Modern Author Showcase

  If you are one of the many who get lost in Dramatica this article is for you. The software moves quickly through sorting the best matches for your storyform and soon you are overwhelmed by choices made by and for you. 

When this happens I find the best approach is to get back to the basics I am familiar with to continue developing my story. Dramatica has provided the organized thinking but I am lost in the development stage and cannot find a place to begin. It is time to take a deep breath and turn to what I know. Once I have a storyform that seems right for my idea I turn to the old tried and true plot outline. Here I can look at my idea from its simplest form and build it at a slower pace. 

The first element to develop for the outline is the story goal. The goal is what your protagonist wants to attain or maybe a problem s/he needs to solve. Other characters in the story will be for the goal or against it; they might even be the cause of the problem that needs solved.  We can begin to visualize the world where many perspectives of the problem/goal emerge and how the goal is important to each of them. Character possibilities begin to occur and I list them with their potential for conflict with the goal.

I used Dramatica to come up with a storyform that is a fit for parts of Pirates of the Caribbean to use for examples. Norrington is concerned about obtaining a marriage to a fine woman; he has feelings for Elizabeth. Will Turner also has feelings for Elizabeth but is hindered by propriety of social standing. Elizabeth has feelings for Will who lacks the confidence to overcome social bias. Barbosa is troubled by lack of feelings because of the curse.   

Next, I develop the consequences: what will happen if the Protagonist fails? What doom will befall humanity if the goal is not achieved? Consequences must be serious enough to motivate characters into action. The consequence can also be the antagonist’s goal. These two elements are the heart of any story. They remain constant until the end until one prevails over the other.  

Elizabeth as the protagonist needs to stop Barbosa’s plan to obtain the gold and sacrifice first her then her romantic interest Will Turner to end the curse. I chose Obtaining as the goal with the consequence of Becoming. 

When Liz is taken, the objective characters are clueless how to proceed through lack of information. This is where we develop the requirements. My storyform tells me that gathering information is required for the pursuit of the goal to proceed. The Main Character, Will Turner acts impulsively to get the information from the Obstacle Character, or Impact Character Jack Sparrow.  

Now we need to develop the forewarnings as the counterthrust to the requirements. Forewarnings tell us how close characters are to failing as they pursue the requirements. This storyform has the present as forewarnings; how things stand at the present are not so good for the characters motivating them to pursue information. This is where the emotional rollercoaster is experienced in the story.  

We should establish how far the characters are willing to go to achieve the goal or prevent the consequence. Cost is the element that describes what they stand to lose. Will Turner claims he would die to save Liz, Jack is glad to hear this. Our storyform lists Innermost Desires as the cost and some certainly do sacrifice this before it is over. Jack loses the Pearl, Liz agrees to marry Norrington to save Will, Norrington loses Liz, and so on. What will your characters sacrifice to succeed? 

To balance the costs, characters receive dividends they never would have gained if they had not pursued the goal. My storyform gives the Future as Dividends. Will and Liz gain a future together; Jack gains a loyal crew and ultimately the Black Pearl.  

The idea development of your story should be solid by this time. You should have a good idea where things are going and how they will play out. Next, we will incorporate the prerequisites. This element describes events that must play out to achieve the requirements. They are the challenges the characters must face to achieve the requirements. Conceiving an Idea are the prerequisites of my storyform.  Liz gets the idea to demand parley and learns about the curse; Will gets the idea to enlist Jack to find Barbosa and learns about the story, Jack gets the idea to dupe Norrington; there are many instances of this throughout the story. 

Preconditions are rules and conditions placed on characters that make things harder to proceed. My storyform precondition is contemplation, Norrington warns Will this is no time for rash actions, Jack requests Will to not do anything stupid and other rules such as keep to the Code that urges contemplation.

This article is continued with a part two.

Happy Writing

--Modernwriter