Dramatica Theory Book

Chapter 34: Storytelling, Storyweaving & Structure (Continued)

Storyweaving Static Appreciations

By now, we have let our feelings be our guide in establishing a sequence for the twenty-eight Storyweaving scenes. Our next task is to figure out how to illustrate all of our remaining appreciations within those scenes.

One of the first things we might notice is that the Domain of each throughline is probably already expressed in the kinds of material we encoded for each Signpost and Journey. That is because the Types are simply a more detailed breakdown within each Domain. All the remaining appreciations, however, will probably have to be addressed directly.

Since we have already woven all the crucial Progressive Appreciations into our scenes, the rest are Static Appreciations, and they all share one common quality: they must show up at least once, but can show up as many more times as you like. Again, we have a lot of freedom here. As long as we illustrate each appreciation somewhere, we have fulfilled our obligation to our structure. Anything beyond that is just technique that may make the story experience for our audience a more involving one.

So, let's take Goal. We might spell out the Goal in the very first Storyweaving scene and never mention it again. Hitchcock often did this with his famous "MacGuffin", which was simply seen as an excuse to get the chase started. Or, we might bring up the Goal once per act to make sure our audience doesn't lose sight of what the story is all about. In fact, that is another good rule of thumb: even though once will do it, it is often best to remind the audience of each Static Appreciation once per act. As we shall later see, this concept forms the basis of The Rule of Threes, which is a very handy writer's technique.

Another thing we might do with a Static Appreciation is hint at it, provide pieces of information about it, but never actually come out and say it. In this manner, the audience enjoys the process of figuring things out for itself. Since we are obligated to illustrate our structure, however, we better make sure that by the end of the story, the audience has enough pieces to get the point.

For each kind of Static Appreciation author's have created many original way in which they might be woven into a scene through action, dialogue, visuals, even changing the color of type in a book. We suggest making a list of all your appreciations and then peppering them into your scenes in the most interesting and non-cliché manner you can. Even if you aren't overly clever about some of them, at least the structure has been served.