Btw, Thanks for sharing this - i went down this rabbit hole.
So insight: Polti's insight isnt really useful as a story structure. However it does label all the possible dramatic moments. So it doesnt care much for introducing the characters or how their life is resolved, but talks how about transition in the middle happens - so how act 2, act 3 play out.
I took all the 36 situations and mapped it. It predominantly maps to 4 beats. Which isnt surprising because it is the middle drama.
This is quite useful for writers to analyse - especially if they have a "your act 2 is sagging" note and need to look at how to fix it. Definitely useful as a prescription layer. Thanks for helping me discover that.
The feedback that I got from a lot of you was, what about all the existing story frameworks that are out there - be it Aristotle's Poetics, The heroes Journey, Dan Harmon's Story Circle - and there are 23 of them.
So I took each of them, mapped their beats to this notation to see what that looks like. So now we can do a comparative of those beats in the notation that we developed.
it is interesting that these 23 frameworks, pretty much map to 10 of the archetypes that we spotted in successful films, which means there are atleast 8 more (we spotted a total of 18 so far) that are working archetypes, that just haven't been formalized yet with a framework
At the least, this becomes a good repository for folks to reference the various story frameworks that exist.
Thanks everyone for your inputs. It was greatly helpful in shaping this.
I've been thinking about this for a few years now (used to host a filmmakers club in my office and listen to them talk about storytelling and the challenges) and have been working on this for more than 2 years now. There is a lot of work that has gone into this.
Aristotle's Poetics was / is one of the oldest story structures. It doesnt get used as much anymore though. It was also quite simple right? I remember there being two variants - one was quite simply - Beginning, Middle and the end. And the other was a two part storytelling structure of Complication and Denouement. Most film stories are 5 act structures these days - audiences expect a lot more sophistication, with atleast a 2 arc entanglement.
A lot of hollywood's story telling circles around two predominant structures - the hero and saving the cat (or damsel). As of late, that trope isnt quite working as much. A majority of the films that are made are of the genre drama, not action/adventure the two structures struggle.
I have a copy of John's book and have read it. Been down this rabbit hole for a few years now :) Thanks for sharing though. appreciate it.
Weiland is of the mode that how a character changes over a story is the plot.
She generally separates out the internal state of the protagonist from their external state.
She has 3 arc types: positive, flat, and negative.
Positive arcs are the typical Hero's journey (along with the other 5 archetypes of the title). The protagonist comes back changed in a good way and the story world is better in gestalt. Her concepts of the Truth, the Lie, the Ghost, the Need, and the Want are all intertwined here and are developed in other books and on her website. Positive change arc are 'comedies' in the classical Greek sense.
Flat arcs have the protagonist already in possession of the Truth and mostly have them affecting the story world with that Truth. Sounds boring, but they tend to be the most memorable characters for audiences.
Negative arcs come in 3 varieties that I won't bore you with. Generally, the protagonist rejects the Truth and embraces the Lie. These are 'tragedies' in the classical Greek sense.
Her overall structure is on a 11 beat framework that fits nicely with 3, 4, or 5 act structure (she has a lot to say about that).
I would highly recommend her work for deep dives into narrative and story structure.
I never read poetics, but merely heard Aaron Sorkin explain it in his master class. But he was big on it, and explained it was "objective + obstacle = conflict."
Sorkin said he loves court rooms for the reason that the aristotelian(sp?) story structure is so legible. Sports movies I guess would also fit into that.
I'm sure its too simple for your goals, but for a lay person understanding of why a story works: "Someone wants something, pursues it and then meets resistance." is a great summary. Much more general than the hero's journey.
Usually when you are defining the character arcs, you'd set the goals, drive motivation for each of them. At the end of the story is about the characters. We have something called Character Presence, that does that breakdown, to ensure that's solid. The story is the wrapper around that, setting momentum and pace.
If you aren't a filmmaker that can be tough. Filmmakers think in beats - for everyone else it is like looking at the skeleton and trying to guess the shape of the animal.
The system does identify story threads (http://arc.quanten.co/showcase/series) - for eg, if you scroll down, you'll realize that there are two story arcs in that episode and that is typical for tv shows, there is a running theme, and then the arc for the season or episode.
The system identifies it, we havent started naming it yet, though we can at some point. I need to work with more showrunners to understand their thinking and process on it. Know anyone?
The Campbell Structure and the Save the cat structure are the most used structures in hollywood. Audiences are also bored as heck :)
The Campbell structure is the Sa-dominant and is the linear ascent.
You shouldnt seperate a story from a structure at all. You should find the right bones for the story. Not suggesting otherwise in anyway.
PS: if by any chance, you come across the script for that film, do share. Would love to see what it says. Im curious myself now. If i had to guess, reading the synopsis of the film, i'd say : https://arc.quanten.co/archetype/anishchit
Most scripts go through a process called "Development" where they are written, and rewritten so many times.
You'll be surprised to know that the first version of Iron man, starring Robert Downing Jr started with the comment from Stan lee as "I don't care for the script" and had to be completely rewritten. So doing 4-5 rewrites is quite normal.
The benefit with a system like this is, you can decide which archetype best tells your story, and also you can benchmark versions of the story to see how close / further away you are as you do your rewrites.
Film executives work with something called comps, what they believe are their comparables - in terms of similar stories and similar structures. The structure of your comp could give you some hints of where you might want to lean towards - or you can go the opposite direction too.
As someone who is building a tool, we take a conscious decision to be at best descriptive + suggestive, but never prescriptive. present the data, let the creators decide how they want to take it forward. I believe that is where originality will thrive.
I have friends who are filmmakers and they'd write me off if i had any other thoughts :)
The primary audience for these are producers and development executives on the studio side, and independent filmmakers if they want a tool to evaluate and give them insights to build on it.
This is called the clock template and helps writers to think about timing - where the midpoint falls, and what has to come before, after etc. Doesn't help much with the overall story structure and beats though.
I remember reading that a while back. Thank you for sharing that again.
While there are six general shapes, I've noticed that there are nuances to it. Also the medium significantly changes the form. Just as youtubers creating content follow a different format, compared to tiktokers - even within produced content, I have noticed that Film, Franchise Films, Prestige Drama, Network TV, Mini Series, Shorts etc have nuances.
So insight: Polti's insight isnt really useful as a story structure. However it does label all the possible dramatic moments. So it doesnt care much for introducing the characters or how their life is resolved, but talks how about transition in the middle happens - so how act 2, act 3 play out.
I took all the 36 situations and mapped it. It predominantly maps to 4 beats. Which isnt surprising because it is the middle drama.
This is quite useful for writers to analyse - especially if they have a "your act 2 is sagging" note and need to look at how to fix it. Definitely useful as a prescription layer. Thanks for helping me discover that.