For writers! The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know by Shawn Coyne

If you are a fiction writer or interested in film or story-telling, this is a must-read. Coyne is a long-time writer and editor, having worked in the film industry editing scripts and with successful writers. This book is a culmination of how he has learned to edit manuscripts. It is his method—in every detail—of what makes a script or book “work.”

This method involves a “story grid” which is a collection of data about the manuscript. Coyne’s driving theme is that every genre contains obligatory scenes and conventions. A reader expects them, and they better be there in some form. By analyzing a manuscript through a set of tools, you can easily pinpoint where and why a story is not working.

Two “big-picture” tools are the Genre Clover and the Foolscap Global Story Grid. The first consists of five elements that define a genre. The second is a one-page description of genre, the stakes, POV, objects of desire, along with what he sees as the five crucial elements of a story (inciting incident, complication, crisis, climax, and resolution) for the beginning hook, the middle build, and the ending payoff.

The major tool for detail work is the Story Grid Spreadsheet. This lists, for every scene, fourteen characteristics such as word count, scene summary, the value and shift of the scene, POV, time, onstage characters, and more. Once all three of these tools are filled out, a multi-line graph is used to see the flow of the story, both internal and external value shifts. Coyne says that with all of these tools, it will be easy to spot weaknesses, missing conventions, loose ends, unnecessary scenes, and problems of character, continuity, and arc.

To prove how well it works, he includes some examples but works in detail with The Silence of the Lambs. I have begun employing Coyne’s tools on a manuscript I had just completed, and I am sold. It has not only made my editing easier, but fun. True, putting all the tools to use takes some time (especially the spreadsheet) but it has made me feel like I have a good handle on the story, its weaknesses, and what needs work. Sitting down each day is a joy, because I already know what I need to do.

While the use of The Silence of the Lambs is great, I wished for more description of other genres. I don’t write crime thrillers, so I want to know what the conventions and obligatory elements are for other genres. Coyne has a few online resources that go beyond the book, so perhaps that will come.

If you love seeing how the sausage is made when it comes to writing and editing, you will enjoy this book. If you are a writer, the tools provided here could prove to be invaluable. Highly recommended to writers and editors of fiction.

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