Day 2 of the Story Project.

After the initial idea, I like to get a sense of where my Storyform might be in the Dramatica Chart of Elements. For those of you who don’t have it memorized (like me), you can click this link to download the Dramatica Table of Story Elements (PDF).

I’ll often just glance my way around the chart. Because I know how all the relationships work with the different story terms (the fact that the Main Character Throughline and Impact Character throughline are opposites, a Be-er Main Character will either be in Fixed Attitudes or Manipulations, and so on and so on) I usually can get a good sense of where this particular story might be.

But sometimes, my senses are way off… 

Drifting over the chart, one word that stands out above all else for my story is Worry. Worry seems like an essential subject matter in this - worrying about the end of the world and worrying about the end of your own life. For those following along in their textbooks, you’ll find it along the right hand side, right under this strange psycho-babble word Preconscious (or, if you have the friendlier 4.0 version, it’ll say Impulsive Responses).

So there’s Worry, along with Confidence, Value and Worth. At the present moment Value and Worth mean absolutely nothing to me, but Confidence and Worry seem to be like good starting points for writing.

But it’s not going to be there. I’m pretty fairly certain that my final storyform will have nothing to do with Worry. Why?

Because the story I think I want to write, and the story I should write are two completely different things. I start out thinking I’m an author - the one in control - therefore it follows that I know exactly what kind of a story I should craft. But this reliance on the ego to guide a proper story is precisely the reason why so many stories fail.

As humans we are the ultimate context-shifters (if we aren’t too set in our ways). We can look at a black Magic Marker and first say “This is a pen.” But in the very next breath say “This is black.” What is it? Is it black or is it a pen? How can it change it’s meaning like that? The truth is it hasn’t changed at all - the context from which we appreciate it has changed.

And thats where Dramatica can help. Once you set the Storyform the context will never change. Sure, you can break it as you go about your writing, but the story will have “holes” or it won’t make any sense to the audience. They’ll have this feeling like “What are you getting at?”

It might very well have some Worry in it. In fact, I think in order to write a fully complete story all the terms would come into play at one time or another in my story.

All I know is that I’ve done this enough times to know that I don’t know. You look at the Dramatica model and you think you know where are things are supposed to be and where your story is going, but usually, it ends up in some other corner of the grid.

Plus, I want to stretch. I want to write something that doesn’t already exist in my head. I don’t want my subconscious, my years of watching movies, to influence the story. I want it to be fresh and not of me. And there’s a quick and simple way to do that.

With the throw of a dice, a story will be born…

Share This

Somewhat related to this article

• On the Waterfront - Visual Storyform→

• Introducing the Visual Storyform→

• Incredible DUG Meeting Coming Up→

• Letting the Dice Decide→

• Is Dramatica All About Making a Sale?→