Just a reminder that I’ll be going over something fun I worked out over this past weekend with Narrova. Starts at 12pm Pacific Thursday and might go a bit long, but will be recorded. All are welcome.
If you’re looking for us we are here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcEFSWeOkfg
Here is the full replay of the Livestream (the one with audio!):
And here is the 4-5 page treatment:
“Lone Starling” – Story Treatment
ACT ONE: THE WAITING PLACE
Dawn cuts through wintry Dakota sky, scouring the Walker homestead in pale gold. Fourteen-year-old Ida Walker, rope-tough but all angles and nerves, stuffs her hands in her pockets as her parents hitch the family wagon. Inside, her two younger brothers cough and moan with fever—illness the old doctor warned might turn fatal without the medicine stored three days’ ride away in town. Ida packs their satchel with trembling precision, heart aching under a luminous hope: that at last her parents would see her as capable.
Yet when the wagon door slams and her mother presses a single brass button—a token of quiet faith—into her palm, Ida misreads it. The flickering pride in her father’s eyes doesn’t reach the cold knot in her chest. “You take care of things now,” he says, before the horses crunch off through snow. Ida, watching their forms dwindle, convinces herself: I was left behind because I’m still not enough.
In the hazy fields beyond, shadowy figures glass the farmstead, noses deep in dust-colored scout’s coats. Captain Briggs, lanky and hungry-faced, sketches quick markings in the margin of an old Pinkerton report: two boys, girl, parents soon gone. “Easy pickings, if we’re patient,” he grins, chewing a reed to a ragged thread. His men set to dissecting the past, weighing loot and risk from every failed raid in memory.
Ida’s winter will soon become a siege—but not yet. The first day she hunkers with Bruno, her thick-coated, brown-eyed farm dog, and Miss Temperance Bly, the itinerant teacher snowbound for the night. “Sit up. Speak clearly. Even in danger, a young lady minds her posture,” Miss Bly instructs, reducing each anxiety to etiquette. Ida squirms, longing for approval but craving autonomy. In the shelter, while her brothers sleep sweating in fever, she fingers that brass button, thinking it a pity prize—not a badge of earned trust.
As night draws down, Bly rides out alone and leaves the girl to her charge—Ida and Bruno, suddenly the only line between home and havoc. Surprisingly, Bruno balks at his new mantle. When Ida barks orders, he refuses every fetch; when she tries to praise him, he only growls. Both, it seems, are determined to misunderstand each other.
Ida attacks chores with flinty desperation: latch-checks, trap sketches, window-patching—anything to over-compensate for what feels like abandonment. Bruno shadows her maneuvers with skeptical eyes, as if judging the probability of disaster. Beyond the creek, Briggs’s men wait, watching lamps dim. The attack is set for nightfall.
That evening, snow sifts through broken clapboards as Ida rattles through safety drills, repeating if/then rules in her head—each only valid, she decides, if someone important might see and approve. She can’t sleep, can only listen to Bruno’s wary growling in the candlelit dark.
ACT TWO-A: THE BUNGLED BATTLE
A rifle cracks like a thunderclap—Briggs’s men charge the porch, certain “the little miss” is no threat. But as boots thunder and axes flash, Ida’s first shotgun snare detonates, shrapnel felling two men in the swirling dark. Bruno lunges through smoke, herding a straggler away from the barn. The raiders scatter, bruised and bleeding, forced to re-evaluate: “That’s a wolf pup, not a lapdog,” one mutters, fetching his wounded from the snow.
Ida is exultant. Possibly too much so. Her actions stake an emphatic claim—now they’ll believe in me. She races from task to task, laying out new tripwires, stacking firewood, showing off for a ghostly, absent audience. Bruno, still leery, watches her mania with growing confusion. Her hands split with cold, she wrestles feed sacks until dawn; Bruno refuses the leash, as if doubting her authority at every turn.
From the whiteout comes a new shape: an older boy, blue-coated, limping badly. Silas Hart, a wounded Union deserter, staggers to the porch and collapses in Ida’s arms. Her reaction is pridefully competitive—she must show this stranger she needs no help. Silas, for his part, treats her like a reckless child: “You can’t defend this place alone.” Their mutual judgments are needles, prickling every wound of pride and failure. But Silas, practical and broken by guilt, quickly sets to work—hacking away at Ida’s expanding plans: “One trap, one door—cut out the extras.”
As the blizzard tightens, the farm’s rhythms settle into a tense pattern—Ida doing everything she can to prove herself, Silas carving everything to the bone. Bruno remains caught between, bristling at Silas, sulking at Ida’s impatience. Alone in the kitchen Ida stares at the near-empty brass button jar, every clink reminding her that the approval she craves never matches what’s given. “If I just do more,” she thinks, “maybe they’ll see.”
ACT TWO-B: THE UNLIKELY ALLIANCE
Briggs broods and plots revenge, marshalling what’s left of his battered gang. Incursions multiply—poison in the well, fence rail unspiked, fire in the hayloft. Their progress is mapped nightly in red slashes on Ida’s wall: enemy getting closer, defenses holding but wearing thin. Each defeat feeds her sense of proof—look, I can handle it!—even as Silas’s doubts and Bruno’s unpredictable outbursts wear at her certainty.
Then, at dusk, the truce is shattered. A human figure darts through the perimeter—Nita, a runaway Choctaw girl, driven here by her own internal calculus of survival. In seconds, conditioned responses upend everything: Bruno bites Silas, who nearly fires at Nita, while Ida yells over the chaos. For a moment they’re all enemies—until Nita’s skill with a bow and her quick eye on raider tactics earns a fragile trust.
Triangulating this new alliance, old wounds resurface. Ida recalls the time Bruno ruined her best-dressed table. Bruno, hyper-attuned to the tension, recalls each shouting match and tight leash. Their bond, such as it is, operates on reflexes—preconscious flashes of command and remorse, defensive gestures, words unmeant and instantly regretted.
Together, the trio battles back, skill layering atop stubbornness. Silas sets shallow kill-zones, Nita whittles fletchings for silent arrows, Bruno runs silent patrols. Ida, though increasingly in command, obsesses over every detail, drumming up tasks to prove—to herself and everyone else—that she’s in control. Her overreach nearly costs the group: a solo livestock rescue almost gets her captured. Silas drags her home, furious and terrified, and the subsequent fight reveals everything: Ida’s desperate need to earn their approval, and the wounded pride that keeps them from giving it.
It is only when the barn is set ablaze in a midnight raid—a flashpoint of loss and fear—that the group finally converges, the possibility of partnership breaking through old doubts. But even so, Ida can’t help but try to direct every action, still straining to force belief where simply being believed is impossible.
ACT THREE: THE STORM
At first light, thick smoke coils on the southern horizon—Ida’s family wagons, perhaps at last, returning. Everyone—defenders and raiders alike—misjudges the meaning. Briggs, desperate, declares: “Before the cavalry’s here, the porch is ours!” He marshals his men for a final, reckless assault. Silas and Nita exchange glances: now or never.
In a shattered parlor, the trio’s planning fuses into a lean, desperate concept—everything stripped to essentials. As the gang converges on the porch, Bruno is lashed to a message pouch, sent sprinting through a hail of bullets. Silas braces himself in the kitchen, shotgun ready; Nita slips through drifting snow, silent as breath. The barn crashes down in a roar of fire.
Then—suddenly—arrows whistle from the treeline: Choctaw riders. The smoke was not only the family’s signal, but cover for a third force, their own motives knotted in history and protection. The cavalry too thunders up, parents leaping from wagons, shouting their daughter’s name. The house shakes as all four parties collide.
Here, in the heart of mayhem, Bruno rushes to intercept a raider lunging at Ida. A shot cracks. Ida dives, heart wild with dread, and drags Bruno from falling beams—no thought, just the raw, subconscious loyalty no evaluation ever measured. Silas holds the back door despite his wound; Nita covers the boys inside. In these moments, every calculation and doubt explodes: what remains is a chain of acts—love, courage, belonging—that no one can explain but everyone understands.
Ida pulls the floor-collapse lever, sending Briggs and company into the cellar. Above, the valley’s defenders—girl, dog, soldier, outsider—stand ringed in dawn’s light. Briggs, bloodied and raving, spits at being bested by “just a girl.” He slumps into custody. Parents and neighbors look on, something new in their eyes—honest respect, unconditioned.
DAWN: EPILOGUE
As light washes the snow in gold, the homestead blooms with life again. Ida is quietly different. Instead of flaunting her feats, she crouches and scratches Bruno—her first gesture, her first word of the day. They are, at last, a unit: her hand on his fur, his weight against her leg; no need to prove, only to know.
Silas, head bowed in gratitude and exhaustion, flips Ida a salvaged brass button—her own gesture now, approval neither sought nor needed, simply acknowledged. Nita, hovering in the doorway, nods respect, no more explanations required.
The parents, seeing their daughter not as child or apprentice, but as the homestead’s “Lone Starling,” understand—she no longer seeks someone else’s sign-off. The siege has turned not just a battle, but a girl’s uncertain self into unshakeable partnership—with herself, with Bruno, and with the land she loves.
The valley, once again peaceful under Dakota sky, remembers: when all seemed lost, it was Ida—small, stubborn, unclaimed—who stood, who fought, and who, at last, judged herself worthy. The wind and the birds bear her story, a new legend written beneath the snow.
@GetSchwifty has this to say about the OS Domain:
at 48.52: I like what you say about the house. that the house is there is a provocation. That europeans are here in NA is a provocation. Also, a house in the middle of nowhere is a target. A rich man’s car in a poor neighborhood is a target. It’s the question of what makes something a target, how does it transition to becoming a part of that world (when there are many houses, a town and so on). The whole problem of a house in the wilderness.
being on the edge in liminal space, where things are neither civilized nor savage but in-between. The question there is always what is civilized behavior, and who are the civilized people and who are the savages.
That’s totally what I was talking about when it comes to an OS Domain of Universe - a house in the middle of the wilderness is a GREAT illustration of this. Remove the house, and there is no problem. That’s a Universe problem.
The original Universe as Domain issue from Home Alone (little kid left alone on Christmas) kinda got lost as I was developing the story – which you can sense from the above treatment. On another pass, I’d want to fold that in better.
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Around 1:08:22, you mention that the idea around red yarn would certainly work, but something more clever and sophisticated would be better. I’ve actually had some success with saying exactly that, something like:
”Your plot device x is a little obvious and would bore the audience. Most elements like this, functional plot devices, should be original, never seen before, and surprising. Please replace this device with a new one that is surprising, clever, original and that will delight the audience.”
Something like that. Because this where the storytelling comes back in. AI can actually do that but you really have to lean into the prompts and get specific about it.
NOTE I really like that the AI is mentioning Benchmarks, and Catalyst and Inhibitor ideas. You’re right; it’s hard to keep thinking about those details, and it’s great the the conversation keep faithful track of them. That’s what computers are supposed to do!
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LOVED the moment when you realize the dog is the RS story.
was thinking it would be useful, and give me more confidence, if there was a way to delete parts of the conversation where the AI had gone off course and you needed to correct it. I don’t have any faith that ChatGPT is smart enough to know when I’ve said ‘this is terrible’ and that it’s still floating around in the entire glop of the conversation. One way I can think of is to mark the parts to delete, then say, export to a new conversation, so that you have a ‘pure’ version of the story.
Waddya think? There’s a kind of general problem here with these AI interfaces, ‘what do they remember and how much weight do they give the parts.’ If there’s so much context, and it remembers context across conversations, gee, I’m not even sure this would help.
three general areas of concern for me here:
quality of responses (correctable when there’s a bad response)
quality of output (you’re working on that, formatted treatments and so on)
quality of content (ability to forget the junk)
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Glad you enjoyed it so much!
Muse used to have a thing where you could “mute” individual responses for just this case. But that was only possible because I was managing conversation state myself (and I’m not going back there!).
BUT your idea of muting and downloading is GREAT! So simple but effortlessly do-able.
It’s going on the list.
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I have a fundamental question about the RS Throughline. I was a little surprised when the dog suddenly emerged as the consistent “emotional heart of the story.” I was surprised because, based on Dramatica theory, I thought that the RS Throughline was ALWAYS the story between the IC and the MC.
Now, in “Lone Starling,” the IC is divided among several characters. That’s an interesting aspect, but it weakens the RS Throughline. At least according to Dramatica theory.
So I asked Narrova if you can simply take a different character than the IC as the relationship focus in the RS Throughline, and he replied as follows:
1. Dramatica definition of the Influence Character:
- The Influence Character (IC) must perform a stable function throughout the story: it represents an alternative point of view that challenges or questions the Main Character.
- It is possible for this function to be performed by several characters (several “henchmen”), but at its core it remains a consistent IC throughline. (Phillips/Huntley 1996, pp. 81–83)
2. Continuous relationship as the “heart” of the story:
- A “baton pass” of the IC (change of the IC role between characters) is considered permissible by Dramatica as long as the same alternative point of view and relationship arc are maintained.
- Nevertheless: “The more fragmented the IC representation, the weaker the emotional center of the story.” (Dramatica Theory Book, 1996, p. 194, 360ff.)
- Classic examples of this model are described as less emotionally engaging because the audience lacks the central relationship core.
3. Recommendation for multiple ICs:
- According to official theory, you should try to keep the IC throughline as consistent as possible.
- If you use multiple characters as ICs, make sure they represent a clearly recognizable, coherent point of view.
- The RS throughline should focus on the ongoing relationship between the MC and this “function” (even if it is divided).
In summary:
A constantly changing IC weakens the emotional power of your story. Dramatica recommends keeping the IC throughline as consistent and clear as possible, even if it can theoretically be “defended” by several characters.
Is it just an “experiment” to use a character other than the RS Throughline here?
Or
Has Dramatica Theory been further developed via Subtxt so that this is now possible?
If so, why does Narrova say something different?
Sorry for nitpicking, but I’d like to understand 
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Hi @uwe .
An IC handoff is pretty common. Occasionally, you’ll also find a “group” IC – I think Knives Out is an example of this. Maybe also Pixar’s Cars. I agree that the IC should represent a clear perspective.
I think the original Dramatica theory suggested that the RS is always between the MC and IC — and that’s still most common — but discussions since then have argued that the RS “heart” of the story can actually be between any “players” in the story (though I would say it’s pretty rare to not have one of the characters in the relationship be the MC).
A couple of examples: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Marion and Indy are in the RS, but Marion is not the IC) and Back to the Future (the relationship between Doc and Marty is the emotional heart of the story, but Marty’s dad is the IC).
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in my current story the RS is between the MC and AN IC, not THE IC. Handoffs throughout the story.
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@Lakis answer was perfect - but the long and short of it is I haven’t fully pulled over the entirety of Narrative First (articles and analysis) into Narrova yet - I’ve got all the original Dramatica stuff so thats why you’re seeing the original early 90s answer there (with some other weird hallucination about “a constantly changing IC weakening the emotional power of a story” - that’s categorically incorrect (and I’ll beat it up a bit to answer better next time!)
Every Throughline is a Perspective - and every Perspective can be handed-off without affecting the integrity of the narrative. As long as the new Perspective covers the same thematic territory then the narrative will remain consistent and strong.
_CODA_ is my favorite example of the kind of nuance you can find in a Best Picture:
- OS: Deaf family navigating work
- MC: Singer within a deaf family
- IC: Music Teacher
- RS: familial relationships
The Music Teacher is waaay removed from the other three, which are really subtle differences of almost the same thing.
90s Dramatica pitted the MC vs. IC in the RS always because it was the easiest thing to get across at the time (i.e., if you have I and You, obviously WE has to be the two of them). But the reality is that, because they are perspectives and points-of-view they can be handed off to different “buckets”.
(And please nitpick, it makes things better for everyone)
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this applies to the mc perspective as well, yes? because that would solve certain problems I’m having.
it’s how pulp fiction works, to name a famous example.
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Yes, totally. Though it’s not as often used as some of the others. Think Inside Out 2, both Riley and Joy take turns running through the same thematic issues of judgment (Evaluation). This is in contrast to the first film where only Joy was the Main Character.
Stalag 17 is another example where the men in the barracks acted as a collective MC Throughline.
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OK, that was a point that wasn’t clear to me, which shows me that I’m still stuck in the 90s and should slowly go „back to the future”
Thank you very much, Laki and Jim, for your answers and explanations, which actually make the stories even better when you don’t necessarily have to construct an RS around the IC character that only works halfway well, as Jim showed with the “Lone Starling.”
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This is what I meant when I asked about the possibility of editing the conversations (muting errant results from prompts). For example, today I am going to ask Narrova to treat my four characters as Main Character hand-off characters, because I want to see how it works (this is way more common in modern novels, by the way, than in movies, or than it has been in literature pre–millennium). So, I want to see how this works, but I don’t want it mucking up the conversation I have right now, if it turns out it produces junk. There has to be a way to handle spitballing what-if scenarios, fluidly.
the actual characters are MC at one time, IC in another, just as in Pulp Fiction. Same people, different perspectives. I know I harp on that movie a lot but it really is the gold standard for that technique of storytelling.
In short, Main Character as a Dramatica term can apply to either the character through which the audience experiences the story, or the perspective that looks at what its like to personally address the inequity at the heart of the story.
As stated above, if we have I and You, then We seems like it should be between them. But over the last few years, it’s been decided that We is just another perspective. It’s like I and it’s like You, but it’s different. It’s not between I and You because I and You are not characters (although Main Character and Influence Character are often used to refer to the player that embodies each perspective within the story). So the We perspective can be embodied by the relationship between any two players or between all players. At least, that’s how i understand it.
That said, what would it mean for the RS to be between the Main Character perspective and the Influence Character perspective?
If the Main Character perspective is a personal, first person look at what it’s like to address a problem and the Influence Character is a personal (here meaning from the point of view of the “main character”, from the point of view of the story mind telling the story, or, to borrow a term from relativity, from the point of view of the “stationary observer”) second person look at how you address a problem and how that affects how I will approach a problem, then an RS perspective that is between those would somehow look at the changing dynamics between how I approach a problem and how the way you approach a problem affects the way I approach a problem? Confusing, but interesting to think about.