I just discovered a really easy way to come up with most of a story form

[YellowSuspenders]

Maybe this will work for you. Give it a shot and tell me what you think.

You almost certainly are going to know whether you want your story to end in a success or failure. So, once you assign that, then just assign the crucial element and voila!

In Change/Start stories (regardless of the outcome) the Main Character’s “hole in the heart” is the lack of the Impact Character’s Crucial Element, so the story is all about that character’s “internal quest” for that element (the outcome works like this: in a Success story, she will win a Solution, in a Failure story, she will win a Problem).

In Change/Stop stories (regardless of the outcome) the Main Character’s “chip on his shoulder” is the Main Character’s Crucial Element. So the story’s problems are going to be a cause of that damn element until the character loses it (Outcome: Success, she will lose a problem. Failure: she will lose a solution).

In Steadfast/Start stories, it is the Impact Character who has a hole in his heart. The needed element is neither the Main Character’s nor the Impact Character’s Crucial Elements. Instead, those are the elements that will deteriorate the main Character or allow her to endure the Impact Character’s quest for his element.

In Steadfast/Stop stories, as expected, the Impact Character has a chip on his shoulder. As with the previous case, the Crucial Elements here are impeding or helping the Main Character in standing up against the Impact Character’s problematic nature.

For some time, I used the Crucial Element to write the climax scene in every story I wrote. It went like this:

• In Change/Success stories it was the “The hero saves the day” scene.
• In Change/Failure stories it was the “The hero messes everything up” scene (I used another word for “messes up”)
• In Steadfast/Stop stories it was the “I’m sorry, you we’re right, Mr. Hero” scene.
• In Steadfast/Start stories it was the “You’ve brightened our lives, Mr. Hero” scene (“and here’s a song by British teen sensation Lulu!”)

https://narrativefirst.com/vault/the-keys-to-the-crucial-element-of-screenwriting

Select two or three more traits and you should have your story form all completed.

The cool thing about this is that I spent a couple of hours writing up a story form. Then, I did the above technique and chose a Crucial Element which I thought was more appropriate. In a few minutes, I had a new story form generated which was almost the same as my original one, but better.

[whitepaws]

I love the way you boil things down.

Right up my street.

[SharkCat]

@YellowSuspenders

Outcome: Success, she will lose a problem. Failure: she will lose a solution

I suppose in the case of a Stop/Failure/Good MC who realizes the OS Goal isn’t worthwhile in the end, you could phrase it as “she will let go of a solution.”

[YellowSuspenders]

@SharkCat

I suppose in the case of a Stop/Failure/Good MC who realizes the OS Goal isn’t worthwhile in the end, you could phrase it as “she will let go of a solution.”

I don’t understand how you derived that from my post. Could you explain?

[jassnip]

I’m sorry, how do you assign the crucial element?

[MiggsEye]

Yes. I’ve looked through the selections and can’t see how it gets assigned either. There is no category in the StoryGuide (All topics) section nor in the Story Engine in the Theme Browser. @YellowSuspenders, can you tell us more specifically the steps you use to this method you’ve created?

[mlucas]

You need to assign the Resolve first. If Change you also need to assign Outcome; if Steadfast you also need to assign Growth. Then you know:

• Steadfast/Start: Crucial Element is the MC Direction (aka Response)
• Steadfast/Stop: Crucial Element is the MC Focus (aka Symptom)
• Change/Success: Crucial Element is the MC Problem
• Change/Failure: Crucial Element is the MC Solution

(In all cases above you could say MC & OS instead of just MC, since Crucial Element is always shared with the OS)

---

That said, the hard part of this is actually deciding what the Crucial Element is! It’s especially tricky for a Steadfast story – it often seems “wrong” to assign it to the MC, but once you can see how it works for the MC, you get a flash of insight thanks to Dramatica. (So for my stories I probably would have got it wrong initially; Dramatica can tell me my story’s meaning better than I know it upfront. But YMMV.)

[mlucas]

Here’s an example of the Crucial Element helping me understand my Steadfast story:

• Initial reaction to MC Crucial Element of Hinder: “What? How can Caitlin be the Hinder character? Help would make way more sense – as a healer she’s all about Helping others, and as a persecuted magic-born she often needs help from others.”

• Later understanding: “Oh! I see how all of her efforts to find her sister and to do things her own way are getting in the way of things in the OS. Especially the Protagonist’s efforts towards the Goal.”

• Big AHA moment: “Whoa. Everything in this story is about burdens – people taking too much onto themselves, burdening others or themselves with the weight of obligations, prejudices, etc.”
  (This is from my outline: Perhaps he was checking the bridge’s integrity using magic unknown to her, but to Caitlin it seemed he wanted, more than anything, to take its vast weight onto his own shoulders. Now in his absence she feels a sadness for him like a tightness in her chest, that such an old, old man should bear so many of Aeland’s burdens, and be unwilling to let any of them go.)

[SharkCat]

It was just an alternative wording suggestion one might phrase it as in case they’re writing that kind of story. “Lose a solution” sounded involuntary to me.