Instant Dramatica

by Armando Saldaña Mora

***Just when everyone had erased the "Tales from the Cryptic: The Weaver" posting asuming it was a silly tale, It turns out it was really useful***

The techniques described here could prove specially useful to those who have to write a complete story in two days and therefore have to go through the whole Dramatica process in less than four hours; but they also are useful for everyone who feels uncomfortable with the too-analytical-Query-System; for those who still fold at storyweaving saying "I really don"t know where this appreciation could go"; for those who doesn"t want to spend three weeks encoding appreciations just to find out that the storyform doesn"t work (you can qualify a storyform in less than 15 minutes with this, I"ve done it); to all that feel that Dramatica is more an analysing tool and not so valuable as a creative tool; and most of all this techniques work great for experienced writers with developed styles and creative systems who want to work with Dramatica but that still found it too foreign to own their personal process.

These techniques work better for experienced writers and certainly are not for those unfamiliar with Dramatica"s theory and terminology.

The heart of these techniques was described by Ariadne in the "Tales from the cryptic: The Weaver" posting. It"s basically the opposite from the Query System phylosophy: The Query System (and Storyguides) are analytical (taking apart) process, what Ariadne described is a Synthesis (building into one) process.

So, let"s get to it. I"ll describe the whole process as it was created and everyone could take from it what they find useful for themselves. If some part of the process doesn"t appeal to your writing, just ignore it and keep reading, chances are you"ll find something interesting ahead. Let"s asume for this description that you have to write a complete story -let"s say, a complete half hour screenplay- in 48 hours. Here is a step by step description:

First: Get some ideas! Get anything, no matter how weak or trite they seem, let"s say: "An apartment building full of vampires" even that could work!

Go to the "Story telling" menu and click the "Story info" screen. In the Brief Synopsis type "A guy moves to a new apartment without realizing all the other tenants are vampires." Type a working title: Mmhhh... "Blood Building" (now THAT"S a working title)

Now let"s get some serious work done: Make some important considerations: Who is your Main Character? Do you want him to be Changed at the end or Steadfast? Is your Main Character nessesarily a Be-er or a Do-er?

If you have answers to these questions go and check the "Approach" and "Mental Sex" windows in the "Story Engine", if you don"t have this answers -or just like living on the edge- just let the storyform decide this for you.

And speaking of Storyforming: go to the Theme Browser, look at the superior level and choose a Goal, don"t worry now for Domain, just choose a Goal, let"s see... "Becoming" the guy doesn"t want to become a vampire. Now look at the Domian: "Psychology" do you want your domain to be psychology? No? Then "Becoming" will be the Consequence and thus "Obtaining" will be the Goal, you could always create a MacGuffin that can save the guy.

(I found this technique very useful, when my choice of Goal isn"t working, then it is the consequence)

Now, click on "Obtaining" and go to the last level of the Theme Browser. Here we will find our OS problem. Now the secret for doing this will be looking at the OS problem in relation with the OS focus and the OS Direction.

So, looking at our vampire story... I like "Disbelief" as the problem: we can encode it with some "The Centinel" stuff and "Temptation" can be it"s focus, so we can get some good looking vampire women in there...

Now, let"s go to the Theme Browser top evel to see how this is working: Ok, "Universe" is our MC Domain, and Future is his concern. Nice!

(What if this happens to you: "I like my Goal, OS problem and OS focus appreciations, but I wanted the guy who goes into the building to be a quiet Be-er surrounded by luscious vampire women, and the Story Engine says my MC must be a Do-er" If this is your case, do this: Don"t tell the story from your protagonist (the guy in the building) view. Create a Do-er -how about an active girlfriend?- from where we could watch the quiet Be-er story unfold. For our example ongoing let"s asume the MC is the Protagonist)

Now, go into the "Future" concern to choose the MC problem and Focus. (Go to the last level) Do you like "Disbeleif" for a problem? (This will make it a Change story), then your MC focus will be "Reconsider" and "Consider" will be his Direction. He"ll be considering stuff throughout the story. I don"t like it. How about "Feeling" as his problem (he could be a heartless S.O.B, or maybe have troubles when confronting someone emotional) and his Focus could be also "Temptation" (remember the vampire women)... "Feeling" it is! (So this is a Steadfast story)

Now, get out of the Theme Browser and open the Story Engine to see how we"re doing. Most of our theme is already done.

Here you go with your heart, this isn"t really important, but sometimes the right Signpost order could fire a creative spark. Open all signpost windows and look at your choices until you find something that fires a spark. Check all your choices with the story engine to see if you are happy with the results. (if all this confuses you, just go back to the Story Engine window and choose your Plot Dynamics)

Go to the Story Engine and choose everythings that"s left in order to arrive at one storyform.

Maybe you already have your characters (like when you"re writing for a serial with recurrent characters) and just need to assign the roles. You know stuff about your MC, look at your OC Domain to assign this character (a person with fixed ideas -Mind Domain- who is in a position of impacting your MC); with your Objective characters try to be simple as posible.

If you don"t have any characters at all, think about your story and the characters it needs to get it unfolded: the Do-er MC, stuborn OC and good looking vampire women are a must; you probably need a strong antagonist, like an old powerful vampire... Try to keep simplicity at all levels. Don"t be affraid to use archetypal characters for some roles and try checking out the "Typecast" button. I found it more and more useful with each day.

If you are really in a hurry you could always import characters from other stories of yours and modify them. Hey!, you could even import them from stories from the "Examples" files and modify them! (No sir, my character is completely original. His name? "Luke Starwaffer")

SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT and before I forgot: See that "MC crucial and OC crucial on the "Character Build" screens? Put your MC and OC on their corresponding squares. That"s very important, that"s the quelity that will link those characters to the Objective throughline and allow them to solve or complicate the story. More on this later.

Whoa! This is getting to be a pretty big E-mail. I better continue in another one. Here we have seen some of the ideas expressed by Ariadna in "...The Weaver", mostly in the parts of incorporating Problem, Focus, Solution and Direction into one when storyforming.

We"ll use this techniques vastly in the next step, what I like to call "Ariadna"s storyencoding".

***Ariadna"s Storyencoding***

Ok, in the previous posting I explained some forming techniques I"m currently using to make Dramatica"s process faster and more comprehensible to "sythetizing" minds and writers with already developed writing systems.

The next phase, storyencoding is when the "Ariadna"s techniques" really shine. Is a whole different approach from the fragmentizing- storyguide writing techniques, in fact you wont have to encode a single question of the guide. Here it goes:

First, print yourself a copy of your "Story Engine Settings Report." Now, this is your muse in a piece of paper! This is your complete story, let"s start reading it.

(For the following I like to work in a word processor. I also open my Dramatica as an alternate window just to have acces to the "Definition", "Context" and "Usage" buttons, but I don"t actually write in the software screens. However, you could use the "Throughline synopsis" screens for this purpose)

Armed with your "Story Engine Settings Report" re-read your "Brief synopsis": "A guy moves to a new apartment without realizing all the other tenants are vampires." Now look at your report settings for the Domain, Concern, Issue (and Counterpoint), Problem, Solution, Focus and Direction. They look like this:

Now, (ready?) What you are about to do is to write a "TV Guide" log line of your Objective Story incorporating (weaving together) all those appreciations.

Let"s start with the easy way to do it. Write your log line in 4 paragraphs: the first containing Domain and Concern; the second containing Issue and Counterpoint; the third containing Focus and Direction and the fourth containing Problem and Solution. It could be something like this:

"There wasn"t much activity at the building during the day, but at night all the tenants were active looking for something. Looking for that precious red liquid that alowed them to keep their dead life. Even though they behaved like wolves in thir nocturnal hunts -when is every predator for himself, they had an strict code of ethics and it seemed like if their whole well being depended on serving their true Master. Most of the times, it was the females who brought the better prey. Lonely men tempted by their beauty. This got a rumor of fear all through the neighborhood, that the local store owners refused to let any woman inside their stores. Even during daytime. Still, some foolish men, unwilling to believe in such nonsense, used to roam the neighborhood at night and fell easy prey of the nocturnal hunters. Another rumor telled that there was a survivor, a crazy old man who never in his life -the rumor said- leaved his home without a big crucifix hanging from his neck."

See how this works? More like "encoding" you are creating atmospheres and descriptions from where write your story. I started using the 4 paragraphs, but soon started to weave it all together, like:

"The streets at night were lonely, bars and restaurants closed at six the latest, and refused any paying custommer after that. From then everyone was locked into their homes, frightened of the rumors which they all believed, otherwise -they said- they all would be dead. Some old women hanged crucifixes on every window and closed tightly the shutters, to avoid the sight of the desserted street and the ocasional, haunting image of a beautiful lady dressed in white, searching the streets with hunger in her dead eyes, or carriying a terrified, howling, bleeding but still living wino, brought only to saciate the gargantuan apetite of their Master."

(As you may notice, since the principal idea of this method is create an atmosphere, I didn"t want to spoil it by inserting parenthesis with the appreciation: "[Direction: Conscience] ...bars and restaurants closed at six the latest, and refused any paying custommer after that..." but you can look for each one, they"re all there)

"The vampires are busy at night looking for blood. They are greedy, but they have to serve their Master. The vampire women tempt everyone, so all the neighbors avoids all women. Everyone who doesn"t believes in vampires dies, and all the neighbors have crucifixes"

If that"s enough atmosphere for you to get writing, go along.

Ok, so you have your Objective story, next comes the Main Character story. Here"s the fun part: in the OS you encode it in the plural 3rd person (they), to give a feel of the MC throughline, encode it in the 1st person:

"Sure it was a creepy building, but I thought it was only for a short time. I mean, I really believed I could fix everything with Adele and move back with her, so I ignored the dirty walls and started thinking in the big reconciliation. Hey, I didn"t felt like if she had thrown me out. It was my decision, wasn"t it? I thought all I needed was some time by myself to see things clear and then is love back big time! I also don"t blame it on that blonde bimbo affair. I mean, what did she expect? I"m a man! I have a wandering eye, and I haven"t even look at a girl ever since, and believe me It is a LONG time! So she went mad with jealous and told me to get out. Well, the way I see it, if I steped out of our house at that moment it was my decision, wasn"t it. So I"m just waiting to Adele comes back to her senses to return with her. Believe me, there"s no way I"m leaving this crappy building until that dame calmes down. Ah! Do I need a lady!"

Don"t you love Dramatica? See how the MC Focus "Temptation" is already conecting the MC to the OS?

Following this spirit, you encode your OC throughline in the second person through the eyes of the MC (I"m just gonna give you a token, I don"t want to encode the whole thing). Let"s make his girlfriend (ex-girlfriend?) The OC:

"Hey, Adele! How can a woman so pretty be so stuborn? The more time goes by, the more I can"t get you out of my mind. I dream of you, breathe of you, see your face in every corner of this dark appartment. Everytime I heard steps on the hallway I think it"s gonna be you, coming to ask my forgiveness and giving me a big hug and kiss... but, hey! Who am I kidding? It"ll be more reasonable to start a conversation with those ladys upstairs. Evening kind of ladies. Sure be fun to pay a visit into their apartment... Ah, who am I kidding? I can"t take that damn Adele out of my system."

"It sure was a long time without a lady. But I"m really glad I"m back with my Adele. REALLY glad!" In the same fashion encode your Growth. In the OS line for steadfast stories and MC line for change stories. Find a place in which it fits coherently with your narration.

Ok, now"s time to encode your plot. Take your ADDITIONAL STORY APPRECIATIONS and encode them also into a story IN WHICH EVERY APPRECIATION LEADS TO ANOTHER ONE. For example (I shuffled the appreciations order to fit my narration):

"The protagonist decision of accepting the eventual invitation to the appartment of the vampire girl, got him bitten and in risk of becoming a vampire himself. So he has to find the Master Vampire and kill him before dawn. He searchs all through the building and then all over the neighborhood -scaring the neighbors and getting in trouble. He also begins to transform his appareance bit by bit, which makes more difficult his quest. In the end..."

Now, here"s the trick. One of the Crucial Elements is the key to end the whole problem. Refer to the On-line help and search "Crucial Element" apropiate to your story. In this one I would encode it with something as:

"Seeing his Adele turned into a vampire, looking at him lusciously and offering him her arms, the protagonist resists the temptation, goes right to the Head Vampire and stabs him in the heart with the stake. Adele falls down with a scream. The protagonist goes to her, and confirms that she is all right. She doesn"t look as beautiful as when she was a vampire, but he loves her immensely. He gently shooks her to wake her up. She oppens her eyes, looks at him and instantly slaps him on the face. "Bastard! I told you I never wanted to see you again!" -she says and goes away."

Don"t forget to encode the Judgement at the end of the MC throughline. (In this story, with a JUDGEMENT: Good, it means a big reconciliation).

***Ariadna"s Plot Weaving***

(Now that"s redundant!)

Where were we?... Let me see, we learn that storyforming technique about choosing the Problem in relation with the Focus, Solution and Direction. We were also encoding the troughlines by merging together Domain, Concern, Issue, Counterpoint, Focus, Direction, Problem and Solution and creating an atmosphere out of these. We threw in some character dynamics and encoded the plot as a "one thing leads to another" story. Ok, It"s time to encode our plot progression.

(When encoding Plot Progression, I like to work directly on the Plot Progression tabular display screens, because when I"m filling the four throughlines I can see them all at the same time and find the "plot holes" more easily. Feels like a jigsaw puzzle. However, you may prefer to work at a word processor [you"ll have more space to enter all the information you want] or at the screens of the query system [so you can use the Definition, Stories and Usage buttons] Any which way you choose, it"s better to open first the Plot Progression window to take a look at your Signposts and Journeys order)

You feel more comfortable using a 4 act structure? Choose Signposts; You"re more used to the 3 act structure? Choose Journeys; Writing a half hour, 4 act TV sitcom? Choose Signposts; Want to give your sitcom an unpredictable "The Simpsons" style" rhythm? Choose Journeys. Is like choosing between 3 or 4.

Since for our example were writing a half hour TV show -and for simplicity sake- let"s choose the four Signposts that correspond to the four acts of a TV show.

Following the classic 4 act structure for a TV show, in the 1st act we should present the story set up and establish the Potential for trouble. The potential in this case is defined by "Understanding".

Let"s re-read the OS synopsis (our encoding of the OS appreciations) and the Plot synopsis (The encoding of the Aditional Story Appreciations and Plot Dynamics). The idea is to get involved in the atmosphere of the throughline and to UNDERSTAND the whole plot.

Now: How is "Understanding" a Potential for trouble in the story?

"The protagonist moves into a new building. All the other tenants are human vampires. Even though the building feels weird to him, he don"t understand the true nature of his neighbors"

Enough of Act 1 for the moment. Let"s move to Act 2. Here our structure tells us we must stablish a Resistance, something that threatens conflict with the Potential. Our Resistance is "Obtaining" Again back to our OS synopsis and Plot Synopsis.

"After waking up from a drunken night, the protagonist begins to feel some changes in himself. He"s turning slowly into a vampire. At first he doesn"t want to accept it. An old supersticious man tells him that he must find (Obtaining) the Head Vampire and kill him in order to not become one, but the protagonist is still skeptic and scoffs at the old man."

The third act is the conflict of the Potential (Understanding) and the Resistance (Obtaining). The conflict is generated by "Doing"

"The Protagonist is now completely aware that he"s turning into a vampire. He starts looking for the Head Vampire to kill him and prevent his complete conversion. The people of the neighborhood notices his conversion and tries to kill him, all the other vampires hunt him too to prevent him killing his leader. In order to survive, the protagonist has to understand how to use his newly acquired vampire powers.

Moving on to the last act, we have to tell how the conflict of the Potential and the Resistance came off. "Learning" describes this process.

"The Protagonist learns a lot about using his vampire powers and becomes a formidable enemy. He also learns the whereabouts of the Head Vampire and goes right for him. The Head Vampire tries to tempt him, but our protagonist has learned enough about resisting temptation and destroys the Head Vampire, minutes before sunrise."

(Please allow me the sunries cliche. I"ve seen it a million times and still like it)

Now, all your acts have strong Plot Progression information but not enough Character and Plot Dynamic information. Here"s what comes up next: grab your OS synopsis (merged encoding) and try and "spread" (distribute) the synopsis all along the Plot Progression line. Re-read your acts and find places where you can enter information of your synopsis:

"Signpost 1: The protagonist moves into a new building. All the other tenants are human vampires. Even though the building feels weird to him (He sees lots of night activity and none during the day, all the stores close at six plus the local store owners refuse to let any woman inside their stores even at day time) he don"t understand the true nature of his neighbors (he sees beautiful females bringing lonely men into their liars, so he misunderstands them for very fun ladies)."

"Signpost 2: After waking up from a drunken night, the protagonist begins to feel some changes in himself. He"s turning slowly into a vampire. At first he doesn"t want to accept it. An old supersticious man (some crazy old man who never in his life leaved his home without a big crucifix hanging from his neck, and who -the rumor has it- is a survivor of the vampire women) tells him that he must find (Obtaining) the Head Vampire and kill him in order to not become one (but isn"t going to be easy, since all the vampire have an strict code of ethics and it seems like if their whole well being depended on serving their true Master), but the protagonist is still skeptic and scoffs at the old man."

You see my point. Now, "spread" your synopsis all along your plot until all synopsis facts (appreciations) appears at least once.

(We will worry later, when we"re writing the actual screenplay or treatment, about "Rule of Threes", "Foreshadowing" and all the techniques concerning clear exposition and dramatic tension. Right now, we"re constructing a solid story from where our treatment could emerge)

Let"s move to the MC line. Re-read the MC synopsis and (here"s the trick) review your description for your OS 1st signpost. Now, your MC signpost 1 should reflect the Main Character view on both his MC synopsis (his own background) and what"s happening on the OS signpost 1. His view on this two perspectives is defined by "The Past" (MC signpost 1). If you like -I do- you can encode this throughline on the 1st person:

"So Adele found me with that blonde bimbo and we had the big fight. I walk out, went into the first bar I found, order a beer and began reading the classifieds for an appartment. Four months went on, I lived in four appartments and went to four different bars to read the classifieds. I ended in this creepy neighborhood, bought an evening newspaper and I can"t read it because no bar is open. "Sheesh!"..."

So, go along all the signposts and also "spread" all your MC synopsis along this line.

Next, go to your OC throughline. Re-read your synopsis and keep this in mind, the OC throughline describes how your Obstacle Character impacts your Main Character when he"s right in the context of the Objective Story.

Ask yourself: "How is this Adele ex-girlfriend gonna impact our Main Character when he has just moved into a building full of vampires?"

So along with your OC synopsis, review your OS signposts (to know whats happening) and your MC signposts (to know what he"s thinking) You can describe the OC throughline using the 2nd person (you).

So, after "spreading" (I know, I sound like a margerine commercial) your OC synopsis on it"s throughline, start with the SS throughline.

The same drill, review your synopsis and think how is your MC gonna react to the OC"s impact, then, how is she gonna react to her reaction. Don"t forget them two are on a context (the vampire building), so keeping an eye on all past throughlines, start your SS throughline.

Now, the only thing left is the "Plot Synopsis" (Where you put your, Goal, Consequence, Limit, Driver... remember?). Now this is used to create "Plot Points", Key events that change the course of your story.

There are lots of ways of treating Plot Points. Mostly, they are defined by the Format and Genre in which you are working (some say "The Plot Points make the Genre"). In lots of genres they are used at the end of each act.

In the format we"re working in (a half hour TV program) they sure end each act. They are the infamous "Big Evenet that keeps the viewer stuck to the chair through two minutes of sordid "Got Milk?" commercials". So we"ll need three of them and the big Denoument at the end.

In practice with Dramatica, I discovered that Plot Points could come from any throughline. So let"s review our Plot synopsis and review all our signposts to create our 4 Plot Points. Let"s see...

"The Protagonist accepts the invitation of the Vampire girl" or

"The Vampire girl bites the protagonist in the neck"

Is either the decision that generates the Plot Point (in this "Driver: Decision" story) or the Action that follows the decision. Whichever you think works better to your medium.

(You can write this Plot Point at the end of the "Signpost 1" text on the OS throughline, or in the the "Journey 1" screen of same throughline throughline -if we were working encoding "Journeys", we could write our Plot Points in the "signposts screens)

"The protagonist has an almost deadly brush with the Head Vampire and know he start to believe he"s in danger of becoming a Vampire"

This Plot Point could be either of the OS throughline or the MC throughline. The idea here is reviewing the "Plot Synopsis" and then go with the creativity and write the scenes that you feel can make your story take a turn.

(This is one of the best parts of this writing system: since you"re in complete understanding of your story as a whole all the time, you can go crazy and create any scenes you like at any time, just as long as you don"t neglect all your other appreciations.)

Also, somewhere we need the ex-girlfriend to become a vampire (It could be at the end of Act 3 in the OC throughline) and there are some scenes we just liked. Write them on the "Journeys" screens.

This is long, isn"t it? Better continue in another posting. ------------------------------

***"...How will you FIND YOUR WAY OUT of the maze if you don't weave your four threads tightly?" (Ariadna)***

Let"s review what we have at this point: We have the complete Plot Progression (4 acts) for each throughline with it"s own "Throughline synopsis" (merged throughline appreciations) "spread" all over, plus our four Plot Points.

Now, we need to print all this. If you did your writing in the Dramatica software in the "Signposts" screens, print yourself a "Signposts and Journeys Report"

It"s a good idea to print also all our "Throughline Synopsis".

(if you did your Throughline Synopsis writing in the Dramatica softaware Query System "Synopsis" screens (OS synopsis, SS synopsis...) You"ll have to copy and paste your information of the synopsis in the "Backstory" screen and print a "Synopsis and Backstories Report". You can erase this information later to enter real backstory info in this windows).

If you did your writing in a word procesor, use "cut and paste" to put together all your "Signpost 1" like this:

Not quite! we"re gonna take a different approach in writing characters. This is gonna sound weird but bear with me:

Open the "Build Characters" screen on the "Characters" pannel button. Make sure the "Motivation" screen is open.

Now, on Windows "95 keyboards, youll find a little button that says "Print Screen" press it. (I"m sure Macs, that are designed for working with immages, have a similar button)

Now, open some Image Procesor software, like that "Paint" that comes with all Microsoft Windows. (I"m sure Macs have their own)

Now, in the "Edit" manu of the Image Processor, press "Paste" and your "Build Characters" screen (along with everything that was in your PC screen) appears as an image document. You can print it now and do the same with the "Methodologies", "Evaluation" and "Purpose" screens.

(Or, if you have training with the Image Processor, especially in Cut and Paste, you can do a Paste-Up of your four Build Characters screens. You"ll gonna need to files for this: one for pasting your "Print Screen" and cutting your relevant information, the other for pasting it)

There! You have four sheets of paper containing everything your characters can and would do and how the relate to each other. Is a very, very good idea to thumbnail these paper sheets on the wall in front of you. With a quick glance you can know exactly how an eight character dialog scene is gonna develop! Believe me, I"ve done it.

NOW YOU"RE READY FOR ACTUAL WRITING!!! Was this fast? It sure was faster than 250 questions on the story guide. And with practice you can speed the process to about 6 to 4 hours.

Ah, "weave it tight!" -said Ariadna. Let"s look at hour "Signposts & Journeys Report" (or similar) if you ignore all the letters in bold and just look at what you wrote, it should look like this:

"The protagonist moves into a new building. All the other tenants are human vampires. Even though the building feels weird to him (He sees lots of night activity and none during the day, all the stores close at six plus the local store owners refuse to let any woman inside their stores even at day time) he don"t understand the true nature of his neighbors (he sees beautiful females bringing lonely men into their liars, so he misunderstands them for very fun ladies)."

"So Adele found me with that blonde bimbo and we had the big fight. I walk out, went into the first bar I found, order a beer and began reading the classifieds for an appartment (I thought it was only for a short time. I mean, I really believed I could fix everything with Adele and move back with her). Four months went on (I haven"t even look at a girl ever since, and believe me It is a LONG time!), I lived in four appartments and went to four different bars to read the classifieds. I ended in this creepy neighborhood, bought an evening newspaper and I can"t read it because no bar is open. "Sheesh!"... (Ah! Do I need a lady!)"

"I was looking out the window last night when I saw a woman dressed in white staring at me... man, I swear she was Adele! The light was poor but I"m sure that was her face, that was Adele"s hair, man, I tell you, and she also walked and moved like her. "This is it" -I said to myself- "she has come to beg. I won!" But then I looked in the eye and... that wasn"t Adele. I mean, Adele has always sparkles in her eyes, she light every room with her sight, I remember her perfectly , as if I could see her right now. Those eyes were... dead, man. There was no life. "Maybe is because she miss me so much" -I thought, but I didn"t move and she didn"t knock on my door and I stayed up till 3:00 a.m. remembering Adele"s eyes."

"So, this guy (our MC) came to see Adele this morning and he had the lamest excuse for making up. He says to her that he saw her outside his appartment at midnight last night! Could you believe it? And he looks terrible, like if he hasn"t slept in weeks. So of course Adele asks him what is he talking about and he goes bananas! He tells her that he saw her, and that -get this- there was no life in her eyes. Adele gets frightened of this maniac and asks him to leave. And he starts screaming that she"s faking it all to drive him crazy and that he doesn"t want to see her again and that he"s gonna start his life all over again with another woman. He goes away, but leaves poor sweet Adele almost criying. Could you believe that?"

"The Vampire girl bites the protagonist in the neck"

Now, what is "Wave it tight"? Is this, read all the above text as if it was a single story (not four throughlines) and just "adapt" it to the format your working on. You need to create a complete act (or series of chapters) that start with a guy moving into a new building and ends with him being bitten in the neck by a vampire woman. You have enough information to arrive from beggining to end.

Since this is supposed to be a TV program, lets say I"ll start with a teaser: All stores in the neighborhood closing early (they throw out a custommer that goes home running), the desserted streets at six, the shadow of a woman dressed in white contrasting with an old lady making the sign of the cross and the far away screams of a street bum being pulled away.

(Does that spell "The Sci-fi channel" or what?) Then I start the story, I go first with my MC throughline, the guy moving into his new apartment -and I weave this tight with the objective story: the streets are deserted and there"s no one that helps him move his stuff out of the U-Move-It truck. I foreshadow some stuff from my OS: going up the stairs, he hears giggles, a woman laughing, he tries to see who"s laughing but he sees no one. When he enters the appartment (still in MC line) I start the exposition of my OC line, he"s carriying some books and something falls out from one, it"s Adele"s photographs. He picks them up, and looks at them with a deep sigh. He shakes his head in disaproval and closes the door. I look at my characters chart to get my next scene: the superstitious old man who lives two doors away knocks at his door and scares the crap out of him...

Here"s the moment to use all the tricks of the trade you learned and that are pertinent into this format. From your printed Plot Progression- Synopsis merge, you can begin to pull more Plot Points to get the seven or nine or sixteen or all that you need in your format. Don"t be affraid to go crazy. If you are used to a Ray Bradbury style, you can get it going with the information in your printed Plot-Synopsis merge.

You can think the plot first and then use your Character Chart to expose it, or you can look at your Character Chart, find the "Conflicting Characters" (Dynamic Pairs) and use their conflicts to pull your plot ahead.

What"s important here is that now you have a solid story and a solid group of characters (with all interactions before your eyes) from where you can write a story.

Again, don"t be affraid to go crazy (as long as you don"t neglect your other appreciations)

"Instant Dramatica" is not exclusive to writing quick (and cheap) stories. You could use it to get a fast but VERY accurate appreciation of your Story Engine Settings; you could use it to capture a "feel" for a story; if you like re-writing more than "first draft writing" you could use it to create a first draft that"ll give you a raw vision of your whole story, then put it through it"s paces (maybe through the Story Guide); If you get lost in the Story Guide, you could use "Instant Dramatica" to take a global look of the maze, then go back to developing each part in separate; if you think of Dramatica as an "Analysing tool" this turns it also into a potent "Creative tool", and you could use the rest of Dramatica to analyse and correct it"s flaws; or you could use any part of "Instant Dramatica" without using the others (like just using the character chart).

Of course this techniques are not for everyone, but they sure work for me and I hope they"ll work for others as well.

If you have ANY doubt about any process described here, just post an E-mail and I"ll be happy to explain anything.