Novelist Mike Lucas discusses what he considers Subtext Awesomeness: The Narrative Argument:
One of the amazing features of Narrative First’s Subtext service is that Jim Hull has gone through and “curated” all of the analyzed stories with a narrative argument. The argument is built up from the story structure (the storyform) with the elements of the argument worded as to best apply to the particular story.
This took an inordinate amount of time to complete. For the most part, I’m like Rain Man when it comes to Dramatica storyforms: I can pretty much run down any of the 400+ storyforms and discuss key Storypoints in each.
But there were some films that left me questioning whether or not I hit upon the right expression of the Crucial Element and Story Goal (Or Consequence) in each narrative.
Listening to Mike, it sounds like a did a pretty good job:
Somehow, seeing that same Crucial Element of Logic applied to another Steadfast story, and one I knew well, was like a lightning strike in my head. Suddenly I understood why poor, lovelorn Devin is the Main Character of this story. And with that, I had my narrative argument… This gives me chills because Subtext, like Dramatica, kind of peered into my writer’s soul a bit there…
And that’s exactly why I put so much time into creating Subtext. Because I want every writer to experience that same level of magical realization that comes with this kind of exposure.
Mike drives into the why and how in much greater detail, including the essential contradiction that exists in these kinds of stories.
