So back to the Story Project.
If you remember, last we off with the simple logline:
A hitman suffers a mid-life crisis in the middle of a snowbound Las Vegas.
Already I hate the idea. Completely unoriginal and devoid of substance. Who would ever pay to see a movie like this? There’s simply nothing to it.
Let’s see if we can do something about that…
As I wrote last time, I already have some preconceived notions of what I want the story to be. It has to be Personal Triumph story. Or maybe a Personal Tragedy - one or the other - but certainly not a super Happy Ending and definitely not an Ultimate Tragedy (I do want to get paid for this after all!) Why the ironic endings?
I guess I’ve always liked the duality of having part of it end happy and another part end sad. Seems more like life to me.
But I’m not going with that.
And I’m not going with the hitman in a Situation story pining over the Past and his Future, etc. etc. etc. - that would just be too easy and too familiar.
No, what I’m going to do instead is to roll the dice.
Roll of the Bones
In my hand right now I’ve got three 6-sided die. Within these dice hold the power of unlimited storytelling (Those of you who fondly recall creating characters for D&D might easily agree!)
And here goes the roll….
Oooooh - a 17 (that would’ve been an awesome Strength or Dexterity roll!)
How do I apply this to Dramatica? Open up your software and click on the box marked Brainstorming. I know, the colors are funky, but trust me, there is a valuable tool in there.
OK. See where it says Spin-the-Model. I’m going to click that 17 times. Each time I click, Dramatica provides me with a new and completely different story. For those of you not familiar, this is the same technique we use during the annual Story Embroidery Class in December. Here goes nothing!
HA! How hilarious is that? I came up with exactly what I didn’t want. You can see there’s a happy ending, and a Main Character throughline of situation - BORING!
Why is it boring? Because I’ve seen it a million times. After 10 years or so of working with Dramatica you start to see patterns with stories and this one seems all too familiar. One more click…
Now that’s more like it.
This new storyform is completely different then anything I’ve ever seen. It’s got that Personal Tragedy ending (The goal is acheived but at a high price for the main character) and the “hitman” is a Be-er character (a character who prefers to solve things internally).
Now to be honest, the storyform overall is in a position on the Dramatica chart that is not easy to write from (I affectionately call it the “Huh?” section). If I wasn’t using this for a project example I’d probably spin it one more time just to get it out of that area. But who knows, maybe the strangeness will produce a great story.
Next I’ll get into some storytelling.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Alan // Feb 9, 2007 at 2:18 pm
This is the hunh zone for me as well — and many of the elements just don’t show up in the published examples. I’m eager to see more.
- Alan
2 J. Hull // Feb 9, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Yes, hopefully I can pull it off…there are some interesting terms in there like Protection and Reaction, but a thriller/action movie with a Goal of Learning…thats gonna be difficult.:)
3 Allen // Feb 19, 2007 at 8:51 am
Isn’t ‘GhostDog’ in this territory?
From memory: The hitman leaves the profession after settling his scores - I guess the angle that is similar here is that he is a ‘be-er’ a philosopher. Certainly worked on that movie… And ‘Forgiven’ springs to mind as well.
4 J. Hull // Feb 19, 2007 at 10:14 am
Yes. Definitely Unforgiven is a great example (forgot about that one). I’ve never seen GhostDog , but it sounds like it is similar.
I had planned on just setting it in modern day, but maybe a Western genre might be something to consider.
5 The Quick Synopsis // Feb 26, 2007 at 4:36 pm
[...] this morning I sat down with my storyform and the chapter entitled “Dramatica in Thirty Seconds.” If you are new to Dramatica the [...]
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