Start high and work down? or low and work out?

writing
#1

Just curious about how folks here work?

Do you start ‘designing’ the story according to the four throughlines, and get all your ducks in a row with characteristics, and all the other tools that the theory offers?

Or do you dive in, get on fire and burn inspired about all the things, and then wipe the sweat from the brow, step back and start rearranging the pieces to get the form?

And then, how far to do you go to make a perfect form?

I have this nagging feeling a ‘real writer’, a guy on a tv series working with other writers, lines up all those index cards on the corkboard and gets the framework right first, but I can’t see myself working that way. I’ve tried, as a matter of fact, and the results have been nicely built but kind of passionless.

Thoughts from others much welcomed.

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#2

You aren’t responsible to anyone except the muses. Write how you are passionate.

(Real Writers don’t actually work the way you outline, btw. That’s just what they’re like in meetings.)

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#3

So, then, I just use the theory to describe that thing I’ve done? :wink: just kidding.

#4

Yes! And since nobody understands the theory, you can pretty much just pick a random storyform anyway. :upside_down:

#5

I’m an amateur with no credibility, but I tend to do this with dramatica.

  1. Start by deciding how the change character will change in the climax by identifying a problem/solution combination. I feel like a climax that pops is what separates good from great, entertaining from memorable. I noticed this when I looked at analyses on the dramatica site / software and saw the essence of the message in the movement from “problem to solution.” For example, in Star Wars, it goes from test to trust.

  2. Once I have a candidate for “problem to solution,” I try it in each of the different possible quads for the change character & the overall story. I explore where each one of these can go–in terms of the issues, symptom/response, the concerns, and most of all the critical flaws since that has to be overcome dramatically in a “climax that pops.” For example, Luke has to overcome the critical flaw of worth–or his is sense of low worth.

  3. Then the characters are further fleshed out in terms of concrete details of how the above are manifested.

  4. Then the concretes of other important elements like the logistical plot & subject matter are explored by asking, “what kind of overall story would particularly challenge the change character’s critical flaw & indulgence in their problem?”

  5. I haven’t done it, but I can easily imagine starting with ideas about a logistical plot or subject matter and go in reverse order: 4,3,2,1.

#6

I think I like that…

#7

@GetSchwifty
What’s your process?

#8

Is this actually where you start? By which I mean, do you actually decide, “I’m going to do a Control/Uncontrolled switch… Hmmm… How about a guy whose wild (uncontrolled) life is spiraling out of control and spends his wild days running from the cops and then decides to join the army and learn discipline?”

#9

So, to expand on what I was getting at and make it less jokey: I think it’s really important to get carried away by a story and do everything you can to make the story work. Put all of that down. But I’ve yet to meet someone who got all the way to the finish line that way. At a certain point, the painstaking process of making it actually work kicks in, and this is one place where Dramatica can really help.

I have an old (pre-dram) story that is very clearly in activity of some sort, but then there is this problem: the goal is reached at about the midpoint, and it’s a failure. So is the rest of it just a huge coda? But then, one day I was reconsidering it, and saw that it was a psychology story. I could build from there. But had I started there, I would have tried to hard to make it manipulative and that really isn’t the right feel. It should be all about the events that drove me to think it was in activity. But that (as I’ve learned) is storyweaving and storytelling. I would have derailed the project had I started with Dram too early. And I still don’t even know what’s going on beneath the Concern level.

At some point, I will.

But there is another place where Dram comes in, and that’s in how you think about story. And that’s pervasive to every step – but only if you’ve done the work ahead of time and let it be a part of you.

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#10

This is a great question!

Although I certainly wouldn’t be against starting with a storyform / random gists just for fun, my process is kind of the opposite of that.

First, I come up with a story idea, and develop it for as long as possible without using Dramatica! Must let the Muse have free reign!!! (Exception: once you learn Dramatica, it’s basically impossible to not think about the four throughlines. OS, MC and IC seem to just show up and I can’t help recognizing them for what they are, and RS becomes apparent soon after. Luckily, that knowledge doesn’t hinder the Muse at all. I do try hard not to let my inevitable Domain ideas get set in stone though.)

In development, I try to resist storyforming for as long as I can. At some point, I just won’t be able to resist anymore because some common elements become apparent – stuff that I didn’t consciously make common to fit any storyform, but it’s there. For me, that’s the right time to try storyforming. This part is insanely fun because you get to see how your ideas already fit a proper storyform, at least partially (like: “holy cow there is Obligation and Help in almost every scene!”). And it often feels like Dramatica is reading your mind; I guess in a way it is.

After that, I keep an open mind about the storyform – I may think I have the right one but be wrong. I always save lots of copies of different storyform variations. Often Resolve, Outcome and Judgement take me a while to determine; it’s like I’m keeping my options open for how the end will turn out.

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#11

Really good answer too! Thanks. I think this is going to describe my process - my process right now, to answer someone else, is to try to nail down the log line, then to try to at least get a 3 or 7 step description going. Then it’s just nom nom nom nom write nom nom nom nom write. I want to add a little more structure into my work.

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#12

The key is that the switch happens at the climax, not before.

These tools have helped me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcmiqQ9NpPE (do one of these “7 big steps” for each of the 4 throughlines)
https://foolproofoutline.wordpress.com/2017/06/10/constantly-revising-all-that-prewriting-makes-for-a-better-story/ (more detailed self Q&A)

#13

I’m glad you got down from that clock tower.

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#14

Ideally, I would prefer to come up with an idea and get as far as I could before turning to Dramatica to help flesh the idea out and get everything in order. But that also means analyzing my idea with Dramatica, which I’m not good at, separating a Gordian knot of throughlines (without just cutting them all in half, mind you), and running it through dozens upon dozens of storyform until I finally get “close enough”.

But I have a better time if I build a story as I’m building the structure. Lately, I’ll look at the Class level and try to come up with four inequities. Sometimes I know which one belongs to which perspective, and sometimes I’ll try the MC and OS in a couple different places to see how each variation feels, and then build from there coming up with the story points as I go. It’s kind of a halfway point between coming up with an idea before analyzing it and choosing a random storyform at the beginning, I guess.

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