The Essential Ingredients of Every Complete Story
09/21/16 • 37 min
In order to wind up the dramatic potential for a story, an Author must answer eight essential questions. In this episode, we cover the first two ingredients of an effective narrative.
Stories are not simply about three-dimensional characters bumping up against rising tension. Rather, they model the human mind's problem-solving process in an attempt to argue the effectiveness of a particular point-of-view. The closer a story mirrors this process the clearer it's message and the less likely an Audience will sense there are any story "holes".
We also take our first look at the animated film The Little Prince and offer a suggestion for improving the narrative drive that seems to die out towards the end of the film.
Links and Show Notes
- The Audience Appreciations of Story series of articles covering story points from the Audience's point-of-view
- From Logline to Treatment E-Mail Course sign up now and start developing that great story idea!
- How to Tell If Your Main Character Faces Overwhelming or Surmountable Odds the balance of two story points helps determine the essence of dramatic tension in a story
- What the Inciting Incident of a Story Really Is the difference between Inciting Incident and the Story Driver
- Robert the Bruce is Not the Main Character of Braveheart Robert the Bruce the Main Character? Ehhh.....
- How to Build a Strong Narrative great explanation of the inequity within a story
- The Little Prince fails to soar L.A. Times critic Charles Solomon's review of The Little Prince
Narrative First theme by Alex Hull. Hear more on his Soundcloud, Operation Solace
In order to wind up the dramatic potential for a story, an Author must answer eight essential questions. In this episode, we cover the first two ingredients of an effective narrative.
Stories are not simply about three-dimensional characters bumping up against rising tension. Rather, they model the human mind's problem-solving process in an attempt to argue the effectiveness of a particular point-of-view. The closer a story mirrors this process the clearer it's message and the less likely an Audience will sense there are any story "holes".
We also take our first look at the animated film The Little Prince and offer a suggestion for improving the narrative drive that seems to die out towards the end of the film.
Links and Show Notes
- The Audience Appreciations of Story series of articles covering story points from the Audience's point-of-view
- From Logline to Treatment E-Mail Course sign up now and start developing that great story idea!
- How to Tell If Your Main Character Faces Overwhelming or Surmountable Odds the balance of two story points helps determine the essence of dramatic tension in a story
- What the Inciting Incident of a Story Really Is the difference between Inciting Incident and the Story Driver
- Robert the Bruce is Not the Main Character of Braveheart Robert the Bruce the Main Character? Ehhh.....
- How to Build a Strong Narrative great explanation of the inequity within a story
- The Little Prince fails to soar L.A. Times critic Charles Solomon's review of The Little Prince
Narrative First theme by Alex Hull. Hear more on his Soundcloud, Operation Solace
Previous Episode
The True Nature of Story
In this episode, we wrap up our exploration of the Audience Appreciations found in Dramatica by discovering the true nature of the purpose of narrative. This is a big one you won't want to miss.
Also, our first caller!
Show Notes and Links
- Thoughts on Story Structure Our daily blog postings on story structure & story analysis
- Seth Godin's Blog Seth Godin's super inspirational daily blog
- Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week Blog Tim Ferris' blog (also super inspirational)
- Dramatica Users Group meeting the official monthly Dramatica Users Group meeting
- The Influence Character: The Path Not Taken a fascinating look at the relationship between the Influence and Main Character
- Paul Guliano on the Sequence Method - nice long video presentation on this popular sequencing method
- The Plot Sequence Report Dramatica's ultra-secret super weapon for understanding the structure of story from within your story!
- The Dramatica Mentorship Program Our flagship educational service
- Predicting Who Will Listen to Your Story our in-depth investigation into the Audience Appreciation of Reach
- How to Tell if You Main Character Faces Overwhelming or Surmountable Odds our in-depth investigation into the Audience Appreciation of Essence
- The Refusal of the Call: The Resistance or Flow Through a Narrative our in-depth investigation into the Audience Appreciation of Tendency
- Story Nature the Dramatica definition of Story Nature
- The Actual and Apparent Nature of Story Last year's article on Story Nature
- Main Character Resolve The story concept of Main Character Resolve: Changed or Steadfast?
- The Story Outcome The story concept of Story Outcome: Success or Failure?
- Meaningful Endings - a series of articles on how to create meaningful endings in your stories
- Dramatica and the Sequence Method our first look at how Dramatica matches up with the ever-popular sequence method
- The Veil Between Author and Audience if you read one article on story structure this year, this would be the one. The key to understanding everything
Next Episode
Getting Personal with Your Storytelling
This week we shorten things up a bit and take a look at one story point: the Main Character Approach. Does your Main Character prefer to solve problems externally or internally? The answer creates a pathway for the Audience to become a part of your story.
In addition, we take a quick analysis at the live action Jungle Book movie from Disney.
Remember, you can always Ask Us a Question we answer everything, or Leave a Voicemail click the microphone button and leave a message after the beep.
Show Notes & Links
- Separating out the Relationship Throughline from the relationship in the Overall Story
- Figuring Out the Act Order of Seasons for Your Show With Dramatica you can figure it out before you even start writing a single word
- A Skeleton of Scene Structure in Dramatica the beginning of our investigation into the structure of an individual scene
- The Dramatic Components of a Scene more insight into the creation of scenes using Dramatica
- All the Light We Cannot See One of the greatest novels of all time
- The Eight Essential Ingredients of Story Last week's article on the the first two dynamic questions: Main Character Resolve and Main Character Growth
- The Eight Essential Ingredients of Story Podcast Last week's podcast and first in a series on the eight dynamic questions from Dramatica
- Redefining Main Character and Protagonist A must read for anyone new to Dramatica
Narrative First theme by Alex Hull. Hear more on his Soundcloud, Operation Solace
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