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, and an editor with over 25 years experience.

Last episode, we dove into how to lay out the world of your novel, and I started working on

that. In this episode, we go even deeper into what is the setting of your novel? And Sean talks

about the four important questions that you have to have and you have to know in order to create the right setting for your novel.

So we're going to go over those.

I think you're going to really enjoy it.

So let's dive in and get started.

So Sean, last week, we went over three of my scenes and we realized the big thing hanging me up right now is not having a fuller understanding of the world that the story is in and realizing I hadn't put enough thought into this.

And it was really kind of hamstringing my storytelling because I didn't really understand the

world that I was trying to tell a story in. So I went and sat down for a couple hours and tried to

work this out. And I made this kind of giant list of stuff that I sent you. And I'll put in the show

notes as well. I'm just curious if I was on the right track.

And when you start talking about the world of the story,

what are the actual pieces that I need to put together and figure out

to make sure I have a nice, robust world?

Yes, I agree with everything that you just said.

I think the problem that we're having now with the middle build is understanding exactly

the structure of the world that we're talking about.

What do I mean when I say the world?

What I mean is the setting.

...