There is no right answer.
In praise of the double-factor problem and both of its solutions.
In April 2022 during his last in-person three-day Story workshop, Robert McKee said, “The audience wants to learn without being taught.” His paraphrase of this lesson from Aristotle’s Poetics can also be found in McKee’s classic Storynomics. While I’d read it before, something about being in person in the auditorium audience myself caused this to land with me in a more profound fashion:
Sam comes to story because she wants answers, but she wants them in a particular, nuanced way.
I’mma dissect the three components of McKee’s brilliant compression of Aristotle and then get to the punchline, I promise. Hang in there with me.
The Audience
In case you need a refresher about who Sam is, take a detour and then come back:
Remember that, if you are writing to be read by others, everything you write must be in service to Sam—or it’s wasted, masturbatory self-gratification for the author alone.
TL;DR: You don’t have to be writing for other people. So, if you’re not, you might as well stop reading here.
Wants to Learn
The psychotechnology of story evolved to bypass conscious thought.
Read that again.
The minds of the consumers of a well-told story “go to sleep” while they are in the story. This is why it is so crucial that everything you write be in service to Sam. Any distraction runs the risk of waking Sam up, kicking her out of the story, and you losing your opportunity to show her how to navigate your double-factor problem space. The bonus for humans is that we ENJOY this process of “dreaming” when we are absorbing a well-told story. This is why storytelling is often mistaken for (or abused as) entertainment. We love learning. We just hate being taught.
The Story Grid formulation of the double-factor problem is simple and gently algebraic:
You, the author, want to move Sam from believing X is preferable to believing that Y is preferable. Sam must choose because both options are mutually exclusive.
This operates on many narrative levels. To avoid this turning into a 5,000-word monstrosity, I’m not going to dive into the six core genres at this time. Some future post will dig into each of them.
Yes, I’m a tease. But if you want me to keep doing this, the best way to do that is to become a paying subscriber and enjoy the quarterly scene review of your own work!
Instead, I will talk about the simpler way that we teach the Story Grid narrative path structure for the double-factor problem: Internal and External.
The Heroic Journey 2.0 describes the two-part journey of the protagonist (regardless of which archetype your protagonist embodies) through a series of internal and external stages toward transformation for the protagonist and catharsis for Sam. Here’s the infographic if you’re unfamiliar with the overwhelming complexity of the journey. I know, it’s a lot.
Internal
The internal genre of your story has an X component which exists in the first quadrant (Q1 a.k.a. Beginning Hook) for the protagonist. This is the fundamental reason you have to treat X, whatever your X is, as valid and correct under some circumstances: because your protagonist must begin there. This could be embodied in what Michael Hague calls the wound or what Lisa Cron calls the misbelief or Claire Taylor calls the core fear. It’s the internality that your protagonist must overcome in order to either embrace Y or fail to embrace Y for valid reasons by the end of the story.
Think of these as the internal, meaning-derived stakes for the protagonist which cause them to believe X is true and right and valid. What intrinsic, internal needs does the protagonist have which believing X meet? Then think of the internal, meaning-derived stakes that you must dramatize in your story in order for your protagonist to meaningfully engage with Y and either come to believe it or reject it after due consideration. What worldview and identity needs does the protagonist have which will be met by coming to believe Y?
External
You guessed it, the external genre of your story has an X component which are the physical, real-world, life-or-death reasons that your protagonist is Team X. Which external needs does your protagonist have which believing X fulfills? If you’re a more internally-oriented writer, you might balk at this—but please don’t. Sam will not take your story seriously if there isn’t externality forcing the protagonist to believe or at least tacitly accept that X is true.
We live in a tangible world, so whether your protagonist is struggling with a school bake sale and the mean PTA moms or trying to stop the fascist takeover of the known universe, you must have valid external reasons why your protagonist believes X in order to “survive” in their world.
Then, of course, you need to create believable extrinsic reasons that force the protagonist to grapple with the problems endemic to X on their way to recognizing that maybe Y is the way to go. What physical and social needs does the protagonist have which will be met by coming to believe Y?
The more visceral and believable you can make these (absolutely contrived) story elements, the more likely Sam will remain immersed in the story and thereby bypass cognitive engagement. Story is learning without being taught. As soon as Sam feels like the author is preaching or teaching, she will disengage from the story and the learning opportunity will be lost.
Mutually Exclusive
It goes without saying, that your X and Y options must be mutually exclusive on both the internal and external values at stake. If they’re not, there’s no inherent conflict.
If your protagonist can believe being a rationalist, such as an Effective Altruist, who works on A.I. safety during the day and still believe in God while attending Catholic Mass every Wednesday and Sunday without consequences, then X and Y are not mutually exclusive for your protagonist. There is no conflict. The story will be boring. People and institutions need to come after your protagonist from both sides trying to force your protagonist to pick one over the other.
If there’s no conflict, Sam won’t be engaged and you won’t have a chance to make your case in the first place.
Without Being Taught
Sam can tell if you—the author—have a clear bias for one answer or the other. Sam knows that you don’t prefer X (maybe hate it) and prefer Y (probably love it). And you do. But Sam is genetically disinclined to be “preached at” by storytellers. Parables and tautologies only work for people who already agree with the proposition that Y is better than X. There’s a place for propaganda and parable, but they occupy a niche. If you’re pursuing the commercial imperative or genuinely want to persuade Sam from an expressionist perspective, you must treat both X and Y as equally valid under the appropriate circumstance.
Don’t try to hide your bias. Be honest about it—AND—do the reading, the research, and the hard work to learn, understand, and embrace the validity of X under the appropriate circumstances.
If you don’t present X in a believable way, if you only write the strawman version of X, and present cardboard cutout characters who believe X, Sam will be much less likely to believe in your proposition about Y. Sam will perhaps even stop reading as soon as she realizes that you’re shitting on X. You have to do better than merely steelmanning X. And this will likely be uncomfortable or worse for you to write.
Confront that fear and go seek out people who believe X is superior to Y and learn from them. Because, if you want to capture and keep Sam’s attention to even have a chance of persuading her that Y is preferable to X under the circumstances of your story, you have to treat X with respect if not reverence.
The Case for Subtext
I’m not going to belabor this, since this post is already over a thousand words long, but remember that Sam only gets dopamine, oxytocin, and cortisol (the neurohormones of storytelling) when she is able to enjoy unpacking the “hidden” meaning of the prose. If you put your blatant, on-the-nose arguments on the page, Sam begins to disconnect unless she already believes what you’re selling. These modes are presented in increasing order of disconnection for Sam because they are “too obvious”:
physical action
verbal action (a.k.a. dialog)
narrator action (camera shifting, transition, etcetera)
author action (authorial intrusion, blatant commentary, fourth wall breaking)
It’s one of the most difficult skills to master when writing in service to Sam: Trust the reader. Dramatize. Do not explain.
Both Answers Must Be Right
In case it wasn’t clear above, both X and Y must be valid answers to whatever question you’re exploring in your double-factor problem. Story is a heuristic, not an algorithm. Sam comes to story to learn how to navigate a difficult problem space for which there is no correct answer. Your job as the storyteller is to do justice to both X and Y despite your clear and acknowledged preference for Y.
You don’t tell stories because it’s easy.
So what?
Think about what your double-factor problem is. Write down X and Y. Determine what the internal and external needs are which could be met by X or Y. Consider the internal and external reasons why your protagonist believes that X is correct for them in the ordinary world they live in at the beginning of the story. Then figure out what the internal and external reasons are that you must dramatize in order to move the protagonist toward believing that Y is true or at least considering that it might be (if you’re writing a cautionary tale and the protagonist fails to embrace Y).
If you do it right, this will challenge your own beliefs and worldview, because…
Every story is the storyteller figuring their own shit out.
Want help with your story?
If the Nine Circles of Revision Hell seem daunting to you, you’re not alone. They can be a slog, even when you’ve done them many times. For a lot of writers, the editing process is the most painful part of publishing. I’m weird. I enjoy it! But I’m aware that not everyone does. If you don’t get off on revisions or if you don’t even know where to start, let me help you.
I’m a Story Grid Certified Editor and founding member of the Story Grid Guild. I’ve been helping my clients with developmental editing of their novels and screenplays as well as chapter-by-chapter scene coaching for their works-in-progress since 2020. I joined the staff of the Story Grid Scene Writing Workshop as a coach in June 2024 and the Story Grid Writer Mentorship cadre as a mentor in January 2025.
I’m available for hire. Book a campfire chat and let’s see if we might be compatible story adventuring companions.