3min chapter

Story Grid Writing Podcast cover image

How Does a Writer Use Active Beats to Generate Words?

Story Grid Writing Podcast

CHAPTER

Is Your Audience a Number?

A lot of people who want to be story tellers are looking at the audience as in, i it relationship. So they're saying to themselves, i need to get a million people to read my book. It makes you very, sort of, what's the word, very results driven. Yet, transaction, all rig transaction. You want to get that scene done so that you can go to something else. I we dentigrate play. And it's actually the thing that enables us to grow. Why do you think children play? It's a developmental skill. They take on the persona of another person. They empathize and they practise sympathy.

00:00
Speaker 2
Makert,
Speaker 1
right. What does this have to do with writers and audiences? Ok, so here's the thing. I think a lot of people who want to be story tellers and want to be a writer, they have a foundational problem. And the foundational problem is that they're looking at the audience as in, i it relationship. So they're saying to themselves, i need to get a million people to read my book. It, it, it. They are in number. They are a metric. I want to optimise instead of i thou. What is my audience thinking about that? Stimulus, instead of me, right? Stimulus. Hope audience likes
Speaker 2
anyowis right. Ritri,
Speaker 1
soi it is. Y. It makes you very, sort of, what's the word, very results driven. Yet,
Speaker 2
transaction, all rig transaction. Ye.
Speaker 1
You want to get that scene done so that you can go to something else. Rigt. Instead of the imaginable world of a little kid playing super hero. Ya, ya, ya. They don't have any interest in stopping playing super hero until they're too tired. They play super hero all day. They'll play doggy all day. They'll play, whatever is fun. I we dentigrate play. And it's actually the thing that enables us to grow. Why do you think children play? It's a developmental skill. They take on the persona of another person. They empathize and they practise sympathy. So when you're writing, i think one of the things that gets in the way of bottom up generation of words and stimuluses and responses is this this general attitude that the audience is an it, and i need to just deal with them as a number that i'm going to maximize and optimize after i've done my beautiful, creative work, and then i can jam it down the it, you know, i'll find the its that like my beautiful creations. And all should like my beautiful creations. Instead of, how am i doing? How am i doing out there? Audience. And what do you do? You imaginably pretend to be in the audience. Would this be surprising to me? Would this be interesting stimulus to me? Or would i think this was shoe leather? Am i surprising the audience? Am i giving them energy? Am i giving them meaningful trajectory of story? So all of this can be really, really clearly delineated in scene construction. Now, i know we have only gone over one form of beat and there are two different other ones. But when you're just starting out simply doing stimulusn response and doing like a tennis game, and
Speaker 2
then guess what's going to happen?

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