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  • The Story Grid

  • What Good Editors Know
  • By: Shawn Coyne
  • Narrated by: Dan Portnoy
  • Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
  • 3.7 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

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The Story Grid cover art

The Story Grid

By: Shawn Coyne
Narrated by: Dan Portnoy
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Summary

What is the Story Grid?

The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not.

The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult).

The Story Grid is a tool with many applications:

  • It will tell a writer if a story "works" or "doesn't work".
  • It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a story (not the person creating the story) has failed.
  • It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that story's problems.
  • It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer.
  • It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2015 Black Irish Entertainment (P)2019 Black Irish Entertainment

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

good, but needs an audio proof

useful book, if a bit overwhelming and technical at points. The audio has lots of errors and retakes are kept in. ironic for a book about good editing

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fascinating concept, well worth a listen

I really enjoyed this book. It's full of ideas I hadn't come across before and a few nice twists on well known ones. As a writer I've read loads of books on editing, but this one really has inspired me to look again at my work and editing methods.

Well worth a listen in my opinion.

Note:
Some other reviews have pointed out problems in the production, and I can't deny there are some, hence the 4 stars for performance. It could do with a really good going over, however I would encourage anyone to persevere and use the PDF for clarification. I personally found it worthwhile.

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3 people found this helpful

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    1 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

confusing and badly needs editing!

The audio quality changes multiple times, over and over again in a single section so it's obvious it was recorded on several different days, then botched together.
It's virtually impossible to follow without reading along with the pdf, so I would recommend simply buying the book instead.
Finally, the narrator voices the punctuation, therefore says 'slash' out loud instead of waiting a beat (which is no doubt what the author intended). I counted the narrator saying 'slash' 32 times in one section. Incredibly annoying!
I gave up after four hours, completely lost track of the endless lists & slashes!
It's a shame because I'm sure there's valuable information here, it's just not accessible in audio format.

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