Generic Signpost Summary

1 Contemplation
2 Innermost Desires
3 Memories
4 Impulsive Responses

He Contemplates his life and situation and is dissatisfied, which leads him to act to take steps to fulfill his Innermost Desires, and as he fulfills each Innermost Desire he has Memories, and those Memories finally lead him to an Impulsive Response.

Would be interested to see what formulations y’all come up with. This was a little tough, but I’m especially happy with 3, because I realized it contained multiple scenes and a process.

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  1. Mc considers his life.
  2. Desires to find some kind of meaning of life.
  3. Remembers an article he saw once about how stories provide meaning.
  4. He filters every life experience through dramatica.
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Or here’s one I like.

  1. When a character fails to consider some major implication of a present state,
  2. it leads to a lack of desire regarding some outcome until…
  3. he can no longer remember some former state of things which causes him to…
  4. stop acting without thinking things through completely.
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Jack forgot he was an alcoholic, conveniently, and went on a bender. In the morning, as he worshiped the God of Porcelain, his desire for the woman he’d picked up during the night --what was her name, Claudia–and was it a woman – had vanished, and oddly, her desire for him vanished as well–she had seemed so devoted. He could barely remember her name, or his own, let alone where the keys to his car were. Had he driven his car? He tried to remember what 20 years of sobriety had been like, and failed. Tomorrow he would have to count one day. Before he drank again, he’d call his sponsor.

(working off your signpost reading)

1 Contemplation - she was too young to stop the terrible thing that happened to people she knows, life is pointless, there is no reason for anything, why go on
2 Innermost Desires - without thinking, she acts and joins the fascist military that is taking a stand against the bad people who did the terrible thing and will stop the terrible thing from happening again
3 Memories - she vows never to let another person suffer that terrible thing she cant stop seeing in her mind, all through her training she sees herself stopping the terrible thing and rewriting history, this makes her train harder than ever
4 Impulsive Responses - the war is on against the bad people, in combat, her training kicks in and she does exactly the terrible thing that she had vowed never to let happen again, life is pointless, she is the bad people

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