|
Sections in Lesson Twelve |
|
Sections in Lesson Twelve |
Continuing with our brief exploration of all the features available through the Dramatica Desktop, in this lesson we'll take a look at Story Points tool - a "shopping list" of all the key dramatic elements you'll need to include in your story's structure.
Play Video on the Story Points Feature
A Shopping List of Story Points
As mentioned in earlier lessons, Dramatica theory defines perhaps the most detailed and extensive list of structural story points ever documented. But how to present those in software? Well perhaps the easiest way is to create a table that groups them all by families. The Story Points feature is just such a table - but on steroids!
There are seven families of story points in the table: Dynamics (which describe some of the key forces at work in your story), one category for each of the four throughlines, a family for key plot elements, and a final group that contains some overview story points that affect the big picture, as it were.
Now if the story points feature were nothing more than a list, it would still be the most complete collection of structural elements you've likely encountered. One column in the table presents the names of the story points, and another column offers definitions for each. So, just by reading through the table and studying the short definitions, you'll probably come across structural concepts you've never considered before. And that, alone, would make this a valuable tool. But the Story Points feature has much more to offer.
If you use the Story Engine or the Query System before you go to the Story Points feature, you'll find that any structural choices you've already made will appear in the second column of the table, right between the name of the story point and its definition. This function allows you to see the sum total of all your structural choices, grouped by families, all at a glance. In this way, you can get a feel for how your story is developing overall - you can see the forest and not just the trees, and see if the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Structural & Intuitive Writers
So far, the Story Points feature has merely been a presentation of information, but in the far right column is a place you can enter notes about how you will be using each story point in your structure. There are two ways to approach this - one if you are a structural writer, and another if you are an intuitive writer.
For the structural writer, you'll first answer the questions in the Query System or use the Story Engine to create a complete structure. Then, you can go to the Story Points feature and "illustrate" how you will be employing each of those structural story points in your story. Essentially, you'll describe the real people, places, and events that will fulfill each structural imperative.
For the intuitive writer, you might want to go to the Story Points feature first! Go down the list and describe how each un-structured story point will appear in your story. Only then do you go to the Query System to make your structural choices. Why? Because intuitive writers like to work first with the subject matter and only then find and refine the structure that is suggesting itself in the story.
For example, if you are structural writer, you might first use the Query System to determine your story's Goal. Dramatica will ask you to choose which of several items best describes your goal. So, you're Goal might be Obtaining possession of something, or it might be Becoming a different kind of person. You make the choice, and then go to Story Points and illustrate the subject matter in your story that symbolizes that structural element.
In contrast, for intuitive writers, if you decide to work with your story's Goal, you'll first go to the Story Points table. There you will see Goal in the list, but there will be no structural choice next to it. So, you just illustrate your Goal in conversational terms, describing how you see your Goal without being bound by a structural guideline. Then you go to the Query System to make your structural choices. But, this time you'll find your story illustrations appear as reference material, so when you answer your structural choices you'll be able to read your own words about that story point and it will be easier, as an intuitive writer, to make an accurate structural decision.
Well provide complete instructions for using this method in a future lesson, but for now, just know that if you use the intuitive approach, when you go to the Query System to make your structural choices, select the "Storyforming Complete" list, and make sure to click the "Storytelling" or "Illustration" button on each question in order to see your referenced descriptions.
Copyright 2003 Melanie Anne Phillips
Visit http://storymind.com for tips, tricks, techniques, and tools for writers
|
Get the Writer's
Survival Kit Bonus Package
|
