Shawn Coyne

"The Genre ('knock-knock,' 'a horse walks into a bar,' 'take my wife') sets us up for an expectation. When the payoff is inevitable, but surprising, 'orange you glad I didn't say banana,' 'Why the long face,' 'PLEASE'), we laugh."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  writing, storytelling, genre, story endings, Shawn Coyne

"These core two to four thousand readers will give new writers a shot. If the writer creates something unique, the aficionado will buy the next book too. And the book after that if the second one pays off too. This is how careers were made back in the day. Still are, even with the big publishing houses abandoning core Story categories for the big book."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, Shawn Coyne

"The Professional writer, whether consciously or subconsciously, knows exactly where his idea sits on the Literary and Commercial spectrum long before he starts to work."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  writing, ideas, Shawn Coyne, categorization of art

"Stories fuel our courage and offer the cautions that we believe will help guide our own paths." (artist)

— Shawn Coyne (artwork by Jeremiah Morelli)

for Creatives  |  reading, artists, storytelling, value the art, Shawn Coyne, digital art, Jeremiah Morelli, German

"By Story’s end, the listener or reader or watcher has to be at the very least surprised and satisfied by the payoff of the Story’s initial promise."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reading, writing, writer-reader relationship, storytelling, Shawn Coyne

"Despite all of their desire to live by their own lone wolf ways, ironically what amateur writers really want is a recipe. And certainty. And guarantees."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  creating isn't easy, writing, KEEP CREATING, Shawn Coyne

"We want to see the hard choices and we want to see where they lead for your characters. None of us can go back in time and change difficult decisions we've made in our lives. So we go to Story to evaluate whether or not we made the right choice. We either find comfort from stories that show us that we've done the right thing. Or on the other side, when we make a mistake, in a Story we get to experience the path of a different course. Risk Free! A new map to help us find our courage. We go to Story to experience life at the edge, where we've been shaken in our boots in our own lives. This is what stories are for…to reassure us that we've made the right decision in our own lives or to help us recognize our mistakes, learn from them and find the courage to change."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reading, characters, writer-reader relationship, storytelling, artists must EXPERIENCE, value the art, Shawn Coyne

"The best way to learn whether your Story is reaching people is to tally the number of them willing to part with their hard-earned cash to experience your work."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reaching your audience, storytelling, value the art, Shawn Coyne

"Here's a difficult concept to grasp and I'm sure I'll go to my grave trying to explain it. Just because a book becomes a bestseller doesn't make it something to emulate. There are a myriad of reasons why some books become bestsellers and still don't work as Stories."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  artist integrity, the successful artist, reaching your audience, storytelling, Shawn Coyne

"I now knew the reason why this very talented writer kept getting to the one-yard line and was never able to score a touchdown—a working thriller. Instead of dedicating herself to nailing the form of the thriller/Story, she decided she was above it. She wanted the fruits of the labor (bestsellerdom) more than the labor itself (writing a brilliant and innovative hero at the mercy of the villain scene no matter if the book was ever published or not)."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  creating isn't easy, thriller, the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, Shawn Coyne

"A Story either works or doesn't work. It either engages the reader or it doesn't. It's alive or it's dead, like our mongooses. And the last thing an editor wants to do is kill a living Story, no matter how mangy."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  writing, reaching your audience, editors, storytelling, Shawn Coyne

"In order to really hit a book out of the park, a writer/publisher needs to bring women to the party. The male writers who do count women as devoted readers write stories that often include a love Story within their overarching plot."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reading, romance, writing, reaching your audience, publishing, Shawn Coyne

"Keep your scenes ... around two thousand words. I also recommend that you treat your scenes like chapters. That is, each scene should be a chapter in your novel. Why? Two-thousand-word scenes/chapters are potato chip length. That is, if you are about to go to bed and you're reading a terrific novel and the scenes/chapters come in around two-thousand-word bites, you'll tell yourself that you'll read just one more chapter. But if the narrative is really moving after you finish one of these bites, you won't be able to help yourself reading another. If the Story is extremely well told, you'll just keep eating the potato chip scenes all through the night. Whereas, if you cram five scenes into a chapter that ends up being forty pages, the bedside reader will have a much easier time just setting the book down before beginning the long slog through seventy-five hundred words. People like to stop reading when they've finished a chapter, not in the middle of a chapter."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reading, novel writing, writing, word count, Shawn Coyne

"Mamet and Macy's method to deconstruct the fundamental unit of a novelist, a playwright or a screenwriter's Storytelling is a Godsend. Read A Practical Handbook for the Actor, the meat of what came out of Mamet and Macy’s lectures and the foundation of The Atlantic Theater Company in New York. It's so simple, direct and easy to understand, it's mind blowing."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  books, novel writing, nonfiction, writing, storytelling, acting, David Mamet, Shawn Coyne, screenwriting, W. H. Macy, Gregory Mosher, Melissa Bruder, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeleine Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previtio, Scott Zigler, playwriting

Follow Your Curiosity

"If you are a screenwriter, LITERARY AND COMMERCIAL translates to INDEPENDENT AND STUDIO. If you are a playwright, LITERARY AND COMMERCIAL translates to CHARACTER DRIVEN AND PLOT DRIVEN. If you are a nonfiction writer LITERARY AND COMMERCIAL translates to JOURNALISM AND NARRATIVE NONFICTION. No matter your intended Story career path, the divide remains… and always will."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  literary fiction, nonfiction, writing, publishing, Shawn Coyne, screenwriting, categorization of art, literary vs. commercial

"Thriller is its own Genre, but it came to be through a mashing up of three primal Genres that came before it: action, horror and crime."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  crime, action, thriller, horror, genre, Shawn Coyne

"There is a great demand for novels that can be positioned at the top of the commercial list—thrillers and/or dramas that women will want to read. All of the big publishers (with a contracting list of exceptions) are on the hunt for a female friendly literary/commercial commodity."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  novel writing, thriller, writing, reaching your audience, women's fiction, publishing, genre, Shawn Coyne, literary vs. commercial

"The thriller is the dominant Story form today because it serves the largest segment of society, those overwhelmed by the threats of modern life."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  thriller, writing, reaching your audience, genre, Shawn Coyne

"Ultimately, the question 'Who's the target reader, and why?' must be answered by everyone in the publishing chain (writer, editor, marketer, publicist, publisher). Identifying the audience (the people who will buy your book) defines which of these two cultures 'Literary' or 'Commercial' you belong to."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  literary fiction, writing, reaching your audience, publishing, editors, Shawn Coyne, categorization of art, literary vs. commercial

"Just because they have a wide audience that will buy whatever they write does not mean they wrote a Story that worked."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  the successful artist, writing, reaching your audience, storytelling, Shawn Coyne

"Estimates reach as high as 70% of the entire book buying market being women."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  reading, reaching your audience, Shawn Coyne

"Stories are the most important thing we humans can create."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  writing, storytelling, value the art, Shawn Coyne

"Male writers with female readers also feature strong female characters in their novels."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  characters, novel writing, writing, reaching your audience, Shawn Coyne

"There are two categories in book publishing, like yin and yang, light and dark, wet and dry. There is 'literary' and 'commercial.' The divide seems ridiculous of course, akin to the old chicken and egg debate. Obviously, what is literary must be commercial too and what is commercial is also literary."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  novel writing, literary fiction, publishing, Shawn Coyne

"Literary and commercial: If you are a writer, an editor or a publisher in traditional trade book publishing, you have to decide which of these two cultures you want to align yourself with."

— Shawn Coyne

for Creatives  |  literary fiction, writing, publishing, editors, agents, Shawn Coyne, literary vs. commercial

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