Hello and welcome to the Story Grid podcast. This is a show dedicated to helping you become a better

writer. I'm your host Tim Graal and I am a struggling writer trying to figure out how to tell a

story that works. Joining me shortly is Sean Coyne. He's the creator of Story Grid, the author of

the book Story Grid and an editor with over 25 years experience.

In this episode, Sean and I continue to work through the first few scenes of the ending payoff,

trying to make sure that they work, that they hit all the right things, that they're focused on the right conflict.

And as we work through those, we come up with some really good insights into just overall how to make your

ending payoff work. And especially if you're thinking that your book might turn into a series,

how to set up the end of your book so that you can continue in the series. So we talk through a lot of

that. I think you're really going to enjoy it. So let's jump in and get started. So, Sean, I sent you my third take on the first scenes of the ending payoff of my story.

And the last talk we had, the last episode was really helpful because it's been just rolling in my head how much, how important it is to understand what the conflict really is.

So, you know, realizing that everybody wants Jesse alive is why I was having trouble coming up with in conflict.

So I wrote these scenes and I had, I feel like you give me all this advice and I take about 10% of it

because I don't really know how that wrap my head around everything. So I wasn't I didn't end up

bringing in any past characters. So I'm curious if you think that was a mistake. I'm still

thinking they could be brought in towards the

end, and I have some ideas about that. But the other thing I did a little different was I'm still

trying to hide that the brother is a bad guy and still trying to set up President Marcus as the true

villain.

So in the first scene, him and Marcus get into it and Lila steps in,

and Marcus ends up agreeing to let him go.

But the last request that Randy has is that they cremate Jesse's body. And so I thought it was a really

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