By Melanie Anne Phillips

What’s in a name?  Having at least a working title will help you start your story, even if you ultimately change the title.

The title of your story may or may not have dramatic significance.  In some cases, the meaning of the title may become apparent only during the course or even at the end of a story.  There have even been stories in which the final understanding of the message is only achieved when the title becomes the last piece in the puzzle.

Consider the value of these example titles such as The Verdict (which refers to the story’s climax), Alien (which refers to the subject matter), and The Silence of the Lambs (which refers to the Main Character’s personal problems).

Whether or not a title plays into the story itself, it will always frame the first impression it has on your readers or audience.  To illustrate this, imagine all the other titles the original Star Wars movie might have had.  In actuality, Star Wars was originally titled The Adventures of the Starkiller, then Episode One of the Star Wars, Adventures of Luke Starkiller, and even The Journal Of The Whills.  Now, of course, it has been renamed Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  Clearly, you can immediately feel the impact a change in title has on the reader/audience first impression of your story.

Also from Melanie Anne Phillips…

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Authors differ in many ways in how they approach the creation of a story, yet there are four stages in the process through which each author must travel:

1.  Inspiration

2.  Development

3.  Exposition

4.  Storytelling

In the Inspiration stage, you come up with your basic ideas for your Plot, Characters, Theme, and Genre.

In Development, you flesh-out these ideas, adding details and making all the bits and pieces work together in harmony.

In Exposition you determine how to reveal your narrative to your readers or audience over time, story point by story point.

In Storytelling you establish your style, pacing, and voice.

Also from Melanie Anne Phillips:

“Dramatica doesn’t make writing easier; it makes it harder.”

That was opening comment we made in a video interview by the BBC that was intended to show how Hollywood writers were ruining drama by relying more and more on computerized story development aids.

The chief software architect for Dramatica, Stephen Greenfield, just published an “editor’s pick” comment on a New York Times article about the dangers of convenience, further elaborating on how convenience works against the writing process.

The following link goes to the NYT article with his comment featured in the upper right:

Read the New York Times article and comment

Also from Melanie Anne Phillips…

Imagine a story’s structure as a war and the Main Character as a soldier making his way across the field of battle. Suddenly, through the smoke of dramatic explosions he spies a murky figure standing right in his path. In this fog of war, the Main Character cannot tell if this other soldier is a friend or foe. Either way, he is blocking the road.

As the Main Character approaches, this other soldier starts waving his arms and shouts, “Change course – get off this road!” Convinced he is on the best path, the Main Character yells back, “Get out of my way!” Again the figure shouts, “Change course!” Again the Main Character replies, “Let me pass!”

The Main Character has no way of knowing if his opposite is a comrade trying to prevent him from walking into a mine field or an enemy combatant trying to lure him into an ambush. And so, he continues on, following the plan that still seems best to him.

Eventually, the two soldiers meet, and when they do it becomes a moment of truth in which one will win out. Either the Main Character will alter course or his steadfastness will cause the other soldier to step aside.

This other soldier is called the Obstacle (and sometimes Influence or Impact) character. He represents that “devil’s advocate” voice we all have in ourselves that makes us consider changing our ways.

In our own minds we are often confronted by issues that question our approach, attitude, or the value of our hard-gained experience. But we don’t simply adopt a new point of view when our old methods have served us so well for so long. Rather, we consider how things might go if we adopted this new system of thinking.

We look at it, examine it from all sides and ask ourselves, how would my life, my self-image, my identity be if I were to become that kind of person by giving up my old views in favor of this new, unproven one that is only potentially better?

It is a long hard thing within us to reach a point of change, and so too is it a difficult feat in a Story Mind. In fact, it take the whole story to reach a climax in which all the research has been done that can be done. And even then, both sides of the argument are so well balanced that the Main Character cannot see a definite edge to either.

This crucial moment leads to those weighty decisions where Main Characters step off the cliff into the darkness, hoping they’ve made the right choice – the classic “Leap of Faith.”

Of course, not all decisions are that cataclysmic. And as we shall see, there are many other ways the differences between Main Character and Obstacle Character points of view can resolve. But for now, it suffices to acknowledge that a Story Mind that did not include and Objective view, a Main Character view, and an Obstacle Character view could not possibly feel like our own minds in real life as we seek to make the best choices based on our best information.

Many novice authors fashion only the first two points of view, believing that a general epic story and a personal view through the eyes of one of the characters is enough. More experienced authors recognize the need to show an alternative approach to that of the Main Character, and include the Obstacle Character as well. But a surprisingly small percentage of authors ever realize that a fourth perspective is necessary or a story will feel incomplete.

What is that final view point? It is the personal argument between the Main Character and the Obstacle Character as they approach each other: their own private skirmish right in the midst of the overall battle.

Movies like “The Nightmare Before Christmas” have an overall Objective story, a Main Character with a problem, and an Obstacle Character who has a different point of view about the propriety or validity of the Main Character’s approach or attitude. But even with all that, it is lacking one crucial thing – the interaction between Main and Obstacle as the duke it out philosophically.

In “Nightmare,” Jack Skellington believes he can be something beyond his nature and resolves to try. His girlfriend states that he should be happy with who he actually is, and not to try and be something that really isn’t him.

Jack will have none of it, and sets plans in motion that cause all the problems of the story. In the end, he realizes she was right and resolves from now on to be the best of what he truly is.

But the problem is that they never discussed these differing philosophies. They simply stated their opposite beliefs and in the end, Jack changes course and she remains on the road where she started.

Though there is a message, without the give and take between the Main and Obstacle, we the audience are given no information on how to achieve that change of heart within ourselves. So the message is simply acknowledged as being noble, but it isn’t personalized or taken to heart.

This fourth point of view is called the Subjective Story. It is the perspective of the battle over philosophies that explores the value of each belief system fully and completely, testing one against the other, pitting them against each other in all contexts. Only if this is seen in the Story Mind does the audience become convinced that the message is of real value to them.

So, these four throughlines – Objective, Main, Obstacle, and Subjective are all required for a story structure to feel complete. They likely seem pretty strange and unfamiliar in contrast to your usual way of approaching stories.

Fortunately, there is a much simpler way to think about these throughlines. The Main Character represents the “first person” perspective: “I”. He looks at the Obstacle Character’s philosophy and sees that character as “You.” He considers the personal skirmish between himself and the Obstacle character as defining “We,” and the view from the hill of the whole durn thing looks at “They.”

I, You, We, and They – the simpler, more familiar equivalents of Main Character, Obstacle Character, Subjective Story, and Objective Story. They are the four points of view we have in real life, and they must be represented in stories if they are to successfully press home their messages to the audiences.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator Dramatica
Creator StoryWeaver

First let me define what signposts are in stories and then provide a few hints on how to structure them.

Signposts are the markers that separate one act from another.  Think about any well structured story you’ve read or seen on the screen.  There are always several points at which you feel that you’ve moved from one act to another, such as in the plot when the characters have finished preparing for a journey and actually embark or in the character arc where the main character finally realizes he has been held back by his best friends good intentions and decides to go solo for the first time.

We intuitively know that a major turning point has been reached and that things will no longer go on as they have and that a whole new direction will reveal itself as the story unfolds.

Now all of that is just felt, but it actually comes from something very solid in story structure: the signpost.

Signposts are like road markers that tell you when you need to turn off the highway you are on and take a side road in order to get to where you’re headed.  These signposts are just at the juncture points, yet in between them, you have a lot of ground to cover that is part of your journey.

In a standard three-act structure, there are four signposts.  To see this more clearly, hold up four fingers on one hand as in the illustration below:

If each finger is a signposts, then you can see three journeys between them.

Readers or audiences feel the journeys because that is the flow of the unfolding of a story over time.  But the four fingers define the direction of each of the journeys.  So, the first signpost marks the point of departure of the story.  The last signpost identifies the destination.  the other two signposts in the middle describe the two major turning points in the story when the set up is complete at the end of the first act, and when the climb to the climax begins at the end of the second.

That’s fine conceptually, but how does it play out in actual story development?  As it turns out, all four signposts belong a family which is what gives a story a consistent identity as it plays out.

One such family, as an example, consists of the signposts of Learning, Understanding, Doing, and Obtaining.  So, in such a structure, the story begins with a general sense that Learning is the undercurrent of what everyone is engaged in.  It is the overall background for all that happens.  And while not every event or character conjecture has to pertain directly to Learning, there is that feel that establishes that Learning is what the first act is all about.

In practice, the characters in such a story will begin with Learning this or that (the first signpost) and then the act (the first journey) will follow the characters as they learn more and more until they arrive at an Understanding (the second signpost).  That’s where we feel an act break as the story changes course from exploring learning to exploring understanding.

In the second act (journey), the characters will progressively grow in their understandings until they are finally able to start Doing (the third signpost).  Again, we feel an act break as the internal quest from understanding shifts to the external quest of doing things.

Now the characters do more and bigger things until they are finally able to arrive at their designation, the fourth signpost of Obtaining.  End of narrative.  End of story.

There are a several families of signposts depending on the kind of story you are telling.  And, the signposts don’t always have to be in the same order.  In one story, for example, the characters may obtain something that allows them to do something that causes them to learn which leads to an understanding – a complete different order than our first example.

In real storytelling, this second example might be that some kids steal a car (obtaining) and are then able to do (take a road trip across the country), and en route they encounter many people with issues (learning) and eventually arrive home with an understanding about the importance of respecting the property rights of others.  Lame, to be sure, but fine as an example of how the signpost order is not locked.

Now as I promised at the beginning, I have now defined what a signpost is.  But I still need to explain how to structure them.

To do this, I’m going to share a letter I just wrote to one of my story consulting clients.  (Yes, I make my living as a story consultant.  Click here to learn more…)

This particular client was taking the precise nature of each signposts way too closely to heart.  They were trying to make every single story point in each act tie directly into each signpost, not taking into account that each signpost is just the county you are traveling through and the events in the journey are flavored by that, but not defined by it.

So, here’s the note to my client with some tips for structuring signposts:

Structure should not be applied as rules but as guidelines.  Structure gives you the sense of where the meaning is – where the center of the message is.

So in regard to the four signposts, they are like real signposts: they tell you when you have crossed the border from one kind of conjecture to another.

Stories are all about exploration in order to find the narrative because the narrative will provide the understanding of how all the pieces fit together, and therefore what one needs to do to get things to end up in the best possible arrangement.

If a story travels through learning, understanding, doing, and obtaining in that order, it means the story begins with learning.  That is the first signpost – the point of departure on their journey.  And from there, it starts off on its exploration to learn more and more until it arrives at an understanding (the second signpost).  From that point forward, learning is behind and the characters grow more and more in their understanding of what they already learned until they have understood so much that they are finally able to start Doing something about it – the third signpost.  From there, learning and understanding are pretty much behind them and their focus is to do more and more until they are finally able to Obtain when they reach the fourth and final signpost: their destination.

As you can see, signposts just mark the dividing lines when the story shifts its focus from one kine of endeavor or outlook to another.  You can also think of the four signposts as four rooms in a house.  You begin by exploring the first room in which you learn a lot.  When you have learned all you can, you move on to the next room where you put all that learning together to arrive at an understanding.  When you finally understand all you can, you move on to the next room and begin doing until you have done all you can, and then you move onto the last room to Obtain what you want by taking what you learned, organized into your understanding, turned into the action of doing that results in Obtaining.

Again, in terms of rules vs. guidelines, the signposts give you a general sense of what is going on in each act – what’s the focus or the area of interest.   But, that’s not the only thing going on in each act – just the overall background against which everything happens.

Don’t feel that everything that occurs in an act has to somehow connect to the signpost.  The signpost is just like the broth in a soup into which all the other stuff is cooked.  It gives each act an identifiable flavor but can be filled with all kinds of individual tastes that have nothing to do directly with the flavor of the broth.

Now, looking at your recent work, that is actually WAY too detailed and WAY too focused on each signpost.  It is good to have so many opportunities to relate to the signpost – that shows great consistency in your thinking about that act.  But, you don’t need nearly a tenth of that many references to the signpost as you have there to convey the overall perspective in that act – you only need enough to clearly establish in the mind of your reader the general background of the kind of exploration that is going on in that act – the kind of activity, interest, or concern.

In other words, don’t try to tie everything that happens in your first act into Learning – that would be forcing the structure and taking structure way too literally.  Rather, find as many opportunities as you can in your existing story material for each signpost in each throughline that already is tied into that signpost without forcing it.

W all think in narrative patterns.  Our interests are the topics we explore, but we organize the way we appreciate a topic in narrative, which is nothing more than a framework of meaning that ensures we’ve looked at all the meaningful parts of a topic from all the pertinent points of view.

And so, when we write, as with all authors, we automatically organize our story elements into narrative patterns so they make the most meaningful sense.  But, we do this by intuition so the perspective is often a bit fuzzy and sometime a little off-true.  Structure allows us to focus that already-existing proto-narrative so that each signpost becomes a little more clear as the overall flavor of the background so that all that happens can be seen through that filter before moving on to the next.  Like Red, Blue, Green and Brightness, each signpost provides part of the picture through a different filter until we get the full-color version after the last scene at the end.

My advice:

Don’t put so much effort into each signpost.  Just find the elements of your story that already point at each signpost and then polish them up a bit so they better reflect it.  Let your remaining story elements play against that without trying to force them to direct connect.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator StoryWeaver
Co-creator Dramatica

Here’s a quick look at one aspect of fashioning a trilogy: whether each individual installment is a tale or a story.

A tale is a linear progression that both makes sense logically, step by step, and also makes sense emotionally, mood to mood.  If any steps are missing or if it jumps from one mood to an inappropriate one that just doesn’t follow, then the tale ceases to function.  But, if all the steps and moods are progressive and consistent, then the tale will work and the meaning or message (as in a fairy tale) is whether the tales linear path is a good one or a bad one by comparing the beginning situation/feeling to the ending one.

A story is a more complex form, though not necessarily a more powerful one – different in structure, but equally effective in audience impact.  If a tale can be said to proclaim that a given path is independently a good or bad one, a story purports that a given path is either the best or the worst of all that might reasonably have been taken.  To do this, rather that just showing the one path and its outcome, all other paths of equal potential must also be fully illustrated to “prove” why the proffered path is the epitome.

While any individual “work” may be a tale or a story to equal effect, when combined in a trilogy, fashioning the three works as tales, stories, or some combination of the two has a fundamental impact on how well an audience will embrace the overarching collection.

Consider these five examples of trilogies with different combinations of tales and stories.  First, Lord of the Rings, each installment of which is a tale.  There is never the audience expectation that any of the individual tales is a complete story, but rather that each moves the overarching story along to its ultimate conclusion at the end of the final installment as if each separate work was an act in a three act play.

Second, examine the Men In Black trilogy of movies.  Each of these is a complete story and could stand alone as a message that a particular path is the best or the worst of all that might be taken in regard to each story’s individual central issue.  Collectively, they also function as acts in an overarching story in which each story installment in the trilogy broadens and deepens the understanding of structural and dynamic interrelationships within the subject matter.

So, in a sense, a trilogy of tales seems to move linearly through progressive subject matter, exposing new information, new issues, and new challenges, while a trilogy of stories seems to explore the same subject matter in greater depth and detail as the framework of the larger story gradually emerges and clarifies.

Our third example is the Matrix trilogy in which the first installment was a story, the second a tale, the third was also a tale, but the overarching form was also a tale rather than story.  This is not a problem structurally, but in this particular case, the audience was led to believe that the three parts would ultimately resolve into a single larger story. And so, audience expectations were violated.  In a sense, they invested emotionally in the anticipation of a grand scheme which was to be revealed, onto to discover at the end that there was no such deeper meaning.  This results in a feeling of being scammed, that we were promised one thing and delivered another, that the promoted size and scope of the overall work was left incomplete.

To remedy this, the filmmakers could either have completed an overarching story or been aware of the expectations they were building and clearly communicated that while the first episode was a story, all future installments do not contribute to a “greater” story, but are simply additional tales in the same world as the original story.

What is most unfortunate in this particular example is that they were so close to fulfilling  an overarching story and might have done so with just a few tiny changes, as follows: Neo becomes the first person so strong in the matrix that he can continue his consciousness int he Matrix even though his physical body has died.  He can still communicate with the real world through Trinity when she is in the matrix.

It is recognized that not everyone in the matrix wants to or even could transition to the real world.  Now that humans exist there, they must continue to exist there except for those who are ready to leave.  So, an alliance is formed between the Architect and the Oracle so that he maintains the system for those who will stay and she protects those who are becoming aware of the greater Truth of the outside real world.  Neo helps bring them to the point they can leave, and Trinity provides a familiar bridge to carry them from one world into the next.

This would have created a complete overarching story and left the audience feeling their investment had been returned with interest.  And, again, the alternative would have been to not have created the audience expectations of a larger story.  It should be noted that the filmmakers probably thought they had completed the story by arranging for machines to agree to leave the people alone.  But that is just a conclusion to the war – a plot issue that stemmed from the first story.  But true stories must wrap up both the logistic (plot) and emotional (character) issues, and in the overarching form, these character issues were left unresolved.

As our fourth example, consider the first released Star Wars trilogy – episodes IV, V and VI.  In this case, it follows the same formula as the Matrix trilogy – a story, followed by two tales that result in an overarching story, but in this case, the overarching story is completed when not only is the empire overcome at the end in the plot, but the father/son issues of Darth and Luke are resolved as well.

One may argue as to whether the storytelling of either of these two trilogies is better or worse, but structurally, the Star Wars trilogy is clearly better handled.

Finally, let us consider the Bourne Identity trilogy of films.  While each of the tree parts is a complete story, they fall within an overarching tale in which all three stories simply take place sequentially in the same narrative world of subject matter.  In this case, it works because the audience is not led to expect each episode of an overall story.

Having now examined five different trilogies, each with its own structure in terms of the relationships of tales and stories as episodes and overarching form, you can do a little preplanning for potential trilogies of your own.

—Melanie Anne Phillips

Learn more about Story Development

1. Novels Aren’t Stories

A novel can be extremely free form. Some are simply narratives about a fictional experience. Others are a collection of several stories that may or may not be intertwined.

Jerzy N. Kosinski (the author of “Being There”) wrote another novel called “Steps.” It contains a series of story fragments. Sometimes you get the middle of a short story, but no middle or end. Sometimes, just the end, and sometimes just the middle.

Each fragment is wholly involving, and leaves you wanting to know the rest of the tale, but they are not to be found. In fact, there is not (that I could find) any connection among the stories, nor any reason they are in that particular order. And yet, they are so passionately told that it was one of the best reads I ever enjoyed.

The point is, don’t feel confined to tell a single story, straight through, beginning to end.

Rather than think of writing a novel, think about writing a book. Consider that a book can be exclusively poetry. Or, as Anne Rice often does, you can use poetry to introduce chapters or sections, or enhance a moment in a story.

You can take time to pontificate on your favorite subject, if you like. Unlike screenplays which must continue to move, you can stop the story and diverge into any are you like, as long as you can hold your reader’s interest.

For example, in the Stephen King novel, “The Tommy Knockers,” he meanders around a party, and allows a character to go on and on… and on… about the perils of nuclear power. Nuclear power has nothing to do with the story, and the conversation does not affect nor advance anything. King just wanted to say that, and did so in an interesting diatribe.

So feel free to break any form you have ever heard must be followed. The most free of all written media is the novel, and you can literally – do whatever you want.

2. Get Into Your Characters’ Heads

One of the most powerful opportunities of the novel format is the ability to describe what a character is thinking. In movies or stage plays (with exceptions) you must show what the character is thinking through action and/or dialog. But in a novel, you can just come out and say it.

For example, in a movie, you might say:

John walks slowly to the window and looks out at the park bench where he last saw Sally. His eyes fill with tears. He bows his head and slowly closes the blinds.

But in a novel you might write:

John walked slowly to the window, letting his gaze drift toward the park bench where he last saw Sally. Why did I let her go, he thought. I wanted so much to ask her to stay. Saddened, he reflected on happier times with her – days of more contentment than he ever imagined he could feel.

The previous paragraph uses two forms of expressing a character’s thoughts. One, is the direct quote of the thought, as if it were dialog spoken internally to oneself. The other is a summary and paraphrase of what was going on in the character’s head.

Most novels are greatly enhanced by stepping away from a purely objective narrative perspective, and drawing the reader into the minds of the character’s themselves.

3. Keep A Daily Log Of Tidbits

One of the biggest differences between a pedestrian novel and a riveting one are the clever little quips, concepts, snippets of dialog, and fresh metaphors.

But coming up with this material on the fly is a difficult chore, and sometimes next to impossible. Fortunately, you can overcome this problem simply by keeping a daily log of interesting tidbits. Each and every day, many intriguing moments cross our paths. Some are notions we come up with on our own; others we simply observe. Since a novel takes a considerable amount of time to write, you are bound to encounter a whole grab bag of tidbits by the time you finish your first draft.

Then, for the second draft, you refer to all that material and drop it in wherever you can to liven up the narrative. You may find that it makes some characters more charismatic, or gives others, who have remained largely silent, something to say. You may discover an opportunity for a sub-plot, a thematic discourse, or the opportunity to get on your soapbox.

What I do is to keep the log at the very bottom of the document for my current novel, itself. That way, since the novel is almost always open on my computer, anything that comes along get appended to the end before it fades from memory.

Also, this allows me to work some of the material into the first draft of the novel while I’m writing it. For example, here are a few tidbits at the bottom of the novel I’m developing right now:

A line of dialog:

“Are you confused yet? No? Let me continue….”

A silly comment:

“None of the victims was seriously hurt.” Yeah – they were all hurt in a very funny way.

A character name:

Farrah Swiel

A new phrase:

Tongue pooch

A notion:

Theorem ~ Absolute Corruption Empowers Absolutely

Corollary ~ There are no good people in positions of power

I haven’t worked these into the story yet, but I will. And it will be richer for it.

4. Don’t Hold Back

Unlike screenplays, there are no budget constraints in a book. You can write, “The entire solar system exploded, planet at a time,” as easily as you can write, “a leaf fell from the tree.”

Let you imagination run wild. You can say anything, do anything, break any law, any taboo, any rule of physics. Your audience will follow you anywhere as long as you keep their interest.

So, follow your Muse wherever it leads. No idea is too big or too small. Write about the things you are most passionate about, and it will come through your words, between the lines, and right into the hearts and souls of your readers.

—Melanie Anne Phillips

Design and Structure Your Novel with StoryWeaver and Dramatica