TV Series - Book Series and 'Nesting' Story Forms

questions
#1

I’ve recently read Jim’s Excellent articles regarding putting together series but had a question regarding mixing up the different domains. Sorry if I’m missing the obvious

Links:


I have a question regarding putting a series together with nesting storyforms

Example:

Lets say I have 4 seasons planned of a television show that will have one huge arc over all for seasons

And I wanted each season and episode to also feel as complete in their own right.

So just as an example for clarification.

So I’d have the series arc story form over all 4 seasons (*the series)
I’d have a complete storyform for each season
And I’d also have a different and complete storyform for every episode

In a 60 minute episode I’d maybe spend

40 minutes on the self contained episode Storyform
15 minutes on the ‘Season’ Storyform that would be fully explored by end of the Season
5 minutes on ‘Series’ Storyform that would be fully explored at the end of the Series (end of 4 seasons)

If I nest storyforms like that could I for example

Have the ‘Series’ Overall Story be in Fixed Attitude

Have ‘Season 1’ Overall story be in Activities
Have ‘Season 2’ Overall Story be in Manipulations
Have ‘Season 3’ Overall Story be in Fixed Attitude
Have ‘Season 4’ Overall Story be in Situation

Episode 1 (of 10) for ‘Season 1’ Overall Story be in Activities
Episode 2 (of 10) for ‘Season 1’ Overall Story be in Fixed Attitude
Episode 3 (of 10) for ‘Season 1’ Overall Story be in Manipulations
Ect…

Thing I’m trying to get at in this example is should the nested storyform also be dealing with the same domains in the same perspective to strengthen the story or are you completely free to mix and match as you please.

It would seem I could ‘technically’ mix them all up but assuming I want to make the strongest narrative possible.

Would I want the Season 1 to be a concern of Understanding’ OS (activities) If the series storyform is activies and the 1st signpost is Understanding.

#2

Have you ever done something like this: you join a sports team, train and win a championship, only to look at it from a different perspective and suddenly understand that you’ve also made good friends in the process?

So that would be an “obtaining” story nested into a larger arc defined at this point by “understanding”.

I wouldn’t sweat the technicalities at this point. Just set out to tell your story, and use Dramatica as a tool.

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#3

Yeah, you don’t have to be that technical about it. In the example of the television series I worked on, the OS was always in Activity whether it was the Series long storyform or the Season long.

The Act Order for the Series was: Understanding, Learning, Doing, Obtaining with each Season taking up one Act (Signpost). When I went in to do each Season I set the OS Concern to that Signpost. So Season One had an Overall Story Concern of Understanding. Season Two had an Overall Story Concern of Learning, and so on. Note that the actual thematic material of the individual Seasons were completely different than what was being discussed in the larger series long arc. Different Influence Characters, different Relationships. It just so happens that it worked nice in this instance to follow the Act order defined in the larger series long storyform.

But there is no one way to do it.

Dramatica isn’t a tool to plan out television episodes, it is a tool to plan out Author’s intent. So really, what matters the most, is deciding on what you want to say first and then discover the storyforms that communicate what you want to say. The audience will naturally gravitate towards a message being delivered, not a prescribed system of beats.

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