Forgetting All the Other Throughlines

July 18, 2007

Forgive the lack of well thought out in-depth analysis here (the Babel and Ratatouille articles wiped me out mentally for awhile), but I had a thought today concerning the development of a story using Dramatica.

Focus on what the story is simply about.

The concept of the four throughlines - of having four different perspectives on a problem - is revolutionary towards the telling of a story. I’ve seen how amazing it is in countless examples and endless critiques. So naturally, whenever I feel the urge to write a story, I try my best to come up with four well-developed throughlines.

But today it occurred to me that I’ve completely lost sight of what my story is about. If someone asked me, “Oh, what are you writing now?” I wouldn’t know how to answer. I’d have four throughlines that would more or less work together – but I wouldn’t have that singular attention-grabbing answer, “It’s about a man unjustly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit and his attempt to escape (The Shawshank Redemption)” or “It’s about a kid who can see dead people (The Sixth Sense).”

In other words, I wouldn’t just tell them the Objective Story.

Forget All The Others

So I’m thinking of just concentrating on the Objective Story now and completely forgetting about the Main Character Throughline, the Impact Character Throughline and their Relationship Throughline. I’m just going to focus on what the story is simply about. Once I’ve got something that I think will grip an audience, then I’ll add the Main Character’s baggage (Main Character Throughline), and the catalyst for releasing that baggage (Impact Character Throughline), and so on.

This might be something you want to try if you’re getting lost in the complexity of the Dramatica theory.

I’ll let you know how it goes for me.