Expanding the Playground

Broaden the depth of your storytelling by leaning heavily on story structure.

Dramatica functions like a time machine. Speeding you past months of rewrites and dead-end alleys, the theory sheds light on bad story choices while it offers up potentially better ones. Unfortunately, learning how to use it slows time down to a crawl. You need to trick your brain into thinking it's not using Dramatica in order to get back up to speed.

In previous articles, we explored a new process of using Dramatica called The Main Character Playground. By applying a handful of random Gists to a single storyform, we broke free of our own preconceptions and learned more about the story we want to tell by completely avoiding it. The last step in those articles--Step Four--had us illustrating the random Gists with as many different genres of storytelling in an effort to find our Main Character. The process resumes in this article as we gently move back to our own work.

Step Five - Find Your Story

Spread out your various story illustrations, look them over and see if one speaks to you. Chances are this happened while you were writing them. Several times I've finished an illustration only to want to immediately drop everything I'm working on and start in this new story! That's a good sign. You've written something that really inspires you and gets to the core of who you are. Save it for later.

Out of all these various illustrations that have the same thematic components as your original story, which one of them feels like someone you would want to spend days, weeks, maybe even months getting to know better?

Step Six - Blow the Whistle

Play time is over. Time to call your main Character home and set him to the task of illustrating your story. Having found the randomly illustrated character that speaks to you, simply replace his or her name with the name of the Main Character in your story, change a location or two and you should be good to go.

Variations on a Theme

Now there might be something more you have to adjust in order to make the illustration fit your genre just right, but try to maintain the flavor or nuance of your original storytelling. That uniqueness, that "fun" that you had illustrating those Gists? Try and keep the integrity of your words when it comes to folding them back into your story.

If you still can't find one that rings out, try taking bits and parts from different Playgrounds and mix them together. I've taken the thematic "meat" as it were from one story (the Domain down to the Solution) and mixed it with the Benchmark from another and the Transits from two other stories. Because I've generated so much story material to work from, an embarassment of riches awaits from which to pluck out the rarest and most exhilarating gems.

More often than not you'll find the perfect story that only requires changing the name, maybe the gender association, and that's it. That has usually been my experience. Other times you'll have to do more and mix and match as I have described. The important part is maintaining that creative spark that you felt while you were doing them. Dramatica made it possible for you to forget about the structure and simply have fun writing and it will show in ways that should shock and surprise you. Just don't lose that astonishment as you roll it over into your story and you should be quite pleased with the results.

Out of Nothing

And just like that, you'll have your Main Character. You'll know exactly what his or her problem is. You'll know what issues he will be dealing with, the kinds of things he will be doing to avoid dealing with his real problems, and you'll know how it all works out for him in the end. Along the way you'll have a good measuring stick to determine his progress (the Benchmark) and you'll have landmark-sized destinations for his emotional journey that you should hit along the way (the Transits). In all you will have created a Main Character you never even knew existed the week before and one that fits perfectly into the story you have constructed so far. You'll have a Main Character that jibes effortlessly with the kind of story you want to tell and the message you want to get across. You will have saved mountains of needless rewrites and weeks of frustration all because you wrote something that wasn't even your story!

Inviting More Friends

Of course, now that you've finished the Main Character Playground, you'll want to dive into the other Throughlines in your story and see what other new and exciting things to invent.

Before you do, take some time off. At least a day or two. The different Throughlines describe different points-of-view within the human mind and in doing so require different techniques to conceptualize. I've found it nearly impossible to switch to illustrating the Relationship Story or Obstacle Character after spending a couple days with the Main Character. You need time for your brain to reset and realign its receptors to the new perspective.

A week is ideal. Two weeks even better. After three weeks you will have completely forgotten what you did for the Main Character playground and that's exactly where you want to be. When you maintain the entire story in your head the tendency is to blend certain items which risks losing the uniqueness. Save the combining and eventual shorthand for the writing process. Try to keep the Throughlines as distinct and individual as you can so you can get a good idea of what their respective thematics are really about.

We started with the Main Character because that is often the easiest to communicate and the Throughline most writers feel comfortable with. The other Throughlines--the Objective Story, the Obstacle Character and the Relationship Story Throughlines--all have their own unique spins on the Playground exercise. Understanding what these Throughlines represent makes clear the difference: different perspectives require different contexts and different contexts necessitate different interpretations.

The Obstacle Character Playground

When it comes to the Obstacle Character Throughline you'll want to focus on their influence or impact on others. Too many times those new to Dramatica simply write that Throughline as another Main Character. The Obstacle Character only exists as a challenge to the Main Character's way of doing things, so write that difference. Instead of "The unfair working conditions of Chinese immigrant workers drive Frank the railroad man to drink" as an exploration of Inequity as a Main Character Problem, think "Sam delights in treating the Chinese immigrants unfairly and makes sure the railroad men under his command watch and even participate" as an example of an Obstacle Character Problem of Inequity.[^influe] One is personal, the other impersonal, and challenging.

The Relationship Story Playground

When it comes to the Relationship Throughline, save its Solution until the very end. Write the Transits and feel where you think their relationship will end up. As of now, Dramatica supplies no indication as to whether or not the Relationship Throughline resolves, so you'll have to rely on your instincts for that answer. If you can't definitively choose one way or another, do both and see which one speaks to you more.

The Objective Story Playground

You may wish to skip the Playground on this one. Many Authors already have a pretty good idea of how things will work out objectively, it's usually the subjective part of the story--the part designed to encompass emotion and point-of-view--that trips them up.

Assuming that is not the case, make sure you write the Objective Story Playground from the point-of-view of the group and use roles in place of personal pronouns and proper nouns. Ignoring names tends to make things more objective (key to this Throughline).

When faced with a Gist that reads "Stuck in Traffic," write A group of travelers finds themselves stuck in traffic, for "Cooking," write A group of students challenge each other to a cook-off. Always keep the Objective Story Playground focused on the group.

Unlike the Relationship Story, the Objective Story has an indicator as to how it resolves: the Story Outcome. As with the Story Judgment and the Main Character, the Story Outcome clues you in to how to end your story. In short, if the Outcome is Success then the Objective Story Solution will come into play. If Failure, then the Solution could occasionally come into play but in the end, the Objective Story Problem will win out and the inequity for the group will still exist.

When Playtime is Over

What happens when you've exhausted your festive resources? Take a break. Clear your mind for a week or two and then start writing. Combine the four separate stories into one. Using Armando's excellent Instant Dramatica technique for combining all these disparate pieces, start breaking down yor story into four major movements. Domains, Concerns and first Transits in Act One. Issues, Counterpoints and second Transits in Act Two. Focus and Directions and the third Transits in Act Three and finally, Problem and Solutions and the last Transit in Act Four.

Within those independent Acts, move the information around. Shift the dynamics to tell the story you want. This is where the art comes into it and where you'll find rules non-existent. Truth be told, the Problem, Solution, Focus and Direction should be in very Act. Armando's technique works for a synopsis. if you want something deeper, use it as a base outline and expand from there. The only rule? Keep the Transit order the same and don't move on to the next Transit until you've finished addressing all the signposts for that Act.[^signposts]

Fooling Yourself for Success

The classic how-to book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, tasks artists with illustrating their subjects upside-down. When inverting their depicted objects, artists concentrate more on line and form rather than replicating the perfect apple or the perfect tree. Far too often writers find themselves trapped writing and rewriting the perfect tree. The Main Character Playground exercise, and its accompanying brothers and sisters in the other Throughlines, frees writers from their own self-imposed limits and grants them an opportunity at creating something truly wonderful and unique. Something uniquely them. Something no one else--computer or otherwise--can copy.

Recess Rules

Hopefully this exercise has given you a good idea of how to take Dramatica's somewhat complicated theoretical ideas and put them to good use. If you're stuck and can't figure out the right Main Character for your story, or if you simply keep writing the same relationship over and over again, the Playground technique can help energize the creative writer in you and help you discover new and exciting characters to write about.

Artists need that permission to stretch their legs and run rampant on the blacktop in order to meet new friends and find out what they're capable of. Hear the bell ringing?

It's time to play.

[^signposts]: For example, do not move on to the Main Character's 3rd Transit until you have addressed the 2nd Objective Story Transit, the 2nd Obstacle Character's Transit and the Relationship Story's 2nd Transit.

[^influe]: This example assumes the Main Character would be one of the railroad men challenged by the Obstacle Character Sam to rethink his or her approach.