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I have also come across story forms that will give e.g. the Protagonist adjacent squares within a block, but they see to be rare -- for example, give the Protagonist Consider and Faith, as opposed to Consider and Pursuit, which seems to be more common. It just has to do with the story form you settl...

If you open the Story Guide and then find "Scene Creation" (the last item in the top grouping of the menu), you'll see that the template has given all the scenes for the type of template you picked, and also associated various story elements with them.

Hi Ed, Dramatica allows for standing elements and characteristics on their head -- that is, inverting them. So, your main character has a symptom of Pursuit, which means he sees Pursuit as the problem, which fits well, it seems, with him wanting to thwart the Protagonist (the one who is pursuing the...

Great! That's exactly what I've been doing. Glad to know my intuitions were right on this one.

oops... posted this in the wrong forum... sorry.

As I've said before, Part 1 of my novel is a very boiled-down storyform, where Part 2 will be a full-fledged one. Addressing just Part 1 in this case, the inciting incident comes at the end of Chapter 3 -- the IC is assassinated (the MC's best friend then replaces him as IC and takes up the counter-...

And by the way, once the writers group is up and going, I will be evangelizing about Dramatica to all of them!

Many thanks

I'm just sharing this as an observation, no real question here. As an experiment, I have returned to a lengthy short story from some years back. After reading it through and making a number of notes, I opened Dramatica and started entering what I determined to be the important elements, variations a...

Well...... :) My goal is to have a "polished" first draft done by this fall or early winter. Given that I have several chapters already written (and in desperate need of revisiting) and about 200 pages of notes, sketches, drawings, characterizations, dialog, etc., I'm hoping that is not to...

I would like to share a success story! For the last six weeks I have been in an excellent writing workshop at the University of Pennsylvania, run by Dr. Rebekah Zhuraw. We had weekly "prompt" assignments, but also a "long term" project to work on for the entire workshop. I chose ...

Ah! Terrific, thanks.

Chris, I've read your examples several times now, and I think I'm on to something. But it has brought another question to the forefront... As far as my MC's critical flaw being "falsehood" -- I do not see him as intentionally lying or deceiving anyone. Could "bad information" tha...

Thanks for all the great answers.... much to mull over!

Chris et al., I've got a story form that assigned my MC a Unique Ability of Fate ("a future situation that will befall someone") and Critical Flaw of Falsehood , the IC a Unique Ability of Truth and Critical Flaw of Destiny ("the future path an individual must take"). It is a STO...

This is an ongoing problem for me as well. But I finally get to the point where I say to myself "Oh, for God's sake, just pick one!" And I have to remind myself that the storyform is a tool, not an edict.

Jeff

I recently asked a very similar question. You can see it here to see how Chris responded:

http://forums.screenplay.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=4170

I've since realized it isn't the problem I thought it was -- was a dumb question. In fact there is a "thing" that very much represents the Present's inertia, and the antagonist is associated with it (Dramatica to the rescue!).

I just have some storytelling work to do.

Thanks,

Jeff

Chris et al, As I am approaching the half-way point through a first draft of my story, it occurs to me that my Protagonist's biggest opponent isn't really the character who functions as my Antagonist, but the circumstances he represents -- namely, "The Present". The Protagonist is concerne...

Chris has himself backpedaled on the importance of the "crucial" characteristics:

http://forums.screenplay.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1371&p=2399&hilit=crucial#p2399