More on Creating Scenes

There is no single "right" way to build scenes. The Dramatica theory book and Armando's book, Dramatica for Screenwriters, as well as the structure templates shipped with Dramatica, each give you different approaches to accomplish the same task, namely storyweaving your encoded story points into a finished work.
There are MANY ways to approach this process. What you include and how you organize your scenes depends on your personal taste and the constraints of the form of writing you are doing (e.g. screenplay, novel, stage play, etc.). Screenplays have limited space to cover a lot of material, whereas novels have relatively more space to explore the storyform at leisure. If you are an organic writer, then write and rework it after the fact. If you are a structural writer, then I suggest you lay out your story in plot order FIRST, then figure out how you want to rearrange things through storyweaving for the finished work (e.g. reveal early plot points at the end of the work such as "Whodunit?"). In any case, here are a few tips:
  • There are four acts. Make sure all static story points (e.g. Story Goal, MC Problem, OS Issue, etc.) appear at least ONCE in each act.
  • Make sure each throughline appears at LEAST once per act.
  • Make sure each character appears at least once per act.
  • Make sure there are elements of Character, Plot, Theme, and Genre at least once per act (it's hard NOT to do this but it bears mentioning).
  • Whenever possible, combine story points and throughlines into the same scenes. This weaves your story tighter and makes it appear more cohesive and organic to the audience.
Everything else is personal preference--YOUR personal preference. I have found that Armando's New Instant Dramatica is a good start for putting together your plot, but that's all it is--a good start. Whatever methodology you use you will customize it to fit each story differently.

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