178 | TTT002 | Choking On My Big Idea

February 19, 2024 Daryl McMullen

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178 | TTT002 | Choking On My Big Idea Daryl McMullen

February 19, 2024

Welcome back!

Today's Topic: Choking On My Big Idea

So you want to write a novel?
Let's just make it a trilogy!
Coming up with the plan

// CHAPTER 1: SO YOU WANT OT WRITE A NOVEL?

I wanted to start this episode talking about the concept of writing a novel.

When you walk through a bookstore like Barnes & Noble you might be tempted to think that it's easy to write a book. Easy to get published.

I mean just look at the number of books on the shelves!

Or maybe you're the online type - and you jump on Amazon to see what's out there. The library can be daunting. Search for something specific and you get hundreds of related books you can purchase.

But is it really that easy?

Simple answer - no. In fact writing a novel and getting it published is a very difficult task...

According to a Yahoo News article in 2021:

60% of Americans think their lives are interesting enough to become a novel
15% of us have started writing one
But only 8% of the population actually finished the job

8% - so what does that look like compared to other things? Let's look a few:

Less than 1% of the population have done the following:

Completed a marathon
Completed the IronMan triathlon
Are Olympic Athletes
Play play professional sports
Completed one SCUBA dive in 2022
So looking at those things - writing a book seems pretty simple right?
You're 8x more likely to write a novel than doing those other things

Next, only 2% of the US population has completed a PhD program

So it's easier to write a novel than attain higher education

But let's look at some things that do compare:

7% of people will get appendicitis in their lifetime
8% of Americans own or ride a motorcycle
8% of Americans have a felony on their record
8.8% of Americans are millionaires
9% of the world's population live on an island
10% of the population is left handed

So there you go - a few statistics to help us understand how difficult it is to write a novel.

When you see these stats - you start to feel the difficulty - that it's a pretty rare thing. Only 8 people out of 100 will ever pull it off. You're equally likely to become a millionaire - or catch a felony charge.

That's putting things into perspective.

Now, I know that took a lot of time - but I just wanted to set the expectation. To get a bit more specific about what it means to write a novel and how often it actually happens.

// CHAPTER 2: LET'S JUST MAKE IT A TRILOGY!

So we just documented how difficult it is to write one novel. But what if we decided to write a trilogy?

I couldn't find statistics on anything to do with trilogies:

The percentage of people who have written one
The percentage of authors who have released trilogies
The percentage of trilogies to regular book releases
Or even the total number of trilogies released to date
It's like a black hole out there...

But it's pretty obvious to me that the percentage is far lower than the 8% who publish a single book.

And my guess is that it's closer to things like running a marathon, or being a professional athlete.

Because logic suggests that if doing one thing is difficult - doing it three times has to be more difficult.

So this is my dilemma. My dream - my Big Idea came to me suggesting it needed to be a trilogy. I didn't come up with that idea - it just became painfully clear that it shouldn't be one book - a singular novel.

So this is where the phrase, Biting off more than you can chew... comes into play:

It would be one thing if I was already a published author - and decided I was going to write a trilogy
But it's a whole other thing to jump into the writing game with no experience and think that a trilogy makes sense as your first project

And yet - here we are...this is probably the biggest reason why things stalled out for me in the past.

The entire concept of a trilogy is daunting. And the more I read about Story Grid, and the recommendations it was making, the more worried I became. More about that in the next chapter...

But before I dive too far into that - let's finish this chapter up by looking at a few reasons for writing a trilogy. Why someone would think to do this in the first place...

According to an article by online-spellcheck.com called, Trilogies - Why Are They So Popular?

The author starts out by admitting that we don't know
There is no scientific evidence that a trilogy should work
But yet there does seem to be something about the number three
Aristotle divided stories into three parts: The setup, the conflict and the resolution
Or simply the beginning, middle and end
Plays often have a three act structure
And then there is this thing called the "Rule of 3" - the idea that there is something mythical about sets of three - which bleeds into everyday life in simple things like: On the count of three, three strikes and you're out, I'm not going to tell you a third time, etc.
Recent trilogies like The Hunger Games and Divergent suggest that people are ready for this type of content
The author goes on to suggest that there is a common theme among popular trilogies:

Most of them are in the sci-fi or fantasy genre
The stories include fantastical worlds that are hard to flesh out in one book
And people seem to want more of these worlds - allowing the author to spread their ideas out over more books

For me - this is probably why I'm leaning into the whole idea of a trilogy.

I have always been fascinated by the book The Stand by Stephen King.

And the Big Idea I have definitely has those vibes. When I look at King's book - I realize the only reason it wasn't a trilogy is that King wanted to keep it all in one book.

But that means it is a very long book. In fact it is 1,472 pages long. The book is broken up into three sections or acts. But it's still all one book.

Divide 1,472 by three and you get roughly 491. I opened up one of my A. G. Riddle books and wouldn't you know it - 502 pages.

So The Stand could easily have been a trilogy - with three books roughly 500 pages each.

Now I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it. King did what he did for a reason. If there were three separate books - the story may have needed to be restructured - with more dramatic storylines, plot points and climaxes for each of the three books. I don't know. But you get the point.

Knowing all of the things I want to cram into my story - I can see it getting out of control like The Stand.

So I'm choosing to break it up.

// CHAPTER 3: COMING UP WITH THE PLAN

Story Grid has a crap ton of resources for writers wanting to write a single novel.

But literally two pieces of content on trilogies - which suggested a few things to me:

Trilogies are so difficult, the Story Grid people don't even recommend them
Trilogies don't really fit into the Story grid model
That a trilogy is nothing more than three well-structured novels, following the Story Grid principles, placed together

So I contacted Story Grid to ask these questions. And they actually got back with me:

They admitted they had a dismal amount of content related to trilogies
They suggested I might find it profitable to hire a Story Grid editor
They recommended I attend a 6-week workshop
Or I could start with a free 30m consultation with one of the main Story Grid guys

Due to the fact that I only have a few chapters written - and I'm still struggling with the Big Idea in trilogy terminology - hiring an editor isn't the right move.

A 6-week workshop would be fun - but not sure I have the resources or the time to invest into that right now.

But the 30m consultation sounded amazing. I just need someone to point me in the right direction. To tell me I'm on the right track with my outline and the overall structure.

So that's my next step. Complete my full outline, and come up with some very detailed questions so the 30m call will be profitable.

Then - in the future - hiring a Story Grid editor would probably be a good next step. Maybe as I get close to finishing the rough draft of the first novel.

But let's end today with two gold nuggets from the Story Grid Universe:

The 5 Commandments of Storytelling
The Math of Storytelling

According to Shawn Coyne, the creator of the Story grid methodology, you must abide by the 5 Commandments of Storytelling. These 5 elements are not just used once in your novel - they are used over and over again at every level. The 5 Commandments are:

Inciting Incident
Turning Point Progressive Complication
Crisis
Climax
Resolution

Now you can see how a book would have these at the highest level - right?

Your story opens with some crazy event that happens
Then the story unfolds and the plot thickens
At some point there is a major crisis
That leads to the most climactic moment in the story
And then you learn how the story ends

But according to Shawn Coyne - these 5 elements aren't just used at the highest level - they are used at every level:

So the Beginning of your book would have the 5 Commandments
The first part of the Middle would have them
The second part of the Middle would have them
The End would have them
All the way down to the scene level
Each Scene should have the 5 Commandments driving them

When I first heard this I thought, "Well, that's a little excessive. I get the concept - but you can't demand that they be used in every piece of a story."

But as time went on - I started to see the value in it. As I read novels I started to pick up on the 5 Commandments showing up scene by scene - creating the narrative drive that kept me turning the pages.

I'm still not 100% there - but I'm really trying...

Next, Shawn Coyne and Tim Grahl did a podcast episode called, The Math of Storytelling, discussing how we can reduce the mystery of writing a novel by applying simple math. According to Shawn:

Novel: 60-80,000 words total (Could be closer to 100,000 for a Fantasy, or Epic Adventure novel)

Beginning: 25% (20,000 words)
Middle: 50% (40,000 words)
End: 25% (20,000 words)

Average scene length: 1,500 words

40-65 scenes total (Could be up to 110 or 120 in a Fantasy, or Epic Adventure novel)
20,000/1,500 = 10-15 scenes
40,000/1,500 = 20-30 scenes

20 Skeletal Scenes:

These are simply the 5 Commandments of Storytelling in each of the 4 parts of the book:

Beginning: 5 scenes
First Half of the Middle: 5 scenes
Second Half of the Middle: 5 scenes
End: 5 scenes

At 1,500 words per scene - this removes 30,000 words from the total right away
That's over half of your entire book!

Now - this is where Shawn and Tim left the conversation about math
But I want to go a bit further, to show you how adding in a few more elements can get you the rest of the way there
Starting with the required Conventions and Obligatory Moments for your genre:

I'm sure we'll talk more about these in a future episode
But for now - the simple explanation is this:

Every genre has a set of elements that must be included or the reader won't be satisfied
For example, in an action story - there has to be a hero and a villain or the story won't work
And there has to be a "Hero at the mercy of the villain" scene or the story won't work
Same with horror stories, love stories, etc.
Each genre has it's own special sauce - elements and scenes that must be included or the reader will feel cheated

So when you sprinkle in these scenes at 1,500 words each - you might knock out another 20,000 words
Now you've knocked out 50,000 words
If your novel is 60,000 total - you're so close!
If it's 80,000 you're well over half way there

Next, you can add a whole other layer to the story:

There's this thing called The Hero's Journey
I made reference to it the last episode - and we'll probably do a deep dive into it at some point as well
The Hero's Journey is a very specific story arc you can follow in telling a good story
It has very specific scenes, conventions and obligatory moments - as well as a set of interesting characters
If you wanted - you could use this to generate another set of scenes in your story - ensuring that it includes the elements of The Hero's Journey

And finally, add in scenes throughout each section of the novel to give it more flavor, add context, build your world and grow your characters

If you add up all of these elements - you should have reached your 60-80,000 word count

Now I know - easier said than done right?

But for me - this was a game changer. It took the blank piece of paper I was staring at - and added boxes with prompts. It created an outline with very specific pieces of content required in very specific places in the story. I started taking pieces of my story and adding them to boxes - and before long the outline started to take shape - making the end product feel that much more attainable.

But I get it - this method only works for people who love this type of writing.

Kristen Kieffer wrote an article explaining the difference between Pantsers and Plotters:

A "pantser" is a writer who write by the seat of their pants - very spur of the moment - writing by inspiration type of thing
A "plotter" is someone who would most likely do in-depth pre-writing before ever sitting down to write

So obviously - the Story Grid and The Hero's Journey fit better into a "plotters" workflow.

Not that a "pantser" couldn't instinctively write using many of the same structural elements.

So the things we walked through today work well for me as a "plotter." But that doesn't mean they will work for everyone.

If you immediately found yourself balking at the ideas I was presenting - you might be a "pantser." And that's fine.

If I were you - I would do a Google search on "writing as a pantser." I would look up some famous pantsers - like Hemingway, Isaac Asimov and Stephen King and read up on their writing style.

But either way - pick a style and take your next step in the process.

Let's Land the Plane:

Friends - thanks again for hanging with me today.

Love this new thing we're doing and can't wait to get into the actual writing process.

But until then - these are good first steps. As a "plotter" this is the hard part. The foundation-building step that is crucial to the success of the overall project.

Outlining, planning, setting landmarks and waypoints - all creating a well lit path for me to travel when I start writing.

So that's where I'm at in the process.

Until next time friends - have a great week - and keep Transcending Human!

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