After several days of going back and forth in my head, I’ve decided to try something out here. I’m going to document how I use Dramatica to take a story from the initial idea to the final screenplay. Now, whether or not it will be an outstanding screenplay is not up to me so be it.
The hardest part, of course, will be exposing my story-creating process to everyone. Even just putting the initial idea out there goes against everything I’ve done before. I’ve always been under the assumption that it’s best not to reveal any story or treatment until you’ve had a chance to work on it in private. But the point of this exercise is not to create an amazing work of personal art - it’s to illustrate the value of using Dramatica in crafting a story.
So here it goes…
The story idea I’m going to start out with is one about a hitman going through a mid-life crisis. A light-hearted thriller set in Las Vegas. Oh, and it’s snowing.
The idea of a snowed-in Las Vegas was one I threw out there during the last Story Embroidery class and I liked it so much I thought I’d put it to use here.
That’s all I’m going to start out with: a hitman going through a mid-life crisis in the middle of a snow-locked Las Vegas.
A twist of nature like no other will happen the same time as this guy is going through his mid-life crisis. Seems timely what with all the talk of our influence on the environment. And I assure you the choice of main character has nothing to do with my current entrance into mid-life 
One is obviously the Main Character Throughline. It could be someone we are watching too, but I think I’d like to keep it the Main Character (notice I haven’t assigned a gender yet…not important as of now). The other story bit will more than likely be the Objective Story. More than one character will certainly be affected by a snowbound Las Vegas and it will be fun to explore different opposing views on global warming, etc. from an objective standpoint.
So that’s it. It’s not an amazing story idea and it might not be all that original - but by putting it through the Dramatica process I’m sure all of that will change. I’ve got some ideas of what the actual Storyform itself will be, but as I’ll present in the next post, sometimes what you want and what you end up with are two completely different things. Anyone who has tried to write a story can agree on that.
This will be an interesting experiment to see where it goes and to watch the Dramatica writing process in action. Hope you’ll find it useful.
If nothing else, it gets me writing again!
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4 responses so far ↓
1 Alan // Jan 26, 2007 at 11:01 am
Hurrah! My greatest challenge with Dramatica has been understanding how to take all the story points from program to finished product. Say on, sir Hull!
2 J. Hull // Jan 26, 2007 at 11:33 am
Really? Oh, great! I was worried that not too many people would be interested in it. But there are only so many times I can just copy and paste what Chris has already said so eloquently. I’m actually really looking forward to what the end product will be. Thanks for listening.
3 Graham // Jan 28, 2007 at 7:09 pm
This is a great idea. I’d love to experience someone else’s process with Dramatica.
4 Kat // Jan 28, 2007 at 11:40 pm
I’ll be watching this closely also. Thanks for doing this.
Kat
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