene of Book 2 in The Threshing series and gets Shawn’s feedback.

With the pandemic still sweeping the globe, Shawn and I discuss how fear can take over in these situations and what we can do in our lives and our writing.

How do you apply the idea of systems and chaos to planning a novel? Shawn walks Tim through this concept as he works on book 2 in his series.

The middle build is the hardest part of the book and book two in a trilogy is a whole book dedicated to the middle build! How do you know where to start and build the story? Shawn walks Tim through these initial ideas and decisions to make along the way.

We only have so much time and energy to dedicate to our writing. When you are stuck between working on two different projects, how do you pick which one is the right choice? Shawn walks Tim through this difficult decision.

As Tim continues down the path of working on his new novel, Shawn encourages him to take the time to 1) look at the masterworks of his chosen genre and 2) spend sometime thinking about the hero / victim / villain interactions throughout his story. To see Tim’s scenes check out storygrid.com/podcast.

This is big! Three of our Story Grid Certified Editors have teamed up to start the Story Grid Showrunners podcast. If you’ve ever been interested in how Story Grid can be used with television and episodic series, you’ll want to have a listen.

Now that The Threshing is done and (almost) published, Tim is ready to start his next book! What are the first steps down this path? How can Story Grid help him plan correctly? Shawn walks him through this in this week’s episode. Download the Foolscap in the show notes.

Continuing the discussion around writing a Contender Guide to a Story Grid Publishing novel, Shawn walks Tim through his mistakes and how to level up the analysis of his own writing.

How do you analyze a novel to learn from it? This is a big part of Story Grid and our new publishing house. Tim and Shawn discuss Contender Guides — what they are and why you should care.