Hello and welcome to The Story Grid podcast. I'm your host, Tim Graal, the struggling writer,

trying to figure out what it means to tell a good story. Sean Coyne is going to join me soon. He is

the creator of the story grid, the author of the book The Story Grid, and he has 25 plus years

as an editor, and he shares all of his insights with me so that you and i can learn together

in this episode we talk about the five commandments of storytelling we walk through what each of the

commandments is and why every piece that he talks about has to be in every story to make sure it works

it's a really great episode.

I know you're going to learn a lot. I did while talking through it with Sean. So we're just

going to jump right in and get started. So Sean, we're finally reached that point in the story

grid where we have to talk about the five commandments of storytelling. So this is feeling

like very biblical and rule-based. So tell me why you call them the five commandments of storytelling.

Well, for that very reason that it does sound very authoritative and, you know,

dictator because storytelling is really does go back, you know, the mother of all stories is,

you know, the Bible is, you know, a great example of classic storytelling. And so the way we communicate

as human beings is through stories. And that's kind of what separates us from every other

living thing. So I use the word commandments because they are sort of, you know, in my opinion, they're holy. They're, they're mystical.

They're things that are really, you know, part of our, you know, metaphysical life. So I wanted,

I wanted to use the word commandment to make the point that these are these aren't suggestions you know

these are not you know oh i'll take a little bit of this and a little bit of that and it'll be fine

no you've you've got to really take these commandments seriously because if you don't, you're just, you're an amateur.

You're not dealing with reality.

You're not dealing with the craft.

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