Okay, I’m off the boards until Monday. So maybe Jim will have a chance to load up a storyform for us over the weekend. And then we can start. I’m looking forward to this so much. How do y’all want to build characters and such?
I’m STILL reeling from someone’s assertion that the goal in The Exorcist is to…wait for it…perform an exorcism! It’s no wonder the person who said this - who happened to have a Masters in Screenwriting, to boot - believed the main character to be passive/inactive for 3/4 of the movie. It makes me wonder if so many scripts/movies follow the same criteria of obtaining or doing, whether people begin to actively use those as default criteria, blinding themselves to all the other nuances (and potentially the point of the story.)
Cool, Prish! And I apologize to everyone: I may have assumed too much when I implied that we would be talking toward a screenplay-sized storyform. As far as I know, the size of the finished work is still completely up for grabs!
For all those not having Dramatica Story Expert and Gists, I want to import in a relevant discussion from Dramatica’s Google+ page, between Steve Garriott and Mike Wollaeger.
Steve began: “So, am I right… that for those of us who use PCs and… Dramatica Pro, there is no capability to use Gists?”
Mike responded: “Not unless you get a program to run Mac-based programs in a shell.”
Steve replied: “Dang! Well, I guess I might be able to swing it… Also, any tips on limbering my brain up so that I can create my own Gists? I think that’s the biggest hurdle I have when it comes to Dramatica.”
To which Mike wisely replied: “The only hurdles to overcome are: 1) believing it’s harder than it is. 2) Understanding what the terms really mean. I bet you could come up with 100 situations (Gists) in three minutes if you just plunged in.”
And that is the truth, which has been advocated by Dramatica’s creators since way back near its beginning!
Are we not creating the storyform as a group? I guess I am confused.
Prish, I think from the discussion further above, it was sounding like Dramatica Consultant Jim Hull was going to “lock in” a few selections — like Success/Good and maybe the OS Goal you and I were talking about — then “Spin the Model” (a Dramatica function) to get an otherwise-random storyform that we all could begin trying to illustrate to come up with a workable story.
Basically, to emulate the long-time pattern of the Story Embroidery session that the Users Group in Burbank does at every year’s December meeting — a very fruitful exercise that shows users how to build story from storyform, rather than finding a storyform that “fits” someone’s preexisting story…
Oh, I understand, now. I remember the old email list did an embroidery, once. Do you remember the one set in Hawaii, if you were a member of that list? It was fun, a great learning experience.
I think it would be great if one person was the keeper of the Story Points and the Illustrations that go with each. And if there were a way that we could see that as we go along (a read only document somewhere). I don’t know how to do that here but perhaps in Google Documents.
If we are courageous enough to be wrong It would be helpful to get feedback on our Story Point Illustrations, how our suggestion works effectively or ineffectively OR how the thinking behind the suggestion is way off track, or even dead on)
If a Round Robin doesn’t work then we could have an allotted time for each Story Point where suggestions are given and at the end of that time vote on which one we like (or the game master could pick his/her favorite) and move on to the next Story Point.
We will also need to decide if we want to keep it simple and go with eight archetypal characters or let the character creation be more organic.
Just thoughts. Lots of ways we could go.
Sam
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On my way to work, thought I would go ahead and upload the completely random storyform…set to happiness!
discussion-storyform.pdf (42.8 KB)
We should probably pick genre and setting first!
I realized the big hurdle here is that PC users may not even have access to a list of gists, which must make it more mysterious.
Essentially a gist is just like encoding, but it doesn’t have to be so perfect. Something like, “Ugh, I hate my job, it’s just like being in high school.”
Or: “Something must be eating at him. He’s grumpy as someone with a toothache.”
And there are my gists.
As the story develops, you can leave them be, or hone them into the specifics of your story.
Here’s a screenshot to see how they appear which may give those without the function an idea. There’s literally hundreds to choose from for each - but they allow for more specificity toward your story (so that you get the gist of how to apply it.)
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I suggest the 101st floor of the Empire State Building in the new Max Fleisher Studios in the 1930’s. (and no, I don’t think Max Fleisher really had a studio on the 101’st floor of the Empire State Building.
WOW! As a Pro user, I totally see how these would be so helpful! I hope they can get DSE out for Windows very soon!
Great suggestion! Anyone else like this? Or have a different idea?
Also, I’ve gone ahead and set up a public doc in my Evernote account (don’t trust Google anymore after they burned me with Google+!). For easy reference here it is:
My suggestion–so we don’t devolve into complete chaos–would be to post our Storytelling here, have everyone sign off on it, and then I can copy and paste it into the doc.
It may start out looking like it’ll never work together, but by the time we’re done we should have a coherent story!
The way it works in the Story Embroidery Class every December is everyone gets a chance to pick a Story Appreciation and Illustrate it. If you’ve got nothing, you just say “Pass” and we’ll move on to the next person. It helps keep the discussion lively and more collaborative to be sure. The only other rule is you can’t change something someone else came up with. Assuming everybody above would be interested the list (in order) would be:
- jassnip
- Prish
- jamjam1794
- Spotter
- keypayton
- FancyRW
- Writegeist
Not sure if @MWollaeger or @JBarker want in on the fun, I’ll add my name to the list too, if that’s ok. Or I could just moderate up to everyone else.
I’ll just watch for now - going camping in the boonies for several days so I won’t have much of a connection to work with. Of course with 30 other people there, I won’t have much peace and quiet to write, either, lol.
I just downloaded Jim Hull’s PDF of the storyform (see link higher up), then input all its selections (including the exact Gists his Spin-the-Model exercise came up with) into a Dramatica Story Expert (.dr5) file on my own computer. That way I can use the file’s StoryGuide window to give me definitions, explanations, contextual and story examples, etc.
But Jim, I’m wondering if you could create and post another PDF, this one with the non-Gisted versions of the storyform selections? That way our Dramatica Pro and PC-using members can at least know which traditionally named “thematic ballparks” we’ll be playing in?
I think seeing the comparison and contrast between the traditional language (e.g., MC Domain: Fixed Attitude) and the Gisted language (e.g., MC Domain: Fearing Heights) will help us all begin to see how flexibly adaptable Dramatica really is!
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That would help me a lot. Thanks for thinking of it.
Also, I’m cool with SPotter’s suggestion that we anchor the story in 1930s New York City, and specifically in the new Max Fleischer Studios on the 101st floor of the Empire State Building.
Which means I need to do some basic research on where Max Fleischer’s career and personal life were in the early 1930s… and apparently this was around the time that the Hays Code said Max’s Betty Boop character had to become less risqué, or else she, and Max, would be kicked off the screen forever!
And what did Max’s one and only wife, Essie, think of all this, even as Max was seen as a bit of the anti-Disney, using more sexual innuendo, surrealism and dark humor than Walt ever contemplated?
Or maybe our story doesn’t involve Max, Essie or Disney at all — it just comes out with a Success/Good ending, so I’m thinking its genre will be more of a show-biz ascension story or a business drama, rather than a dark thriller or mystery. But hey, let’s hear other suggestions!
I’m going to watch for now, too. I just took on a new project and don’t want to spread myself too thin.