An important issue in developing applications for photopolymers in holography is the effect of shrinkage on recording properties. In this paper, we introduce a model to describe real-time formation of a single grating in photopolymers at any geometrical angle, under the assumption that the shrinkage is in proportion to the polymerization. This model combines polymerization kinetics with the coupled-wave theory, explaining the shrinkage effect on the diffraction efficiency. The model is validated by comparing its predictions with the experimental results for a film of 99μm thickness.