Visual tools sometime help me to better understand what I learned.
I just want to share my experience with plot progression and signposts in Dramatica and a meeting I had recently about Kanban-Boards.
The topic of the meeting was: What do you need to do, when you want to implement a new idea into the business field? I learned I should use a Kanban-Board.
Why is that important?
In engineering Kanban-Boards are used for project work. A project is a solution for a problem. If you have problems with time management, a solution could be an App.
As analogy: In Dramatica a story is a solution for a problem. Signposts (and journeys) describe how to come to the solution.
When I started with Dramatica I misunderstood the use of signposts. I kind of understood a throughline as a puzzle with four pieces. I thought, if I describe all the pieces for each throughline the reader will understand my message.
After many tries and many storyforms, I understand now signposts need to be in a certain order. Only when I follow the order like in a business process the reader will understand why or why not my hero reaches the goal.
To stick with the the example above (goal = implement a new idea into the business field) the Kanban-Board looks like:
In the backlog you collect all ideas (like story brain storming). To reach the goal you process each idea (ticket, note) through 1,2,3 and 4.
How could this be translated for using Signpost in Dramatica?
Lets assume we tell a story with an objective goal to win a big swimming contest.
Signpost 1: LEARN how to swim
Signpost 1: UNDERSTAND how to improve your condition to swim long distances
Signpost 1: DOING swimming several local contests to qualify for the big one
Signpost 1: OBTAINING the gold medal at the big swimming contest
Add: Like a new idea (note, ticket) in the „new idea board“ travels through the Business-Kanban-Process the Hero with his crew passes Signpost by Signpost to reach the story goal.