Beyond Outlining: A Deep Dive into Lisa Cron's Story Genius (Part One)

Episode Summary

Episode Transcript

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Oh, hey, it's that guy in the coffee shop who bought a single coffee and has been sitting there on his computer for four and a half hours. Blake Reichenbach. How's everybody doing today?

Welcome back to Inkwell Insights. Today I am very excited to talk a bit about story, and I know what you're probably thinking. Whoa, he's talking about story on a writing podcast. How groundbreaking. But I'm probably going to approach this from a slightly different angle than you are used to, because today I am specifically going to be talking about story through the lens of Lisa Cron's book, Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel. 

Now, this book has quickly become one of my favorites that I've read in recent months, and it's also one that I think I'm going to break up into two separate podcast episodes because there is a lot that I want to unpack about this book. So, I think what I'm going to do for the podcast is treat it the same way that I've treated it for the most recent book club over at the Howdy Curiosity community. And I'm going to do parts one and two of the book for one episode, and then part three of the book for another episode.

The reason I'm taking that approach is, like I said, the book has a lot for us to unpack, and I mean a lot. It's not a particularly long book. You know, it's only, I think, about 260 pages or so. Yeah, just flipping through it, 267 is the final page count before you get to the index. But Cron manages to pack a ton of information within those pages. Information is probably the wrong word. Cron packs a ton of context in those pages, and she packs a ton of exercises in those pages. And I think because there are so many exercises, so much context, and so many dense examples to wade through, it's the kind of book that really deserves taking your time as you go through it.

All right, so to kick us off, I want to give a, like, super fast-paced rundown of the key themes and the key takeaways of parts one and two to give you a sense of how she structures the book, because Cron is very methodical and very thoughtful in how the book is structured. In part one, she outlines her philosophy of story, which I'm going to come back to in just a moment, and she essentially establishes that story is this evolutionarily implanted survival mechanism that humans have developed over millennia to make sense of the world around us and to increase our likelihood of survival, our adaptability, and our ability to connect with others. And so when we encounter stories, we don't just passively take them in and say, oh, yeah, no, that was amusing. Instead, she makes the case that when we engage with a story, we are able to see ourselves in that story, or at least project part of our own psyche into the narrative. And that's what makes it so engaging, and that's why we're able to get lost in stories.

So she gives examples from film and television and novels where it's easy to, as I said, get lost. Right? You don't realize how much time you're spending inside that specific text, inside that specific world, because you're so engaged with the material. And she makes the case that it's not just pretty writing that does that. It's the story. It's our ability to see ourselves within that character's worldview and the problems they encounter, how they make sense of those problems, how they overcome those problems, or how they fell to overcome those problems, and how they learn and grow from their actions.

Also, in part one, she spends a considerable amount of time talking about writing myths. And when I mention writing myths, I'm mentioning some of the deeply ingrained habits of writers, like plotting your novels and panting, which is this concept of just writing by the seat of your pants, you know, sitting down, cranking out as many words as you possibly can, just working in those bursts of productivity, but also things like external plot structures.

So if you think back to, like, your high school English class and you have that triangular diagram with your introduction, your rising action, your climax, your falling action, your resolution. She talks through things like the hero's journey, and she essentially dismisses these writing myths as being unproductive, as being things that trap writers in bad habits, set them up to create stories that are more or less just sequences of events without really anything to keep readers hooked, without that story element that lets readers get inside the head of a protagonist they can really connect with and give them that ability to get lost in the narrative. And so over the course of part one, what she does is basically challenge you as a writer and as a reader of her book to question yourself and question everything that you thought you knew about writing and about creating a good story so that she can then introduce her methodology for how you can create and scaffold out a stronger story and something that will give you a launch pad for crafting a full novel that is more compelling and is more engaging and really has the energy to propel you as a writer and your eventual readers throughout the course of the entire narrative. And when I talk about energy propelling you forward, that's... that's an intentional word choice, because it's also, in part one of the book, that Cron introduces this metaphor of the third rail. And she goes back to it throughout the book, where she compares story to being like the third rail on a subway, right? If you're unfamiliar, the third rail is the line within a subway track that brings the juice, right? That is where the electricity comes from. That is the high-voltage line that runs through the subway and is what enables the subway trains to propel themselves forward.

And so Cron makes the case that when she's talking about story, she's talking about that third rail element, that component of your novel that just propels everything forward. And again, it's that human element that's protagonist-driven, that readers can project themselves into or see themselves in, latch onto, and follow through to the end of the manuscript. And so by the end of part one, like I said, she challenges you to question what you think you know about writing and about the creative process. And then going into part two, she essentially says, okay, now let's build up a new process. We're going to go through this step by step for how you can then create that third row, how you can build out a story, understand story as distinct from plot, and create a novel that is meaningful and that is impactful. And I would also point out at this stage, the subtitle of the book, which, by the way, I am a sucker for a lengthy subtitle. And so the full subtitle of Story Genius is How to use brain science to go beyond outlining and write a riveting novel. Brackets before you waste three years writing 327 pages that go nowhere. Brilliant. I love it. That is one hell of a subtitle.

Anyway, going into part two, here's where that aspect of going beyond outlining, so that you're not wasting three years writing 327 pages that go nowhere, really comes into effect. We start part two in chapter three, where Cron basically frames out the concept of a what if, right? She talks about how a lot of stories, a lot of beginner writers start their stories, start their novels with this concept of a what if statement. You know, what if an asteroid is about to crash into earth? What if you go out for your morning walk with your dog and your car is missing? What if you go to turn on the lights and all of your furniture is upside down and covered in slime? These are the concepts that in and of themselves don't make a story, but they present you with the germ, with the seed of a story. It might just be a scene or a character or a particular concept that you want to play with, but at this stage, it's still premature. It's not something that you can turn into a full novel. And Cron, of course, has her criticism of the what-if framing and the over-reliance on what-if type prompts in writing education. But she essentially uses that as an entry point in chapter three to say, regardless of what your initial concept is that you want to expand upon all writing, all books ultimately say something. There's ultimately a message that writers are capturing. And so she pushes writers to expand upon their what if to figure out what point they're trying to make. And this is something that I think she does really, really well, where she sort of anticipates the challenges and the pushback that writers are going to give to this type of advice.

Because as she's going through this process of advising writers to expand upon their what if think about the points that they're trying to make and framing out these examples from her own experience as a consultant and as a coach and her career in writing, you know, some of the concepts and examples that she explores are going to sound pretty cliche. And I think a lot of writers fear cliches more than anything else. She knows this. She's fully aware. And so in this chapter, she writes, oh, no, you might think that's a cliche. They laughed me out of my writers group.

In fact, writers often secretly confess that their biggest fear is that what they're writing is so common, so small, that no one will be interested. Ironically, that is exactly what people are interested in. Why? Because those common, everyday things like love, loyalty, and trust are things we all experience, and we're always looking for new insights that might help us navigate our everyday lives in a new and fresh way. She then goes on to write. Here's the very reassuring skinny. At the beginning, just about every story starts with a cliche. A cliche is simply something that's so familiar that it feels old hat. It's the story's job to make it a new hat. As I was reading through this chapter, I initially was pretty resistant to this concept of defining what point I wanted to make, what I wanted my story to be about, because I grew up in a really, like, conservative, evangelical environment, and there's nothing wrong with that. If that is your vibe, great kudos for you. It's not for me. But if that is for you. Cool. Awesome. Wonderful. Reason it's pertinent to mention is because so many of the stories and books that were a part of my education in an evangelical high school were moral stories. You know, everything had to have a moral message, a moral lesson. And so, as I was reading this in Cron's book, that's what came to my mind. I was thinking, oh, gosh, is she trying to say that I'm going to have to write a moral lesson to my readers if I'm going to follow her methodologies?

Thankfully, no, not at all. I stepped back, put my ego aside, reread what she wrote, and I was a bit more on board. And, in fact, it really made me think a lot about one of Willa Cather's quotes, which I believe comes from O pioneers, her novel that she wrote in, let's see, O pioneers. That one was 1918. Don't quote me on that. But in O pioneers, Cather says something essentially to the effect of, there are only ten or so human stories, but they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they've never been told. And then, of course, you could go back to Shakespeare and, you know, there's nothing new under the sun. Since that's Shakespeare, I'm sure that it's actually predated by someone else. But the point that I'm getting at is, I think ultimately, Cron is right. When we're thinking about writers having a message or having a particular point that they want to make with their writing, everything's going to start with a cliche, to an extent. And as I was thinking about this in my own writing and the manuscript that I'm working on right now, I really struggled with figuring out what point I wanted to make, because, again, there were more so concepts that I wanted to explore, like nostalgia and the queer experience of nostalgia and this complicated idea of loss and homecoming. But I think ultimately, where I came down from my own manuscript right now is that the point that I'm trying to make is actually something more about found family and unconditional love, and the power of that to a take on multiple forms. An unconditional love, not always looking the way you expect it to, but the power of it to also overcome unprecedented challenges, which, as I wrote that in my writing journal, and as I'm saying it out loud, I feel silly. Honestly, it feels cliche. It feels very, you know, sappy in a way that is not me. But at the same time, I stand by it. I think that that's ultimately the point that my manuscript is pursuing or that I am pursuing with my manuscript, I should say.

She starts chapter three, like I said, with this concept of the what if and turning that initial concept that flashes through your mind into a particular point that you want to make. And so you have this concept, you have this point that you're developing, and she moves into chapter four, which is the process of discovering your protagonist. So if you know what point you want to make, you need to figure out who you want to use as the catalyst for making that point. This chapter I found really interesting. The first time I read it, I kind of blaze through it and didn't stop to do the writing exercises because I had already started my manuscript. I had my protagonist in mind, and I felt like I don't really need to step back and question, is this the right protagonist to tell this story? But in preparation for the book club conversation over at Howdy Curiosity, I did go back and listen to the book again.

So while I was walking my dog, I would put in my headphones, I bought the audiobook, and I would relisten to the book. And as I was listening to the book, something about this chapter, chapter four, really stood out to be more the second time than it did the first time. And as I was working through it and piecing together all the little facets and aspects what Cron is discussing, I still decided to keep the protagonist who I've been writing and whose story I've started to develop. But I did decide as well to go back and spend a little bit more time on some of the exercises and some of the context that she establishes for how your protagonist is developed and how they exist within the world of your novel.

So I'm gonna go and read a quick passage from this chapter where she writes. Armed with your what if and the point you want to make, have you selected a likely candidate? A protagonist whose mettle is about to be sorely tested? Some unsuspecting fellow who was doing rather well until you came along. Thank you very much. Close your eyes. Can you see that person? The goal is to envision your protagonist as he is on the day before your novel begins. Chances are, at this moment, your protagonist feels that he has things under control. His life might not be exactly the way he'd want it, but it's working. Life up to now has taught him what to expect, and he's pretty much figured out how to safely navigate it. What he doesn't know is that you're going to make sure his expectations aren't met. Catapulting him out of his safety zone, into the world beyond his trusty map. But remember, the novel isn't simply about how he navigates that uncharted world. It's about the quest he spent most of his life suiting up for. He just doesn't know it yet. The point is, your protagonist doesn't start from neutral. He starts from a very particular place with very particular, deeply held beliefs that your novel is going to force him to call into question. So in order to figure out what those beliefs are, what that quest is, and how his expectations will, in fact, be upended, you have to know where he was before the quest began, when he had no idea what you have in store for him. And then, like all the other chapters, she, of course, goes on to provide some examples for how to develop that sense and some writing exercises to go further.

And as I was piecing through that again, I went back to my writing journal, went back to my own manuscript, and I realized that my protagonist was still fairly passive, and I didn't have a very clear sense of what he wanted and what it was about his past that was going to really root him in the story, that was going to make the external conflict, the plot particularly pertinent to him. And in my writing, like to be fully transparent. That is something I've really struggled with with past projects. I'll come up with these characters that I really love and find really compelling. I'll come up with these plots that I really love and find really compelling. And sometimes, even after cranking out 200 or more pages, I'll step back and say, okay, why the hell is this character getting involved? Let's be honest. There are other, way more qualified people he should be at home hiding. This is not for you. But go, go. Let the big kids handle it. So, you know, I think coming back to this chapter, listening to it a second time, it definitely stuck with me more. Had a bit more grit, thankfully. From chapter four, we then enter, ooh, big surprise, chapter five, which in chapter five, as the character starts to take shape, we transition into this chapter that Cron devotes to helping us figure out why the protagonist cares what the story means to the protagonist. Right. Cron seems to make the case at this point that it's not enough that your protagonist exists within the world of your novel and has exposure to the plot or the aspects of the what if that you came up with. But she pushes writers to really solidify a clear reason why that specific protagonist would have skin in the game and why readers would have a reason to see that character's internal struggle being tied to the external plot. And she does this really elegantly.

Building on chapter four and going into chapter five, she goes through a series of exercises that challenge you as a writer to spend more time fleshing out what it is that your character wants and what it is that they have established internally as a misbelief or a internalized idea that's maybe tripping them up or holding them back or something that really informs their worldview, whether they recognize it or not. And in this chapter, she keeps it fairly high level at this point, but she wants you to be specific. So she takes a really iterative approach in all of the examples that she gives and challenges us as the reader of the book to also be iterative. And by that, I mean, like, if she's talking about coming up with the misbelief, she gives examples where she's working with a client named Ginny. And in all of her examples with Ginny, Ginny comes up with what she thinks her protagonist misbelief might be, but then goes through this process of refining that and acknowledging why the first thing that she came up with may not be correct, why something else might be more correct, and on and on and on until she gets to something that fits much better. And so, as you're reading through it and hopefully doing these exercises like I did in your writing journal, or, you know, in some capacity, you're taking that same approach. Right. Cron's methodologies lend themselves really well to thinking deeply and to challenging your initial assumptions. That was something that really stood out to me as I was working through this, is if I sat down and did the exercises and just put down my first thought, my first assumption, based on what I've written so far in my manuscript, I would often step back and look at it and say, that doesn't quite fit. That doesn't quite feel right. That's not going to carry an entire novel. It really requires you to peel back the layers, think more deeply, and push yourself to get specific about what these misbeliefs are, about what your character's motivations are. As we transition into chapter six, Cron then says, okay, you have your character.

You have a bit of an understanding about what your character's goals and misbeliefs are. Now you're going to give that want. And those misbeliefs, you're going to give them a really strong foundation. Chapter six is all about establishing the character's worldview. And this, I think, was probably my favorite chapter in this first half of the book to read. There's a ton of really good detail in here, but I think this is also the chapter with the meatiest writing exercises. Lisa, if you're listening to this, I'm so sorry to confess I have not finished the writing exercises in this chapter, but they're good. I will eventually, I promise. Beefy writing exercises, but a lot of really good content. What makes these exercises so beefy, but also really good is here when Cron challenges us to solidify our understanding of our protagonists worldviews.

The way that she does that is by having us write out key scenes from the protagonist's past that ingrained their misbelief and establish their worldview before the novel even starts. So these are entire scenes that are probably never going to show up in our novel, but the effects of them will. And who knows, maybe if you have a very flashback heavy project, these scenes will show up in their entirety. Chances are, and I think the way that Cron intended these exercises to be used, they won't. But it's a super interesting chapter full of exercises, like I said, that help you start to figure out how the hell did my character get so messed up? How did they establish this worldview that leads them to operate in the world the way that they do, which then primes them to have their established routine, their established version of normal before my novel begins? Even without finishing the exercises in this chapter, just thinking through them and writing out a couple of examples, I feel like I got so much closer to understanding why my character, my protagonist, is a bit of an asshole. I got a bit more clarity, a lot more clarity on the dynamic between him and his childhood best friend, who plays a really key, really pivotal role in my manuscript. And it also helped me understand why my protagonist has the relationship with his family and with his hometown that he does.

So there are a couple of scenes with his parents when he's quite young that I have written, and then a couple that I haven't written yet, but I generally know how I want to take them. And like I said, just knowing those scenes, even the unwritten ones, just knowing generally where they're going to go, has been super helpful for getting me to think about how my protagonist is going to interact with the world. It's helped me recognize some places in my manuscript where his actions aren't really aligned with his worldview, where I think I've made him a little bit too nice and a little bit too vocal, when the more genuine reaction would be for him to be quieter and to just cut people out of his life without really giving them an explanation. And so it's been a lot to think about and to figure out how to better introduce the authentic version of my protagonist into my novel and I guess rework my novel to reflect that version of my protagonist. As the protagonist's identity becomes clearer, Cron then moves into chapter seven, which is quite short for this part of the book. But she explores the idea of cause and effect, which, basically, I'm gonna coin something totally new. Never been said before. This is a Blake Reichenbach original, but essentially, for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. I'm joking, by the way. That is, in fact, not a Blake Reichenbach original. I'm so sorry to let you down with the cause-and-effect chapter. It's, like I said, quite short, but it also really primes us for the second half of the book.

In the next episode, where we finish out Story Genius, I'll talk a lot about the novel blueprinting system that Cron develops, and it is entirely based on having an understanding of cause and effect. And with the way that she approaches cause and effect, she essentially outlines that the protagonist has to have an active and influential role in the events of the novel. There can't just be events happening around the protagonist that they are reacting to. The protagonist's actions have to have consequence. So when the protagonist acts, things have to happen. There has to be outcome. And over the course of the novel, you have to have results that are derived from previous actions, so that things aren't just popping into existence in the middle of your manuscript without cause, but also so that your protagonist is taking an active role in shaping the outcome of the story, and so that we can see how they are interpreting the events of the story, responding to them, and how their response then shapes those events and how that cycle then leads to their growth over time.

Again, this is something that I think a lot of us assume we know about writing and assume we do in our writing. But I've absolutely done this, and in writing groups that I've been in, critique groups I've been in, it is absolutely something I have witnessed where protagonists are far more passive than people realize. And so when Cron gets really specific about cause and effect and the importance and the beauty of cause and effect and making sure everything has that, you know, if your protagonist takes action, it needs to have consequence. That consequence needs to move the action of the novel forward.

And as the action moves forward, your protagonist needs to be, you know, challenging their assumptions and their worldview needs to be put to the test, and they need to be growing, etcetera. That is all part of making sure that the protagonist is not passive. They're not just waiting for the events of the novel to unfold. Because no matter how cool your protagonist is, if they are just waiting for the events of the novel to unfold, or waiting for other people to move the events of the novel along, it's not going to make for a very compelling story. Finally, in part two, we get to chapter eight, where Cron essentially pushes us up to the front door of the novel. Here's where she asks us to consider when our story starts. Our protagonists lives have a nearly infinite number of moments that we could jump into to start our novels. And so she uses this chapter to push us to consider what kind of problems would shake up their routine, force them out of the safety of their routine, and be something that could build upon over the course of the novel to create that really compelling story. This is another one of those challenges that I don't think comes organically to a lot of writers.

I think it is one of the trickier aspects of starting a new project. It's not just blank page syndrome where you're staring at a blinking cursor. It's figuring out where we're going to drop readers within the world. Especially as a speculative fiction writer, I find first chapters incredibly exciting, but also incredibly difficult because there's such a tendency to want to info dump, to want to build a ton of context really quickly. There is a ton of pressure to want to start in the middle of the action. You know, give your readers something that's really gripping and flashy and sexy and cool, that's on the surface, going to want to make them stick around. But I think what Cron does really well in this chapter is remind us that when we are starting a novel and when we are first connecting with the protagonist, what's going to make readers want to stick around?

And here's where I'm editorializing. What I think is going to make us, as writers want to stick around to finish a project is having that character who very quickly, we're willing to invest in, who we want to see succeed, who we want to figure out, you know, what's about to happen. We care, we want to come back, we want to see how their story unfolds. And to do that, I do think that having someone confront a problem is the way to go about that, and it's tricky to get it right, to figure out what problem is the right problem to use for the opening of the novel. And in this chapter, she gives some really interesting comparisons between things like, oh, there's an I earthquake that happens versus, you know, someone has a biking accident and they're hospitalized, versus, you know, someone is about to go on vacation and won't be reachable for a week. And how each of those challenges can create varying degrees of problem for the protagonist. And something like the earthquake may seem huge and monumental in the moment, but I. But it's not necessarily something that can carry the entire novel, because that problem is a natural event that is confined, and it's also something that the protagonist really has, you know, no emotional stake in.

And so, again, with this chapter, I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on my own manuscript and reflecting on particularly, like, my first chapter and where my novel opens and I had this moment of trying to rationalize. Is my chapter good enough? Can I keep it? No. I'm gonna rewrite it. Not just because of Cron. I'm not saying that this book bullied me into reevaluating my manuscript. Instead, I feel like I haven't been happy with my first chapter. I don't like the way the book set up. I feel like something has been missing from it. And so I want to try Cron's methodologies, Cron's approach, and see if that gets me somewhere a bit closer to something that I am happy with. So probably by the next episode, I'll have an update there and I'll let you know how that went. How's my first chapter once it has been chronified? All right, like I said, this book, there is so much to unpack.

This is just the first half of the book. I'm going to do an entirely separate episode to go through the second half of the book because my mouth is so dry. And if I keep talking, y'all, I'm just going to be coughing in the microphone. And I'm sure that some of you out there somewhere are into that, but you are going to have to pay me if you want these phlegmy, wet coughs right into that microphone. Bad boy. Anyway, it is time for me to go feed my dog, give my manuscript some love. If you are enjoying the Inkwell Insights podcast, please head over to howdycuriosity.com. that is www.howdycuriosity.com. you can also email me at blake@howdycuriosity.com if you want to ask a question.