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For the Ramen Noodle Eaters

Download the Math of Storytelling Infographic

We’ve come to the end of the line for the meat and potatoes of The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know big textbook content.

The book will be available to all of you at a special price, along with some other goodies, sometime during the week of April 27th at Black Irish Books.  I’ll make announcements with links etc. here too, as well as at Steve Pressfield’s site . And I’ll email everyone who has signed up to the editorial department too. We won’t offer it to anyone else at the usual retail outlets until you’ve plundered our stock.  Thanks for your patience!

I think it’s only fitting to go back to why it all began and to share with you the book’s preface.  So here it is:

FOR THE RAMEN NOODLE EATERS

In the days, months and years to come, it is my intention to map out Story Grids for as many novels (and some key nonfiction works) as possible. You can follow my work at www.storygrid.com and get free access to everything I do.

No joke. It’s free.

Would I prefer that you buy this expensive textbook instead? Pay even more to view or attend lectures? Hire me for an outrageous sum to give you personal tips?

Well, sure I would.

But, here’s the thing:

When I started out, there were very few people in book publishing who shared what they knew. Almost no one would. So I had to learn 99.9% of what I know and what I write about in this book myself. It took me twenty-two years to do that. And three years to write this book.

I can only wonder what I would have been able to do if I were given access to this information all those years ago. For Free!

I was broke back then. I walked a lot of times to work because I didn’t want to spend the subway fare to get there. And I spent practically every weekend at my desk at the publishing office because where I lived was…dark, dank and depressing. Plus it had no air conditioning in the summer and poor heat in the winter.

But I would have done the same thing even if I had lived in the penthouse of Trump Tower.

I love what I do and I’m not complaining about my life’s path or work. I just think it would have been incredible if there were something like The Story Grid available to me back then.

So if you’re that man or woman eating ramen noodles every night and staying every waking hour at the office trying to figure out how to write a great Story or edit a great Story, go to www.storygrid.com and dive into the archives. You’ll get everything you need there. And after you’ve sold your novel or gotten that big job, buy a copy of this book and give it to someone like you were…before you made it big or even just big enough. And continue the conversation.

Stories are the most important things we humans can create.

We need more Story nerds! As one to another, I hope you get something out of this book to make your work better.

Shawn Coyne

New York

March 2015

Next up is an announcement about what I’m going to Story Grid next!

For new subscribers and OCD Story nerds like myself, all of The Story Grid posts are now in order on the right hand side column of the home page beneath the subscription shout-out.

 

Download the Math of Storytelling Infographic


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Shawn Coyne

SHAWN COYNE created, developed, and expanded the story analysis and problem-solving methodology The Story Grid throughout his quarter-century-plus book publishing career. A seasoned story editor, book publisher and ghostwriter, Coyne has also co-authored The Ones Who Hit the Hardest: The Steelers, The Cowboys, the ’70s and the Fight For America’s Soul with Chad Millman and Cognitive Dominance: A Brain Surgeon’s Quest to Out-Think Fear with Mark McLaughlin, M.D. With his friend and editorial client Steven Pressfield, Coyne runs Black Irish Entertainment LLC, publisher of the cult classic book The War of Art. With his friend and editorial client Tim Grahl, Coyne oversees the Story Grid Universe, LLC, which includes Story Grid University and Story Grid Publishing.