Story Grid Writing Podcast

Story Grid Writing Podcast is a craft-intensive writing show built around the question of how a story actually works. Its run combines masterwork analysis, editorial coaching, and a transparent record of one writer’s development. The show often starts with a formal lens: genre, value shift, the five commandments of storytelling, obligatory moments, heroic journey archetypes, or narrative device. Then it tests that lens against a specific story. Crazy Rich Asians becomes a case study in status, family pressure, self-respect, conformity, and the mechanics beneath a film marketed as a romantic comedy. Eyewitness becomes a model for thinking about short fiction, protagonist movement, and how a seemingly small change can shift the reader’s attention. The conversations are methodical, but they are not sterile. There are charts, scene tools, spreadsheets, and references to Story Grid classes, yet the show keeps returning to the uncomfortable process of applying those tools to a real draft. Tim Grawl’s writing is not treated as a polished exhibit. It is worked on in public. Some episodes capture progress; others capture confusion, frustration, and the moment when editor and writer are not yet speaking about the same problem. That candor gives the show much of its value. It is less a lecture series than a workshop with the scaffolding left visible. Sean Coyne brings the Story Grid methodology and an editor’s diagnostic language. Rachel Arsenault, Leslie Watts, and Daniel Kiyoski add close-reading and publishing perspectives in the episodes included here. The show rewards listeners who like precision. It asks writers to stop hiding behind vague ideas and put craft claims under pressure. Its pace can be dense, and its assumptions are demanding. For writers ready to study structure with examples in hand, it offers a rare look at analysis, revision, and editorial disagreement happening in the open.