4 Events vs Armando Event

You’re kinda like Dick Nixon: cold, tough.

I think that’s one of the best things he ever wrote.

Either way “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” is a good example of what we, as readers, put into a few words, just because we know it’s supposed to be a story.
“clearly a shoe salesman advertising their product. no conflict there.” is facetious, but does anything about it contradict the information we’re given? No. But it still feels wrong, because it is supposed to be a story, it’s supposed to have conflict, drama.

Whether “I’m pregnant.” is happy news, sad news, angering news, disgusting news depends on the context, as do most other things about that sentence.
As authors we probably have to think about what that context really is, even if we leave a lot of it unsaid.

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I’m pregnant, she said to the crowd, accepting the cash award.

Uh, yeah.

I think this is a good way of summing up the problem with things that lack context. Your reader or viewer can or might fill in the blanks to make something feel like a story. But we are not here as storytellers to let our audience fill in the blanks with what they want to fill it in with.

As authors, we have something to say. We must say it. If we let other people fill in the blanks, then they are telling themselves a story, and it’s not the story we want told most likely. They might think the “story” about the baby shoes is incredible, but what they are really saying is that it is evocative.

And that’s at best. There are lots of things out there that bore the audience and they stop filling in the blanks.

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I too find the terms events and sequences confusing when comparing Armando’s book with the theory book. The 40 step outline, I think he refers to them as scenes, for example: are these 40 scenes of the desired 64? That means combining SPs, Drivers and plot sequence gives you a proper outline? I get that it’s a tool to give to a basic grid of your story but how would one add Static story points such as Cost or Dividends? And where are the sequences? I always feel like the PSR are the sequences… ? :confused:

I think Armando uses Signposts as sequences (four per structural act) and PSR variations as scenes – either 4 per sequence (64 scenes), or 2-3 per sequence if you’re using the Z-pattern (somewhere around 48 scenes). He describes how to encode static plot points into these scenes in the vampire story chapter. He also has the “Instant Dramatica” approach which comes up with 40 paragraph outline combining the static points with the signposts.

@jhull has a modified approach which uses 5 story drivers (1 initial, 1 final, and 3 for the act turns) + 7 scenes per act from the signposts (4 OS scenes using each PSR variation + 3 scenes from the other throughlines).

This all sounds confusing but if you map it out it makes sense.

It seems like all of these approaches can work, depending on how your mind works and how much detail and how many scenes you need. Or to put it another way, there’s a lot of ways to skin the Dramatica cat. (Note to self: write a story structure book called “Skin the Cat!”)

I have been beating my head against the wall on this for a while an have come to the conclusion that I’m way too much in weeds on this and that the most important thing is to just learn enough about my story to write the draft and try not to overthink it (easier said than done).

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The amount of OS scenes depends on the PSR—using the “journey” perspective of looking at a quad (where you blend the diagonal terms).

But that’s only a starting off point—sometimes you need to break them out into four to tell the kind of story you are writing.

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Oh, I see. I knew I had the math wrong somehow!

So it’s either 2 or 3 OS scenes (usually 3 but sometimes 2) depending on the z-pattern of the PSR, right?

It can actually be 2 to 4 OS scenes depending on the z-pattern.

“…we may also find the rare case where no Variations in the same sequence are Diagonally paired (such as ‘Approach, Self-Interest, Attitude, and Morality’). In this case, we should give each Variation its own scene—like we did on the ‘Using the Plot Sequence Report’ chapter of this book.”

Source: Dramatica for Screenwriters, pg. 158

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