New release today for this 1st day of 2026:
Refresh your app to get the latest!
The new Justification Model is something I worked directly with Chris and Melanie during the Fall of 2025. We went back to the original documentation and fixed a lot of the errors in the original code to make sure it was fully capturing the original intent of the theory.
You may find that some, or all, of the Act orders for your Storyforms play out differently through this new model. As much as you might be attached to the original order, or feel it more accurate, we encourage you to give this new approach a chance as it takes into account all the biases inherent in the current application of Dramatica theory.
In addition, you will find that all the Signposts, Progressions, and Events of a Throughline will remain anchored in their original Domain. For example, you will no longer find Progressions from an alternate Domain listed as children of a Throughline’s Signpost (e.g., a Signpost of Past will have a set of four Variations from the Universe Domain, NOT from any other Domain).
In previous versions of Dramatica, it was assumed that this “out of phase” listing was a result of projection and was intended by the original theory. As with the order of Signposts and plot progressions, this was more a result of a deficient application of the theory rather than a feature (i.e., it was a bug).
That said, while you won’t find alternate Domain Variations within a Throughline’s progression of Storybeats, you will continue to find them “out of phase” within their Domain (e.g. you might find a Signpost of Present with Progressions of Fate, Destiny, Prediction and Interdiction).
While working on re-writing the entire Justification model, Chris and Melanie coined the phrase Dramatic Scenario to describe the temporal aspects of a Storyform, expanding them from a single Appreciation into three:
The Area of Exploration is what you will be familiar with as a “Signpost”, e.g. Past, Obtaining, Conscious, Conceiving, etc.
The Dramatic Function is what you might have read elsewhere to be PRCO, e.g. Potential, Resistance, Current, and Power (original theory).
The Area of Engagement will give an idea of how this particular part of the Storyform is exposed to your Audience and matches what you might know as KTAD, e.g. Knowledge, Thought, Ability, Desire, though these have been updated to Situations, Contemplations, Activities, and Aspirations.
You can read more about it in detail in the documentation on Dramatic Scenarios.
With this release, you will find that Narrova has full access to “breakdown” Storybeats into finer detail. Taking cues from my days as a Disney animator, the Storybeat Breakdown process expands a single Dramatic Scenario into four distinct transitional Scenarios.
The scope of Storybeats moving from largest to smallest are:
You can break Signposts down into Progressions, and Progressions down into Events.
As not everyone will require this amount of detail for every single Throughline, these Breakdowns are not inherently revealed as a part of every Storyform. If you want them, you have to ask for them, and its really quite easy to ask:
Breakdown the OS Signpost 2 into Progressions
OR
Take the MC Throughline, and breakdown each Signpost into Progressions, be sure to include all the detail from each Dramatic Scenario
If you are looking for detailed thematic outlines, we would encourage you to set the Thinking on Narrova to Deliberate, and the Response to Detailed. The process will take longer, but the end result will be well worth the wait.
Lastly, I worked some over the holidays to make the Storyform Builder more mobile-friendly–meaning you should, to some extent, be able to manipulate and operate it from your mobile device without too much trouble.