Orwell feared a future where machines churn out soulless fiction, but tools like Subtxt prove AI can enhance creativity rather than replace it. By guiding writers through their story’s core, Subtxt ensures authors stay in control, crafting narratives rich with meaning—not just hitting “generate.”

🎬 Loglines often capture just the plot, but they can reveal so much more! Our latest post goes Beyond the Logline: Why Your Story May Have More Depth than a Single Line. 🌟

Curious about the latest in Subtxt? Check out the October 2024 walkthrough where we explore all the recent updates and features designed to supercharge your storytelling. Catch up here: https://narrativefirst.com/recordings/255 ✨

Drafting isn’t just about getting words down—it’s about uncovering the heart of your story. At Subtxt, we share the belief of many published authors: rewriting is where the magic happens. Reshape your writing process with a little help from AI: Read more ✨

The Searchers is now a part of Subtxt’s Narrative Matrix. 🐴🤠 subtxt.app

The o1 difference:

“When I started with the Subtxt app a little over a month ago I mentioned here that I was having problems constructing the storyform for my somewhat challenging concept…”

“I’ve been too busy to work on it in the meantime, and just got back to it, since when the AI has been upgraded. And I’m blown away. The depth of its insights in navigating these problems… Well, they’re not problems anymore. Complexities maybe, but complexities that are adding to the richness of the story. I can’t say how impressed I am. I’d been a little discouraged, and now my mind is racing.”

New post on the process here at Subtxt: Training off the Subtext not the Storytelling: The Journey Towards AI-Enhanced Narrative Development

I forgot Y tu mama tambien had hand-off Main Characters. It’s rare, and this film does it right.

Latest episode of “Fun with Subtxt” is out. Continued my development of my Elf/Christmas Carol inspired story “A Tale of Two Spirits”. Kind of like “Shakespeare in Love”, but about how Dickens came up with the idea for “A Christmas Carol”. Developed with Subtxt (naturally!).

One of the fun things about building up an AI based on decades of narrative study, is remembering that you wrote something five years ago and forgot to publish it. 😊 The latest is this review of “Locke”, which was a really great one-man film starring Tom Hardy.

User feedback is best feedback:

I’m convinced the new Muse in Subtxt Infinite is nearly psychic. All I have to do is feed it my stream of consciousness notes and it turns it into something organized and usable, which I can plunk into the Storyforming engine. It’s magic. When I query it about my MC it’s like it’s picking the thoughts straight out of my head.

Didn’t take half as long as I thought it would implementing this…Muse speaks! 🔊

I stand corrected. I guess Sandra was innocent!

Pretty sure I just unlocked an entirely new artform - crafting narrative before writing it out (Narrative First??!), it’s almost more enjoyable than watching or reading someone else’s story. And you can constantly change it and re-dream it…😃

Figured out a way to concretely explain the difference between Subtxt and other paradigms of narrative “structure” like Save the Cat! and Hero’s Journey. Putting this at the front of the line for the next video. 🎥

Posted another short video on narrative theory. Perfect for those looking to write better stories.

Finding the Source of Conflict in your Objective Story Throughline

The new Assistants API is so crazy good that my only concern now is being able to afford what will almost certainly be a huge uptick in usage. Responses are blazingly fast and context held so well that churn is going to be a thing of the past.

GPT-4 Turbo (4.2 or 4.5…) is now teaching me NEW things about a narrative theory I’ve been studying and using for almost three decades now. I’ve never thought of the connection between these two thematic touchpoints of a story until today. New frontiers 🚀

Published a short little video on Three Body Problem’s Problem.

Very excited to reveal the first ever VIDEOGAME storyform into Subtxt! After my video yesterday, a super-smart writer sent me his take on the narrative thematics of God of War 2018 - so here you go. 🪓 God of War (2018) Storyform

AI Storytelling and Video Games - new video on the Subtxt YouTube channel, all about modeling the meaning of a story and what it means for the future of gameplay.

Getting used to that full-frame action, covering how to directly input your story’s subtext into Subtxt.

Writing stories is how we make sense of our lives. Off-loading that process to an LLM without an author at the helm robs narrative of its true purpose. Subtxt aims to preserve the author’s voice and agency in the manifestation of a work of art.

Easily, the GREATEST class ever teaching this material and going over the Storyform. We had so much fun building up all the intricate thematic details of my skeleton sheriff idea. Lots of laughs and great collaboration. 🙏

Just added a mind-blowingly awesome feature into Subtxt. You could always Develop Storypoints with Muse, but you kinda had to know what to ask. With the new “Review” feature, it’s just one click – and the answers so far are SPOT-ON! This will really make a difference. 🎉🚀

Now that it makes sense to make this live again (since you don’t need a ChatGPT account to use it), here’s the link to Subtxt Muse, Jr. to get an introduction into what it would be like developing a story with Muse.

Subtxt, with the killer explanation as to how both Hale and Mollie stood on the same side of the dramatic argument - both essentially arguing for “tolerating harsh conditions”, with the latter putting up with self-delusion and the former self-deluding in the name of success. Bravo.

Jotted down some notes on Tuesday’s class, where we uploaded the first Act of “The Holdovers” into Muse and asked thematic questions based on the film’s Storyform. Muse responded with ways to improve the text! 😄 (no, we don’t really think the screenplay needed improving)

I always say this after teaching this one particular class to cohort students, but boy, do I LOVE doing this. So much fun. 🙏

The newly rebranded Subtxt University! For all your narrative needs (really, just a way to bring all the courses/recordings/community together under one roof for Narrative First).

LOL, was teaching a class on character arcs just now and someone asked if you could “retro-actively” go over narrative structure with a finished work. I dropped in the first Act of “The Holdovers” into Muse, not knowing if it would really work, and it actually had constructive feedback on it! 😄

Found a way for me to more easily train Muse when it comes to the relationships between thematic items within a complete narrative. Excited to correct all its mistakes all in the service of a better story. 🎉🚀

Just used my own creation Muse to frame the plot of an example story I’m building in the SubtxtU cohort (ghost town with a skeleton sheriff!). So much fun, and looks like the memory features I have installed are firing on all cylinders as it never once lost context.

It makes me so happy that Muse is constantly updated and ever-evolving to include more examples than just Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz! 😄

The Storyform for Academy Award-winning Screenplay Anatomy of a Fall is now up in Subtxt.

Most compelling observation is that usually, I need to go in and adjust some of Muse’s responses. Not sure if this is an indication of how great the screenplay was, but I didn’t have to change a thing. 😬

Anatomy of a Fall was great if for no other reason than it explores the difference between what we perceive to be reality, and what we know to be reality.

Wanting to know more about the B&W scenes in Zone of Interest, I stumbled across this magnificent article about the film: Viewing the Ob-scene: On Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest”

These scenes are shot without lighting and in infrared, so the girl’s body appears as white against the sheer black of her surroundings. It’s a startling, uncanny reversal of the daytime scenes, and the only act of compassion we witness in the film, which must necessarily take place out of sight.

Pretty stoked, after a rather quiet winter, enrollment in the Spring edition of my Maven cohort is heating up! 🔥 The Future of AI and Storytelling

Zone of Interest was quite surprising to say the least.

Published the Storyform for Poor Things into Subtxt. Required a fresh build from scratch as it is one completely unique narrative. 😅 I now have the ultimate example for what a Dark Comedy Female Mental Sex narrative looks like!

Still love movies. 2024 Oscars 🎬🎞️

Muse finally gets it. You don’t know how difficult it is to “un-train” an LLM from all the nonsense it learned out in the publicly-available internet.

Uploaded the Storyform for American Fiction into Subtxt (really great film if you haven’t seen it yet). First time I was able to use the new “hand-off” Throughlines in the Complete Story section. Works great if you have a more complex narrative where the perspectives are handed-off.

American Fiction was quite delightful. 📚

Rolled out Infinite Memory for Subtxt Muse yesterday. Even added the ability to “mute” specific messages so writers can tailor their brainstorming sessions to their liking.

If this is your definition of subtext:

“Subtext in writing is the underlying meaning or message conveyed by a text that is not explicitly stated by the characters or shown in the narrative. It’s the layer of meaning that lives beneath the surface dialogue, action, or plot, offering depth and complexity to a story. Subtext can be created through dialogue, character actions, symbols, and the overall context of the story, allowing readers or viewers to infer deeper meanings and emotions that aren’t directly expressed. It enriches the audience’s experience by engaging their intuition and imagination, inviting them to read between the lines to uncover the true essence of the narrative. Subtext can reveal character motives, thematic elements, and emotional undertones, making the storytelling more nuanced and resonant.”

Then yes, you absolutely can train an AI on it. I already did and it’s called Subtxt. The app is trained on the underlying meaning of a story, not the text itself, and is designed primarily to help authors discover and refine the message of their work.

Feeling pretty good about this rebrand of my cohort: The Future of AI and Storytelling. Reflects a lot of recent developments and makes it clear that it’s just not about writing a screenplay.

This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. And it’s not hyperbole or hype. Muse kept the entire conversation in context for over 30 pages of story development. Do you know what that means? Introducing Subtxt with Muse: Infinite Memory

I can’t believe what I just made. Blog post coming.

So I guess the theme for 2024 is businesses who want to hook into Subtxt for their own storytelling applications…didn’t expect that, but OK. I can do that.

When you’ve been fine-tuning your story development chatbot for 15 years, and didn’t even know it! LOVE that writers can just talk with Muse to find something I wrote years ago to expand their knowledge of narrative structure.

Recorded a big video going over Subtxt’s Narrative Agents (Auto-GPT for story development). Though long, I like this new format of showing everyone what it can do—because even long-time users aren’t even aware of is ultimate power!

That’s a wrap on another round of the AI-Powered Storytelling cohort workshops! Always a wonderful experience teaching how to best leverage AI to better understand the context of the stories we tell. 🎉🙏🏼

Made some improvements to Subtxt’s image generation. Whole different ballgame than using DALL-E in ChatGPT, much more freedom, but means you’ve really got to be specific (with more power, comes more responsibility…) 🎨

Random Twitter voice asks:

projection seems like a basic fact of psychology but i still don’t understand how it works, why it happens

To which I answer:

Because we can’t step outside of ourselves to gain the objectivity needed to make meaning of our experience. It’s why stories exist.

With Subtxt, you can ensure those five seconds are not wasted.

Pretty convinced that 10-min. video recorded feedback of student’s submissions are the way to go. Just showing how to develop a story in conjuction with an AI (Subtxt), opens up so many new understandings for the writer. Might have to rethink my whole approach!

Instead of writing about the experience of deep-diving into the narrative of Oppenheimer with my AI Assistant, Muse, I went ahead and asked Muse to write about it for me: Unraveling the Oppenheimer Epic with Subtxt Muse

Asked once again about the difference between ChatGPT and Subtxt (“Why can’t I just use the former?”), I went ahead and published an entire page in the Guide about it: The Narrative Expertise Layer.

In short, there is a “narrative expertise layer” that works as intermediary between the writer’s intent (question) and the response they receive from the AI (OpenAI’s API services). Many believe they can replicate the same experience in Chat with uploaded files and prompting…many find that their wasted hours spent trying to remake Subtxt could’ve been better spent writing 🙂

The recording of last night’s analysis of Oppenheimer, hosted by Dramatica theory co-creator Chris Huntley, is in the Narrative First Workshop (free for all): Oppenheimer Narrative Analysis.

Uploaded the narrative structure of Oppenheimer into Subtxt. Interestingly enough: same Pivotal Elements as Inception only this plot is less heist and more a “memory” play. 🎞️

The Dramatica Users Group analysis for March 24 is going to be Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. The director was a student of mine at CalArts, so you can be guaranteed the story is going to be great! 😄

There is just nothing quite like developing a story with both imagery and text at the same time, bouncing back and forth between the two, and getting inspired both–knowing full well that this isn’t the final product. The playground of generative AI.

Everyone is rightfully excited about uploading drafts into Subtxt and getting feedback. But what makes me most happy is how nuanced the response is: instead of just blowing smoke up, it gives you options of ways YOU could improve it. Unexpected tbh, but inspiring.

Uploaded the textbook-perfect tragedy, Griselda into Subtxt. Will be using this one for a long-time to come as its easily digestible and shows the forces at work in a Changed/Failure narrative so blatantly. Wonderful example of an MC Antagonist as well.

How is this even possible?!!

Received an email from a writer wondering who the Antagonist of Good Will Hunting but couldn’t remember if it was Stellan or Will. Then I remembered I built a super intelligent AI trained on 30 years of answering this question and just asked it instead. 😇

First report back from user uploading entire screenplay into Muse (“This is insane!”).

Chris Surdak on AI:

LLMs are context-less. #promptengineering is nothing but making sure that uses provide enough context in their questions so that the LLMs actually knows what’s what.

And that’s how Subtxt works.

One of the first things I teach when it comes to narrative is that context is meaning. Or, from another angle: life is meaningless without context. Same with stories.

If you want a meaningful story you need to set the context.

And that’s what Subtxt does in the background with its “prompts”: converts author’s intent into context.

(And most importantly: holds that context)

Trying to explain to writers in the workshop yesterday how a narrative works when the Main Character’s “change” leads to tragedy, and then Griselda just goes and does it. 😇

The headline I’ve been working for the past seven years.

Many requested a weekend version of my AI-Powered Storytelling Workshop, as they found it difficult to show up during the week. This Saturday, February 10th, is the start of that 6-week workshop. If you want insight into all the narrative theory behind Subtxt,,I’d love to see you there. 😃

Just unlocked a whole ‘nother level of Muse here. Now, instead of random “motivations” that are based on default training, Muse will suggest Motivations from Subtxt that line-up and sync up with other Throughlines throughout the story (melding character with plot!).

Added some clarity to the Subtxt Guide that I think is quite nice: Narrative Agents are for quickly building up the scaffolding of your story, Muse is for deep analysis, reflection, and review.

Published a quick little video tut on Setting the Focus of Conflict in a narrative whilst in Subtxt (not all narratives are created equal!). I get this question quite a bit, so I hope it helps!

Man, I love teaching. Such a phenomenal last two hours and SO GRATEFUL that I found a way to teach writers everywhere (and that there are some who continue to show up!) 🙏

Finally decided to do a group analysis of All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. We’re going to do the novel (the series was unwatchable), so if you’re interested in an appreciation of the deep narrative thematics of an amazing work of art, take Feb to read it and we’ll meet in March. 📚

Brand new tutorial on what it means to alter a Storyform halfway through the writing process, and how you can manage it better with Subtxt. This gets asked ALOT, so I hope it makes sense (I took Ex Machina and showed how you could change the underlying meaning).

Finally was able to publish my latest video on “Storyforming Past Lives”. Beautiful film with an amazingly unique narrative structure.

This month’s comic book post of greatness:

We’re about to enter the exponential world of Hero’s Journey/Save the Cat! If anything, it’s free advertising for Subtxt. 😊

After doing the Storyforms for The Holdovers and Saltburn, I somehow woke up with the Storyform for Past Lives in my head. I saw it months ago, but just now (for reasons) put out all together. This explanation of the premise in Subtxt–just based on thematics sounds like the film.

So I guess with Saltburn we’re just back to making great movies again?

15 years later, still have to show writers and producers that not every Main Character has to “change”. All grow, but only half grow out of their resolve. The other half grows into their resolve. 2-min video montage of famous MCs who don’t change: What Character Arc Really Means

May December: flipping 180s to put you right in the center of it all. 🎨

Thinking about Newton’s 3-Body Problem and education this morning. The past 15 years have been quite predictable between me, teacher, and student. With the introduction of Muse (AI storybot) in January 2024 that relationship has become wholly chaotic and unmanageable. It’s also become exponentially more delightful for all involved.

AI is just a quicker way to get to what a lot of writers refer to as a “vomit draft.” You can always turn in your first draft if you want to, but you’ll likely be called on it.

Coming soon to Subtxt…

Added a little bit of social proof to Subtxt’s landing page. 😊

That moment when your finely-tuned AI-powered storytelling machine just works. ⚡️😇

Posted the Dramatica Users Group analysis of Barbie event into the Narrative First School

Join us for this month’s Dramatica Users Group analysis, where Chris Huntley leads an insightful discussion on the narrative structure of “Barbie.” Discover the intricate storytelling elements that bring this iconic character to life. Engage with fellow narrative enthusiasts and deepen your understanding of Dramatica theory in action.

Seventeen years ago I started blogging about story structure and a particular theory of story I found really fascinating: Dramatica. I still remember my first post in 2006. It was an analysis of Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” that I felt compelled to post after being invited to see it in his personal screening room at Amblin.

I thought the movie was awful, and hoped that if I could just explain the theory to one person I could somehow change the future of storytelling.

Fast forward to 2023 and now I work daily on an AI-integrated app that helps thousands of storytellers across the world with better stories.

And now I want to stay writing about building profitable AI applications.

Here we go.

Blown away yet again in the midst of teaching a cohort this afternoon. Asked one question about the Relationship Story Throughline and the response back was a picture perfect, no he said/she said illustration of the growth of the key relationship in a complete story. Only change? Model version #.

It even went so far as to suggest Next Steps.

What?!

The monthly Dramatic Users Group analysis is on for tomorrow night, Tuesday Oct. 10 @ 7pm Pacific. Join theory co-creator Chris Huntley (and me!) as we take a look at Men In Black through the eyes of Dramatica. Event details in the Discord.

Just dropped a fresh analysis on Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. Ever wonder how three separate timelines can lead to one unified emotional punch? Subtxt and Dramatica theory have you covered. Stay tuned! 🎬📚

We’ll be taking a look at del Toro’s Pinnochio tomorrow night at the monthly Dramatica Users Group meeting. All are welcome.

The recording from last night’s Dramatica Users Group analysis of Mary Poppins is now up in the Narrative First School. Glad to finally know why it’s such a difficult (i.e. boring) film to sit through - no story! (or, at least, two incomplete malformed stories).

Join Dramatica co-creator Chris Huntley as we dive into the narrative structure of Disney’s “Mary Poppins” using the Dramatica theory of story for context.

While others are focused on unraveling the mysteries of existence 🙄, we’re over here changing what it means to develop a story!

OpenAI added Function Calling, making it even easier to tap into Subtxt’s extensive knowledge-base. 🚀

Revolutionizing Storytelling

This is super cool. Assisted an indie film client with Subtxt to create a treatment in 2 hrs.😅 Used GPT-4 to identify top 4-5 locations, set each of 28 scenes, and summarized events based on the treatment’s subtext. All in a day’s work. 😃

Met with a former student yesterday who used to teach game theory at MIT and has ideas on how I could make my cohorts even better. Very grateful for all the help. 😃

Idris Elba and Beasts of No Nation is the cure for ho-hum storytelling.

Working on a television series that isn’t spec is so much better than working on a series that is spec. I highly recommend it for everyone. #WritingCommunity

When I was an animator at Dreamworks & I was starting to build what is now Narrative First/Subtxt I would always think to myself, how awesome would it be if I spent the first couple hours of every morning answering story questions for writers all across the world. 🤗

I LOVED Luca, but the phrase “bean shaped mouth in a pear shaped head” to describe every CalArts character design from Steven Universe to Luca makes me laugh 🤣

Words cannot express how grateful I am for everyone of my subscribers to Subtext who helped analyze the entire first Season of HBO’s Succession from beginning to end. A monumental feat that I can wait to share with everyone!! Subtext #screenwriting #writing

My first documentation success story. While I was sleeping somebody needed help abd they were able to get the answer just by reading The Manual.

This only encourages me to do more!

Forrest Gump finally up in Subtext. Always thought this one was a bit off (Jenny’s Resolve happens too late for the argument to work), but after going back and forth last year found a Storyform that was close. Need to work on that Premise though. #screenwriting

This one is starred and saved for periodic reading, Why we prioritize support over sales in our SaaS business. And while at times I feel Subtext is one that requires a 68-video course (and that video demos are key), I appreciate the focus on putting people over product.

I wonder how many storytellers know that the flow of the space-time continuum in their stories changes the order and substance of their scenes. 🤓

Subtext - Story Structure for Creative Geniuses #screenwriting

That subtextual analysis of Swingers, written back in 2019 and updated for the new story engine in Subtext. If you ever wanted to know why that phone call scene is so cringy (and a bit too real), this is why: narrativefirst.com/analysis/… #screenwriting

Easily the most important choice you’ll make when writing a story. Setting the Four Throughlines.

Bingo! Back in business on Monterey, looking dark and moody for the rest of the summer. 🌞🕶

Subtext is looking good in Monterey’s Safari (love the top theme bar 🤩)

Ending today with news that a musical I helped develop (in the story department) is being workshopped. 😃🎉🥳

Here’s the analysis of searching, which you haven’t seen I would highly recommend–both for the cleverness of the presentation AND the storyform…searching #screenwriting

And, of course, there’s my life story in Jon Favreau’s Swingers which I finally added to Subtext. (Pretty relevant message if you ask me ☺️) The Storyform for Swingers

With the narrative engine complete, I’m going back through and publishing my backlog of Storyforms sitting in the cloud (some dated 2019!) The first is searching - great thriller I had totally forgotten about. searching

Today’s class on Episodes 7 and 8 of the first season of Succession went GREAT! If predictions are right then Episodes 9 and 10 will be all about Becoming…☺️ #screenwriting

When a client writes to you to say they pitched the idea you helped them with and the production company LOVED it! ☺️ #alwayssuccessstories

Want to know both the potential for conflict AND the cyclical progressions of growth for your story? There’s an app for that. 😃

Introducing Scene Resolution in Subtext. Convert a single sentence premise into structure for every Scene in your story–all with the click of a button.

Know what your characters are going to say before they say it.

Avoiding the False Victory–in which I draw an analogy between Save the Cat’s “structure” and flying a helicopter in extreme conditions–definitely not recommended.

A quick little something about Promising Young Woman for those confused by the praise it received.

Want to see how easy it is to build a meaningful story with the click of a button? I’m updating the manual for Subtext now that the app is feature complete.

Made subtle yet important changes to Tenet in Subtext after last night’s Dramatica community meeting.

Worth looking into if you want to become a better Protagonist for your stories! 🤣

What it is it called when you work with brilliant filmmakers from around the world? Oh yeah. Dream job!! 😃🎉

All matters of conflict in a narrative come down to this: being chased by a bear is not a problem. It’s only a problem if you run away.

When a client returns with a draft of their story that’s so compelling you can’t wait to see it up on-screen!

Episode Two of Season One of Succession is even better! Really interesting how the same narrative dynamics appear in both episodes, while the specific Problem driving each episode is slightly different…

Absolutely in love with the Premise Subtext came up with for the first episode of HBO’s Succession. Perfecto!

Turns out I was able to predict the Narrative Personality of Tenet just by watching the trailer. Authors tend to repeat themselves & are drawn to a certain area of the mind’s recognition of conflict.

Devastated. The Dome was my temple.

So excited. Just led what was easily one of the best classes ever. I now have recorded a clear explanation of what it means to replace a Problem with a Solution in a complete narrative! Can’t wait to get this one out…

The Father brings the total number of unique narrative structures in Subtext to 483.

Definitely getting closer with this one…awareness distorting issues of destiny (the promise of a bright future).

Need to work on this one a bit. Not sure if Cassie ends up “staying present, and improving relationships” 😆

The narrative Premise for The Father as seen in Subtext. The “no sense of the present” was completely random and based on other choices I made as to what the story was focusing on.

The Father is adapted from a play and the reason it feels like a play is not simply setting and stage direction, but rather the SOURCE of conflict within the narrative. In plays, this source is almost always found in fixed mindsets–or in this case, a failing mindset.https://narrativefirst.com/articles/conflict-of-a-different-nature/

Wow two nights in a row. I thought 2021 was going to be a snooze fest at the Oscars but Nomadland was stellar, Promising Young Woman was fantastic, abs The Father tonight…heartbreakingly beautiful. So many great stories and great performances this year.

Promising Young Woman was great. Started plugging the narrative into Subtext and guess what turned out to be the central Plot element?? Destiny! Which, in Dramatica, is essentially an issue of promising young women being cut short of their potential 🤯

Just going through Shawshank and seeing how the narrative structure predicted by Subtext plays out…figured this one section would be about the “hope is a dangerous thing” argument at the lunch table. Clicked Breakdown and look at the first illustration it came up with

With Star Wars, there are 4 sources of conflict explored: searching for the plans (Doing), interrogations and educating Alderaan about the Death Star (Learning), escaping with the Princess (Obtaining), and underestimating chances of success (Understanding). narrativefirst.com/articles/…

Last week I unraveled a way to predict the order of thematic events in a story through a single premise. This week I start exploring what that looks like in completed works of art, Plot Points and the Inciting Incident

Last week I unraveled a way to predict the order of thematic events in a story through a single premise. This week I start exploring what that looks like in completed works of art, Plot Points and the Inciting Incident

Working on the new Storybeat Cards based on all the discoveries and new developments from last week. This is looking pretty good, especially when you consider this is pretty much how that opening with scene at the review board plays out.

When using your predictive narrative application to show exactly why The Shawshank Redemption is a story you can watch (or read) a thousand times, it helps to have Thomas Newman’s soundtrack on infinite repeat.

Because even something as ridiculous as Bad Trip can be written with a halfway-decent story. 😆 narrativefirst.com/storyform…

Judging by the responses in my inbox this morning, Subtext’s new Scene Resolution feature is going to be the most welcomed innovation in storytelling ever! 😃 youtu.be/RWyT605iO…

Well hello, Grammarly. It’s been a couple months. Now that I’ve got Subtext figured out…it’s back to writing 😊

A writer/editor/user of Subtext sent me versions of Memento and The Prestige re-ordered to show the sequence of events as they happened–the way a Storyform describes a narrative. To say I’m incredibly excited to go through them this way is an understatement! 😃

Pretty much Neo’s final speech on the phone.

Seriously?! And this is what Subtext predicts Ben should be talking about on the trip to Alderaan - you know, controlling your impulses by reaching out with your Senses! And changing your perception!!

Just going to leave this here…as this is what Subtext predicts George should be doing in the latter half of the second Act…when he finally musters up the courage to punch Biff…

When you solve a computational problem that has plagued your mind for over 22 years, there can be no better backing track than Demi Lovato and Sam Fischer’s What Other People Say.

When you have to use Bad Trip as an example of clear storyforming to a writer … 🤣

I was wrong, Nomadland was not best movie of the year.

Bad Trip was. 🤣

It’s crazy how much impact a single = sign can have on an entire application. ☹️

Who would’ve thought that breadth-first order and depth-first order would have anything to do with telling a story? One floods the landscape to find the topology. The other is like a rat in a maze constantly backtracking. Wonder which is plot and which is character 🤔

Sometimes it takes five years to sell an original idea and have it turned into a movie 😊

This week’s Building Subtext is out: Refinements to the Premise Builder. Small changes that make a significant impact on user interaction. Also, I’m getting more comfortable which means less time editing the transcript. 😄

So cool building an app with someone else (my first after Subtext! 😃) Much easier the second time around once you figure out where everything goes. Rolling out this Tuesday to a select group of people (5,000!)

Seems like a lot of writers are eager to start new projects this week. No better place to start than this giant series of articles on Preparing to Write a Complete Story.

The view from your writing desk when you don’t use Subtext.

Oh man! And looking over the Plot Progression, just making that switch from a Changed Resolve to a Steadfast Resolve, re-ordered Fern’s fictional arc from Doing to Understanding (working to finally appreciating) whereas before it was Understanding to Learning (wrong)🤯

When asked about why it was so good (from a narrative structure standpoint), the fact that she (Chloe Zhao) was able to illustrate the Influence Character Throughline with REAL people (except for Straitharn of course) is masterful.

Made a slight tweak to the Storyform for Nomadland in Subtext. I had originally encoded Fern with a Changed resolve, but that’s super clearly wrong (after sleeping on it). Her denial to stay is an indication of STEADFAST resolve (with Straithairn obs. Changing) narrativefirst.com/storyform…

Narrative First is now Narrative First, Inc. 😊

Not saying you could end up with the same result, but Nomadland’s narrative structure is as good a start as any.

Not saying you could end up with the same result, but a meaningful narrative structure is as good a start as any.

Even something as simple and as understated as Nomadland works through a complete narrative structure. Those longing for what has been lost address evidence that they’ll be able to see them somewhere down the road.

Wow, Nomadland.

I’ve received more emails of congratulations and appreciation after today’s release than anything I’ve done in a long time. Feels amazing to know so many appreciate the work and I’m so grateful that I can connect with so many!

Witness the power of this fully armed and operational battle station!

youtu.be/qomkz8fCK…

(Really, just an insanely cool way to find narrative structure through artistic intent!)

Best soundtrack for rolling out a major release or submitting a project you poured your soul into.

And just like that, it is done.

The Premise Builder in Subtext is now live.

Have at it everyone. 😊

Well, that sounds about right. 😊

Meeting with someone 8:30 Sat morning is perfectly OK with me if you come with a beautiful work of art. Just wait until this time next year. 🤩

Totally random Premise generated from Subtext after choosing Temptation as the central Character Method and Obtaining (destroying the ring) as the main Plot Method. 🤯

“What if the characters don’t know the Story Goal until the 2nd Act?” The Goal of a Story isn’t for your characters, its for you the Author. Structure is something you lay down over events, not what imaginary characters see or dream up.

As we repeat the 80s and 40s, storytelling shifts back to your classic “Hero’s Journey” model, with achieving something as the focus of the Plot (winning) and either Avoidance or Freedom as the driving force. Lion King or Karate Kid. Your choice.

Netflix interested in a new series…it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this bad boy, could it 😊

Planning on rolling out the Premise Builder for Subtext this weekend. Three years in the making. If you’re not familiar, here’s a primer on how The Effects of Premise on Narrative Structure.

This sounds like a good one, particularly given current events. And look at that–no examples found, which means this could be the first…

When I was teaching story at CalArts, one of my favorite things to do was to put together these video compilations explaining a certain concept. This was the first: Every Complete Story is an Argument (looking at you, Judas)

Getting closer to making the visions in my head a reality for all…

Why write complete stories? Without the friendship between Red and Andy (the Relationship Story Throughline) there is no final scene on the beach in The Shawshank Redemption. The original cut of the film did not have this scene, yet everyone felt there was something MISSING. That’s why it’s important 😊

Great stories never die! (Or should I say COMPLETE stories never die). Something I wrote seven years is running through the production mill once again 😊

This week’s episode of Building Subtext is all about An Objective Look at Story Structure. If you want to truly know what to write next, you need to get out of your character’s heads–and into your own.

It’s really clear: if you’re not going to write a complete story, and leave the Main Character Throughline vague and incomplete, your audience will not know who to give the Best Actor award to…

So Mean Girls and Whiplash have the same exact structure EXCEPT for one key element. The former is Holistic in nature and structured around Relationships, the latter is Linear in nature and structured around Reason! Other than that, they’re the same up and down 🤓

So Mean Girls and Whiplash have the same exact structure EXCEPT for one key element. The former is Holistic in nature and structured around Relationships, the latter is Linear in nature and structured around Reason! Other than that, they’re the same up and down 🤓

When writers ask you for detailed structural breakdown of a Diff’rent Strokes episode you know you’ve hit peak analysis 😆

This indie Batman half-hour was great. Super angry Batman!

My favorite button in all of Subtext. 🤓

The list grows larger … 😊

Just finished the latest Writers Room - interesting to compare Do The Right Thing against Zootopia - the former finds conflict in Subconscious (learned experiences of racism) where the latter turned to Preconscious (animal instincts). GREAT way to see diff between two.

John Dusenberry, Head of Story Development for a feature at Warner Bros. animation, will be continuing his long-running series on using Subtext to breakdown the individual sequences of a complete story. Class starts at 3pm Pacific - come join us!

The fastest I’ve been able to get a storyform up after a Dramatica Users Group meeting…in fact, it’s still going on 🤣

Alright Kaufman. I finally got you into Subtext. Even the craziest of intentions has some sort of order to it. 🤓

🤣 When even your complex algorithmic method for finding narrative structure can’t make heads or tails of this Premise (from “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”). Charlie Kaufman broke my server!

My latest “vlog” on Building Subtext, this one about Developing the Four Throughlines. If you do nothing else, concretizing this concept into your writer’s head will propel you into the stratosphere of creative storytelling. Makes all the difference!

More balance from The Princess Bride. The novel sits across from the Grandson. The heartfelt relationship between a grandfather reading a book to his grandson counters the big picture plot of convincing everyone that true love exists. ❤️

This makes me inordinately happy to see. The Princess Bride on Subtext - all nicely balanced and full of key insights on the structure behind intent.

When you plug in judgment as the Grandson’s Problem (Evaluation in Dramatica) the narrative engine predicts Reduction as the source of drive from the novel–which is literally, don’t judge a book by its cover. 🤯

Re-visited The Princess Bride this weekend as I double-check narratives with Be-er Main Characters. It’s super clear that the Grandson is in Mind (I hate that stuff) and that it’s the Universe of The Princess Bride novel that influences him to abandon the judgments.

What you want to say->story structure. Intent sets order.

Subtext’s Premise Builder is pretty much feature complete now. 3+ years in the making. I feel pretty good about the balance between power & simplicity. Just need to iron out a few things and then you’ll be able to generate a complete outline from a thematic statement.

Actual quote from actual writer: “[The InstantScenes do] help, because they turn the cryptic Dramatica language into something more concrete, something that gives you a new view of the story and generates ideas.”

My work here is done 😊

Watching Tribes of Europa, this certainly isn’t your mother’s Hunger Games! 😂 On a side note — Clinton Shorter may be my new favorite composer.

Many conflate subject matter for structure (see previous tarot tweet). In a mind that sees the world through space and time, order carries a specific meaning.

In other words, your story won’t make sense if you don’t bring some order to it.

Someone once told me they thought Subtext/Dramatica sounded like tarot cards for writers. If by sparking an intuitive reaction to the “card”, then yes, I would agree. Difference? Tarot is random. Subtext is a specific order based on Authors intent. Huge difference.

Assuming Wandavision doesn’t take an immense left turn tonight, I’ll be publishing the Storyform for the entire season later tonight. It’s basically over, just need to tie off a few leftover threads in the narrative.

To be clear, when you choose “being irrational” for Character and “securing a future” for the Plot, Subtext tells you this is how Braveheart should end:

When you figure out something you’ve been working on for 22 years, Welcome to the Black Parade is essential celebration music.

Oh man, I just found out my very first client landed at the top of a very important industry list in Hollywood!!! WOW!! 🤩 🎉🥳

The writing/re-writing wheel still exists with Subtext. If you got the structure 100% right from the beginning you would lose the motivation to write. The “unknowing” is what drives you to finish it. Subtext just helps you gently organize your thoughts along the way. 

Subtext tip: Different characters carry out the same Storybeat or Storypoint in the same Concern. Ensemble pieces often take this approach. You just don’t want to do it too much in the same Act—the Audience will feel like you’re hitting them over the head with Thene. 

I may or may not have just unlocked the mysteries of the universe (or, at the very least, successfully converted space into time and back again).

Best part about building Subtext? User requests ability to copy InstantScenes to clipboard. Brilliant idea! Time from suggestion to live on server? Less than 50 minutes. 😃

Crazy watching old classes in Subtext where I talk about crowd-sourcing narratives (which it does now). It’s great seeing your dreams come to life 😃

Somewhere in story structure land someone once pointed out that scenes “turn”, and that there’s a “charge” that switches from positive to neg& back. It’s true, and the REASON for that are the entry and exit points of a Dramatic Unit. InstantScenes in Subtext show this

As much as I lamented Wandavision and its “nothing” episodes, the season as a whole works as a complete story. This only make sense if you know Dramatica but: SteadfastStopDo-erHolisticActionOptionlockSuccessGoodPhysicsUnderstandingSensesPerception is the Storyform.

For all those about to start writing something great in 2021, I offer the next installment in my fantastic video series Building Subtext.

Please know what you’re going to write about, so we can have more White Tigers this year! 😃

Watching VueJS Amsterdam conference during a late night session. Nitro for Nuxt looks incredible…and Chopin’s live-coding of a Nuxt “notes” app has me spinning with ideas for Subtext! What a great team behind this framework.

The American dream, or should I say—”the rise of the brown man”—as portrayed in White Tiger, with a classic Western-culture storyform of rags to riches brought about by abandoning Control for Freedom…

Last week I went over some pretty heady stuff when building a complete story from a Premise. You don’t need to know it all to write a great story, but why not be better?

The best part about White Tiger is that there was an actual relationship in addition to concerns within the major plot (living the “American” dream). So many recent offerings don’t even bother and it’s so important to maintain that balance–balance in EVERYTHING.

Writing a new story this year but not sure where to start? See if you can identify the type of Goal your characters are after, and the Consequence of failing. Note: “type” of Goal, rather than actual Goal. Types are thematic in nature and exist beneath storytelling.

Plugging in White Tiger’s story dynamics into Subtext, we get 1 match: Captain America: Civil War which makes sense if you think about it–the classic Western American story where forces of Control give way to Freedom of opportunity.

Ok. White Tiger was Grrrreat!! It’s been so long since I’ve seen a complete story. So much goodness in it.

Just finished recording another video about Building Subtext. Ended up coming up with a funny idea for a cynical western called Apathy, Kansas. Descript is processing it now, and I’ll edit it this weekend. ✌️

Well, it’s settled. Subtext will be used to help design the narrative of a feature film to be streamed at a later date. 😃 Not that this hasn’t been done before, but this will be with the new improved algorithms. Nothing like having a real world example to test against.

Excited about this added feature to InstantScenes - a toggle to switch between structuring a scene, sequence or act by either reason (linear) or relationships (holistic). TOTALLY different feel to the individual beats of dramatic unit. Now a switch away.

First studio-consult of the year this afternoon. Looking forward to seeing what a big-time animation studio with a famous watertower has in store…😃

Spring has sprung 🌞🌺

As I begin to develop a “beginners” section for Subtext, one area continues to baffle writers. It’s the most important thing, yet left out of pretty much everything released recently (why everything feels like a glorified documentary).

The Relationship Throughline. 🤗

I’ve decided to pull Setting #3 from Subtext below it’s a high level concept that’s probably best served by a simple understanding of Genre. Getting closer to releasing this Premise Builder.

Although, it just occurred to me that this is just for Holistic-minded stories, not Linear. Logan & Little Women are latter. Better example would be Mean Girls or Roma. Detailed explanation here: The Holistic Approach to Conflict

In today’s Writers Room, I’ll be going over the intersection of Character and Plot. Sometimes the two are so intertwined you can’t tell the difference (Matrix, Thinking of Ending Things), other times they’re tangential (Little Women, Logan). Huge effect on structure.

There is nothing better than simply jumping on a 30-min. Zoom call to explain Subtext to writers—every single one I’ve met with KNOWS their story, they just don’t know how to pick and choose the most important parts to get a solid story structure, i.e. a way to organize all their thoughts.

First thing I see every morning is a list of user-generated Illustrations for Subtext—human-friendly ideas of conflict for storytelling. Once approved, they go into the collective store for everyone to use 😃

I Care A Lot on Netflix…fun thriller, but again am I just projecting my own disassociation or is this another film with NO Main Character perspective, no personal issues, and no subjectivity? I have no idea why she’s so crazy which means I don’t care at all!

Re-writing this weeks article for Narrative First, I’m reminded of how awesome this movie is. With everything available on Netflix, how come hardly anyone knows about Leave No Trace??!

Now that I figured out a magical way to turn a Premise into a complete outline, I need to go back and change a few things in this series of articles on The Holistic Premise.

Landing on Mars autonomously is one thing, but can JPL maintain the integrity of a narrative structure while allowing for variances in artistic expression?

I think not!

In preparation for the Free portion of Subtext coming soon, I resubmit an article I wrote over a decade ago about a concept many writers still struggle to get into their stories. Viewers clicking away before 20 min. mark? You’re missing all Four Throughlines.

I’m working in a level of “non” perfectionism into Subtext as a means of supporting writers given to think more deeply about their work (I know quite a few 😊). The recent addition of Throughline Summaries to Subtext is one step towards mitigating that overwhelm. 

Recorded another video for Building Subtext. This ones all about how Subtext helps you focus on the key parts of your story depending on the Premise you choose. Different Premise, totally different set of concerns.

I have so much fun making and editing these Building Subtext videos that I decided to create a dedicated YouTube Channel for it (thanks Descript!) Building Subtext is your one-stop shop for the latest and greatest in story theory and predictive narrative 🤓

Doesn’t matter if it’s a half-hour episode, a giant epic novel, or your basic 2-hour movie: if you’re not saying something with your story, you’re not saying something (and wasting everybody’s time). A Story is ab Argument.

Wandavision did it! An ENTIRE episode where absolutely nothing happened. Amazing feat of engineering and storytelling. 😃

Currently running Lord of the Rings through Subtext. The following “arc” for Frodo was based on simply choosing Temptation for Character and Altruism for Plot. And this is what Subtext came back with…😊

Cleaned up Subtext in anticipation of big changes coming. Love being able to show the Narrative Personality to users right within their stories. Going to be huge for those new to the system.

It should probably not come as much of a surprise to anyone who has been following my work that I’m a bit of a space nerd. That’s why you’ll often find me comparing the observable universe to how we write stories.

Pretty happy with the new Storypoint cards in Subtext. Had to do this now that creating a story could conceivably add well over 70 new Storypoints at once! Storypoints On-Demand are now live in all accounts.

Unbelievably crazy good news about Subtext and AI just happened about an hour ago 😃 I CANNOT WAIT to tell everyone about it!

Interested in thinking more deeply about your story? Conflict Corner, our weekly class on practical Dramatica theory, begins in Subtext at 1pm Pacific. Today, John will be writing around the Sources of Conflict we came up with last week, and we will cover two technique insights. See you there 😃

Every time I drop into #screenwriting, I’m inevitably disappointed by the reaction. Writers, so caught up in what it takes to break-in and “screenwriting hacks” that they can’t be bothered to write a halfway decent story.

Successfully installed the new version of Laravel Spark into Subtext. Been waiting for this for awhile. I used the OG version when I started a couple yrs. ago but ran into issues once I went SPA and had to roll my own.

Feel more confident with this behind the scenes.

The Crucial Element to Telling a Great Story spells it all out. Without that higher purpose, writing just becomes a paycheck-a tool to get an actor to sign on for a few choice scenes.

The purpose of a Main Character is to give the Audience a sense of what the universal conflict feels like from the inside. A subjective view of what’s happening globally In the objective “plot.” The truck is they’re the same thing, just seen from two different POVs.

The acting in Judas and the Black Messiah was great, but the story? Ehh… there’s this weird disassociation thing going on where we’re watching someone with personal issues, rather than experiencing them ourselves (as Main Character). Same happened in the little things

My new video series on Building Subtext in Public is starting here on my YouTube channel. Follow along as I show off the latest and greatest in predictive narrative storytelling.

Last week’s Writers Room is now avail for replay. I go over a really quick way to find the unique narrative structure of your story using Subtext.

Part Four of John’s practical workshop in Dramatica theory is now available for replay. He’s come up with a great way to use complex narrative concepts in a fun and creative way.

On my application to OpenAI’s GPT-3 integration:

Subtext is an app that generates meaningful stories based on a complex psychological model of the mind. With an integration with OpenAI I can take my single sentence outlines and turn them into full-blown stories PERFECT for inspiring creativity in writers, novelists, filmmakers, and game designers. The combination of my model with yours would be absolutely insane.

Connecting AI to Meaningful Storytelling

And this is freaky scary…

I just plugged in Subtext’s random illustrations for a story based on the structure of Moulin Rouge! into GPT-3 abs this is the result:

In a futuristic society, a rebel fighter and his lover have just escaped after being held in prison for two years. While attempting to reach the safety of the Rebels, they discover that their relationship has changed–for the worse. They journey to the one place that can help them save their love: The Scarred Lands…where monsters rule.

The lovers intentionally misunderstand the other person. In the first place, they are lovers, and lovers by their nature do not understand what is said to them; they hear only what they wish. For instance lovers talk about “the beauty of nature”; but to lovers themselves the beauty of nature is simply an occasion for talking together. Again, if you call a lover bad-tempered he is not offended: he knows better than anyone that a lover ought to be in a rage at everything which hinders his setting forth or returning to his loved one; when he has no excuse for making a fuss (as in poetry) he

The Lover’s Swore : We make love with someone else, Yet they still are ours. The two lovers were asked to be honest about how they felt, but neither could bring themselves to say what was truly on their minds. In the end, they settled for silence.

Their life together was a long one, and they always said they were meant to be together. Now the man is alone, and doesn’t know how to go on without his beloved wife. He starts to wonder why he never told her how much he really loved her. He thinks about how he used to talk to her each day at lunch, but then got too busy with work and let their communication slip. One day while staring out the window of his office, he has an epiphany: he’ll wait for her under the clock at noon tomorrow. If she’s late, it means she didn’t get his message because…

🤯

This took all of five minutes. And most of that was copying and pasting.

Guess I know what I’m doing for the rest of 2021.

Spoke too soon. This is a bit depressing:

Whether you’re building your plot from scratch or fine-tuning an existing outline, Subtext helps you get the job done. Imagine a tool that could help you flesh out your story ideas into fully realised novels and films without having to employ a screenwriter,

Kind of the opposite of my intentions, but what are you going to do? 😄

Well, this pretty much sums up my whole product, and all I had to do was click a button:

The importance of Subtext in story structure cannot be overstated. It is the foundation upon which the rest of your story will be built. Subtext is what gives your characters depth, gives intrigue to your plot, and creates empathy for your audience. But most importantly, Subtext makes your story memorable.

Seeing all the great feedback from copy.ai I am FORCING myself not to start adding GPT-3 to Subtext. The idea of generated text matched with a meaningful Storyform? 🤯🤯🤯

Must fix what’s there now, must fix what’s there now, must fix what’s there now…

I really hope Wandavision doesn’t represent the future of television, where you have to wait 27 minutes for something to happen. Such a cool idea, but excruciating to sit through.

The great thing about coding your own narrative theory is it forces you to reconsider initial thoughts. With previous versions of Premise, I tried to force the Story Driver (type of plot point) in when really, it plays a very minor role in a Holistic Steadfast story.

After slaving over the intricacies of narrative theory for my re-write this week, it’s time to code my latest thoughts into Subtext’s Premise Controller. In short, the app looks at the dynamics of a story and then generates a meaningful Premise from them.

Narrative First will soon be Narrative First, Inc. 😃

Finally finished re-writing Steadfast Holistic Main Characters.Moulin Rouge!, Juno, and A Bronx Tale now account for staying in the present momen,a key metric for the Holistic

First thing I do every morning is approve user-submitted Illustrations of story structure in Subtext. Just checked, since launch (10/17) I’ve added over 2600 new & unique interpretations. Essentially “crowd-sourcing” story structure. 🤓

Even with so much content avail now, it’s challenging to find something good. The stories just aren’t there, or at the very least half-baked. The idea that somehow television is structured differently than movies or novels is false: Story is story, regardless of shape or size.

A film will never be a 100% perfect Storyform & there will never be a Storyform that matches a film 100%. There are degrees of accuracy, with some closer than others. The Storyforms in Subtext are the closest you’ll find to 100%

When choosing a Goal for your story, it’s never the goal of the characters, but rather the Goal of the Story. With a Goal of the Past in something like Chinatown, some past history is inequitable and the mind of the story is seeking some way to resolve it.

In today’s Writers Room, I’ll go over these improvements & what it means for your stories. If you want to catch up, The Holistic Approach to Working Through Conflict is version 1.0

“Ignoring the reality around you keeps you present, but distorts the way you commit to others.” would be the new Premise for Harvey.

Character: Disbelief (ignoring reality) Plot: Commitment

Distortion signals confusion between subjective & objective POVs.

“Being in harmony with curiosity keeps you in the present moment, allowing you to address the respect you receive from others.” would be the new Premise for A Bronx Tale.

Character: Unending (curiosity) Plot: Worth (respect)

Present signals an “upwards” trajectory.

Making a few changes today in the way Subtext presents a Premise for certain stories. Instead of “emotional vibration,” we’re factoring in whether or not one is present–a key source of power for someone working through a story holistically (through relationships).

Time to step away and hopefully find something great to watch.

If you’re interested in learning Dramatica but aren’t sure where to start, I put together a quick guide to complex narrative theory.

Conflict Corner went great today, and I think I might have even picked up a few pointers here and there 😊 If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t think great storytelling is magic reserved for a select few, come join in on the mind-expansion.

The geniuses at Narrative First are up to it again today in Conflict Corner–the weekly class on practically applying Dramatica to writing great stories.

The Storyform for The Vast of Night is now up in Subtext. Really liked how the Element of Speculation found its way into the essential meaning of the story.

Got huge Speculation vibes while watching Vast of Night, meaning all conflict centered around this Element. Turns out it was THE Character Elemenf for the Storyform.

Plugging that in sets an arc of Self-aware to Aware for Everett–which is exactly what happened.

Amazing.

Surprised to find out that The Vast of Night had a reasonably discernible Storyform. It’s not the easiest film to get through—but had some important things to say.

Ford v Ferrari splits the difference as well, but the tragic circumstances of the narrative make hanging out with that personality a less cheerful experience. Like that friend you know who always has something important to say, but is usually a bit of a downer.

Elf mixes it up with a more “joyous” personality by splitting external and internal between Character and Plot (Progress and Being) opening up space between the two and resulting in a “lighter”, less serious narrative.

Moulin Rouge! flips it, with MC & Plot now internal (Subconscious/Becoming) and IC & Rel.s now external (Future/Obtaining). Different Narrative Personality, completely different narrative outline. Structure becomes a function of intent rather than a thing itself.

Matrix is a typical personality with both Main Character and Plot dealing with external issues (Future/Obtaining) while Influence Character abs Relationships focus on internal issues (Subconscious/Becoming).

Finished cleaning up initial round of Holistic Storyforms. Key to it all is the visualization of Narrative Personality. This is the one for The Matrix, showing the balance between all Four Throughlines. Neo in blue, Morpheus in green, plot in gray & relationships purple.

Thinking of renaming Thematic Conversations to Thematic Movements. A lyrical ring to it 🎶 The former was meant to show how these Issues typically show up in dialogue (Openness “I’m ready to tell you my secret.”) but the latter inspires greater creativity.

The switch to Altruism over Morality makes so much more sense when it comes to films like The Matrix. it’s less about “what is right” and more about “doing based on what is best for others”

Look up the definition of Morality on Google and you get “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” Dramatica’s definition of Morality is “doing or being based on what is best for others.”

In Subtext, we fix this with “Altruism”.

Here’s the same sequence found in The Sixth Sense, only now in Cole (the Influence Character)-a shift found in selection of Perception & Understanding (character/plot). “I’m ready to tell you my secret” is pretty much textbook Openness from an IC. All predicted with Subtext.

Choose Disbelief & Altruism (character & plot) in Subtext and the app predicts an eerily accurate seq. of events from The Matrix. This is Neo from the Oracle to literally making a Choice to ignore Morpheus’ belief in him as the One (a Preconception).

Going to be validating the idea of Thematic Conversations over the next couple of weeks. Initial results are encouraging…and almost magical. narrativefirst.com/blog/writ…

This is so crazy. If you plug into Subtext “being open-minded” for Character and “respect” for Plot, this is Bronx Tale’s 1st Act. C’s Attitude, the kid being in wrong place at wrong time with Sonny (Fate), and the “Truth” told lighting up father/son. Insane #screenwriting

Also, after being asked if all this “gobbly-goop” was necessary when writing a story, I just decided to finally own it. Now whenever someone asks I just tell them, “Subtext is story structure for creative geniuses.”

You can either jump on-board or stay asleep. #screenwriting

Completed work yesterday on a 6-week project that I’m super excited about - Holistic justification for both Changed and Steadfast stories. The results are quite jaw-dropping in terms of what Subtext points out narrativefirst.com/storyform…

This Moment from the Waking Up app basically explains ALL you need to know about story structure and storytelling.

“Finding meaning in life is having a story to tell yourself.”

Those writing stories just want to share their meaning with everyone else.

Really happy with how things are turning out writing and re-writing The Manual for Subtext. Went back in and cleared up some examples I used from Raiders. The distance between an inequity and progressive complications is light-years away.

Story - The Manual for Subtext

Aaron Sorkin is incredible. Trial of the Chicago 7…great writing from beginning to end.

My essentials. Timepage, iAWriter, Subtext, and Superhuman.

Today’s Conflict Corner class in Subtext was most encouraging. I think I found a way to test for conflict within a story - whether or not it’s working - and today’s workshop was most beneficial to all. Publishing it later if any writers want to check it out.

This week marks the 3 year anniversary of my writing app Subtext. 3 ½ years ago I had no idea what Laravel was, or Vue, or Nuxt, or MySQL, or GitHub, Netlify, Tailwind, or the JAMstack. Now, I use these every day to deliver an amazing app across the entire world. 😃

“It’s not the story in my head,” said everyone. Of course it isn’t, your head can switch contexts in a flash—the Audience OTOH is not inside your head, so you need to make choices and keep context consistent which is going to CHANGE your story. #Writers

Time is art. Today kicks off the 5th month of the 13 month 28 day calendar. This month is the Overtone month and is all about scheduling life around creativity. Spent the whole day making little changes here and there to Subtext, delightful touches that fulfill my curiosity.

We’re moving into a new area of narrative focus, a shift away from Learning and into Obtaining (control and conquest). Read about all in this article on Identifying Types of Plot in a Story.

#screenwriting #writingtips #amwriting

Upgraded the Discuss Dramatica forums to the latest and greatest version of Discourse, still my all-time favorite forum platform.

Going to tinker around this weekend with color schemes and logos 🤓

Our group analysis of the Blacklist spec script, Don’t Worry, Darling went great. It was such a simple story, that I’m thinking of making it free so everyone can check it out. Great introduction to Dramatica 😃

Super happy with development on the latest version of Subtext. A preview of what’s coming next. narrativefirst.com/blog/the-…

Reading The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, and I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this much reading a spec script.

The Mandalorian was everything the last three Star Wars films were not: funny, light-hearted, touching in places, and super super simple. The last two episodes were phenomenal.

Reading Story Genius is a series of highs and lows. This quote is a definite high:

Marvel films may not be “cinema,” but at least they know how to tell a story…💤😴

The Irishman was a complete bore fest. Didn’t even finish it, stopped about halfway through.

The best part? The opening gas station scene where DeNiro and Pesci met - it’s a set off of Calgrove Blvd. that you can see off Interstate 5 just north of L.A. (not Jersey). Which means those legends were in my hometown not too long ago!!

Late Friday night when you finally realize the Antagonist that’s been staring you in the face from the very beginning. 😆

If you’re like me, and you’re about halfway through writing something for National November Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), chances are you’re beginning to sense something missing. This series of articles on The Relationship Story Throughline should help you out.

This is a pretty spectacular album for writing screenplays. Seven Worlds One Planet by Zimmer & friends. The title track is so inspiring.

My friend Bobby Rubio made an absolutely beautiful short film that is now on Disney+ called Float. The animation is out-of-this-world subtle and unique, and the story is heartfelt and real.

Paddington 2 is super impressive if it was written without Dramatica. It basically follows a storyform from beginning to end, almost to the point of using certain Elements within dialogue!

Probably why it scores 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

#screenwriting #writingtips

Just held the most mind-blending class in the Writers Room in Subtext. The input from the attendees was off the chart! So excited to eventually share it with the rest of the writing community.

Just figured out all my story issues in the shower. I respectively submit for Apple to make the next MacBook 100% waterproof, so I can finish writing the whole thing in there.

After 13 years, Narrative First is now an app.

This latest rollout lays the foundation for a Subtext/NF crossover experience unheard of in storytelling software.

I can’t tell you how happy I am about the improvements in speed, and the many many new features to come in the following months. For those of you in more remote or distant parts of the world you should experience a huge difference in response requests.

Subtext is truly the most delightful way to write a story.

An overwhelmingly insight post on Superhuman’s on-boarding and the delight with which they infuse everything. Looking to copy a lot of this once I finish engineering some key delight into Subtext.

There can be no greater than feeling, than the feeling one gets when you finally roll out an accelerated, hyper-realized version of your app WITHOUT ERRORS!

Everything is possible!

Funny reading an article written before my extensive work on The Holistic Premise. Like looking at pictures of yourself in elementary school. So much more room to grow.

Also, yesterday’s AWS debacle forced me to finally integrate 13 years of blog parts and articles into my app for writing stories, Subtext.

Story structure nirvana, to be sure. And it’s nice to finally see something I imagined for over a decade finally come together.

Let’s hope Amazon got its act together while I was sleeping.

Now that the last chapter of my book this year is finished, I’m clearing out articles I started six months ago.

Always weird reading something you’ve written as if someone else wrote it. Some of it’s not too bad 😁

Feels amazing to finally finish this first stage of rewriting Subtext. No more page refreshes. Search is blazingly fast. Key bindings to keep the writer in the moment. InstantScene offering meaningful writing prompts. So crazy how fun this is to develop.

Rolling it out for testers this weekend. 😂

Joker is just Taxi Driver without Jodi Foster. Incomplete, at best, but not as ambiguous as everyone seems to think. It doesn’t matter what his last hidden joke was–the fact that he determined “you wouldn’t get it” is all that is needed to make sense of his growth.

You just needed the other side of things.

Writing a screenplay for some of your favorite actors while simultaneously developing an app that helps writers blast through their first draft. Dreams within dreams within dreams!

Super excited to share this next article once it’s done. I basically rewrote Casablanca from the point-of-view of Corinna, the Nazi sympathizer in the film. All in an effort to show the difference in structure between a tragedy and a triumph. Turned out awesome.

Great news! We finally found an unproduced screenplay worthy of putting up in Subtext. Had a feeling the structure would be complete, and we confirmed that hunch during today’s class.

Going to be adding it as another section of Storyforms in Subtext.

Wow. Just finished reading Beside Ourselves, a 2018 Nicholls Fellowship Finalist, in preparation for today’s Writers Room class. What a beautiful screenplay about love and acceptance. Thank you Gabriel Mizrahi.

Inspired by all the great documentation in the Laravel community, I’m going to really dive into the docs for Subtext this Fall. Starting tonight.

Today’s class went exceedingly well.

Talked about how to balance out a relationship at the end of a story, as well as keeping up narrative drive throughout every scene (Hint: separate the Outcome from the next Potential).

Over 60+ hours of classes available in Subtext.

Just when I think I’m doing all I can to teach writers about Dramatica, I run across a YT video with 500,000 views and almost 2K comments advocating Writing Characters Without Character Arcs.

Just means I have more work left to do.

Want to know what it means to traverse a quad in the Dramatica theory of story?

That circle graphic you see in every book about the Hero’s Journey…

It’s a spiral.

This week on Narrative First, a continuation of my series on the Hegelian Dialectic: Writing a Meaningful End to Conflict.

Don’t know what it is, but every time I have to manually sign in to Stripe, I’m reminded of the first time I set my account up about 6 years ago, out in the gardens in front of Sony Animation.

I was just going to sell some e-books for 2.99

Never imagined it would get this far.

The best part of the end of August is when all the movers and shakers come back from vacation eager to start writing 😃

Looking nice in the new Feedbin app! This year I started writing first thing every morning. So far, 195 hours. All new content. Loads of new feature ideas for my app. A couple bookshelves the way. Best decision.

And I’ll never stop.

Fine-tuning the Holistic Premise in Subtext, and this one for Eternal Sunshine feels so perfect…

And just like that, I’m granted access to take Subtext serverless. 😃

Going to be a GREAT weekend!

On the other side of using my app Subtext to write something for high-profile client. This thing is AWESOME…though I can see a TON of stuff I’d like to do to improve it.

Benefits of being the one who put it all together. I can rewrite my own software. 😃

My annual rebuilding of Subtext is underway…which means its time to take advantage of the latest and greatest from the Laravel/VueJS/Tailwind combo.

Cleaning up the Search here - not sure what it is about TS 1.0, but everything looks so clean now.

Usage fees for Subtext tripled from a year ago. I could think of this one of two ways: one, I need to find a cheaper DigitalOcean plan.

Or two: demand for my app has TRIPLED.

I like the second.

How I will be spending the latter half of 2019:

Laravel Vapor

Taking Subtext serverless thanks to Otwell&Co.

Looks like Subtext will be going serverless in August, thanks to Laravel Vapor 😃 #Laracon

50 year anniversaries of Moon landings should happen all the time. Kept me in my seat all day long enough to finish rolling out the updates to the Narrative Arguments in Subtext.

Heard from a #screenwriter yesterday who sold a television series to Spielberg and friends.

He used Subtext to help develop it.

And I haven’t even released the killer feature yet. 😁

#writingtips

This month’s Dramatica Users Group meeting is all about Skyfall which will be interesting–since the first time I saw it, I didn’t really think it was all that complete.

Wonder if my perception has changed since then…

Rare that a screenplay could almost bring me to tears, but damn, The Olympian was great. Covering in this in today’s Writers Room in Subtext.

This looks nice 😃

(Got my invite for Flotato and making sure Subtext plays nice with it. So far, so good and SO MUCH faster and snappier than in-browser)

Crazy. Just used Cloudinary to crop, scale, and focus on the face for character images in Subtext–compressed what usually takes 30 minutes into 3 seconds.

I know it’s fashionable nowadays to hate on Drip and love Convertkit, but I’ve received nothing short of stellar support with the former. Hooks in great with Subtext too. I bounce back and forth between the two, but for now–Drip is winning out.

I like when giant magazines call you up for a pre-interview on tech in storytelling. 😁

Just wrote 1.1K words on writing about the conflict within relationships because EVERYONE–even professional authors and screenwriters–struggle to describe the inequity without referring to the individuals.

It’s not You. It’s not I. It’s WE.

Everyone misses this.

Just approved the first user-generated Source of Conflict for Subtext. This is going to be huge!!

Thinking of taking Subtext serverless. Mainly because of this podcast. Lots to learn this weekend.

Super excited about a new show I’m in called Writing with Subtext. A writer familiar with my work wondered what I thought about recording our coaching sessions for all to see.

I said yes!

Putting it together now and it should be out before the end of the week.

Watching Mississippi Burning for the first time for Dramatica class tomorrow night. Gene Hackman is the greatest ever.

Once a year I get up at the crack of dawn to watch a bunch of Laravel experts do their thing. Ten hours of new creative insights. It’s a break from the usual routine that inevitably inspires me to create new features for Subtext.

Reading Jobs-to-be-Done from Intercom and floored by the simplicity of this statement:

When you’re solving needs that already exist, you don’t need to convince people they need your product. It’s easier to make things people want than it is to make people want things.

Subtext is only going to get better this year. Just watch as it becomes less about the totality of Dramatica, and more about fixing your story problems.

Just finished running an online class where I was able to explain how stories operate and the Size of Mind Constant that leads to things like Acts, Sequences, and Scenes. Student participation was off-the-charts helpful. Replay available in Subtext tomorrow.

Watching Raimi’s The Gift for the Dramatica Users Group meeting tonight. Cate Blanchett, Giovani Ribisi, Keanu Reeves, JK Simmons, Greg Kinnear–and written by Billy Bob Thorton?! What is this movie and why have I never heard of it before??

Feeling really good about the next iteration of Subtext. Managed to get File Uploads out of Blade and into VueJS components. Not half as hard as I thought it would be.

Just some little things left to do in terms of accessing accounts, and it should be ready to go.

Today’s Writers Room in Subtext was crazy rewarding. Started out going over new features and ended up getting into a detailed discussion about the Justification process that fuels every narrative.

Glad I could take time away from the set.

#screenwriters #writingtips

Wanderlust was terrific. Complete storyform, naturally. I’ll be uploading to Subtext for sure. Not your usual narrative Elements at play here, which is refreshing. Complete storyform x phenomenal acting == binge-watching compulsion.

The ultimate formula for success nowadays.

As a father of five (one’s already in college), I can totally relate to this post on Learning, Coding, and Freelancing as a Dad:

That was all in about 8 months. I went from not knowing how to send an email to have hundreds of people using my app in production.

The first version of Subtext took me 3.5 months to put together. I didn’t start until I was 46.

Truthfully, there’s nothing really special about me or my brain. You can do it if you put your back into it. Sweat equity.

I always thought there was something special or different about the kind of people that built the kind of apps I admired and aspired to make on my own.

There is–they just put the time in and never quit.

To wrap up, if you want to learn to code, you should chase that dream. It can be the best thing ever. Even if it just helps you think a different way, that could pay off big time in your non-coding job.

It was the best thing ever. And continues to be a year later.

Don’t ever think you can’t do it; if you want to do it, you can–all that matters is the intention.

Subtext now makes accommodations for the Steadfast perspective in a narrative. Instead of Problem and Solution–which can be misleading–those Storypoints now say “Source of Drive” and “Demotivator” as these are more accurate terms.

#scriptchat #writingtips

Can being made conscious of something be a Source of Conflict? Sure. You had no idea there was a magical story outlining app called Subtext and now you’re conflicted about using it or not!

app.narrativefirst.com/elements/…

#scriptchat #writingtips

Just helped a screenwriter figure out every beat in Act 3 of their screenplay…in 45 minutes 😳. Subtext is bomb 💣 🔥 #scriptchat #writingtips

The new Descript 2.0 is awfully purty.

And the new tagline is awesome: “A word processor with a play button.”

It’s been three months since I last put together a podcast for Narrative First. Now that I’ve finished version 2.0 of Subtext, cleaning up and publishing the 11 podcasts I’ve already recorded for Season 3 sounds like a good idea.

And it’s even better, now that I’ve got a brand new app to play with (which is always a good thing!)

Focusing on writing documentation this week for Subtext. Going to be thinking of it as writing a story for the writer:

Your stories need to help us see what you see. As your audience, we are begging you to paint this living, vibrant thing for us, to help us see what you see so we can feel what you feel. Let us, first, experience its texture and shape and possibility.

The narrative storyform for Leave No Trace is now available in Subtext. A brilliant example of Holistic story structure, and one vastly different in feel and approach when compared to the typical Linear approach taken by most films. A phenomenal film, by the way, if you haven’t seen it yet.

Fixed the narrative storyform for the first season of True Detective in Subtext. Seems I had Rust as the Main Character, when really it was Marty. Rust was the Protagonist, not the Main Character. Makes a huge difference in the meaning of that story.

Uploaded the narrative storyform for The Endless into Subtext this morning. First one in over three months. Now that v.2 is out, I can get back to the fun part about developing a service for creating stories–making all the content for it!

Kristin Aardsma from Basecamp on customer service:

They want our expertise, our consult. When I call our customers, they aren’t asking me Yes Or No questions — they are giving me their stories, their narratives. They want me to understand their daily workflows and needs so that I can consult and problem-solve with them. I want to help our customers succeed — hell, it’s in my own best interest that our customers succeed not just at using our product but at their business so that they can continue to pay us to use our product. Part of helping them succeed is hearing their stories.

The team at Basecamp continues to inspire. As I finish up this latest iteration of Subtext, I’m already thinking towards improving support. My original intentions were to build out some of the Intercom functionality…now I’m leaning more towards hiring an expert to help answer questions.

Saw Paul Dano’s Wildlife today. Sublime storytelling with a strong narrative running underneath. Can’t wait to talk about it in the Writers Room and on the podcast.

Subtext v.2 is coming together. Such a difference having a handful of people test the app for the first time–you learn so much about people’s psychology and whether or not their expectations are being met.

Might be the funnest part of the development process so far. I didn’t do much testing the first time around. V.2 will draw a much bigger audience (not just Dramatica fans) so I have to make sure it’s right.

Made a video today showing off one of the new features for Subtext: assigning multiple players to Throughlines. I’m so pleased with how it all turned out, and just discovered this last week about how to do animated transitions in Vue–will be sprinkling in more and more of that going forward!

My dad always gets me an inspiring book for my birthday. Sometimes it focuses on business. Sometimes on writing or screenwriting. This time he managed to do both!

“Explaining the Complicated So Anyone Can Understand”–that pretty much describes my entire waking life explaining the Dramatica theory of story to writers all around the world.

Thanks, Dad!

Tonight’s Dramatica Users Group found us looking at The Conversation–Francis Ford Coppola’s thriller from 1974. I was right in seeing Cindy Williams’ character, Anne, as the emotional Influence Character to Gene Hackman’s Henry Caul. But what I didn’t fully appreciate was the nature of their relationship–this idea of the watcher and the watched.

A core concept of effective narrative is this idea of one perspective adopting the other perspective–either the Main Character or the Influence Character takes on the other character’s perspective. That’s what gives a narrative its essential meaning.

In The Conversation, Hackman quite literally Changes from the watcher to the watched; he adopts Anne’s point-of-view.

It’s a simple, but powerful, concept that strengthens any narrative.

And obviously worked out quite well for Coppola all those years ago.

Spent the morning quickly building out a new Model for the Storybeats in Subtext. Was planning on holding this off until my next pass, but it was too good to pass up.

As always, I can’t believe how much fun the Laravel/VueJS combo can be when it comes to developing.

Laravel Nova is incredible. Taylor finally released it this week, but I’ve been so busy building out the next version of Subtext and working with clients that I simply haven’t had the time.

Until then, I’ve got inspiration from Spatie and others to keep me going. Like this package installer from Marcel Pocoit.

Seeing this and others…the possibilities are endless and my head’s reeling from the boundless potential.

A watershed day for Narrative First:

• Broke through a block in developing the next version of Subtext
• Started a brand new unbelievably exciting business opportunity helping businesses tell better stories
• Hired our first story analyst!
• Assisted writers in Germany and Sweden craft meaningful stories
• Helped a documentary filmmaker discover the thematic structure of her personal story
• Made moves to improve the content across both Subtext and Narrative First
• Taught a talented and potential future analyst the difference between stories of dysfunction and stories of physicality

I had no idea when I took this business full-time two years ago that there would be days like this.

But I know now, there are even greater ones ahead.

A trio of blog posts over the weekend covering the cult of Dramatica. And my intention to make those my last words on the subject.

Installing Chatter, a forum package, into Subtext because it’s time to start surrounding myself with people who take storytelling seriously.

What a great way to end the day…if you’re more of a short story writer, and you’re wondering if a comprehensive understanding of narrative, like Dramatica, can help you out–you’ll want to read today’s article, Writing Short Stories with Dramatica.

After a couple of hours wrestling with Screenflow, I finally managed to get an excerpt of today’s Writer’s Room on Subtext. The meeting went so well today, I couldn’t decide which clip to put up. This first one is all about Building an Argument for Your Story.

Recorded the most amazing Writer’s Room today in Subtext (my SaaS for Narrative First). It’s usually just for subscribers, but I’m thinking of publishing a clip so everyone can see all the great conversation going on within the Dramatica/narrative community.

Watching Taylor Otwell’s Keynote for #Laracon 2018. Soooo many ideas for improving the Subtext experience. Next version will likely be SPA with a heavier dose of VueJS (already using Tailwind). Most of Subtext is already Vue components. Thinking I should go all in now.

Found a great resource for live-blogging #Laracon 2018 this year. Always get inspired by these things to add new features to Subtext. Really wanted to go this year, but couldn’t get it together in time.

Looking forward to hearing about Nova this afternoon!

The Dramatica theory of story is really not that complicated.

Last night at the Dramatica Users Group Meeting we analyzed the Firefly episode “Out of Gas”. Interesting how a great Author can construct a complete and meaningful story in under an hour. Follow the link for an in-depth analysis of what we found.

Great review of Subtext, our SaaS for writers from a novelist who learned more than simply how to structure his story–he learned why he was driven to write certain stories. #writingtips

Just a reminder–the Narrative First Writer’s Room opens this Tuesday @ 1pm PDT. Stop by to chat with community members & ask any questions about Dramatica, our Subtext app, or storytelling in general. Exclusive to subscribers. Register here. #writingtips #screenwriting

The weekly community meetings for Subtext are a hit. Subs up today 😁 Love it when I hit on something writers want.

The unique narrative structure of The Death of Stalin–an insanely great political satire–is now up in Subtext. Find out why this “comedy of terrors” is so brilliant. #screenwriting #writingtips

The storyform for Pretty Woman is now in Subtext, based on our Users Group analysis. Come witness a time when Jason Alexander was more of a creep than when he was George. Which is saying a lot about his role in PW! #screenwriting #writingtips

Beyond excited for this one—Subtext now exports your story structure directly into Fountain!! Grab your favorite editor and start writing with confidence from the airtight structure template created in Subtext. No more cutting and pasting!! #screenwriting #writingtips

Part 3 of our videocast series, “An Introduction to Subtext” is now live. Watch as I build an entire–meaningful–Act in less than 20 minutes. #screenwriting #writingtips

The storyform for one of the stories in The Accountant is now in Subtext. There’s a lot of story in this one–which isn’t necessarily a good thing. #screenwriting #writingtips

Analyzing Jaws with super genius Chris Huntley-½ of the duo that invented the Dramatica theory of story. 22 years of these classes. Looking forward to 22 more! #screenwriting #writingtips

Here’s that article on Deduction and Induction and the problem with taking a “general” approach to story structure like Hero’s Journey or Save the Cat. Dramatica: A Specific Approach to Understanding Narrative Structure #screenwriting #writingtips

Subtext weekly update. Over 100 registered users, working on 190 stories with 267 narrative structures, and a grand total of 5,580 individual Storybeats. That’s a lot of story. 😃 #screenwriting #writingtips #storytelling

Yesterday, I hosted my first demo of Subtext-my SaaS for rapidly developing complete stories. The feedback has been great, and I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to check it out. You can watch the demo here. #screenwriting #writingtips #storytelling

Subtext, our story development service, right where it belongs.

With the latest version of Subtext firmly in place and running smoothly, I can now revert my attention to a ten-week backlog of Narrative First Podcasts! Thank you, Descript, for making the transcribing effortless and fun.

Uploaded the story structure for my favorite Black Mirror episode “Nosedive” to Subtext. See how acting wildly inappropriate can bring you great personal relief!

The 400th storyform added to Subtext, my SaaS for writers: Han’s substory from the original Star Wars! Just in time too, before his own movie explains his justifications for opposing everything in the first!

Early start to the day. I have seven weeks of podcasts to edit, a big-budget screenplay to load up into Subtext for a client, and Treatment Views to make pretty.

Thinking too of clarifying the process with Subtext: 1. Build 2. Write 3. Read. Make it clear on the front page.

In celebration of the Season Two premiere of Westworld this weekend, we present the narrative structure of Season One! Load up Subtext and find out what drove conflict the first time around.

Pretty excited about this week’s podcast and how it all came together. It covers something I discovered working with writers these past couple of years–something I don’t think is covered well enough with current versions of Dramatica.

Uploaded the storyform for Three Billboards. First one with hand-off Influence Characters. In Dramatica, characters are perspectives, not people. Shared POVs make it possible to “hand-off” that role from one player to the next while keeping the meaning of the narrative intact.

Three Billboards was great–and it had to be written with Dramatica! That’s the first time I could predict what was coming next based on the Act sequences. Unbelievable!

Particularly proud of this analysis of Lady Bird. The integration with the Narrative First app is almost perfection. Just need to make the Storypoints page more friendly for those new to the service, or new to Dramatica, and I think we’ll be set.

First article of 2018: Dramatica: A Journey Towards a Better Understanding of Story. There really is no better way. An accomplished veteran of 20+ yrs. who just started learning about the theory wished he had started two decades ago. #storytelling #writingtips #screenwriting

A Dramatica analysis of Dr. Strangelove from last night’s class. Satire without a story. #writingtips #storytelling

Apparently I didn’t start going to Dramatica classes until 1998, not 96 like I used to think. Which means this marks two decades of learning the most comprehensive understanding of #storytelling known to mankind. It also means there are 2 years of storyforms missing…

Next week, I get to visit the Dramatica archives. Which is just like visiting the DisneyARL, only 5000x better because Story.

Dramatica Story theory is all about helping you effectively communicate that message your heart wants to tell in a single story. There isn’t “one” story. The current version of Dramatica identifies over 32,000 unique story structures.

Analyzing La La Land with Dramatica co-creator Chris Huntley and a handful of Dramatica Story Experts. Second Tuesday of every month for 22 years now 😇

And with that, we’re done! 360 storyforms complete with Thematic Arguments reducing Dramatica’s complicated 75 story points into a single sentence. Available now on the Narrative First Atomizer #storytelling #writingtips #screenwriting

Pretty amazed at how off many of the encodings are for the Dramatica Comprehensive Analyses in DSE. Haven’t looked at them in years. This needs to be addressed. After 20+ years, it’s time to revisit initial interpretations.