All right, I accept your challenge! 
It may take me a couple days to get everything organized and written. Since part of the point of this challenge is to see how to use Dramatica to write stories, I’ll be keeping track of my thought process in a Google document, here. If you don’t want to be spoiled, @Gregolas, you can just ignore it until we’re both done. I’m still working on developing a premise to fit the storyform into, but once I’ve got that, I’ll be off to the races!
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Sounds good. hope your okay with the form. It was largely random, particularly at the issue and problem level.
I’ll try to keep up with my thought process as well, but if I’m honest here, my entry will probably be more how not to use it, haha. But we shall see. I’ve had a different process every time I’ve used Dramatica to write something so far.
So I’m posting a step-by-step of how I would use this storyform to create a scene. Rather than a Dramatica-by-the-numbers approach where Dramatica determines everything down to the last line and looking at TKAD and PRCO and PASS and SRCO, this is just letting the storyform be a guide to the first draft. All the rest would have to be done/added later. So this isn’t necessarily how I would suggest that Dramatica be used but it is how i generally use it.
Step 1. Finding the Form.
Start with a blank form or analyze the idea you have. Obviously for this exercise a blank form was provided. I’ve decided to write the MC SP4 and looked mostly at these Storypoints:
MAIN CHARACTER
(the Main Character)
THROUGHLINE: Situation
CONCERN: The Present
ISSUE: Repulsion vs. Attraction
PROBLEM: Reduction
SOLUTION: Production
SYMPTOM: Probability
RESPONSE: Possibility
UNIQUE ABILITY: Attempt
CRITICAL FLAW: Analysis
BENCHMARK: How Things are Changing
SIGNPOST 4: The Present
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Step 2. Getting The Gist Of It.
I looked through some of the Narrative First Gists for inspiration, and then mostly just went with something generic.
MAIN CHARACTER
(Michael)
THROUGHLINE: Situation - Being homeless
CONCERN: The Present - Getting By
THEMATIC CONFLICT: Repulsion vs. Attraction - being repulsive to someone vs attration
PROBLEM: Reduction - being cast out of society/being reduced to a single trait
SOLUTION: Production - making a production
SYMPTOM: Probability - being unlikely to do something
RESPONSE: Possibility - determining the odds
UNIQUE ABILITY: Attempt - trying to do something
CRITICAL FLAW: Analysis - analysing a threat
SIGNPOST 4: The Present - being on hand for something
Step 3. Encoding
Write a quick description of how each gist describes an area of conflict. For this step I tried not to get too specific for the Sign Post I’ll be writing for. If I wasn’t sure about one yet, you’ll see me kind of talking my way through what the point means, or maybe giving a couple of things it could refer to. I think this helps leave it open to be explored in very different ways in different Sign Posts, but I generally try to be more specific when doing this step.
MAIN CHARACTER
(Michael)
THROUGHLINE: Situation - Being homeless
Michael is homeless, which is a problem because he wants the comfort of living in a house and having a job. He wants his family back. Being homeless robs him of security, companionship, comfort, etc.
CONCERN: The Present - Getting By
Michael is always concerned with what he is presently facing. How will he get by today? What will he eat today? Where will he sleep tonight? Is there going to be space in the shelter for him? He is concerned with what’s happening now, not how he got there or what will happen.
THEMATIC CONFLICT: Repulsion vs. Attraction - being repulsive to someone vs attration
Michael is aware of society’s attitude toward the homeless, that is that they are generally repulsed by them. Society sees the homeless as leeches on society, lazy, etc. Even as a homeless man himself, he knows that prior to being homeless he felt that same repulsion and even now has that same attitude which leads to Michael being repulsed by himself and seeing himself as less worthy or capable of being a part of society.
Not being homeless is attractive, but maybe he’s also somewhat attracted to the idea of being homeless becaue he doesn’t have to put up with work and the normal daily stress he would otherwise face.
PROBLEM: Reduction - being cast out of society/being reduced to a single trait
Michael has been reduced out of society. His wife has kicked him out of the house, his employer has fired him, no one seems to have any use for him. He is reduced to his vices/problems. He drinks, gets angry easily, is an expert in a field that has been made obsolete by machines or other modern tech. He is now driven to stop being reduced to these things.
SOLUTION: Production - making a production
Driven by his desire to stop being reduced, he wants to get someone else to not limit him out of society, to see his worth, his potential. If this were to happen, it would sap his drive. He refuses to produce that he can’t rejoin society. When he is unable to make a big production about his worth, or get others to make a big production about him for who he is other than homeless, he continues to feel and to be seen as reducible.
SYMPTOM: Probability - being unlikely to do something
driven by the certainty of his place within society, he focuses on the low probability of his being able to find a way back into society. That is, he doesn’t think there’s a very good chance that he will be able to prove himself and stop being homeless.
Without access to a higher standard of hygiene and no phone or address, no one will hire him or see him as fitting in. It’s not probable that anyone will give him a chance to pick himself back up. Even if he were to see an opportunity, it’s not probable that he would know what to do or that he would have the ability to do what needed done.
RESPONSE: Possibility - determining the odds
focusing on the low probability of finding a way to prove himself as a value to society, he fails to be prepared when the possibility presents itself, or when he responds by trying to see the possibility of proving himself in everything.
UNIQUE ABILITY: Attempt - trying to do something
when a young woman is being mugged, he is wlling to step in to help rather than fleeing the scene for his own safety or waiting for police
CRITICAL FLAW: Analysis - analysing a threat
he looks for danger in the situation almost waiting too long to step in for the woman being mugged, but doesn’t consider how drunk he is.
SIGNPOST 4: The Present - being on hand for something
When he walks up on someone being mugged, he wants to leave, to find a safe place to hide. But he knows that if he does, there’s a good chance the young woman being mugged could be hurt or killed. He’s presently drunk and carrying nothing but a half empty glass bottle.
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Step 5. Putting it into the Sign Post
Here I took all of the encoding from Step 3 and made it specific to the MC Sign Post 4. Again, you’ll see me talking myself through these points as I’m figuring out what each one will be about and maybe leaving some wiggle room. That probably makes for not as good of an example. I think it should probably be getting fairly specific here.
THROUGHLINE: Situation - Michael is homeless and walking aroung the city drinking when he stumbles upon a mugging. He doesn’t have to get involved, but he knows that he is the only other person around that might be able to help the victim. Even though the mugging provides a sobering effect partially countering his current inebriated state, he is still drunk and homeless and can do nothing about his appearance or how the young woman interprets his actions/motivations.
CONCERN: The Present - Michael begins the scene concerned with something trivial. How much alcohol he has left or what kind it is or where he can use the bathroom or something. But when he comes upon the mugging he is concerned with the victims safety as well as his own. When he considers stepping in to help, he is concerned with his lack of preparedness in dealing with this situation. He has no gun, no knife, doesn’t know how to fight. All he has on him is a mostly empty bottle of alcohol.
ISSUE: Repulsion vs. Attraction - The thought of running away seems very attractive. But then the gratitude the woman will surely show once he has saved her also seems very attractive. But he is still repulsive to the woman and himself because when she insults him by throwing her cash at him, he considers taking it to buy more alcohol (alcohol-attractive).
PROBLEM: Reduction - When Michael involves himself in the situation, the attacker reduces him to a harmless drunk. Once the victim is saved, she reduces Michael to another attacker.
SOLUTION: Production - When he saves the young woman from the attacker, he hopes that she will make a big production of what he’s done for her while he lacks the production that would make his intentions clear to her. Her lack of reaction toward him drives him to reduce himself to the same thing she sees, a homeless drunk.
SYMPTOM: Probability - when he sees the mugging in progress and considers getting involved, he focuses on the low probability of being able to help her or stop the attacker.
RESPONSE: Possibility - focused on the low probability of being able to stop the mugging, he worries about the possibility that he will only get himself hurt or killed. Focusing on the probability of being killed trying to help, he looks for a possible way to survive or escape. Seeing the probability that the victim will die, he looks for a possibility to save her.
UNIQUE ABILITY: Attempt - when a young woman is being mugged, he is wlling to step in to help rather than fleeing the scene for his own safety or waiting for police
CRITICAL FLAW: Analysis - he looks for danger in the situation almost waiting too long to step in for the woman being mugged, but doesn’t consider how drunk he is.
BENCHMARK: How Things are Changing - When the woman he saves still reduces him to a homeless drunk and nothing more by throwing her cash at him in hopes that he will not also attack, he sees that his actions have not changed the way others see him.
APPRAISAL: Seeing someone in need of help, he appraises that it’s too dangerous to get involved
REAPPRAISAL: He reconsiders deciding that he’s going to be more than a homeless drunk that stumbles away when someone is in need
DOUBT: drunk and wielding nothing but a half-empty glass bottle of schnaaps, he doubts he can stop the mugger
INVESTIGATION: after stopping the mugger, he investigates to see what the victims attitude toward him will be.
Step 6. Writing
To write a scene using the info above, I started with the Situation of “being homeless” and a concern of “getting by” to set the scene in the first couple of paragraphs.
From there, I went a little deeper with the thematic conflict. Eventually I brought in the problem-level elements. Some of the points came through stronger than others. Some of the encodings changed a bit as the ideas solidified or morphed into something else. Because I didn’t have specific ideas in all of the storypoint encodings, I think this can be expected and I don’t think it necessarily hurt anything structurally.
So here’s the scene. I’ll add a few thought about the process of this exercise afterwards.
(one last note before you start–I’m not a big drinker, so when it was time to talk about alcohol, I just threw some alcohol-related words in that I thought sounded good. the necessary homework to look like i knew anything about it would come in the second draft if there was going to be one.)
MICHAEL SIGN POST 4
Michael stumbled through the dank alley, drinking generously from the bottle he carried with him. He kept it wrapped in a brown paper bag, wrinkled and torn, that hid the label. One might have assumed it was a bottle of bourbon or whiskey–something with some kick to it that would leave a satisfying burn as it flowed into the belly–but one would be wrong.
Wrapped in his own brown jacket, wrinkled and torn, Michael did his best to hide himself from the world. He was homeless and had been for some months now. It had been a long, slow burn to homelessness, but when it happened everything seemed to implode at once. He lost his job. He lost his wife. Shortly after he’d lost his house. He’d gone to a few friends looking for help. One of them had given him a couch to stay on for the night but had sent him away when his friends wife said she didn’t want him there. Another had said he wished he could do something, and then tentatively handed Michael a few rolled up bills with a look of what Michael was sure was disgust. Michael had thanked his friend for the bills and stuck them in his pocket. He didn’t count them until he was out of sight and was disappointed, but not surprised, to find nothing but ones in the roll. Eight of them. Michael had lost everything, and the people he thought cared about him, that he thought he could count on, were good for one night on a couch and eight bucks.
The ache in his bladder as he stumbled drunkenly through the darkness told him it was beyond time for a release. He’d been going in alleyways and dark corners since he lost his home, but still couldn’t manage a drop, even while drunk, without some pretense of privacy. He scanned the alley for a corner to go in, found an old dumpster. He made for it while carefully but ineptly attempting to slide the bottle back into his jacket pocket.
He leaned into the nook formed where the metal corner of the dumpster came against the brick wall, resting his head and shoulders into the corner. There was a small gap between the dumpster and the wall where Michael unzipped and let loose.
There was a sound of splashing like rain drops and Michael looked to the darkness of the
night sky. It did indeed appear that rain was imminent, but there was none yet falling. That’s when he realized it was his own stream splashing into a puddle behind the dumpster. He began to laugh drunkenly at himself. When he was done, he took care to zip up and began stumbling on his way again.
A weight in his jacket pocket thudded against his hip as he lumbered along, a reminder of its presence. It was a weight he was very familiar with, a weight he had carried for years. It wasn’t the weight of the bottle or the liquid in his pocket drawing his attention, but the weight in his belly–the weight in his mind–that called out to him. It was the same weight that caused him to spend the eight bucks his friend had given him not on a couple of value items down at the McDonald’s, but on a small bottle of liquor.
He pulled the bottle out again without a thought and lifted it to his lips. The taste of peach Schnaaps flowed over his tongue and to the back of his throat. It was by no means his first choice–he didn’t care much for the taste of peach–but when one is in his position, one often doesn’t hold out for first choices. Besides, he didn’t care if it was peach Schnaaps or mouthwash as long as it did the job.
He felt the drink go into his belly and felt a bit of the weight slip away momentarily before starting its slow build up again. He was taking a few moments to relish the feeling when he heard a sound. Some sort of scuffling. He might have assumed it was a rat in the trash if it had stopped at that, but it didn’t.
He walked to the edge of the alleyway and peeked around the corner. There was a woman there with a very scared look on her face as a man stood behind her, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other holding a small knife to her throat. Even at his distance he could see the sharp point of the knife pressing into her skin, ready to open it up at any moment.
He felt the icy cold fingers of fear suddenly gripping him, running through his veins. He started to run, but his legs wouldn’t carry him.
As he stood there quivering and trying to clear his mind of the fear and inebriation, he heard the woman say something. It was a single small word squeaked out in a desparate plea.
“Help” it said.
He was sure she hadn’t seen him yet, that she was just trying to call out to anyone passing by, anyone at all. He could still leave, pretend he hadn’t seen it and keep moving. He felt himself turning back to the alleyway, one hand groping shakily along the bricks, cold and wet, and he was suddenly aware that it had begun to rain. Not a quiet drizzle, but a downpour.
He heard her voice again calling out in choked croak.
“Help.”
And it suddenly began to feel real and he knew he couldn’t leave. He was that woman’s only hope, he told himself. If he left now, who knew what would happen to her?
But who knows what will happen to you? another voice in his head asked. You’re nothing but a drunken hobo, it said. What are you going to do? Clobber him with your bottle of Schnaaps? He’ll kill you.
Michael stood frozen in the cold rain wondering what he should do. If he left, he told himself, the woman would die. If he stayed, if he tried to help, what would happen? The voice was right. He didn’t have anything on him but a near empty bottle of alcohol. He was drunk and didn’t know how to fight on a good day.
You’re just an old, drunken hobo, the voice continued, cast out of society like the trash in the dumpster you just pissed behind. That same woman has probably passed you a hundred times while you sit on the sidewalk wondering where you would find your next meal and never so much as handed you the change from a five dollar cup of coffee. Why help her out? You’re nothing but a hobo.
“No,” he said to himself. “No, I’m not.”
And despite the icy fear that still flowed through him, he took the step out from behind the corner. He stood there in the orange glow of the sodium lamp, not really sure what to do next. But it didn’t matter. The mugger quickly spotted him.
“Stay back,” the mugger ordered. It was hard to hear in the pouring rain. “Stay back or I spill 'er guts.”
Michael still wasn’t sure what to do. So many thoughts raced through his mind. He couldn’t catch hold of any of them.
But he could feel something stirring deep inside of him. And it pulled at him, tugged at him, like a weight. And without thinking, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the bag of Schnaaps, still wrapped in it’s brown paper sack. He put the mouth of the bottle to his lips and turned it up letting the liquid inside flow down his throat like the rain rain over his shoulders, letting it flow until the bottle was empty.
“Please, mister, you gotta help me,” the woman pleaded as she reached out to him with one hand. Michael wanted to reach back out to her.
“Aw, he aint nothing but a bum,” the man told her. “He ain’t gonna help you, now quit squirmin and give me ya damn pur–”
Michael didn’t hear anything after that. The cold fear had turned into a hot anger and suddenly he was rushing at them. The mugger looked up, shock on his face. Now HE was frozen in fear, Michael saw. Now HE didn’t know what to do. And the feeling it gave Micheal was a good one. He raised his empty bottle over his head as he ran. And just as the mugger was remembering that he held a knife and was trying to turn it toward Micheal, Micheal brought his arm down in a hard arc that ended with a dull thud as the bottle connected with the man’s skull.
The mugger did not go down instantly, as Michael had expected, but he did let go of the woman who ran a few yards off before turning to watch, her hands now clasped firmly over her mouth.
Michael looked at the mugger who had been momentarily knocked senseless. He was shaking his head. It reminded Michael of the nights when he got lucky and was able to get his hands on some good hard liquor. The kind that left his head spinning and made it hard to focus. But Michael wouldn’t give the man time to focus. He lifted the bottle and brought it down again and again until the mugger lay on the ground, motionless, his face covered in lumps, his skin broken and bleeding.
When he was sure the man was no longer a threat, he kicked the knife out of his hands and looked up at the woman who still stood there, eyes wide and hands over her mouth and found himself once more not sure what to do.
He stepped forward, raising his right hand to offer her a handshake before being on his way, but she yelped and took a quick step back.
“Leave me alone,” she said. “I don’t have any…anything.” She started quickly fishing through her purse, found something, and threw it on the ground at her feet.
“That’s all I have, I promise,” she said.
Michael looked at the ground at the wads of green paper laying there, slowly moving away on tiny streams that flowed over the pavement.
“Thirty seven dollars. That’s all I have,” she repeated.
And for just a split second, Michael thought about bending down and taking it. Thirty seven dollars, after all, was more than his friends could scrape together for him when he had gone to them for help. And it would buy him a couple bottles of peach Schnaaps. Or hell, it could buy one bottle of something good.
“I don’t want your money,” he said. “I–I was just tryna help.” He took another step forward, but stopped when she yelped again.
“Just take it,” she said, almost a scream. And it wasn’t fear he thought he detected this time, but anger. “Just take it and leave me alone,” she screamed. And she turned and ran.
And Michael stood there in pouring rain, wondering where his buzz had gone, not sure if it was the rain running down his cheeks or his own tears as he bent bent to pick up the womans money.
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Just some thoughts on doing this exercise:
I’m not particularly happy with the actual storytelling part of this scene. Still needs a lot of work, editing, rewriting, etc. But that’s on me, not Dramatica. I do feel like it’s got a good structure underneath it. There are still lots of ways to play up certain elements and downplay others, but that would be for the second draft.
The first thing I noticed is that this scene almost felt more like a tale rather than a small piece of a larger complete story. It could be because I was kind of introducing the MC at the front rather than accounting for his existence through three previous Acts. Or it could be because I didn’t get to the problem elements soon enough. Maybe I should have gotten right to the point with Reduction. Either way, I’m okay with that for now. If i were to write the rest of the story, it would just be a matter of going back and smoothing over the edges so it all blended together, i think.
Speaking of which, as a Linear Problem-Solver I tend to see only the Linear Progression of the narrative. As I pondered over Situation and Present and Repulsion and Reduction and how I could illustrate them all under a single Sign Post of Present, I began to get a glimpse, I think, for the first time of the holistc nature of a narrative as it tries to look not just at one issue at a time, but all levels of that issue.
Another thing I noticed and really liked was the way I found ideas coming to me that naturally fit into the storyform. For instance, when encoding for the thematic conflict, I didn’t come up with anything particularly compelling for Attraction. But in writing, he clearly seemed to have an Attraction to alcohol. I tried to play that up as I went, but could maybe do more. And there’s a part where I said something about a bottle wrapped in a brown paper sack hiding the label, and then described the MC as being wrapped in a brown jacket and immediately decided that maybe there was more there to compare. Maybe he thinks his own brown, wrinkled wrapping is hiding something as well, which seemed to start to hint at maybe the thematic conflict, or perhaps his drive to not be reduced to his appearance. I didn’t play this up as much as I thought I could. There were several other examples I could offer as well.
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Gregolas, I appreciate you going through this exercise in a public forum. I so enjoy being a fly on the wall to other creator’s processes, in art, writing, music, etc. So, bravo to you.
I have a basic question about this/your process. Would one really encode that many story points into one scene? If I recall, the Dramatica theory encourages encoding at least one instance of each story point into each act/signpost so that as the audience experiences the story they are reminded of them throughout. But stacking that many into one scene… is that necessary? For instance, some of the ones you were having trouble fitting, might you assume they could show up at another point during that act/signpost?
A signpost can comprise more that one scene, correct? If one goes by the Plot Progression method, 4 scenes could be created I believe.
So, back to my main question, is it necessary to jamb pack in so many storypoints into one scene? (14 I’m counting. Of course, some are subsets of others that pervade an entire feeling throughout a story/act/ signpost.)
Again, thank you for doing this. It’s so interesting to see the application of Dramatica. We see the analysis part so much. I too struggle with the application of it. And this point of “how much you pack in” is a basic confusion I am now having.
Brendan
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Thinking about my question some more, Gregolas… Would you say packing those story points offered you the opportunity to brainstorm more detail in the scene?
I want to add how I’m still amazed how one can develop storytelling from a certain amount of Dramatica story points.
@MiggsEye
Good questions. And I’ll do my best to answer.
First, as I say above, this is AN example, but not necessarily a GOOD example, and for many reasons. Hopefully it can be a good beginning for a good discussion about how this process goes for yourself and others.
Anyway, I think because I only did the one scene, it felt like more storypoints than it otherwise would have. In writing just one scene, it kinda comes across as “Here’s a homeless guy. Here’s a homeless guy drinking. Now here’s a homeless guy looking for a place to pee. Now here he is walking up on someone being mugged.” Had this scene come at the end of a longer story, he would’ve been introduced as a homeless guy with a drinking problem living in the present three acts ago and I think the momentum would have carried those points into this act without needing all of the additional storytelling.
Now I did try to fit a lot in with trying to hint at both sides of the thematic argument, the problem, the symptom, the response, and the solution. But I think, if done right, a lot of those points really kind of blend into one problem for the audience so they only see the MC exploring one problem rather than 4 separate and individual layers of a problem.
I also tried to cram in a little bit of the UA and CF. I don’t think it would have hurt to separate those out in a larger story. But when doing just one scene, it’s hard to tell what all is going to work and what isn’t. I don’t remember trying too hard to discuss the Benchmark in the storytelling either. And as this was an exercise, I wanted to see what all could be fit in. But ultimately it was really just having the storyform before me to guide me. I relied on it heavily for this exercise, but may not have relied on it so heavily to write something else.
A better example would definitely be one that has had a couple draft behind it, though, that took out some of the unnecessary stuff and played up the more important points.
I think having all the storypoints before you gives you plenty to work with for sure. And again, in a longer story, I think some of the storypoints higher up on the chart are going to carry themselves throughout without the audience having to be hammered over the head with them.
Nice work @Gregolas. Very nice.
Great example! @Gregolas 
I agree: excellent example of using Dramatica as a creative tool, rather than just for analysis.
Thanks for shedding more light on your process in your answers to my questions. I see in this exercise you took the opportunity to pontentize your scene storytelling with the multiple storypoints. I can see using this process also for short stories as well, which can deal with one throughline rather than all four, going deep in the one rather than rather than wide in the four. I like the systematized process you approached it with: very disciplined. Well done.
This might be a silly question. What is UA and CF?
Sorry. I get used to abbreviating. Unique Ability and Critical Flaw.
Oh, dah. I should have known that.