Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s not really possible to write a novel (or screenplay) step by step because that’s not how the creative mind works.  But there are stages in the creative process that are best followed in order.  When we force ourselves to change that sequence, our Muse becomes “Out Of Order”.

But there is hope!  By organizing the chaotic collection of concepts that usually precedes the inspriation to blend them into a single story we  can lay out a creative path ahead of ourselves that is inventive, productive, and easy to follow.  Let’s begin at the moment of inception when we first decide we want to write a story….

We tend to come to a story with a whole bag of bits and pieces of ideas, some complete, some half-baked.  What’s more, the ideas we do have are from all across the board: a snippit of dialog, a setting, a bit of action, a type of personality for a character (even though we don’t yet have any idea if it’s a protagonist or antagonist or even if it is the Main Character).

You see, inspiration – the desire to write a story and an idea of what it will be about – comes from the subjects that interest us. But stories themselves come from the structure that holds them together. And that is the age-old author’s dilemma: “How do I turn my interests and motivations into a finished novel that makes sense?”

When embarking on a new writing project, it often seems as if the whole process is summed up in that old saying, “You can’t get there from here.” And for many writers, once the novel is written, they can’t really see how they did it, or more aptly, “You can’t get here from there.”

Yet, there is hope. There is an approach you can take that works with your Muse, rather than against her. And, it is a real step-by-step method that will actually take you from concept to completion of your novel or script.

So what is this miraculous “silver bullet” for banishing writer’s block and dancing merrily down the garden path to a finished novel? Simple. Rather than focusing on the needs of the story, focus on the needs of the author.

No matter what kind of author you are, no matter what kind of novel you want to write, you share the same sequence of creative steps with all other authors everywhere. Just like the stages of grief or Freud’s psycho-sexual stage, there is a common order to the creative process which drives us all.

This process can be divided into four Creative Stages: In order, 1 – Inspiration, 2 – Development, 3 – Exposition, 4 – Storytelling. Let me define each a little more fully.

1. Inspiration

Inspiration comes to us all, sometimes through great effort; other times unbidden. From the outside, it appears as if a person plucks an idea out of the ether, creating something from nothing. But in truth, every inspiration is just the synthesis of some combination of new and previous experiences.

Many inspirations aren’t worth pursuing. But, occasionally, a worthwhile concept pops into our heads that’s just too appealing to toss away. These little visions can be single grains of sand that require lots of time and effort to develop into a pearl. Or, they may be fragments, glimpses really, of something larger for which we do not yet see the full extent, scope, or shape. The most impressive of these little mental feats are those rare ideas which thrust themselves upon our conscious minds completely developed already, like a snap-shot of the whole shebang in a single big bang moment of creation, right out the head of Zeus, as it were, mature upon birth.

There’s many ways to help bring inspiration about, and I’ll be writing about those in articles to come. But for now, here are some links to previous articles I’ve penned on the subject:

Finding Your Creative Time, Finding Inspiration for Writing, and Writing from the Passionate Self.

For your convenience, I’ve also compiled all my best articles on finding inspiration into a twenty page booklet called The Case of the Missing Muse, available as a PDF Download and also in Kindle Book format on Amazon.com.

2. Development

As obvious as it may be, it bears repeating: You can’t develop an inspiration you haven’t had yet. And just as important: Inspiration doesn’t stop just because you move into Development.

You see, these four stages the creative process don’t follow each other one after the next. Rather, they are layered, like a layer cake or the floors of a building under construction.

No matter what the story, you have to start with Inspiration – there’s no way around it. Once you have that inspiration you can start adding depth and detail to it until it fleshes out in a fully developed story concept, or at least a part of one.

But even while you are developing one part or aspect of your story – perhaps because you are developing one part – new inspirations start popping up all along the way. The very act of enriching a previous inspiration add more concepts and new perspectives into the mix. Those bounce around in your head, run into each other, and merge and blend to create whole new inspirations.

So just because you have all your basic ideas worked out, don’t shut your mind to Inspiration just because you have started Development. It may turn out your best ideas are yet to come!

What’s more, you don’t have to wait until you have your whole story worked out to start developing the parts you have. There’s no reason why you can’t figure out the arc of one of your characters before you even know who the other characters are or what the plot is about.

It is more like weaving than building timeline. You follow one thread until inspiration runs dry, then pick up another and run with it for a while. And even these don’t have to be in story sequential order. You can jump to the end to dabble with a surprise conclusion to your plot, for example. You might not yet have any idea how you are going to get your characters there, but you know what kind of twist you want. So, just go for it. You can always rewrite later if you get in a bind.

You know, a lot of writers worry that if they don’t have everything figured out in advance, they may have to get rid of a lot of work they had already done that just doesn’t fit with the way the story turns out to be.

Hey, words are cheap. If you are any kind of an author at all, you’ve got an endless supply of them. It pays to remember that writing a novel almost always takes a long time. You’re going to spend hundreds of hours tooling it together. Don’t cry over a few hours or even dozens of hours that have to get ripped out later. It is all part of the process of finding your story.

Keep in mind the salesman’s creed: If you get nineteen doors slammed in your face before you make a $20 sale on the twentieth call, well then you made $1 each time you knocked on a door. Same with writing. It doesn’t matter how much work you have to throw away. By following each inspiration as far as it will go, even if that material is never used, it was a necessary step to get you to the material you WILL use.

We’ll get into this a lot deeper in articles to come, but for now, here’s some links to a few techniques that will help you during the development process:

Creating Characters from Plot, The Creativity Two-Step, and Avoiding the Genre Trap.

Just a quick reminder that our StoryWeaver Story Development Software is designed to help guide you through all four stages of the creative process.

3. Exposition

Okay. So you had some inspirations and you’ve done some development. Perhaps you’ve even worked out your entire story and everything in it. You know your story up one side and down the other. But – your readers don’t. Exposition is the process of working out how and when you are going to reveal everything you know about your story as it plays out over time.

Perhaps the most common mistake made in Exposition is knowing your story so well that you forget to share that knowledge with your readers. It is so easy to leave out a critical piece of information because it is so important it never occurs to you to see if you actually conveyed it.

But exposition is much more than that; it is an art form in its own right. Intentionally holding back on information to create assumptions or misunderstandings can help set your readers up for jaw-dropping shockers. Putting information out of sequential order in flashbacks and flash forwards can force your readers to have to reevaluate characters and plot . This makes the “read” an active endeavor rather than just a passive experience.

There are two basic ways to approach Exposition: 1 – Work out an Exposition Plan in advance so that you know how and when each key bit of information will unfold. 2 – Just go ahead and write the story and then go back to make sure you put everything in that ought to be there.

The first approach works well when you want to keep the readers guessing, as in mysteries or conspiracy stories. The second approach is better if you are the kind of writer who likes to go with the flow and not feel too constrained while writing.

If you elect not to have an Exposition Plan in advance, here’s a tip that will still ensure all the crucial bits of information made it into your story: Before you write in fine literary prose, write a shopping list of all the elements of your story you want your readers to know. Describe your characters, plot, theme, and genre all in terse, concise terms.

Then, when you have written your story, refer to your list and find each element in the story as written, checking it off the list when you find the actual place at which you’ve conveyed that information. If any of these character and plot points doesn’t get checked off your list, you’ve gotten so wrapped up in the storytelling you forgot to put them in and need to find a place to insert that information as gracefully and dramatically as possible.

As before, Exposition is layered on top of Development and Inspiration. So, even while you are working out how to unfold your story, that very process may inspire whole new concepts to include the your novel and also suggest new details that can enrich the ones you’ve already got.

Here’s some links to some of the best techniques for solid exposition:

Introducing Characters – First Impressions, Blowing the Story Bubble, and Genre- Act by Act.

One of the best tools for working out an exposition plan is the new Outline 4D program from Write Brothers.

4. Storytelling

Finally, we arrive at the last stage of story development. This is the part where you actually put words on paper that you intend your readers to see. (Keep in mind that for a screenplay, your readers are not the movie-goers but the cast and crew who will interpret your words and present them to the audience on your behalf).

Now there’s no right or wrong way to tell a story, but there are more and less effective and involving ways. Of all four of the stages, this is the one most dependent on natural ability. Let me say a few words about that:

You are only as good as you own talent – get over it!

Most cases of writers block occur not because authors don’t have any ideas but because they don’t think the ideas and/or the way they expressed them is good enough.

Hey, we all want to be celebrated in our own time – the toast of the town, the person everyone wants to know. Dickens was a rock star of his age – revered by scholars and applauded by his fans, especially when he went on tour throughout England doing “one-man-show” performances based on readings from his “greatest hits” and acting out all the characters himself.

Not everyone can be Dickens. Hardly anyone can be Dickens. In fact, only Dickens could be Dickens and only Shakespeare could be Shakespeare. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.

Some folks, like the aforementioned, are notable for many fine literary works. Others, like Mary Shelly, Margaret Mitchell, and Ralph Ellison really only had one superb novel in them. (Ellison might have had two but his entire manuscript burned up in a house fire and he had to reconstruct it from memory).

Fact is, if you aren’t good or lucky enough to be a Dickens or a Shakespeare, you’ve go two choices: 1 – labor over one single work all of your life until it is as perfect as you can make it. 2 – Write a lot of books (or screenplays) and hope one of them turns out to be great.

It really depends on whether you are writing to ensure how you will be remembered, or writing because you want to share something with people today.

Either way, there’s still only one cardinal rule in the art of storytelling: Never bore your audience! Someone once said, “They won’t remember what you said and they won’t remember what you did. They’ll remember how you made them feel.”

To be sure, there are all kinds of tips, tricks and techniques you can use to improve and hone your storytelling skills. Just don’t get hung up on whatever level of ability you’ve go. Rather, make the most of it. After all, the more you write, the better your writing will become.

Here’s a link on storytelling that can help grease the wheels of self expression:

StoryWeaving Tips

Naturally, the less that gets in the way of your writing process, the more smoothly it can proceed. When you write novels or screenplays, consider Movie Magic Screenwriter. It is not just for scripts, but automatically formats your novel, script, or stage play while you write.

Conclusion

This brief introduction to story development just scratches the surface. I’ll be back next month with another step in the process of writing your novel or screenplay.

“Read the book; see the movie!” “Now a major motion picture!” “A novelization…” “A new musical based on the stage play…” “…based on the book…” “…based on the hit movie!” “The timeless story of…” “…a classic tale…” “…updated for today’s audience…” “…colorized…” “…reformatted to fit your screen…” “edited for television.”

It’s the same old story. Or is it? Is a story really the same when translated from one medium to another and if not, how is it different? What qualities must be changed to maintain a story’s integrity? To adapt adeptly an author needs to know the answers to these questions.

Before we can investigate answers, it would be prudent to define some terms. First, what do we mean by “adaptation?” Simply, adaptation is the process of translating a story from one medium to another. What is a “medium?” A medium is a physical facility for storing information and the processes involved in retrieving it. Finally, what is “story?” For our purposes we shall define story as any information an author wishes to communicate to an audience (including considerations, experiences, and feelings).

So, putting it all together, adaptation is the process of translating information from one physical facility for storage and retrieval to another in such a way that it can be communicated to an audience. Sounds pretty cold, doesn’t it. That’s because this is simply the logistic description of adaptation.

A more organic description might be: Adaptation is the process of reproducing an audience experience in another medium. That has a better feel to it, but is much less precise. Also, we can clearly see a difference in the purpose of each approach, as indicated above when we spoke of the new story’s identity versus its integrity. One seeks to maintain the parts, the other to be true to the whole. And that is the paradox at the heart of the adapter’s dilemma: should authors strive to accurately recreate the structure or to faithfully reproduce the dynamics? More to the point, why can’t we do both?

The answer lies with the media themselves. Every medium has its own strengths and weaknesses. Often what can be easily accomplished in one medium is either difficult or even impossible to achieve in another. Books are not very good at directly communicating sounds or visual atmospheres. The motion picture, on the other hand, is a poor medium for directly communicating a characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

In each case, indirect means must be employed to accomplish what might be directly communicated in the other medium. To successfully adapt a work, an author must determine what to add or remove in order to achieve the same effect as the original medium.

It would seem that adaptations will always fail to capture some aspect of the original, either in substance or essence. That is true, but it does not have to be a fatal problem. An audience tends to regard certain aspects of a story as being essential. As long as an adaptation retains and/or recreates those essential elements, the audience will find the effort successful.

Beyond the essential, other elements may be more or less fully developed than in the original, providing something of the same flavor while allowing the latitude to tailor the piece for the new medium. The question then becomes how to determine which items are essential and how deeply they need to be developed, on a case by case basis.

The first step is to do a complete analysis of the original work. Just reading the book a hundred times or watching the movie until images are imbedded on your retina is not good enough. You don’t want to know a work just from the inside out, but you want to know it from the outside in as well — the way the audience sees it. To develop both an understanding and an empathy for the story, it helps to examine it in terms of the Four Stages of Communication.

The Four Stages of Communication describe the manner in which the author’s original intent makes its way from his mind into the minds of his audience. Stage one is Story forming, in which the author first defines the message for himself. Stage two is Story encoding, where the author comes up with images and events to symbolize the message. Stage three is Story weaving, which is the process of arranging these images into scenes and acts. Stage four is Story Reception, which describes the relationship of the audience to the work. By analyzing how each of these stages functions in a story, an author can make sure that the adaptation will connect at all levels of appreciation.

Storyforming

A key concept of traditional narrative theory is that the narrative itself is transportable among media. The narrative is not the complete story, but simply the essential dramatics of the deep structure. In Dramatica, we call this the Storyform. Dramatica is very precise about what this underlying dramatic argument contains.

Each of the elements that must appear in a complete storyform is called an appreciation, because it is necessary for the audience to appreciate the story from that perspective to prevent a hole in the dramatic argument. Some appreciations are structural in nature, such as the story’s goal, or the Main Character’s unique ability. Others are more dynamic, such as the Main Character’s mental sex, or the story’s limit through the imposition of a timelock or an optionlock.

When analyzing a work to be adapted, it is sometimes difficult to separate the storyform from the storytelling. A good rule of thumb is to think of the storyform as the author’s logistic argument and the storytelling as the emotional argument.

A good example of this can be seen by comparing Romeo and Juliet to West Side Story, Cyrano de Bergerac to Roxanne, or Heart of Darkness to Apocalypse Now. In each pair, the storyform is very nearly the same, while the storytelling is quite different.

An example of a poor adaptation that failed at the storyforming level was the translation of A Christmas Carol into the motion picture Scrooged, starring Bill Murray.

In the original Dickens story, Scrooge is a character who must start doing something, rather than stop doing something. Scrooge is not best described as pro-actively hurting people but more as allowing suffering to continue due to his lack of action. He has a hole in his heart. The ghost of Christmas Present presents him with two children, Want and Need. They serve to illustrate the problems Scrooge perpetuates through his lack of generosity.

In the modern adaptation, Bill Murray’s character is portrayed as someone who must stop doing something. He is show as pro-actively harmful to a number of people. But when the argument is made for him to change, he is still presented with those who want and are needy. That argument is simply not appropriate to a character who needs to stop. As a result, the attempt to make a more pro-active villain, updated for our time, failed because the supporting argument contained in the remainder of the storyform was not adjusted accordingly.

Use your Dramatica software to arrive at the single storyform that best describes the work you are adapting, and then make sure that if you decide to change anything, you run another storyform to learn what else must be changed as well. You may discover that only minor changes need to be accommodated, or you may find out that the storyform needs to be altered so heavily that the item you intended to change would scuttle any sense of familiarity with the original.

Storyencoding

If the storyform is the skeleton, the story encoding is the meat. Let’s take a single storyforming appreciation and see how encoding can flavor its meaning. Suppose the goal of the original story is to obtain the stolen diamonds. Without changing the storyform, we might adapt that to obtaining the stolen gold. We could also change it to obtaining a diploma, obtaining someone’s love, or obtaining the office of President of the United States. Each and every one of these examples has a goal of obtaining, but each also has a different flavor depending solely upon the encoding.

Often, encoding is more important to an audience than anything else. Encoding determines the setting, the subject matter, the size and scope of the issues. Substituting stolen gold for stolen diamonds would probably be interchangeable to most audience members. Substituting obtaining a diploma would not.

Encoding is the first stage that is open to authors’ interpretation. As such, it is important to fully illustrate the original story’s storyform completely, so that all the specific symbols used by the original author can be documented. Then, the process is to sort through the list, see which are essential, which are peripheral but must be given lip-service, and which can or even should be cut, due to the specifics of the new medium.

It is important to note that when delving into this much detail, it is easy to miss the forest for the trees. For example, if we elected to change “stolen diamonds” to “stolen gold” but still had our Main Character working for De Beers, we might have created a problem.

This is not to say that every encoding appreciation must be consistent with all the others in flavor. In fact, many stories are appealing simply because the juxtapose contrasting symbols. The key is to make sure you maintain the same relationship between the flavors. Much like adapting a recipe for a culinary feast, you might substitute salt for sugar, but then you must also substitute vinegar for sour cream. The overall flavor would be completely different, but the relationship between flavors is maintained. That level of pattern-recognition is well within the grasp of most audiences. How many times has The Simpsons replicated famous scenes from famous movies in a completely different context? This works because the internal relationships remain consistent.

Storyweaving

Storyweaving is the process of unfolding the symbols of your story for the audience. It is where suspense, tension, mystery, and surprise are created. When adapting genres such as horror, thriller, and murder mystery, it should be noted that the experiential mood is almost storyform and storyencoding dependent. It is the weaving that takes center stage, and is therefore the most crucial aspect to maintain in an adaptation.

With murder mysteries particularly, the manner in which the cat is let out of the bag defines the audience experience. A great deal of the appeal of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, for example, is due to the steps through which the chase becomes afoot. Holmes has been successfully translated to virtually every time and place in human history changing both storyform and storyencoding until nothing remains of the original because the feel remains the same due to the way the case unravels. In many respects, the Holmes stories are identified by their exposition template, and that is why the audience comes to the work.

This is the same stage of communication that is emphasized in The Twilight Zone (the first series, the movie adaptation, and the adapted second series), The Outer Limits (first series and adapted series), and virtually every Stephen King book and movie. Did you ever wonder why some of King’s best works don’t translate well to the screen? The adaptations that don’t work change the storyweaving, which is the identifying trademark of the King experience.

Make sure you examine the manner in which the audience is let in on the secrets of the story to be adapted. Is the story an Extrovert that lets it all hang out from scene one? Is it a Flirt that flaunts it but takes its time in delivering? Is your story an Introvert that must have its secrets coaxed out one at a time, or is it a Liar that fools us with red-herrings and mis-directions?

Unless you strive to maintain the original’s personality, much of the charm may be lost in the translation. A recent example of this kind of mistake occurred in bringing The Beverly Hillbillies to the big screen. In the original series, the storyweaving personality was much like a British comedy of manners in which the cultured and proper are forced by circumstances to accommodate unsophisticated bumpkins. Enter Politically Correct storyweaving. Suddenly, the focus of comedy shifts from manners to physical comedy.

The slapstick gags are funny enough, but that is not what the audience expected. The Beverly Hillbillies the audience grew up with, was nowhere to be found in this movie. The personality associated with the title was not maintained. Interestingly, if there had been no original series, the motion picture would likely have been much funnier to an unbiased audience. When creating an original work, storyweaving considerations can be limited to exposition of the storyform. When adapting a work, storyweaving must also take into account the expectations of the audience, described in the fourth stage of communication, Story Reception.

Story Reception

We started in Storyforming with the message, encoded it into symbols, transmitted those symbols through storyweaving, and now that multi-plexed signal arrives at the receiver: your audience. Problem is, they all might be tuned to a different channel!

Some members of your audience will be familiar with the original work itself. Some may have experienced it many times. Others will have heard about it from a friend, but never actually saw or read the original. Many have only seen the advertisements, or the book review, or the trading cards, or the lunch box. A few have never heard of it at all and just stumbled upon your adaptation. You may want to play on in-jokes and setups that require prior knowledge. How about that scene in Superman: The Movie when Clark runs up to the phone booth to change and there’s somebody using the phone? It would not be very funny to someone who does not recognize it as a twist on the expected pattern.

In addition, there is really no such thing as an audience, except when defined as a collection of individuals who experience a work. They may have nothing else in common, so you can’t expect them to respond as a single unit. What buzz words can you safely use? Which obscure buzz words do you want to use anyway because you expect they will catch on and become all the rage? How much biased, special-interested, politically correct, atheistic, agnostic, faithful, black, brown, white, red, yellow, young, old, middle-aged, female, male, gay, straight, bi, Republican, Democrat, Independent, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, brilliant, stupid, insane, and emotionally-challenged baggage are audience members going to carry to your adaptation?

Part of the adapter’s job is to identify the audience. An equally important job is to identify with the audience. This puts a burden on the author of an adaptation that the author of an original work usually does not share.

When creating an original story, one often has the luxury of writing whatever one wants, and then hoping the finished piece finds its audience. In contrast, the adept adapter must consider the full spectrum of the new audience. Usually, if a work is being considered for adaptation, it is because there is some following for the original. The adaptation is intended to not only appeal to that audience but exceed it and attract a wider crowd.

How do you adapt a work for the masses? Simple. Make sure the story works not only as an adaptation, but on its own merits as well. Never violate dramatic integrity solely for the sake of adaptive integrity. Better to disappoint a few diehard fans than to disappoint the potential legions of new fans.

Conversely, there are those projects where the size of the new audience is unimportant. The purpose of this kind of adaptation is to supply those few diehard fans with a new medium of enjoyment for their favorite story. In this case you must be faithful to every detail, even if it turns out a work that can’t stand on its own merit.

Either approach is reason enough to shape the nature of the adaptation. Seldom can both be done at the same time. More than anything, Story Reception is where the author decides for whom they wish to write. Once you have identified that group, you must get into their heads, to get into their hearts.

In Summary

Adaptation is no simple task. It requires familiarity with both the logistics and passion of the original, from the inside out and the outside in. To achieve this familiarity, one must resonate with the original on many levels, best examined through the Four Stages of Communication.

• Storyforming: Storyform the original and then create a new storyform to reflect any changes you make in the adaptation.
• Storyencoding: Delineate the original encoding and determine what must be lifted verbatim, what might be altered, and what could or should be eliminated.
• Storyweaving: Reproduce the storyweaving personality to faithfully reproduce the dramatic flavor.
• Story Reception: Determine the prior knowledge and expectations of your audience.

In conclusion, and above all, to your new audience be true, for then how canst thee be false to the original?

From the Dramatica Theory Book

Some see theme as a premise, such as Greed leads to self-destruction. Others see theme as an area of exploration such as man’s inhumanity to man. Both of these aspects of theme, and more, will need to be explored for your story to have a strong emotional throughline. Therefore, before you begin writing your story, take time to simply describe the issues you would like your story to examine thematically. This thematic synopsis can serve as a guide to keep your story’s message on track.

To this end, you may want to consider these thematic points:

The premise approach to theme usually tries to illustrate the results which grow from human imperfections. To prove its point, a thematic argument must be made over the course of the story to show that the stated outcome is unavoidable if one does not shed oneself of a negative attribute.

Conversely, a premise can just as easily seek to prove that a good trait leads to a favorable outcome, such as Compassion leads to true happiness. More complex themes may even propose that Compassion leads to self-destruction, or that Greed leads to true happiness, creating mixed feelings in the audience. Of course, all of this is tempered by the manner in which the material is presented: as comedy or drama, for example.

Exploration themes tend to be less linear, seeking to examine a positive or negative trait in a number of manifestations such that the audience ultimately arrives at an overall rating of that trait ranging somewhere along the scale from favorable to unfavorable. For example, one author might show that man’s inhumanity to man is an inherent evil. Another author might put forth that man’s inhumanity to man is a necessary evil that allows for progress of the species. Yet another author might propose that man’s inhumanity to man is a good thing because only through physical and emotional violence is the human spirit truly alive.

No matter how popular or unpopular a thematic value may be with an audience, a story always gains in depth and power from a fully developed theme.

Though you will eventually want to add detail and nuance fo your theme, for your initial thematic synopsis, simply describe the central message or thematic topic of your story, and how you want the audience to feel about it.

Example: Star Wars seeks to prove that if we keep a noble heart and trust in ourselves, we will ultimately triumph over any opposition, no matter how outmatched we appear to be.

Excerpted from
Dramatica Pro Story Development Software

A lot of books about writing describe the importance of a “Love Interest.” Other books see a Love Interest as unnecessary and cliché. What does Dramatica Say? As with most dramatic concepts, Dramatica pulls away the storytelling to take a clear look at the underlying structure.

A Love Interest has both storytelling and structural components. The storytelling side is what most people think of – A Love Interest is the character with whom the “hero” or “heroine” is in love. Simple! But what does that tell us about the kind of person the Love Interest is, or even what kind of relationship the two have between them? Not a whole lot!

For example, the Love Interest might be the leader of the enemy camp, in which case he or she is the Antagonist! Or, the Love Interest might be the supportive, stay-in-the-background type, in which case he or she is the Sidekick. In both cases, the hero is in love with this person, but structurally each positions the relationship on different sides of the effort to achieve the story goal. Also, the Love Interest might be a person of noble heart, a misguided do-gooder, or even a crook! And, any of these types of people might fit into either of the two example scenarios we’ve just outlined.

As we can see, the structural and storytelling elements have little to do with one another, other than the fact that there will be some of each. So, what can Dramatica do to help provide some guidelines for developing a Love Interest that works?

Lets start with some basics. Dramatica sees there being two types of characters in every story (and a prize in every box!). The first type contains the Objective Characters such as the Protagonist, Antagonist, Sidekick, or Guardian, who are defined by their dramatic functions.

The Protagonist strives to achieve the goal; the Antagonist tries to prevent that, for example. In and of itself, this aspect of character outlines how the participants line up in regard to the logistic issues of the story. But there is a second side of the dynamics of every story that center on the second type of characters – the Subjective Characters.

There are two Subjective Characters, and unlike their Objective relatives who represent functions, the Subjective Characters represent points of view. These characters are the Main Character and the Obstacle Character. The Main Character represents the audience position in the story. The Obstacle Character represents the point of view, ideology, or belief system opposite that of the Main Character.

The Objective Characters represent the “headline” in the story and the Subjective Characters represent the “heartline.” Often, the character who is the Protagonist is also given the Main Character job as well. This creates the archetypal “hero” who drives the story forward, but who also represents the audience position in the story. Of course, the Main Character (audience position) might be with ANY of the Objective Characters, not just the Protagonist. For example, in most of the James Bond films, Bond is actually the Antagonist and Main Character because although he represents the audience position, he is also called into play AFTER the real Protagonist (the villain) has made his first move to achieve a goal (of world conquest.) It is Bond’s functional role as Antagonist to try and stop it!

Not quite as often, the Antagonist is given the extra job of also being the Obstacle Character. In such a case, not only does the Antagonist try to stop the Protagonist, but he (or she) also tries to change the belief system of the Main Character, whether the Main Character is the Protagonist or another of the Objective Characters by function.

The worst thing you can do is to make the Protagonist the Main Character and the Antagonist the Obstacle Character. Why? Because then the two “players” in the story are not only diametrically opposed in function regarding the story goal, but are also diametrically opposed in belief system. As a result, it is difficult for the audience to figure out which of the two throughlines them is being developed by any given event between them.

What’s worse, as an author it is easy to get caught up in the momentum of the drama between them so that one skips steps in the development of one throughline because the other “carries” it. Well it may carry the vigor, but it doesn’t hold water. Both throughlines must each be fully developed or you end up with a melodrama or worse, plot holes you could drive a truck through.

The solution is either to assign the Main Character and Protagonist functions to one character and split the Antagonist/Obstacle Character functions into two separate characters, or vice versa.

And this brings us to the Dramatic Triangle and how it is used to create a sound Love Interest relationship.

First, let’s assume we assign the Main Character and Protagonist jobs to the same player to create an archetypal hero. Now, this hero (we’ll call him Joe) is a race car driver who is vying with the Antagonist for the title of best overall driver of the year. Each race is a new contest between them with their balance so close that it all comes down to the last race of the season.

But there is something troubling Joe’s heart – his relationship with Sally. Sally is very supportive of Joe (a Sidekick, in fact) but Joe feels that if he really loves Sally, he should quit racing to avoid the potential of an accident that would leave him dead or crippled and ruin her life. Why does he feel like this? Because his own dad was a racer, whose untimely death on the track left his mother devastated, and ultimately committed to an asylum. (Hey, I never said this example would be creative!)

In any event, Sally doesn’t feel that way at all. She would rather see Joe go out in a blaze of glory having done his best than to spend her life with a limp shell. She tries to tell him, but he just won’t be convinced. He starts to play it safer and safer as his worries grow (because the closer he gets to the final race, the more it resembles the chain of events that happened to his dad.) Finally, he has lost his edge and his lead and it all comes down to that final event.

Now, realizing that she would never be able to live with Joe if she felt that he lost the title because of her, Sally tells him at the final pit stop that if he doesn’t win the race, she is leaving him. Joe must now decide whether he should stick with his approach born from fear of hurting another, or let Sally be her own judge of what is right for her and put the pedal to the metal.

What does he do? Up to you the author. He wins the race and Sally’s heart. He hasn’t got the courage and loses both race and girl. He loses the race, but Sally realizes how deep his love must be and decides to stay with him. He wins the race, but there is such a dangerous near-fatal crash that Sally realizes Joe was right and leaves him anyway because she discovers she really can’t take it after all.

Or, you could have Sally want him to quit and Joe refuse, resulting in four other endings with a more cliché flavor.

Why this long example, to show how the conflict of the logistics of the plot occur between Joe and the Antagonist, but the emotions of the personal relationship occur between Joe and the Sidekick, Sally.

If you charted it out, there are two throughlines. Both hinge on Joe, and then they split farther and farther apart to connect to the Antagonist on one and to the Obstacle Character, Sally on the other. In this way, the events that happen in the growth of each relationship are much easier to see for the audience and much easier to complete for the author, yet they both converge on the “hero” to give him the greatest possible dramatic strength.

Now, you could hinge them both on the Antagonist, as in a James Bond film, and slip the Protagonist from the Obstacle Character. Look at “Tomorrow Never Dies.” The Protagonist is the mad newspaper mogul. The Obstacle Character is the beautiful Chinese agent (whose function is muddled dramatically by Bond’s relationship with the mogul’s wife). Bond is Antagonist AND Main Character, but the dramatic triangle is still functional.

Silence of the Lambs: Starling is the Main Character / Antagonist, Jamie Gumm (Buffalo Bill) is the Protagonist (after all, she didn’t go looking for a crime and THEN he committed one!) Hannibal is the Obstacle Character and perhaps a Love Interest of a sort (as described by the director on the Criterion Edition DVD.)

For a different approach, consider Witness: John Book is the Obstacle Character / Antagonist, the crooked Chief of Police is the Protagonist. Rachel, the Amish Girl is the Love Interest and Main Character. Or is John Book (Harrison Ford) the Love Interest to Rachel? It’s hard to tell because John is such an active Objective Character that he carries more momentum than Rachel, even though we are positioned in her shoes. The important point is that even if the Protagonist is made to be the Obstacle Character and the Antagonist and Main Character are split into two different people, the dramatic triangle still exists!

The dramatic triangle is one of the best structural ways to focus attention on one character even while splitting the headline and heartline to make a more pleasing and complete story. It can be used for “buddy” pictures and even used when the heartline isn’t between lovers or even likers but between two people who would like to see each other’s emotions destroyed by slyly manipulating the other to change his or her beliefs. Think of all those “cheat the devil” stories in which the Main Character/Protagonist is after something and the devil tries to convince the Main Character to sell his soul to get it. Yep, the dramatic triangle at work again!

So, in considering whether or not to have a Love Interest in your story, simply consider whether that would make your storytelling cliché or not. Either way, consider the dramatic triangle as a means of putting heart into an otherwise logistically mechanical plot.

A whole flock of Story Gurus (myself included) will tell you that stories have structure. Therefore, if you learn that structure you’ll improve your stories. Ostensibly, this will lead to fame, riches, a keen sense of accomplishment, and the unparalleled pleasure of the act of writing itself.

But is that true? Do stories have a structure? And even if they do, is there really any way to figure out what it is? Based solely on the number of competing theories, one might suspect that either stories don’t have structures or that even those who spend their entire lives trying to figure it out, can’t!

But there’s an alternative explanation – actually, a couple of them, and I’d like to share those with you now….

First of all, we have two questions:

1. Do stories have structures?

2. Can we ever really define what they are?

We’ll take them in turn.

Stories have structure. There, I said it. But now I have to prove it. And so I’ll say something else – not all written works are stories. And many of those other kinds of writing don’t have any structure at all. In other words, when people use the term “stories” in a casual way to mean any durn thing an author writes, well, then it is impossible to agree if stories have structure or not, ’cause some of them do and some of them don’t.

So the first thing we need to do is divide what we commonly think of as stories into two different camps. One includes all those written works that have structure and the other contains all the written works that don’t.

Now its pretty silly to say that that any written work could exist that has absolutely no structure. So I’ll go back a bit on what I said. Even a dictionary has structure, sentences have structure, and paragraphs follow the conventions of a particular gramatic form.

Every random collection of words with no intent behind them has structure. Why? As a species we see animals in clouds, mythic figures in glops of stars, and impose images on inkblots. From this we can surmise that the human mind tries to impose structure even on chaos. No matter what written work we might examine, no matter how fluid and free-form, there will be those who see a clear structure in the thing.

Let’s not be so picky. If you see structure in everything, then you already don’t think structure is a myth so my work is done here. But when most people think of structure in regard to writing, they are not talking about grammar or form. Rather, they have “formula” in mind. In other words, writers tend to equate structure with a rigid formula for telling a story – a list of requirements that must be met or the story will suffer.

So let’s go with that and refine our first question to read as follows:

1. Is there a rigid formula that must be followed to write a successful story?

No.

Wait a minute! Didn’t I just say “Stories have structure,” and now I’ve turn ’round and proclaimed , “No they don’t.”

Yes. Yes I did. And here’s why…. Stories have structure but that structure isn’t a rigid formula; it is a flexible form. That’s why its so hard to see – its never quite the same from one story to the next.

Yet, the elements remain the same: There are Characters, Plot and Theme. There are personal problems, and goals, and moralities. There are acts, and scenes and beats. We feel their necessity, we sense their consistency, yet these are just impressions. The actual nature of the structure remains elusive, seen only in glimpses in shadows, never showing itself clearly.

This is not surprising. It is like the old story of three blind men trying to describe an elephant: One feeling the trunk, “It is long and twisty like a snake”. Another, examining the leg, “It is tall and round like a tree.” The last, exploring the ear, “It is thin and flat like a rug.”

Story Gurus are each describing the same elephant in the room. Each is seeing a portion of the truth. While the descriptions seem in conflict or at least disparate, they are really just parts of the same beast.

I’m not here to promote my particular view of the critter. Rather, I figure my “truth” is also just another facet of a greater “Truth”. So in regard to the questions I posed, let me answer like this:

Yes, stories have structure. No, we’ll never see the whole of it. But the more story gurus you study, the more sides you see of what stories are, what they can be, how they work, and how to build them.

Embrace what works for you, reject what feels wrong, and strive to develop your own take on story structure, always remembering that no matter how clearly it appears to you, its probably just another piece of the puzzle.

The bottom line is apply structure only in ways that enhance your productivity and your enjoyment in pursuing your craft. Anything else has no more place in your writing life than a rigid structure can be applied to every kind of story.

Many authors have been taught that a meaningful story must have a premise in the form of “Some human quality leads (or does not lead) to a particular inevitable conclusion.” Such a premise might be “Greed (human quality) leads to Self destruction (inevitable conclusion).”

One problem with the premise concept is that it contains no built-in conflict. Rather, it simply presents a starting point, an ending point, and a non-specific path that might be anything at all.

Adding conflict to your premise can provide a driving force to help move your theme through the “leads to” to the conclusion. To add conflict to a premise, consider the human quality stated in the beginning of the premise. In our example, this was “greed.” Next, determine the “opposite” of greed, which might be “generosity.” Now, restate the beginning of your premise as “Greed vs. Generosity.”

We have now created a thematic conflict between two opposing human qualities, rather than simply exploring the one. But, of course, if we left things in this condition the overall premise would not read very well: “Greed vs. Generosity leads to Self Destruction.”

Since we are now examining the relative value of two alternative thematic approaches to life, we must also provide a judgment as to the outcome of each approach. So, we might say that “When Greed vs. Generosity, Greed will result in Self Destruction while Generosity leads to Success.” Now we have a premise full of potential conflict and a comparative conclusion that brings the audience to think, rather than to simply accept the inevitable.

Of course, Generosity might also lead to Self Destruction in a particular story, illustrating that sometimes there is no way out. Or, Generosity might lead to Love, or Wealth, putting a different spin on the “proof.” It also might be shown that Greed leads to the favorable conclusion, while Generosity is Self Destructive. (For an example of this kind of approach, even though it deals with other thematic issues, view Woody Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors.”)

There is much more that can be done with a premise to not only provide conflict, but create a complete thematic argument that works with an audience’s heart, rather than through its intellect.

I’ll examine these and other thematic issues in future postings.

As a side note, the Dramatica Pro software fully supports thematic conflict, argument, and emotional conclusion through a number of clever tools designed to spark your creativity and help you build a road map for your theme.

Some Main Characters grow to the point of changing their nature or attitude regarding a central personal issue like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Others grow in their resolve, holding onto their nature or attitude against all obstacles like Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive.

Change can be good if the character is on the wrong track to begin with. It can also be bad if the character was on the right track. Similarly, remaining Steadfast is good if the character is on the right track, but bad if she is misguided or mistaken.

The Main Character represents the audience’s position in the story. Therefore, whether she changes or not has a huge impact on the audience’s story experience and the message you are sending to it.

Many authors never specifically determine whether they want their Main Characters to change or not. Rather, they focus on growth and a general feeling of how things turn out. But characters don’t grow just from change; one can also grow in one’s resolve, becoming more stubbornly attached to a point of view or purpose in the face of increasing obstacles.

Only by knowing if a character changed or remained steadfast can an audience/reader understand the story’s message of success of failure, and whether the Main Character ended up happy, sad or anywhere in between.

Tighten and strengthen your story’s message by making an explicit choice of change or steadfast, clearly convey that choice at your story’s moment of climax, and then use the conclusion (denouement) of your story to show whether that choice was the proper one to make and why.

From Dramatica Pro Software