What other ways are there to graph story? Like a graph of story development rather than pic related?
What tools do you use when writing, /lit/?
I'd suggest learning the five act structure and learning more about the components from the Collected Shakespeare.
I don't tend to trust people who talk about drama in three acts, maybe because it has a tendency to place lulls throughout the script, whereas in a five act play, you have a fourth act which is basically intended to be written as a sort of lull.
Here's how the Shakes organises Antony & Cleopatra!
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/antony-and-cleopatra/play-summary
I try to force myself to find the rhythm in a certain chronology of plays, then invent my own five act summary which fits with the work of established authors.
Here I've added a play in red, 'Ptolemy & Cleopatra', it doesn't exist, but I think it should!
>>7452417
The five act structure is good for analysis, less so for construction besides basic consideration of fluency and rhythm. There are diagrams that plot out how to make settings and characters, but I haven't seen much in the way of abstract formulation.
>>7452442
These are beautiful notes, do you smaller sheets just for the proportions?
>>7452591
Not for the proportions necessarily, but for the opportunity to balance a great deal of information, and to make broad comparisons.
Generally, I prefer using whole sheets of paper, but the Post-It Notes are great for sticking in a binder or a reference book.
>>7452591
Well you can break down elements of a story and list them in priority if that helps you.
If you want to prioritize a set number of themes you've already come up with you may fall short on planning out how you present them, so think of a story like this:
>the telling of information, with some constancy, in relation to the components of a story and their drives
You can make a table out of this with an axis of development types and an axis of story components to give you the drives. Information introduction is a bit too complex to put along a single axis and you would prioritize parts of an axis individually rather than what makes them up.
A story can be separated into the physical, nonphysical and perceptual.
Physical deals with character, symbolic items, setting and pretty much anything tangible within the piece.
Nonphysical deals with the plot, how space is considered to function, setting characteristics and pretty much anything intangible.
Perceptual deals with how the reader perceives your information. While they directly the physical and nonphysical components, readers do not consider how writing is meant to bend their perception on the piece.
Lets call these: Device, Plot, Association
The way the author writes changes the ability of the reader to accept or understand the piece, thus writing styles can be considered initiative in allowing new content, restrictive in how content is presented, and manipulative for the in-between.
What drives a component are their initiative development types and we will create the other two drives from finding what drives two of the components in a similar fashion.
Plot:Spatial Interactions::Devices:Communications::Associations:Attribution, why I ran with idea to help me writing I did notice that physical action inspires change in the nonphysical just as nonphysical action inspires physical change. I just based it on the idea that the fact that a city is destroyed is a status that the reader is meant to believe, the status being nonphysical that then goes on to change the physical, and that character development happens through communication, communication being the exchange of ideas that directly alter what the reader believes about them.
The rest I will just show in the graph, expectations being the the association the reader has to the plot and where it will go, attachments being the association the reader has to the devices and where they will go, and connections being the tie between devices through nonphysical understandings.
Prioritizing your drives can help you plan out how you want to write.
This is just a tool I've used there is no absolute in it, though feel free to criticize its ambiguity or ineffectiveness.
Look up Joseph Campbell and 'Hero with a Thousand Faces'-the definitive structure for character development at least.
just graph it based on plot threads
each chronological, their intersections
different shapes to different threads, spine might be shaped like a five-act or three-act or whatever, but others will peak early and only be touched later, some will end entirely early on, others will start halfway in or even very late
>>7452326
This is actually a pretty poor idea of how to write a story, especially for short stories I think.
I mean really, this graph is titled as a "story arc" but I can't think of many short stories that actually have "growing obstacles" rather than simply an idea or emotion they want to evoke.
If you want a good arc, then read a lot and take notes on how you think it'll happen.
>>7453577
I used to have a whole notebook of these kind of graphs that dont look like pieced together dogshit! I dont have a scanner but I love making these things, is this what you are talking about?
There are so many models for story progression that we categorize so generally, I'd like to make a thread just about this
>>7453608
Its about the first thing you learn about literature in elementary, I dont think its made for in depth understanding rather than fixing some basic understanding.
>>7452442
THEN WRITE IT, YOU FUCK!
