The crux/nexus storypoint for storytelling?

Writing
1

The 4 perspectives within a storyform are not telling us what happens in the story, but how the events in the story will be viewed from a given perspective (personal perspective looking at Universe, outside-looking-in perspective from Physics, etc), right?

I’m sure in practice you can do it however you want, but in theory, is there a single story point that, once encoded, will be the source from which the rest of the story can/does unfold? For instance, if I were to give any AI the storyform for Star Wars but none of the story encoding and tell it that the first driver is that a member of the empire boards a rebel ship, would that be enough encoding for the AI to say “looking at that one story driver with the perspective of the given storyform, here is the entire story of Star Wars”?

I guess another way of asking it is, if there is a single inequity at the heart of a story and the storyform is describing that for us, is there any one point in a storyform/story that all appreciations are looking directly at? My most hopeful guess was that the first driver could fulfill this role. My BEST guess, however, is no, there is no such point and all appreciations are looking at all the other appreciations all at the same time and the best way to derive a story is to literally encode every point simultaneously and in such a way as to take into account every other point. But my keyboard only lets me hit one key at a time :rofl:

2

Think of the storyform and its various storypoints as like the frame of the thing, like the frame of a building. The frame gives it its shape, and constrains to some degree what it can look like in the end. And two buildings with the same frame will have similarities. But you still have umpteen choices that affect the final qualities of the building (paint, exterior materials, windows, window dressing, furniture, HVAC, plumbing).

This is how two stories with the same storyform can be as different as Black Panther, Lion King and Pitch Perfect (all 3 same storyform).

What you’re asking is whether looking at one illustrated storypoint (say, the decorations and fixtures in apartment 322) you could derive the rest of the whole story. The answer is definitely no, although you could certainly infer some things like genre. (Like an MC Universe illustration as “being the queen of the realm” might tell you that’s its fantasy, or perhaps historical fiction.)

3

Let’s say i’m driving home from work and my breaks go out. I have to deal with that. How I deal with that can be described with a storyform. All of the encoding for that storyform will be aimed straight at my failed breaks. Same for you. We’ll have different encodings and probably even different storyforms. But the failing breaks will be what triggered the problem-solving process described in the storyform. In that sense, the story of my breaks failing will all be derived from that one event. What i’m looking for is whether that event would appear in the storyform, and if so, where. It may not appear directly. If the storyform describes how i deal with failing breaks, maybe the failing breaks are just the backstory.

Anyway, what I was trying to get at last week seemed like a mystery last week for some reason, but seems obvious today. Basically, given the storyform for Star Wars, if Luke Skywalker were in my shoes and he’s on earth driving home from work and his breaks go out, we know exactly how he will respond psychologically to that problem. Whether he’ll turn off his gps, put his trust in Jesus, and guide his car carefully through traffic until his car comes to a perfectly safe stop or not, he’ll do something structurally similar. Just like how Simba comes home after the death of his father to take his rightful place as king, T’Challa comes home after the death of his father to take his rightful place as king, and Anna Kendrick…sings while stacking some cups or something? I didn’t watch that one.

4

The 4 perspectives within a storyform are not telling us what happens in the story, but how the events in the story will be viewed from a given perspective (personal perspective looking at Universe, outside-looking-in perspective from Physics, etc), right?

They’re more about setting the context for what each Throughline is about in that story. It is perspective for the Storymind – not the audience.

I’m sure in practice you can do it however you want, but in theory, is there a single story point that, once encoded, will be the source from which the rest of the story can/does unfold? For instance, if I were to give any AI the storyform for Star Wars but none of the story encoding and tell it that the first driver is that a member of the empire boards a rebel ship, would that be enough encoding for the AI to say "looking at that one story driver with the perspective of the given storyform, here is the entire story of Star Wars“?

It would still be different. In a probabilistic universe, no two responses will be exactly the same. If George Lucas was to rewrite Star Wars, no two drafts would be the same.

This came up a lot in our interactive project for USC/ETC. You can do a lot to set it all up so that they’re really similar, but unless you setup a list of concrete imperatives that match every event, no two run-through will ever be the same (and even then, there will be some drift).

I guess another way of asking it is, if there is a single inequity at the heart of a story and the storyform is describing that for us, is there any one point in a storyform/story that all appreciations are looking directly at? My most hopeful guess was that the first driver could fulfill this role. My BEST guess, however, is no, there is no such point and all appreciations are looking at all the other appreciations all at the same time and the best way to derive a story is to literally encode every point simultaneously and in such a way as to take into account every other point. But my keyboard only lets me hit one key at a time !

Your best guess is closer, but you could conceivably encode every single Appreciation in complete isolation and the story would still hold together–the relationships between aspects of a Storyform already take into account every other point at once.

Let’s say i’m driving home from work and my breaks go out. I have to deal with that. How I deal with that can be described with a storyform. All of the encoding for that storyform will be aimed straight at my failed breaks. Same for you. We’ll have different encodings and probably even different storyforms. But the failing breaks will be what triggered the problem-solving process described in the storyform. In that sense, the story of my breaks failing will all be derived from that one event. What i’m looking for is whether that event would appear in the storyform, and if so, where. It may not appear directly. If the storyform describes how i deal with failing breaks, maybe the failing breaks are just the backstory.

It’s more that the Storyform is an exploded view of that one moment in time–your brakes going out–and how your mind (the Storymind) would resolve it.