Action Story
The Primal Genre

Action Stories speak to ancient human desires. Readers want to experience heart-stopping fear and excitement and learn lessons of survival.How can you write a story that satisfies those desires?In Action Story: The Primal Genre, Story Grid founder Shawn Coyne takes you on a journey deep into the meaning of the genre. Coyne boils down insights gained through more than 25 years as an editor and writer to teach you Action Story’s fundamental constraints and patterns. He explores subgenres and setting, and proposes a new way of understanding the traditional cast of characters to reveal their power as agents of light and darkness.In keeping with Story Grid Publishing’s goal of helping all writers level up their craft, Coyne provides a practical twenty-point game plan, showing how action stories move forward from beginning to end.Action stories are part of our DNA, fundamental to our humanity. Let’s learn to write them together.