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Scenes and story structure

Units of story, beats, scenes, sequences, and quadrants.

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Beginning Hook Examples That Make Readers Keep Turning PagesThink about the last book you just had to finish—the one that kept you reading way past your bedtime.
Writing Character Choices That Feel Real and MeaningfulEver written a scene where your protagonist faces a big decision, but it feels... underwhelming? Maybe the choice seems obvious—one option is clearly
The Ultimate Character Development Guide: Step-by-Step ProcessMany writers struggle with character development, often creating too many characters or too few, which causes their stories to fall flat. This Charact
Dialogue Tags: 12 Categories and 102 Examples for WritersThe art of writing is more than just stringing words together. It's about breathing life into characters, giving them unique voices, and setting the t
Writing a Sequence: Definitions and ExampleDedicated storytellers want to know how to show incremental change over time in their stories. They often know how their story begins and ends, but th
Units of Story: Beats, Tropes, Scenes, Sequences, and QuadrantsUnits of story are a way of dividing our work into manageable pieces that can be examined and edited to create a story that works. Every story is made
Story Quadrants: Definitions and ExamplesDedicated writers often want to know how characters, specifically the protagonist, change throughout a story, so they can create compelling arcs that
Story Grid 624: How to Fix Your ScenesThe Story Grid 624 is a process to help us level up our scenes so we can write stronger stories. SCENES are the building blocks of stories, and learni
How to Write Scenes: Structure, Examples, and DefinitionsScenes are the building blocks of our stories. These STORY UNITS dramatize definable VALUE SHIFTS for the AVATARS (or characters) and their CONTEXT (o
Structure Genre: Arch-plot, Mini-plot, and Anti-plotThe Structure Genre indicates to our reader who or what the change of the story will affect. It addresses whether the change will occur for a single A
Worldview Genre: Stories About Maturation, Disillusionment, and RevelationAn internal story, Worldview genres focus on the lens through which we view the world and the consequences of those lens choices. It turns on the naiv
Story Beats: The Key to Line-by-Line WritingBeats are the smallest UNIT OF STORY that writers use to convey the details of the ALTERNATE WORLD , AVATARS , and story events to their readers. A be
Morality Genre: Altruism Stories of Redemption, Punishment, and TestingAn internal story in the Morality genre focuses on the choice to act on behalf of ourselves or others and the consequences of that choice. It turns on
Story Climax: Revealing the Character of the ProtagonistThe climax of a UNIT OF STORY is when the protagonist decides and acts on the binary question raised by the CRISIS . The climax also fulfills the prom
Story Crisis: Triggering Change in the ProtagonistThe Crisis of a UNIT OF STORY is a binary, this-or-that, choice that arises out of the TURNING POINT . We reach the Crisis when all of the protagonist
Turning Point Progressive Complication: Connecting the Reader to the ProtagonistProgressive complications follow the INCITING INCIDENT , which has knocked the protagonist’s life out of balance. The protagonist begins taking a habi
Inciting Incident: Definition and 6 Examples for How to Start Your StoryThe inciting incident is a ball of chaos that spins into the story and knocks the protagonist’s life out of balance. It puts the events of the story i
The Five Commandments of StorytellingEvery effective story has five structural components that work together to communicate a CONTROLLING IDEA in a way that bypasses readers’ critical min
Book Tropes: The Building Blocks of ScenesTropes are a toolbox of common components to build a certain kind of story. You can put these building blocks together to create a story that meets th
Hamilton: Metaphor and Scene Analysis
How long should a chapter be?How long should a chapter be? Should be it be one scene? Is there a word maximum or minimum to guide us? Like all story questions we analyze with our
Worldbuilding in the Dystopian WorldIn the last article I wrote for The Story Grid, I talked about the importance of worldbuilding belief structures and its importance in Fantasy and Sci
Story Structure: Using The Story Grid ToolsLet’s take a step back from the Story Grid tools for a moment and ask “What are these tools good for in the first place?” What they’re good for is det
Three simple tools that help you avoid writing clichesStory Grid aficionados find themselves in a predicament daily. The difficulty of being unique while abiding by the conventions and obligatory scenes i
How to Write a Great Beginning HookNailing your Beginning Hook is the key to writing a strong, captivating story. But if you’re like most writers, that’s easier said than done. In fact,
The All is Lost MomentThe All is Lost moment is a crucial element of the Middle Build. It’s the pivot point when the protagonist shifts their pursuit of what they want to t
The Heroine's Journey: Examples, Archetypes, and InfographicWriters have the ability and responsibility to bring joy, hope and change to the world. Myths and archetypes are powerful tools for transformation. Th
Points of Connection: Story Macro and MicroTo write a satisfying story, we need to have a solid understanding of both the global story and individual scenes. If one or the other isn’t working,
Using the Foolscap to Draft Your Next NovelI’m a writer, and of all the methods and approaches I’ve studied about the craft, Story Grid is the one that makes the most sense to me because of its
The Five Commandments and Bruce SpringsteenThe transcript for last week's The Story Grid Podcast is running behind this week, so I thought I'd feature something I wrote for Steve Pressfield's s
The Ending Payoff Spreadsheet of The Tipping Point
The Middle Build of The Tipping Point
The Story Grid Spreadsheet for The Tipping Point
Out of the Rabbit HoleFor those of you playing the Storygridding the Tipping Point home game...at long last...we’ve reached the beginning of the ending payoff of the journe
Traits and CharacterI’m still in the lab working up my Story Grid Spreadsheet for The Tipping Point . I'm feeling good about it, but as you know, Story Grid Spreadsheets
In the WeedsShawn, you say that, “I confess that the bottom three quarters of my Foolscap page for The Tipping Point gives me great anxiety.” It shouldn’t. Provid
The Ending Payoff Story Grid“Her job, her duty, was to think about Fredrica and how Gumb might have gotten her. A criminal prosecution of Buffalo Bill would require all the facts
The Middle Build Story Grid“Do you think if you caught Buffalo Bill yourself and if you made Catherine all right, you could make the lambs stop screaming, do you think they’d be
Foolscap Coup de GraceThere must really be an even clearer demarcation in the reader’s mind at the end of this scene. Like a spectator at a Fourth of July Fireworks show, t
Tracking the Scene
Tracking the Global StoryThe first scene/chapter in The Silence of the Lambs can be summed up as “FBI Section Chief Jack Crawford summons FBI trainee Clarice Starling and recr
The Units of Story: The Global StoryAs per our Foolscap Global Story Grid, Global Story has the same five elements as each of its component parts—an inciting incident, progressive compli
Flash Forward: The Foolscap in Action"What was the final external crisis in the ENDING PAYOFF of MOBY DICK?" "Best Bad Choice: Ahab must decide whether to let go of the harpoon rope attac
How Many Scenes In A Novel: The Math of Story TellingSo you have the top quarter of your Foolscap Global Story Grid filled in. How do you begin to actually map out the rest of your Story? How long will i
Hook, Build, PayoffAfter we’ve laid out the global elements of our Story at the top of our Foolscap Global Story Grid , we need to nail down the actual major movements.
The Monster Mash UpWe've been working our way down the Foolscap Global Story Grid. Up today are the spaces to fill in the conventions and obligatory scenes of your chose
The Universal Appeal of the ThrillerWe're working our way down the Foolscap Global Story Grid and the next line we need to fill in are the Obligatory Scenes and Conventions of our chosen
Beginning the Ending PayoffThere’s two things I want to say here at the beginning. The first off is just, this is a great episode. We go over the first few scenes of my ending p
Fear of Doing Your BestIn this episode, we continue to dive in to the ending payoff. I went back and rewrote a few scenes and we go over them and it starts out just as a con
1-Page Book Plan: The Story Grid FoolscapWhile drafting or revising their novels, story writers often need a 30,000-foot, 1-page book plan for their stories to avoid going off track. To gain