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 is the creator of Story Grid, the author of the

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

In this episode, we start diving into the middle build of my story. So as you recall, last

episode, we called the beginning hook and decided I had finished with that and I got tossed into

the deep end of trying to figure out what my middle build is.

So I wrote the first scene, sent it to Sean, and we talked through not only my scene, but the overarching picture of what the middle build is for.

So I think it's a really great episode.

All of us have to write a middle build at some point, and Sean gives some really good feedback

on how to wade into that pool and figure out how to tell a middle build that works.

So let's jump in and get started.

So Sean, this whole moving into the middle build thing took me by surprise because I still

felt like I had a while.

And wrapping my head around it was just really hard, trying to figure out.

Because the beginning hook kept taking all these turns that I wasn't planning on,

I had just stopped thinking about what the middle build could be.

And so when I actually sat down and started planning it, you know,

I kind of was looking at, you know, roughly 30 scenes. You know, I'm thinking the kind of middle point

of the middle build will be something with the brother. And so I was trying to think, okay,

well, how do we get to that point? And then I was going back

and like reading through all this stuff on the hero's journey again. And I feel like we're in the

...