Q&A - Part 2

Tim continues throwing your story questions at Shawn.

Submit your questions for future episodes at twitter.com/storygrid.

• Can you talk more about the Society genre, please? Does this lend itself better to a mini-plot story (with multiple protagonists) than an arch-plot story?
• How do you go to "the end of the line" in a story like The Accidental Tourist? Clearly, the stakes are not life or death, so how do you show a fate worse than death?
• How do we track sub-plot on the one-page Foolscap Global Story Grid? Or, do we track them at all?
• In the Action genre, Clock subgenre, the book gives four sub-subgenres with different villain types driving the plot: Ransom, Holdout, Countdown, and Fate. In Fate, Time itself is the villain, and the example is Back to the Future. Does that last one apply only to time-travel stories? How do “Time” and “Circumstances” differ as clock devices/villains?
• Is deus ex machina ever a good thing?
• What are the values at stake for a non-fiction?
• What do recommend writers do about writer’s block?
• What has Shawn learned through this process? Has he changed his mind about anything since working with Tim?
• Is there an ideal time to engage an editor and/or beta readers?