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 soon is Sean Coyne. He's the expert. He's an editor with 25 plus years

experience. He created the story grid. He wrote

the book story grid. And in this show, he is helping me to stumble through and figure out how I can

tell a story that works. In this episode, we really start looking at the psychology of the characters

in our books. what each one of them

wants, the power interaction between each of them, and diving into making sure the motivations for

my characters are exactly what they should be.

Now, most of the time, these intros are only about a minute long, but I want to stop here and talk a little bit

about something that's been on my mind since we recorded this episode. So this is the first

episode that I got noticeably frustrated with the process. I was getting frustrated with Sean.

I was getting frustrated with myself. I was getting frustrated with myself. This entire

process is driving me a little crazy. But in the middle of this as well, I've been learning a lot

about the idea of deliberate practice. Now, I can't dive into that very much. The original idea was made famous by Malcolm

Gladwell's book, Outliers, about the 10,000 hour rule, how you have to practice something for

10,000 hours to become world class at it. But I've also been looking a lot into the research

behind that idea. And one of the biggest things that pops up is this

idea of deliberate practice. Now, I really encourage you to go out and look at what deliberate

practice really is, how it is defined, and how it can really make you better so much quicker at any skill.

But when it comes to what Sean and I are doing, one of the biggest things that I've learned

about deliberate practice is the idea of a fast feedback loop. And what that means is, as soon as I do something right or wrong,

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