In this overview video I introduce the concept behind StoryWeaver and explore its key features. Read my additional text below the video for more details…
When I created the first version of StoryWeaver way back in 2001, I had no idea it would fill such a creative niche for writers. Yet all these years later, it is still the number one best-seller on my store for writers, beating out every other program, tool, or informational product by a landslide.
So why is StoryWeaver still so popular? I believe there are two reasons:
First, StoryWeaver was designed with a Step By Step approach to story development. You begin with your initial inspiration, then gradually make it richer and more detailed, one step at a time.
Second, StoryWeaver automatically quotes the text you wrote in earlier steps so you can fold that into the current step. In this way, you always have a real story from the very first step, and it just gets deeper and more complete with each mini-revision you make, step by step.
There are more than 200 steps in StoryWeaver. There need to be in order to give your story the shading and nuance you’d like it to have. You build and grow your characters, chart and explore your plot, focus and support your message, and expand your genre until your story develops its own unique personality.
As you might imagine, I could go on and on about each individual step, why it is there, what it does for your story, and what it does for your Muse. But that’s just because I honest to gosh think this program is so useful, I get a little gung-ho about sharing it.
I’ve gotten two kinds of emails from users over the years: Those who practically worship StoryWeaver and those who call it everything from “simplistic” to “overly complex.” This always leaves me with a head tilt: how can it be both too simple and too complex?
The answer, of course, is that it is one thing to one writer and something else to another. Each writer has his or her own style, though we all follow the same basic progression. StoryWeaver (or any writing software for that matter) can’t be right for everyone, by definition.
So, I’d like to suggest you try StoryWeaver and see if it works for you – especially since we have a 90 day money back guarantee. All you might lose is a little of your time, but what you might gain is a really useful tool that can open creative doorways, organize your inspirations, and lead you step by step to finishing your novel, screenplay or stage play.
You can get more details and/or purchase StoryWeaver HERE.
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The great masters of plot create dramatic moments that multi-task. For example, a novice writer might reveal the story’s goal in a line of dialog, but a master storyteller might reveal it in such a way as to also add insight into the speaker’s personal issues, the nature of his or her relationship to another character, and also to illustrate an aspect of the story’s thematic message.
Stories in which each moment means only one thing are usually not particularly involving as they do not reflect the complexities of real life. Further, with single appreciation moments, there is only one way to appreciate a story. But the great masters of storytelling include so many multi appreciation moments that each time a book is re-read or a movie seen again for the umpteenth time, the focus of the audience attention during the unfolding of the story is never along the exact same path twice.
Each trip through the story opens new insights, provides new experiences, and reveals new surprises as new interpretations and understandings are exposed every time through the journey.
So, to keep your story, be it novel, screenplay, stage play, or even song ballad from being a one-time experience and coming off as a point-by-numbers approach to structure, consider employing multi-appreciation moments in your storytelling to enrich the experience and create an atmosphere worthy of a master storyteller.
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In order to create tension in your audience, you will want to establish a limit to the story. This limit will indicate to the audience what will bring the story to a moment of truth, either running out of time or running out of options. If you want tension to increase as your characters run out of time, choose Timelock. If you want tension to increase as your characters run out of options, then choose Optionlock.
THEORY: Every argument must come to an end or no point can be made. The same is true for stories. For an author to explore an issue, a limit to the scope of the argument must be established.
To establish how much ground the argument will cover, authors limit the story by length or by size. Timelocks create an argument in which “anything goes” within the allotted time constraints. Optionlocks create an argument that will extend as long as necessary to provide that every specified issue is addressed.
By selecting the kind of limit at work in your story, you lock down either the duration of the argument (Timelock), or the ground covered (Optionlock).
USAGE: A Story Limit works to bring the story to a climax and a conclusion. This Limit can be accomplished in either of two ways. Either the characters run out of places to look for the solution or they run out of time to work one out. Running out of options is accomplished by an Optionlock; a deadline is accomplished by a Timelock.
Choosing a Timelock or an Optionlock has a tremendous impact on the nature of the tension the audience will feel as the story progresses toward its climax. A Timelock tends to take a single point of view and slowly fragment it until many things are going on at once. An Optionlock tends to take many pieces of the puzzle and bring them all together at the end.
A Timelock raises tension by dividing attention. An Optionlock raises tension by focusing it. A Timelock increases tension by bringing a single thing closer to being an immediate problem. An Optionlock increases tension by building a single thing that becomes a distinct problem.
Both of these means of limiting the story grow stronger as the story progresses. Optionlocks limit pieces with which to solve the problem and can create a feeling of growing claustrophobia. Timelocks limit the interval during which something can happen and can create a feeling of growing acceleration. Both types of Limits bring the story to a climax.
One cannot look just to the climax, however, to determine if a Timelock or Optionlock is working. A better way to determine which is at work is to look at the nature of the obstacles thrown in the path of the Protagonist and/or Main Character. If the obstacles are primarily delays, a Timelock is in effect; if the obstacles are caused by diversions, an Optionlock is in effect. An author may feel more comfortable building tension through delays or building tension through diversion. Choose the kind of limit most meaningful for you and most appropriate to your story.
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No one reads a book or goes to a movie to experience a perfect structure. They come to stories to ignite their passions. BUT – if that passionate storytelling is TOO flawed, the readers or audience pop right out of the experience and the passion is lost!
On the other hand, if you try to achieve a perfect story structure, you are going to undercut some of the subject matter and storytelling expressions that give your story life. Then, you compromise the intensity of the experience and, though your story is on solid ground, it just lays there and nobody cares.
The solution is to know what the perfect structure would be for your particular story, but to use it only as a guide to tweak your story wherever you can to make the structure stronger without ever making a change that will drain passion from your story.
So how do you know what your story’s perfect structure should be, so you can refer to it as you write and for making revisions later?
Simple. Dramatica. Dramatica Writing Software live-generates 32,768 different structures. And it helps you choose the one that fits best with your story concept.
All you do is answer questions about what you intend to do in your story and about what happens in it, and Dramatica will cross-reference the dramatic impact of your choices on all of the structures elements to find the perfect structure for your story.
Then, using Dramatica’s powerful story development tools, you can build your story on that foundation and can pick and choose where to embrace structure closely to strengthen your story or where to stray from perfect structure to follow a passionate thread.
And there you have it. Busting the myth and finding a really useful truth behind it. So, put off the shackles of expectations of perfection and get with the program!
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A goal is what the characters chase, but what chases the characters? Answer: the Consequences. Consequences double the dramatic tension in a story by providing a negative result if the goal is not achieved.
Consequences may be emotional or logistic, but the more intense they are, the greater the tension.Often they provide greater depth if there are emotional consequences when there is an external goal, and external consequences if there is an emotional goal.
Your story might be about avoiding the consequences or it might begin with the consequences already in place, and the goal is intended to end them.
If the consequences are intense enough, they can help provide motivation for characters who have no specific personal goals.
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All too often in stories, relationships and interchanges between characters of different sexes come off stilted, unbelievable, or contrived. In fact, since the author is writing from the perspective of only one of the two sexes, characters of the opposite sex often play more as one sex’s view of the opposite sex, rather than as truly being a character OF the opposite sex. This is because the author is looking AT the opposite sex, not FROM its point of view.
By exploring the differences in how each sex sees the world, we can more easily create believable characters of both sexes. To that end, I offer the following incident.
I was at lunch with Chris (Co-creator of Dramatica) some time ago. I had ordered some garlic bread and could not finish it. I asked the waitress if she would put it in a box to take home, and she did. On the way past the cashier, I realized that I had forgotten to take the box from the table. I said, “Rats! I forgot the bread!”
Chris said, “Go ahead and get it, we’ll wait.”
I thought for a moment and said, “No, it’s not that important.” and started to walk out.
Chris: “It’ll only take a moment.”
Me: “Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won’t eat it anyway, and it probably won’t reheat very well, and…”
Chris then said in jest, “Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”
In fact, they really did sound like excuses to him. But to me, the reasons I had presented to him for not going back for the bread were not rationalizations, but actually legitimate concerns.
At the heart of this difference in perspective is the difference in the way female and male brains are “soft wired”. As a result, neither women nor men can see into the heart of the other without finding a lack of coherence.
Here is a line-by-line comparison of the steps leading from having too much bread to the differing interpretations of my response to forgetting the box.
Melanie thinks:
That’s good bread, but I’m full. I might take it home, but I’m not convinced it will reheat. Also, I’ve really eaten too many calories in the last few days, I’m two pounds over where I want to be and I have a hair appointment on Wednesday and a dinner date on the weekend with a new friend I want to impress, so maybe I shouldn’t eat anymore. The kids won’t want it, but I could give it to the dog, and if I get hungry myself, I’ll have it there (even though I shouldn’t eat it if I want to lose that two pounds!) So, I guess it’s better to take it than to leave it.
Melanie says:
“Waitress, can I have a box to take the bread home?”
Chris understands Melanie to mean:
I want to take the bread home.
The balance sheet:
To me there was only a tendency toward bringing the bread home, and barely enough to justify the effort. To Chris it was a binary decision: I wanted to bring it home or not.
Melanie says:
“Rats! I forgot to bring the bread!”
Chris says:
“Go ahead and get it, we’ll wait.”
The balance sheet:
I’m thinking, “How does this change the way I feel about the situation?” Chris is thinking, “How can she solve this problem.”
Melanie thinks:
Well, I really don’t want to be tempted by it, this unexpected turn makes it easier to lose the weight. If I go back I’ll be tempted or give it to the dog. If I don’t go back I won’t be tempted, which is good because I know I usually give in to such temptations. Of course, the dog loses out, but we just bought some special treats for the dog so she won’t miss what she wasn’t expecting. All in all, the effort of going around two corners while everyone waits just so I can get an extra doggie treat and lead myself into temptation isn’t worth it.
Melanie says:
“No, its not that important.”
Chris says:
“It’ll only take a moment.”
The balance sheet:
I’m thinking that since I was right on the edge of not wanting to take it in the first place, even this little extra necessary effort is enough inconvenience to make it not a positive thing but an irritation, so I’ll just drop it and not pay even the minor price. Chris is thinking that since I made up my mind to take the bread in the first place, how is it that this little inconvenience could change my mind 180 degrees. I must be lazy or embarrassed because I forgot it.
Melanie says:
“Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won’t eat it anyway, and it probably won’t reheat very well, and…”
Chris says:
“Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”
The balance sheet:
I’m trying to convey about a thousand petty concerns that went into my emotional assessment that it was no longer worth going back for. Chris just hears a bunch of trumped up reasons, none of which are sufficient to change one’s plans.
I operated according to an emotional tendency to bring the bread home that was just barely sufficient to generate even the slightest degree of motivation. Chris doesn’t naturally assume motivation has a degree, thinking that as a rule you’re either motivated or you are not.
The differences between the way women and men evaluate problems lead them to see justifications in the others methods.
Making sense of each other:
Now, what does all this mean? When men look at problems, they see a single item that is a specific irritation and seek to correct it. When they look at inequities, they see a number of problems interrelated. Women look at single problems the same way, but sense inequities from a completely emotional standpoint, measuring them on a sliding scale of tendencies to respond in certain ways.
Imagine an old balance scale – the kind they used to weigh gold. On one side, you put the desire to solve the problem. That has a specific weight. On the other side you have a whole bag of things that taken altogether outweigh the desire to solve the problem. But, you can’t fit the bag on the scale (which is the same as not being able to share your whole mind with a man) so you open the bag and start to haul out the reasons – biggest one’s first.
Well, it turns out the first reason by itself is much lighter that the desire to solve the problem, so it isn’t sufficient. You pull out the next one, which is even smaller, and together they aren’t enough to tip the scales. So, you keep pulling one more reason after another out of the bag until the man stops you saying, “Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”
To the man, it becomes quickly obvious that there aren’t enough reasonably sized pieces in that bag to make the difference, and anything smaller than a certain point is inconsequential anyway, so what’s holding her back from solving the problem?
But the woman knows that there may be only a few big chunks, but the rest of the bag is full of sand. And all those little pieces together outweigh the desire to solve the problem. If she went ahead and solved it anyway, everything in that bag would suffer to some degree, and the overall result would be less happiness in her consciousness rather than more.
This is why it is so easy for one sex to manipulate the other: each isn’t looking at part of the picture that the other one sees. For a man to manipulate a woman, all he has to do is give her enough sand to keep the balance slightly on her side and then he can weigh her down with all kinds of negative big things because it still comes out positive overall. For a woman to manipulate a man, all she has to do is give him a few positive chunks and then fill his bag full of sand with the things she wants. He’ll never even notice.
Of course if you push too far from either side it tips the balance and all hell breaks loose. So for a more loving and compassionate approach, the key is not to get as much as you can, but to maximize the happiness of both with the smallest cost to each.
All too often, one sex will deny what the other sex once to gain leverage or to use compliance as a bargaining chip. That kind of adversarial relationship is doomed to keep both sides miserable, as long as it lasts.
But if each side gives to the other sex what is important to to the other but unimportant to themselves, they’ll make each other very happy at very little cost.
Need personalized story development help?
Click below to learn about my story consulting service:
Here in part one of my “classic” 43 part audio program on story structure from the early 1990s, Chris and I introduce ourselves as co-creators of the Dramatica theory of Story Structure, and outline the subjects to be covered in the lecture.
Secrets of Story Structure
Part 1 – Course introduction
Overview of the course and outline of its purpose.
Announcing our new “What’s New?” page at Storymind – Easy access to all the new additions to our web site including articles, videos, downloads and special offers.
In order to create tension in your audience, you will want to establish a limit to the story. This limit will indicate to the audience what will bring the story to a moment of truth, either running out of time or running out of options. If you want tension to increase as your characters run out of time, choose Timelock. If you want tension to increase as your characters run out of options, then choose Optionlock.
No one reads a book or goes to a movie to experience a perfect structure. They come to stories to ignite their passions. BUT – if that passionate storytelling is TOO flawed, the readers or audience pop right out of the experience and the passion is lost!
A goal is what the characters chase, but what chases the characters?
All too often in stories, relationships and interchanges between characters of different sexes come off stilted, unbelievable, or contrived. In fact, since the author is writing from the perspective of only one of the two sexes, characters of the opposite sex often play more as one sex’s view of the opposite sex, rather than as truly being a character OF the opposite sex. This is because the author is looking AT the opposite sex, not FROM its point of view.
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