The Annual Comic Convention in San Diego (ComicCon) is going on right now and throughout this weekend. And while the spectacle of geeks and fanboys in various modes of costume always seems to steal the show, the most fantastic and appealing part of the convention, the whole reason for even going there, is the shear wealth of stories that are available to those who attend.

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Bolstered by a captivating performance from Daniel Radcliffe, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix serves up one visual delight after another for fans of the book series. Unfortunately, for those of us who have not read the books, the film fails to provide enough story information to go along with the spectacle.

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Frequent readers of this blog may notice a bit of a change. After days of constant going back and forth and countless pinging of Google, I think I’ve come up with a new perfect name for this blog. It’s a name that perfectly describes not only this blog, but also the person who writes it.

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Is it possible that four throughlines are too much to think about during the early stages of writing a story? I’m beginning to think so.

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The Dramatica software, particularly the Query System, employs a top-down approach to figuring out your story. In other words, you start out with the broadest perspective of your story (deciding on the Throughlines) and then work your way down to the finest granules of magnification (where your character’s Problem and Solution lie). While this approach is perfect when first learning the theory, there is a different approach that can result in more creative choices.

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Even though the current incarnation of the Dramatica Story Table of Elements is based on Dynamic Pairs, there are other relationships that exist within the model. Two of these are Companion Pairs and Codependent Pairs. While the theory book does a great job of explaining it, some authors still have difficulty writing these kinds of relationships.

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Although the software is not properly set up for it, you can create the structure of your story based on how you want your audience to receive your story, i.e. how you want your story to feel to them. In order to do this, you need to understand the connections that some appreciations have with one another.

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By far, the most beautifully animated film ever created just so happens to also be the most entertaining. With stunning art direction that rivals the best of live action and animation that would make legendary Disney animator Milt Kahl weep with pride, Ratatouille is the closest thing to perfection we may ever see.

So why then does the film seem so overly long?

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A story shouldn’t be “a bunch of things happen to or around our Protagonist, and then at the end, they change for some reason.” That potential for growth should be buried deep within every Main Character from the very beginning. Luckily for us, Dramatica provides some great insights into the most deepest recesses of your Main Character’s soul.

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