Series storyform - other ideas for matching story points to Part 1

writing
#1

I’ve read some of the excellent posts / articles on creating a storyform for your Series (be it a book trilogy/series, TV series, etc.). In this post @jhull mentioned:

Now it turned out that the Overall Story Concern for the Season One storyform matched the Overall Signpost One for the Series Storyform. Both were Understanding. Now you don’t have to do this, but I think it helped keep everything that was happening relevant with he bigger picture.

I thought, cool idea, and armed with the knowledge that you can actually set the signposts in Dramatica Pro (that feature’s hiding in the Theme Browser!!) it seemed like a fun thing to try for my planned trilogy. I do have my storyform down for Book 1.

But then I found I actually can’t use Book 1’s OS Concern as the Series Signpost 1! Why? My Book 1 OS Concern is Obtaining, and if I set Series Signpost 1 to Obtaining I automatically get an Outcome of Failure! (It’s interesting that Signpost 1 of Obtaining automatically leads to Failure!!) And I think I want a happy ending for the series, though perhaps Dramatica is suggesting I should rethink that… :slight_smile:

Anyway, it doesn’t matter much as I know Jim said the matching is not necessary. This is really just a thought experiment, but I had some interesting thoughts:

  • Signpost 1 is just the beginning; book 1’s overall story would include at least part of the Series’ OS Journey 1 too. So I could look at making Obtaining my OS Signpost 2 (suggesting that Obtaining is more focused on at the end of Book 1’s overall story).
  • OS is only one throughline, so I could certainly just try setting my Series MC Signpost 1 to my Book 1’s MC Concern. This would imply the MC’s overarching story is important and consistent throughout the series.
  • Another idea is that my Book 1 ends in Failure, meaning the Book 1 Consequence came into effect. So perhaps I should be looking at that, like matching Series Cost to Book 1 Consequences, or Series OS Signpost 1 or 2 to Book 1 Consequence, or even Series Forewarnings to Book 1 Consequence.

Seems like there are a lot of possibilities! Of the above, I think I like the last bullet the best.

(I do realize “don’t worry about it for now” is probably the best option… this is really just for fun and practice storyforming.)

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#2

You are one of the greatest things to happen to this community in quite awhile. What a breath of fresh air! Please keep us informed of what you come up with. Only thing that matters is that you’re inspired to write something…getting it right will come when you write. Thanks!

#3

Wow thanks Jim! That means a lot to me, especially since it was your NarrativeFirst.com articles that inspired me to learn Dramatica theory. (Especially the one about the difference between Neo & Luke Skywalker – you can imagine that growing up in the 80s with the last name of Lucas kind of put Star Wars in my blood!)

At 41, I’m only now getting back into writing after a long hiatus … but it honestly feels like Dramatica is the tool that I always lacked. I’ll definitely keep you posted on my story’s progress.

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