Helping Others Become Better Writers

A Q&A with Shawn Coyne. Tim took questions from Twitter and Facebook and spends an hour going through them with Shawn.

Questions asked:

• Can you tell us how making a story with multiple protagonists works with the hero's journey? Like in Game of Thrones?
• In a love story, does the All Is Lost scene necessarily have to the be Lovers Break Up scene?
• Global Value Shifts: In The Story Grid, you give two core values per internal and external genre. For example, the core values for thrillers life/death, and for maturation it's naivete/worldiness. However, when we actually start to plot our stories, the move from one value to another is gradual. That is the value shift moves from life to unconsciousness to death to damnation (THRILLER) and naivete masked as sophistication to naivete to cognitive dissonance to sophistication (MATURATION). Is this value progression consistent within a genre? That is, do all thrillers follow the same progression as Silence of the Lambs, or is it only the life/death that is consistent. Likewise, would all maturation plots follow the progression you outline for Pride & Prejudice, or is it only naivete/worldiness that is consistent?
• I would love to Shawn to explain the difference between the Worldview sub-genres, and the subtleties between what makes one maturation vs education for example. So often a character learns something, some lesson or comes to greater understanding about a truth but I have trouble differentiating if it's a maturation vs education vs revelation. Kramer vs Kramer for example...is this an education plot?
• How evenly would you space the K-Ross points through a story? Does it even matter? Or are they just guidelines for the emotional arc?