Hello there!
We recently uploaded a trio of Storyforms, two for the Netflix Historical Drama Death by Lightning, and the other for the phenomenal Historical Fiction Drama from Chloe Zhao, Hamnet ![]()
Death By Lightning
As a four-part mini-series, Death by Lightning sports two different Storyforms, one where President Garfield is the Main Character and Vice President Arthur is his Influence Character and another where Charles J. Guiteau is the Main Character and Garfield his Influence Character.
Blending the Four Throughlines together for this Storyform we find:
In the bitter struggle for control of New York’s harbors, senators, party bosses, and business interests wage a high-stakes battle over customs revenue and plum patronage posts that can make or break national power. Thrust unwillingly into the center of this fight, President James A. Garfield tries to reconcile his idealistic commitment to civil service reform with a political culture built on favors, loyalty, and backroom deals. At his side stands Vice President Chester A. Arthur, a consummate product of the machine whose comfortable reliance on patronage quietly tempts Garfield to accept “how things are done.” As clashes over appointments and public loyalty tests intensify, their uneasy superior–subordinate bond becomes a tense proving ground for the nation’s future—pitting moral authority against obligation, and reformist zeal against the lure of party unity.
and then for the second Storyform…
we find the blended Throughlines to be:
In the turbulent aftermath of the Civil War, rival Republican factions battle to define what the party—and the nation—should stand for “for God and country,” clashing over patronage, reform, reconciliation, and moral leadership. On the fringes of this struggle, failed lawyer and would-be political thinker Charles J. Guiteau becomes convinced he is divinely chosen to guide the party’s destiny, even as everyone around him dismisses him as a nuisance. He fixates on President James A. Garfield as both proof and instrument of his calling, reading Garfield’s faith and integrity as signs of a shared, God-ordained mission. As Guiteau’s imagined bond with the distant president hardens into a one-sided obsession, the gap between his fantasies of recognition and the cold reality of political power grows increasingly volatile.
What’s most fascinating about these two Storyforms is that there is considerable overlap in the area of Faith and Disbelief with it being the Symptom and Response for most of the first, and the Response and Symptom for the latter.
Definitely one to check out if you’re wondering how to handle multiple Storyforms within a single work.
Hamnet
Truly a magnificient work of art, Hamnet balances what can do with what loss and longing…
Hamnet is all about the audience’s experience and so, having these unique aspects captured by Dramatica without being specifically selected (they are inferred by the film’s other choices) is quite compelling and only the start of a deeper conversation around narrative.
Highly recommend seeing this film in the theater to experience it yourself, and with others.




