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Category Archives: Story Development
Know Your Story Points – Main Character “Approach”
This article is excerpted from Dramatica Story Structuring Software.
Some of the characters you create as an author will be Do-ers who try to accomplish their purposes through activities (by doing things). Other characters are Be-ers who try to accomplish their purposes by working it out internally (by being a certain way).
When it comes to the Main Character, this choice of Do-er or Be-er will have a large impact on how he approaches the Story’s problem. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems externally, choose Do-er. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems through internal work, choose Be-er.
THEORY: By temperament, Main Characters (like each of us) have a preferential method of approaching Problems. Some would rather adapt their environment to themselves through action, others would rather adapt their environment to themselves through strength of character, charisma, and influence.
There is nothing intrinsically right or wrong with either Approach, yet it does affect how one will respond to Problems.
Choosing “Do-er” or “Be-er” does not prevent a Main Character from using either Approach, but merely defines the way he is likely to first Approach a Problem, using the other method only if the first one fails.
USAGE: Do-er and Be-er should not be confused with active and passive. If a Do-er is seen as active physically, a Be-er should be seen as active mentally. While the Do-er jumps in and tackles the problem by physical maneuverings, the Be-er jumps in and tackles the problem with mental deliberations.
The point is not which one is more motivated to hold his ground but how he tries to hold it:
A Do-er would build a business by the sweat of his brow.
A Be-er would build a business by attention to the needs of his clients.
Obviously both Approaches are important, but Main Characters, just like the real people they represent, will have a preference. Having a preference does not mean being less able in the other area.
A martial artist might choose to avoid conflict first as a Be-er character, yet be quite capable of beating the tar out of an opponent if avoiding conflict proved impossible.
Similarly, a school teacher might stress exercises and homework as a Do-er character, yet open his heart to a student who needs moral support.
When creating your Main Character, you may want someone who acts first and asks questions later, or you may prefer someone who avoids conflict if possible, then lays waste the opponent if they won’t compromise.
A Do-er deals in competition, a Be-er in collaboration.
The Main Character’s affect on the story is both one of rearranging the dramatic potentials of the story, and also one of reordering the sequence of dramatic events.
By choosing Do-er or Be-er you instruct Dramatica to establish one method as the Main Character’s approach and the other as the result of his efforts.
Dramatica tracks more than 70 individual story points
and cross-references their combined impact
to create your perfect story structure.
Learn More…
Elements of Structure or Art of Storytelling?
Way back in the early 1990s, my writing partner, Chris Huntley, and I published a book on narrative structure entitled, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story.
It begins:
“Part of what makes a story great is its underlying dramatic structure and part is the manner in which that structure is related to an audience, often called “storytelling”. Therefore, this book is divided into two principal sections: The Elements of Structure and The Art of Storytelling.”
When I wrote that paragraph, I thought it was pretty self explanatory. But over the years I’ve been surprised by how many people, though they agree with the the way that sounds, don’t actually understand the real difference between those two facets of a story.
Why is it important to differentiate the two? Because structure can only be solidly built if you see it for what it really is – the framework that holds up the story. And storytelling can only be effective is it is liberated from structural restrictions.
Part of the problem is that people lump all aspects of a story other than the words they use to tell it into a single glop they think of as the structure. This means they see a character’s name, its job, age, gender and so on as structure. They see the setting, time frame and genre as structure. They see all the events that happen and all the moralizing as part of the structure. Yet none of these are structural elements at all. They are, in fact, part of the storytelling.
In this article, I’d like to spend a little time illustrating the nature of and differences between story structure and storytelling, and provide some techniques for using this new clear view of both to enhance the soundness of your story and your creative experience as as a writer.
What we’re going to do is break a completed story into four parts, rather than just structure and storytelling. Those other two parts will provide some parallax – a baseline you want mentally walk along to get a better angle on separating story structure and storytelling.
To do this, we’ll use an analogy.
Think of a story as a body. There’s the skeleton, the soft tissue, the clothes and lastly the haircut, jewelry, make-up, facial hair, cologne and so on – four different parts of what we see as a complete person.
The skeleton is the structure, the soft tissue is the subject matter, the clothes are the exposition and the finishing touches are the storytelling.
Structure (a story’s skeleton) is the fixed framework that defines the basic shape and function of the thing. For example one story might have a goal of Obtaining a particular item. Another story might have a goal of Becoming a different kind of person. Obtaining a thing is completely different from Becoming a new person, so those two structures would be completely different. But a story about Obtaining stolen times or Obtaining someone’s love are structurally the same, because they are both about possession.
Now on to the soft tissue of story, the subject matter. Using the above example, in the Obtaining story the goal might be to obtain a treasure, a diploma, someone’s respect or the answer to a riddle. Clearly each of these stories would feel completely different, even though they are all Obtaining stories because the subject matter is different, just as a person of one weight, musculature and fitness is going to seem completely different than someone who varies in those areas, even through they have the exact same skeletal structure. So, they are structurally the same, but differ in what’s attached to that structure – the subject matter.
In another example of how different stories can strike a reader or audience as being different, even though the structure is the same, a goal of “Becoming” might be becoming more honest, becoming more self-sufficient, becoming more passionate or becoming more considerate. And so, each of these would seem like a different story, even though, structurally, they are all about Becoming something one currently is not. In short, a single structure can manifest itself in many different ways.
So now that we have a pretty good grip on a very fundamental understanding of the first two parts of a story, the structure and the subject matter, let us consider the clothing, which is the equivalent of Exposition in a story – what of that structure and subject matter is immediately visible, and what is held back.
In stories, as in clothing, exposition is the way the thing is revealed. How much do you show up front? How long does it take to see more? What are you shown, and in what order? And when do you get to see it all?
Authors do well to remember that while they know their entire story from beginning to end and everything in between, their audience or readers don’t. So the job of exposition is two-fold. One, to make sure you find a place in the unfolding of your story to convey everything you want the audience/readers to know. Two, to consider how best to unveil the details of your story like a striptease artist, enticing your audience/readers to build in them the greatest possible interest. That is the essence of the third of our four perspectives.
Finally, we come to our fourth and final angle on our story – the storytelling style – the fancy dancy primps and preens that give the whole package pizazz, just as a person has a certain kind of haircut or hairstyle, adopts a rhythm to the way they walk and move, and develops their own voice – the way the turn a phrase.
In terms of stories, consider that though you may have completed the first three stages in developing your story (built a structure, developed the subject matter, and worked out the exposition and reveals, you haven’t actually written a word! So this last stage, storytelling style, is (surprisingly enough) where you actually tell your story!
The structure determines what it is, the subject matter determines what it means, the exposition determines how it shows itself, and storytelling determines how it feels. In other words, in four steps you’ve moved clear across from a fully logistic approach to the elements of structure to a purely passionate experience in the art of storytelling.
Now earlier I promised to describe why all this is useful to a writer, because a lot of insights into story, while intriguing, don’t necessarily immediately suggest how you might apply them to your advantage in story development.
In terms of practical application, we shouldn’t think about the four stages when we are creating – to do so would move us into an analytical frame of mind and smother our Muse. But once we have run short of inspiration for a bit, then we would do well to look at our story more objectively – to examine it logically to make sure we haven’t missed a beat, gone off track, failed to communicate or lost the passion.
A completed section of your story may mask problems in one of the four aspects by something really cool in another aspect. This creates a hidden problem in one area behind the flash in another. Alas, in the end, while it might “wow,” it won’t sustain.
Conversely, a story might be so balanced among all four perspectives that it becomes bland to the point of being impossible to swallow, yet seems quite complete to an author. So by separating the four stages, you can see where your storytelling might not have enough oomph and needs to jiggle its booty a bit more to entice.
By putting structural considerations out of your mind while you creatively write, it frees your Muse to pursue any creative path that appeals to her. Then, by putting creativity out of your mind while you analyze, you can see clearly where the problems are and how to go about fixing them.
In the end, if you are aware of elements of structure and practice the art of storytelling, you’ll write with maximum productivity and have a more pleasant creative experience as well.
What Happens in Acts One, Two, and Three?
Here’s a good general template for beginning writers that outlines some of the key events and activities that are best addressed in each of your three acts.
ACT ONE
Act one is about the Set Up. It establishes the way things are when the problem begins. It introduces the problem, establishes the goal and its requirements, as well as the consequences if the goal is not achieved.
Many stories include a journey or quest that leads to the goal. In such stories, the first act concerns discovery of the need for and nature of the quest, the acceptance of the quest, and preparations to embark. Act one then concludes with the final preparations and a restatement of the necessity of the quest by reminding the reader/audience of the potential consequences.
In all stories, by the end of act one, the reader/audience must understand what the story is about, what is to be achieved, and how the effort toward that end is expected to proceed.
Keep in mind that for storytelling purposes you may intend to fool your audience into believing the goal is one thing when it will later turn out to be another.
Also, the plot of many stories includes a “teaser” at the very beginning of the act. The teaser is an emotional “hook” meant to snare reader interest and draw them into the book or movie. Almost every television episode begins with a teaser to keep the audience from changing the channel.
Teasers may or may not have anything to do with the story at large. Sometimes they are simply exciting emotional or action-oriented extravaganzas which are nothing more than entertainment, and add nothing to the structure of the real story about to begin.
In any event, by the end of the first act, your reader/audience must feel it understands what the story is about and the direction it appears to be taking.
ACT TWO
This is the Act of Development. The second act develops plot points that you set up in your first act, adding richness and detail to your story.
If there’s a journey in your story, act two is about the beginning and progress of that quest. As progress is made, the obstacles to progress become more substantial. Every step taken towards that goal increases in difficulty.
Somewhere in Act Two there is a major plot twist, either physically or due to information uncovered, that throws the whole story into left field. In some stories this twist happens in the middle of the act. The second half of the act is spent trying to recover from the set back and begin anew. In other stories, this twist occurs at the end of the second act, driving the quest in a whole new direction with the beginning of act three.
ACT THREE
This is the Act of the Climax. The whole of the third act is leading up to that point, creating tension and suspense. This is what your entire story has been leading up to. You want your third act to be more fast-paced than the rest of your story, and a lot more suspenseful.
The most compelling stories build the forces for and against the goal so that each becomes stronger and stronger. At the point of climax each is so powerful that something has to give – the tension is just too great. And yet, since they are balanced, the outcome is still uncertain.
The progression of the third act of plot is often heavily influenced by genre. For example, a compelling mystery might be designed to spread suspicion even wider than before, rather than narrowing in on just a few characters. Therefore, the sense of building tension may spring from increasing confusion, rather than understanding.
In all cases, act three must draw all dynamic forces to a head and eventually tie up all loose ends.
SUMMING UP
Certainly there are a lot of other structural and storytelling tasks readers or audience are used to encountering in each act, such as character introductions and growth, exploration of your theme, and employment of dramatic elements specific to your genre.
Still, using this template as a foundational guide can help provide a framework for additional development and insure that the spine of your dramatics is sound.
*******
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Structure vs. Passion
No one reads a book or goes to a movie to enjoy a good structure. No author writes because he is driven to create a sound structure. Audiences and authors come to opposite sides of a story because of their passions – the author driven to express his, and the audience hoping to ignite its own.
As an audience, what draws us to a story in the first place is our attraction to the subject matter and the style. We might love a taut mystery, a fulfilling romance, or a chilling horror story. We might be intrigued by the potential applications of a new discovery of science, the exploration of newly unearthed ancient city, or the life of a celebrity.
As an author what brings us to write a story may be a clever concept for an action sequence, a bit of dialog, a notion for a character, a setting, time period, a favorite topic, or a clever twist of plot. Or, we might have a deep-seated need to express a childhood experience, work out an irrational fear, or make a public statement about a social injustice.
No matter what our attraction as audience or author, it is our passions that trigger our imaginations. But passion rides on structure, and if the structure is flawed or even broken, then the passionate expression from author to audience will fall.
When structure is done properly, it is invisible, serving only as the carrier wave that delivers the passion to the audience. But when structure is flawed, it adds static to the flow of emotion, breaking up and possibly scrambling the passion so badly that the audience gets nothing of what the author was sending.
Yet, the attempt to ensure a sound structure is an intellectual pursuit. Questions such as “Who is my Protagonist?” “Where should my story begin?” “What happens in Act Two?” or “What is my message?” force an author to turn away from his passion and embrace logistics instead.
As a result, an author often becomes mired in the nuts and bolts of storytelling, staring at a blank page not because of a lack of inspiration, but because he can’t figure out how to make his passion make sense. Worse, the re-writing process is often grueling and frustrating, forcing the author to accept unwanted changes in the flow of emotion for the sake of logic. So what is an author to do? Is there any way out of this dilemma?
As a teacher of creative writing and story structure, some time ago I worked out an approach to story development that allows an author to retain his passion even while serving the demands of structure, and best of all, it’s completely free.
Called the Master Storyteller Method, this system can be used both before you write to know exactly where things will be going and also after you write to find and refine the structure already hidden in your passion.
You won’t be asked to discard any techniques or approaches you are currently using. Rather, you’ll simply be adding to what you already know, to what you are already doing; extending your understanding of how stories really work and how to write them. So why not embark on an expedition into the heart of inspiration and the uncharted frontiers of story structure.
The price is free, the risks are low, the potential rewards are great, and all you need to carry with you are your own passions.
Check it out for yourself:
Lost in Alternative Plots
Do you remember the television series called Lost – about a plane that crashes on a mysterious island filled with contradictions and unanswerable questions? The series ran for something like five years and never really answered most of those questions.
When it concluded, everyone had been led to believe that all their questions would be answered. But, in truth, very few were, and certainly not any of the big ones. The audience was very disappointed. But if they HAD answered the questions – well, then, it would have been considered one of the most inventive and wonderfully produced series of all time.
Still, it is usually a very good thing to create questions in the mind of your reader or audience. These are the questions your they will be asking on their own, if you have set things up right. And if they are, then they are hooked, because they want to know the answers and will keep with you for this book or television series or even for a whole series of books that spring from the story world you have created.
Now you don’t have to know the answers to these questions going into the writing process. But you do have to know the answers by the time the series is done. You can answer some of the questions in each book or episode or season, but create more questions as well, until the final book or episode or season, which must bring all the parts together.
For example, in Harry Potter, it is only in the last book that you learn that Harry is one of the “objects” that holds a piece of Voldemort’s soul – all the others being inanimate objects. It is that knowledge in the last book that allows Harry to overcome Voldemort.
I don’t know if J.K Rowling worked that one out in advance, but she sure came up with a dilly of an answer to the questions of why Harry was “the one” and also was “the boy who lived!”
And in the Vampire Chronicles about LeStat by Anne Rice, she created an overarching issue for her main character who did not want to be a vampire, then came to revel in it, then to be impertinent, and then is finally presented with a way to become human again, takes it, and discovers he has lost himself, his identity, by no longer being a vampire. He spends that whole fifth and final book in that particular overarching story trying to regain his vampireness, which he eventually does – angst over, content bloodsucker.
Another example – do you know the author, Alistair MacClean, who wrote Where Eagles Dare and Ice Station Zebra, to name a couple of his 20+ books?
He reveled in creating a plot that turned out not to be the real plot, which also turned out not to be the real plot. Sometimes, by the end of a book, you had gone through six reasonable explanations of what was going on, only to discover none of them were true and it was really a seventh.
Now, think of the series Twin Peaks, in which there are so many odd goings-on and supernatural happenings. Once again, we all expected an answer in the last episode, but it didn’t happen. Still, the “ride” was exceptional, so we all let it go, but with an underlying sense of dissatisfaction and of being unfulfilled.
But you know, as a narrative analyst, it wasn’t too hard to come up with endings for both Lost and Twin Peaks that tied everything together. In fact, I came up with an explanation for each that is simple, obvious once you know it, and would have tied everything together for each of the series. But, I’m not going to delve into that here, because the point of this article is not the specifics, but that you really want to have your readers or audience asking questions to keep them on the hook but you are then REALLY obligated to come up with truly clever and unexpected answers to those questions.
It is very possible to do this, even if you don’t figure it out in advance.
My point is this. Keep your reader guessing and then satisfy at the end.
But how do you do that?
Here’s the plan.
While you are working out your story, you are likely to come up with a bunch of different potential plot turns and explanations for things before you settle on the one that you want.
Write down each different potential plot as a separate synopsis of a story, as if each was going to be your story in an alternate universe.
The synopses can be as long or as short as you like. One paragraph or ten pages.
Give each a name such as “Plot Explanation 1” or “Gordon is really a sentient Twinkie” and and so on.
In each, write about the plot as if it were the only one for the story in that universe.
As a byproduct, this will help clear your mind of the cacophony of all the completing plot ideas that are running around in your head.
It will also point out which ones are most developed and which are very thin.
It will also point out which are easiest to write for you and have the most creative impetus.
Now, list some questions at the bottom of each synopsis – things you don’t yet have the answers to – things that keep you up at night, looking for a reason for what you want you characters to do or for what happens to them.
As you have now likely guessed, you may not want to pursue all the different plot versions. But once you have them all written down independently, you can compare them, their ease of writing, their interest to you and motivation for you as the author, and so on.
From the list of all of them, you can select the one you want to pursue for this book, season or script and put the rest in mothballs for later.
Once you see all of the different plot options you have considered, and once each has been independently described, then you can determine if you want to do like MacClean or Lost and use several with one turning out to be true in the end, or if you want to just select one as your plot for a single story, create questions in the mind of your readers or audience, and not pursue the others at all.
Now, armed with your basic story, you take your list of questions at the end of each synopsis you intend to employ, and focus on just one question at a time. Turn off your reasonable mind and let your Muse run wild with all kinds of potential answers ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous to the absurd.
Sometimes the most cockamamie answers are the most appealing to your readers or audience, because they would never think of them themselves.
Select the answer you want it to turn out to be, and then tease your readers or audience by making the answer appear to be something else along the way to the truth. Give them several of the other answers as the explanation of the moment, then drop a little more information that makes that answer unreasonable within the rules of your own story universe. Then, put another answer up as your explanation. Rinse and repeat until all your really good Muse-provided answers have been run up the flagpole until, finally and at the very end, you spring the very best answer on them so they know it is going to stick.
Do this, and you’ll have the reading or viewing public eating out of your mind.
Write a Log Line for Your Story
A log line is just a one sentence description of the core of what your story is about.
You probably have a lot of ideas developed and even a potential structure.
That’s great, but it also can become a bit amorphous – all dealing with the same subject matter but perhaps not fully centered on a single concept.
Writing a log line is like dropping a string in a bowl of sugar water – by morning, there will be sugar crystals on the string. A log line performs the same function for your story concepts: It pulls them out of the subject matter and crystalizes them into characters, plot, theme and genre – the foundational elements of structure. I call it a “narrative attractor.”
So, to help your subject matter congeal around a central core, describe what your story is about in just one sentence!
Learn how to use log lines in my StoryWeaver software that guides you step by step through the entire story development process – from concept to completion.
It’s just $29.95 and you can try it risk free at Storymind.com
Jurassic Park: Building A Better Dinosaur!
Here’s a flashback article from the early days of the Dramatica theory of narrative structure back in the mid 1990s. It is the first article I wrote in a series of “Constructive Criticisms” in which I showed how Dramatica could have improved highly successful movies and books, not just ones that were obviously flawed.
We knew Dramatica was a powerful new way to look at structure. And to convey this to others, we figured that while anybody might show how to make a bad story better, we had the method to show how to make a great story superlative.
So, here’s the original article as it appeared in the first edition of our Storyforming Newsletter…
Jurassic Park: Building A Better Dinosaur!
Jurassic Park is wonderfully entertaining. The concepts are intriguing, the visuals stunning. Everything it does, it does well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do enough. There are parts missing, little bits of story DNA that are needed to complete the chain. To be fair, these problems largely result from the mostly faithful adherence to the dramatic structure and dynamics of the book upon which the movie is based.
Storyform, the structure and dynamics of a story, is not medium dependent. What works in one medium will work in all others. Storytelling, however, must vary significantly to take advantage of the strengths and avoid the weaknesses inherent in any format. Jurassic Park makes this storytelling translation very well, but the flawed dramatics were nearly lifted intact, shackling the movie just like the book with a Pterodactyl hanging `round its neck.
Yet criticisms are a dime a dozen. Suggestions for improvement are much more rare. Fortunately that is the strong suit of the Dramatica theory. Here is one plan for building a better dinosaur.
Dramatica Background
As a starting point, Dramatica denotes a difference between a Tale and a Story. A Tale describes a series of events that lead to success or failure. It carries the message that a particular way of going about solving the problem is or is not a good one. But a Story is an argument that there is only one right way to solve a problem. It is a much more potent form that seeks to have the audience accept the author’s conclusions.
To gain an audience’s acceptance, an argument (Story) must appeal to both logic and feeling. To make the logical part of this argument, all the inappropriate ways a problem might be approached need to be addressed and shown to fail. Each one must be given its due and shown not to work except the one touted by the author. This is accomplished by looking at the characters and the plot objectively, much like a general on a hill watching a battle down below. The big picture is very clear and the scope and ramifications of the individual soldiers can be seen in relationship to the entire field.
However, to make the emotional part of the argument, the audience must become involved in the story at a personal level. To this end, they are afforded a Subjective view of the story through the eyes of the Main Character. Here they get to participate in the battle as if they were actually one of the soldiers in the trenches. It is the differential between the Subjective view of the Main Character and the Objective view of the whole battle that generates dramatic tension from which the message of the story is created.
By comparing the two views, the argument is made to the audience that the Main Character must change to accommodate the big picture, or that the Main Character is on the right track and must hold on to their resolve if they hope to succeed. Of course, the Main Character cannot see the big picture, so they must make a leap of faith near the end of the story, deciding if they want to stick it out or change.
Now this relationship between the Main Character and the Objective story makes them a very special character. In fact, they hold the key to the whole battle. They are the crucial element in the dramatic web who (through action or inaction) can wrap the whole thing up or cause it to fall apart. As a result, the personal problems they face reflect the nature of the Objective problem of the story at large.
To the audience there are two problems in a story. One is the Objective problem that everyone is concerned with; the other is the Subjective problem that the Main Character is personally concerned with. Although the problems may be greatly different in the way they are manifest, they both hinge on the crucial element in the Main Character as their common root. So, to be a complete argument a story must explore an Objective AND a Subjective problem, and show how they are both related to the same source.
Jurassic Park Analysis:
Jurassic Park attempts to be a story (not a tale) but does not make it because its exploration of the Subjective problem is lacking.
The Objective problem is clearly shown to be caused by the relationship of Order to Chaos. The message of the logical side of the argument is that the more you try to control something, the more you actually open yourself up to the effects of chaos. As Princess Leia put it to the Gran Mof Tarkin in Star Wars, “The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”
Since Order is actually the problem, the Chaos must be the solution. This is vaguely alluded to in Jurassic Park when the Tyrannosaurus wipes out the Raptors, unknowingly saving the humans. Although the point is not strongly stated, it is sort of there. We will come back to this point later to show how it should have been a much more dramatically integral event than it was. The important concept at the moment is that as far as it goes, the Objective Storyline is fairly close to what it should be, which is true of most action-oriented stories.
It is the Subjective Storyline that fails to fulfill its dramatic mandate in Jurassic Park. To see how we must go back to the very beginning of the film, to our Main Character, Dr. Alan Grant. Since Dr. Grant contains the crucial element, we would expect him to intersect the Objective Story’s problem by representing Order or Chaos. Clearly the author intended him to represent Order. This means that he contains the Problem element (the inappropriate attitude or approach that is the underlying source of the Story’s troubles), rather than the Solution Element, and as such must Change in order to succeed.
The entire first scene with Grant at the dig should have illustrated his love of Order. All the elements were there: a disruptive boy, a randomly sensitive computer, a helicopter that comes out of nowhere and ruins the dig. All of these things could have illustrated Grant’s hatred of Chaos and his quest for Order. Using the same events and incidents the point might have been made in any number of ways, the easiest being a simple comment by Dr. Grant himself.
Unfortunately without any direct allusion to Order being his primary concern, Dr. Grant comes off simply as finding disruptions inconvenient, faulty equipment annoying, and kids as both.
Why is it so important to set up the nature of the problem so early? Well, one of the major problems with the Jurassic Park storyform is that we really don’t know what the problem is until near the end of the first act. Certainly almost every movie goer must have been aware that this was a picture about an island where they cloned dinosaurs back to life, and they run amok wreaking havoc – that’s all storytelling. But that doesn’t say why. The “Why” is the storyform: the excuse, if you will, for having a story to tell. If the point of contention had been established up front, the whole thrust of the picture would have been given direction from scene one.
Just stating that Dr. Grant shares the problem with the story is obviously not enough. The relationship between his view of the problem and the Objective view of the problem is what explores the concept, makes the argument, and allows the Main Character to grow. Ultimately, it is the differential between the two that brings a Changing (versus Steadfast) Main Character to suspect the error of their ways and make a positive leap of faith. They see the problem outside themselves, then find it inside themselves. They change the inside, and the outside follows suit.
What does this mean for Jurassic Park? As it is, Doctor Grant’s attitude toward John Hammond’s ability to control the dinosaurs is one of skepticism, but not because of Order, because of Chaos. Grant simply agrees with Ian Malcolm, the mathematician. This makes the same point from two directions. But Grant’s function is not to tout Chaos, but to favor Order. Only this point of view would be consistent with his feelings toward the children.
As illustrated in the table scene with Hammond, Ian, and Elissa, Grant jumps from representing his original approach to representing the opposite, neutralizing his effectiveness as owner of the crucial element and taking the wind out of the dramatic sails.
This problem could have been easily avoided and strong drama created by having Dr. Grant continue to believe that the park is unsafe, but for different reasons.
(Note: The following proposed scene is designed to illustrate how Grant’s and Ian’s positions on what is needed for the park to be safe is different. The storytelling is minimal so as not to distract from the storyforming argument.
GRANT
How can you be sure your creations won’t escape?
HAMMOND
Each compound is completely encircled with electric fences.
GRANT
How many fences?
HAMMOND
Just one, but it is 10,000 volts.
GRANT
That’s not enough….
HAMMOND
I assure you, even a T-Rex respects 10,000 volts!
GRANT
No, I mean not enough fences. It’s been my experience that Dr. Malcom is right. You can’t count on things going the way you expect them. You need back-ups to your back-ups. Leave a soft spot and Chaos will find it. Put three fences around each compound, each with a separate power source and then you can bring people in here.
MALCOLM
That’s not the point at all! Chaos will happen no matter how much you prepare. In fact, the more you try to control a situation, the greater the potential that chaos will bring the whole thing down.
In the above scene, Grant stresses the need for even MORE control than Hammond used. This clearly establishes his aversion to giving in to chaos. But Ian illustrates the difference in their points of view by stating that the greater the control you exercise, the more you tighten the spring of chaos.
What would this mean for the middle of the story? Plenty. Once Grant and the children are lost in the open with the thunder lizards, he might learn gradually that one must allow Chaos to reach an equilibrium with Order. Several close encounters with the dinos might result in minor successes and failures determined by applying Order or allowing Chaos.
As it stands, Dr. Grant simply learns to care about the children. But what has really changed in him? What did he learn? Would it not have been more dramatically pleasing to have the children teach him how chaos is not just a disruptive element, but sometimes an essential component of life? And would it not make sense for someone who has spent his whole life imagining the way dinosaurs lived to be surprised by the truth when he sees them in person? What a wonderful opportunity to show how the Orderly interactions he had imagined for his beloved beasts are anything but orderly in the real world. So many opportunities to teach him the value of Chaos, yet all we get is “They DO travel in herds… I was right!” Well, that line is a nice place to start, especially if you spend the rest of the story showing how wrong he was about everything else. Truly a good place to start growing from.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of the Subjective Storyline is the manner in which they escape in the end. Grant and the kids are sealed in the control room, but the Raptors are right outside. The girl struggles to get the computer up so they can get the door locked. This of course, merely delays the Raptors until the helpless humans can escape into another Raptor attack. Then out of nowhere, T-Rex conveniently barges in, kills the Raptors and allows the humans to escape? Why? Why then? Was T-Rex just waiting in the wings for his cue?
Let’s describe one possible ending that would’ve tied in Chaos, Dr. Grant’s personal problem of order in the Subjective storyline, his growth as a character and eventual change, AND have all this force a successful outcome to the Objective storyline.
Imagine that earlier in the story, when the power went down it only affected some of the compounds, not all. So only some of the areas were open to the roving dinos. Rather than having Elissa get the power back on for the fences, she merely powers up the computer system, but then no one can boot it up.
Dr. Grant and the kids make it back to the control room, barely escaping the T-Rex who is trapped by one of the functional electric fences. They climb over the fence on a tree knocked down by the Tyrannosaurus. The Raptors are at the door of the control room, the girl goes to the computer to lock the door. She locks it, then tells Grant she can bring up the rest of the fences. There might be some kind of visual reminder in the room (such as a dino picture) that Grant (and the audience) associate with his major learning experience with the kids about needing to accept Chaos. Grant almost allows her to bring up the power, then yells for her to stop. He tells her not to bring it up, but to actually cut the power on all of the fences.
Just as before, the Raptors break in, the humans escape onto the dino skeletons. NOW, when T-Rex comes in to save the day, it is solely because of Dr. Grant’s decision to cut the power to the fence that was holding him in. Having learned his lesson about the benefits of Chaos and the folly of Order, he is a changed man. The author’s proof of this correct decision is their salvation courtesy of T-Rex.
Equilibrium is established on the island, Grant suddenly loves kids, he gets the girl, they escape with their lives, and all because the crucial element of Order connected both the Objective and Subjective storylines.
Certainly, Dramatica has many more suggestions for Building a Better Dinosaur, but, leapin’ lizards, don’t you think this is enough for one Constructive Criticism?
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StoryWeaver and the Author’s Journey
By Melanie Anne Phillips
Introduction to StoryWeaver
StoryWeaver is a new method of story development with a revolutionary approach. Rather that focusing on what stories need to be complete, it focuses on what authors need to complete stories.
Other methods look first to construct plot, characters, and thematic message. Then they direct an author to fashion a story that follows the hero’s journey or a series of genre-specific formulas.
In contrast, StoryWeaver looks toward the author’s journey – the stages through which all writers pass on their way from concept to completion of their novel or screenplay.
StoryWeaver sees four primary stages in the author’s journey:
1. Inspiration
2. Development
3. Exposition
4. Storytelling.
Here’s a brief description of each:
Stage One: Inspiration
The Inspiration Stage begins the moment we have an idea for a story. This might be an overall concept (computer geeks are transported to the old west), a plot twist (a detective discovers he is investigating his own murder), a character situation (Ponce de Leon still lives today), a thematic topic (fracking), a character study (an aging rock star who is losing his licks) a line of dialog (“Just cuz somthin’s free don’t mean you didn’t buy it.”), a title (Too Old To Die Young) or any other creative notion that makes you think, that’s a good idea for a story!
What gets the hair on your writerly tail to stand up isn’t important. Whatever it is, you are in the Inspiration Stage and it lasts as long as the ideas flow like spring runoff. You might add characters, specific events in your plot or even write a chapter or two. A very lucky writer never gets out of this stage and just keeps on going until the novel is completely written and sent out for publication.
Alas, for most of us, the Muse vanishes somewhere along the line, and we find ourselves staring at the all-
Stage Two: Development
In the Development Stage we stand back and take a long critical look at our story. There are likely sections that are ready to write, or perhaps you’ve already written some. Then there are the holes, both small and gaping, where there’s a disconnect from one moment you’ve worked out to the next one, bridging over what you can intuitively feel are several skipped beats along the way. There are also breaks in logic when what happens at the beginning makes no sense in connection to what happens at the end (like the Golden Spike if the tracks were a mile apart). There are characters that don’t ring true, unresolved conflicts, and expressed emotions that seem to come out of nowhere. You may find thematic inconsistency or may even be missing a theme altogether.
And so, the work begins – tackling each and every one of these by itself, even while trying to make them all fit together. By the end of the development stage, you’ll have added detail and richness to your story and gotten all the parts to work in concert like a well-
Eventually (thank providence) you’ll have all the leaks plugged and a fresh coat of paint on the thing. You now know your story inside and out. But, your readers won’t. In fact, you realize that while you can see your beginning, ending and all that happens in between in a single glance, all at once, your readers or audience will be introduced to the elements of your story in a winding sequential progression of reveals. You also realize you have quite unawares stumbled into Stage Three: Exposition.
Stage Three: Exposition
You know your story, but how do you unfold it for others? Where do you begin? Do you use flash backs or perhaps flash forwards? Do you mislead them? Do you keep a mystery? Do you spell things out all at once, or do you drop clues along the way?
There are endless techniques for revealing the totality of your story, many can be used simultaneously, and each one adds a different spice to the journey. Like a parade, every float and band has a position designed to create the greatest impact. And when you have all that figured out, you are ready to write as you begin the Storytelling Stage.
Stage Four: Storytelling
Storytelling is all about word play and style. Whether you are writing a novel, a screenplay or a stage play, there are media-
Before we send it out the door, we writers shift and substitute and polish until (almost regretfully) we let it go, just like a parent bundling up a child for school. In the end, as Da Vinci’s famous saying goes, “Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
So, Inspiration, Development, Exposition and Storytelling are the four stages of story development that nearly every writer travels through on the way from concept to completion.
In summary
By following the author’s creative journey, the story development process is never at odds with a writer’s Muse. So story building becomes a smooth and comfortable endeavor that encourages invention and boosts the motivation to get it done.
In our next installment, we’ll look more deeply into StoryWeaver’s fist stage, Inspiration, to learn about new techniques for coming up with initial ideas for your plot, characters, theme and genre.
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Spin a Tale, Weave a Story
The common expression “spinning a yarn” conjures up the image of a craftsperson pulling together a fluffy pile into a single unbroken thread. An appropriate analogy for the process of telling a tale. A tale is a simple, linear progression – a series of events and emotional experiences that leads from point A to point B, makes sense along the way, and leaves no gaps.
A tale is, perhaps, the simplest form of storytelling structure. The keyword here is “structure.” Certainly, structure isn’t necessary to communicate powerful feelings as a montage of experiences. One can still relate a conglomeration of intermingled scenarios, each with its own meaning and emotional impact. Many power works of this ilk are considered classics, especially as novels or experimental films.
Nonetheless, if one wants to make a point, you need to create a line that leads from your premise to your conclusion. A tale, then, is a sequence of dramatic elements leading from the point of departure to the destination on a single path.
A story, on the other hand, is a more complex form of structure. Essentially, a number of different story threads are intertwined around one another, much as a artist might weave a tapestry. Each individual thread is a tale that needs to be spun, making its own internal message complete, unbroken, and possessing its own sequence. But collectively, the messages of all the threads come together in a single, overall pattern in the tapestry of the story, much as the scanning lines on a television come together to create the image of a single frame.
In story structure, then, the sequence of events in each individual thread cannot be random, but must be designed to do double-duty – both making sense as an unbroken progression and also as pieces of a greater purpose.
To be a story thread, a sequence of dramatic elements must have its own beginning, middle, and end. For example, every character’s growth has its own thread. Typically, this is referred to as a character arc, especially when in reference to the main character. But an “arc” has nothing to do with the growth of a character. Rather, each character’s emotional journey is a personal tale that describe his or her feelings at the beginning of the story, at every key juncture, and at the final reckoning.
Some characters may come to change their natures, others may grow in their resolve. But their mood swings, attitudes, and outlook must follow an unbroken path that is consistent with a series of emotions that a real human being might experience. For example, a person will not instantly snap from a deep depression into joyous elation without some intervening impact, be it unexpected news, a personal epiphany, or even the ingestion of great quantities of chocolate. In short, each character throughline must be true to itself, and also must take into consideration the effect of outside influences.
Now that we know what a throughline is, how can we use it? Well, right off the bat, it helps us break even the most complex story structures down into a collection of much simpler elements. Using the throughline concept, we can far more easily create a story structure, and can also ensure that every element is complete and that our story has no gaps or inconsistencies.
Before the throughline concept, writers traditionally would haul out the old index cards (or their equivalent) and try to create a single sequential progression for their stories from Act I, Scene I to the climax and final denouement.
An unfortunate byproduct of this “single throughline” approach is that it tended to make stories far more simplistic than they actually needed to be since the author would think of the sequential structure as being essentially a simple tale, rather than a layered story.
In addition, by separating the throughlines it is far easier to see if there are any gaps in the chain. Using a single thread approach to a story runs the risk of having a powerful event in one throughline carry enough dramatic weight to pull the story along, masking missing pieces in other throughlines that never get filled. This, in fact, is part of what makes some stories seem disconnected from the real world, trite, or melodramatic.
By using throughlines it is far easier to create complex themes and layered messages. Many authors think of stories as having only one theme (if that). A theme is just a comparison between two human qualities to see which is better in the given situations of the story.
For example, a story might wish to deal with greed. But, greed by itself is just a topic. It doesn’t become a theme until you weigh it against its counterpoint, generosity, and then “prove” which is the better quality of spirit to possess by showing how they each fare over the course of the story. One story’s message might be that generosity is better, but another story might wish to put forth that in a particular circumstance, greed is actually better.
By seeing the exploration of greed as one throughline and the exploration of generosity as another, each can be presented in its own progression. In so doing, the author avoids directly comparing one to the other (as this leads to a ham-handed and preachy message), but instead can balance one against the other so that the evidence builds as to which is better, but you still allow the audience to come to its own conclusion, thereby involving them in the message and making it their own. Certainly, a more powerful approach.
Plot, too, is assisted by multiple throughlines. Subplots are often hard to create and hard to follow. By dealing with each independently and side by side, you can easily see how they interrelate and can spot and holes or inconsistencies.
Subplots usually revolve around different characters. By placing a character’s growth throughline alongside his or her subplot throughline, you can make sure their mental state is always reflective of their inner state, and that they are never called upon to act in a way that is inconsistent with their mood or attitude at the time.
There are many other advantages to the use of throughlines as well. So many, that the Dramatica theory (and software) incorporate throughlines into the whole approach. Years later, when I developed StoryWeaver at my own company, throughlines became an integral part of the step-by-step story development approach it offers.
How do you begin to use throughlines for your stories? The first step is to get yourself some index cards, either 3×5 or 5×7. As you develop your story, rather than simply lining them all up in order, you take each sequential element of your story and create its own independent series of cards showing every step along the way.
Identify each separate kind of throughline with a different color. For example, you could make character-related throughlines blue (or use blue ink, or a blue dot) and make plot related throughlines green. This way, when you assemble them all together into your overall story structure, you can tell at a glance which elements are which, and even get a sense of which points in your story are character heavy or plot or theme heavy.
Then, identify each throughline within a group by its own mark, such as the character’s name, or some catch-phrase that describes a particular sub-plot, such as, “Joe’s attempt to fool Sally (or more simply, the “Sally Caper.”). That way, even when you weave them all together into a single storyline, you can easily find and work with the components of any given throughline. Be sure also to number the cards in each throughline in sequence, so if you accidentally mix them up or decide to present them out of order for storytelling purposes, such as in a flashback or flash forward, you will know the order in which they actually need to occur in the “real time” of the story.
So, bottom line: you spin a tale or you can weave a story, but if you want to convey a complex message, you need to ensure that every thread is not only a quality one, but that work together to create a greater meaning.
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