The 11 Story Imperatives & Log Line Mugs

Trying to be of help, here. Imagine, as you're writing, and every time you grab for your drink you're reminded of the 11 Story Imperatives or the Log Line elements that every story needs to succeed. I've culled these from my experience consulting on screenplays in Hollywood, my own writing, and research form successful and not so successful motion pictures.

They are available at The Moral Premise Story Shop at Cafe Press. Only modestly marked up.
http://www.cafepress.com/moralpremisestoryshop


Readable graphics of what's on the mugs, tumblers, glasses, etc are available at the Moral Premise Writing Aids web page.  http://www.moralpremise.com/storyaids.php

An written explanation of the Log Line mug and its graphic is HERE:

An written explanation of the Story Mug Shot mug a its graphic is HERE:

 Let me know if these help. The more you grab for that mug, the more you'll learn.

Creating Emote Pacing Charts of a Story

Alex Melii asked how the emote charts were created in an earlier post on Rollercoaster Story Pacing Charts.

I recently created a chart for a different version of the same screenplay mentioned in the above post. It's now titled PARABELLUM. It's an teen-wartime-actionier story. 

In 1943, near Berlin, a rebellious 14-year old German girl dares to battle her mother's fiancé, a blood-thirsty S.S. Colonel, to rescue her Jewish friends from the ghetto before they’re liquidated. If you wish for peace, PARABELLUM. 

That genre and log line will explain the severe up and down slopes of the chart below, and the sustained high emotion of the final scenes.

As I explained in the earlier post about charts, the first time we created this chart for the script, there was this long slow (no action) part in the middle that obviously was out of place in a wartime-actionier script. So, those scenes were brushed, which also helped to shorten the story and get it below the 120 page limit, and closer to the 110 ideal.

At this point I explained (in a previous version of this post) how I took the Scene Length and Dialogue information from a Final Draft Report, and converted into data that generated the above chart. But in trying to do it again, the instructions were just too long and confusing, so I deleted it all.

What I would do to day is discussed here: https://moralpremise.blogspot.com/2019/07/ensuring-good-roller-coaster-ride-for_3.html

The Writer's 12 Step Program

I "teach" a Story Symposium once a month for 3 hours on a Saturday afternoon. As is typical of these "teaching" experiences, the first 1/2 of the class (first semester, first year) goes swimmingly, and everyone does their homework, and comes prepared. (Well, mostly.) 

Then comes the transition (after the theory) to actually write their own stuff and prove their substance -- or to justify their reason for occupying space and depleting the Earth's resources (like food and oxygen). It happens every time to me -- students fall-off like flies deprived of sugar. We need a transformation, but it only happens if the student writer has a passion for what they're writing or their career. Like I say about a good story. You need a passionate writer and a passionate protagonist. Without both you have nothing. 

So, my Story Symposium Class is struggling with this stage. We're meeting this Saturday for our first W.A. Meeting. That's "Writers Anonymous" ... as in the 12 Steps. And here they are:

The Writer’s 12 Steps to Getting It Done

1. I admit that I am powerless to write like I should—that my creative life has become desolate and unmanageable through disuse.
2. I believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, and get my quota of words written each and every day. 
3. I have decided to turn my will and my life over to the care of God, as I understand Him.
4. I daily search my life and make a fearless moral inventory of my motivations and whatever else has prevented me from applying my butt to a chair and my fingers to the keyboard.
5. I admit to God, and to another human being the exact nature of my wrongs from the previous step.
6. I am entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character so that I will complete the story that God has set before me.
7. I humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings and expect a completed work in the not too distant future.
8. I have made a list of all persons we I have harmed by not living up to and disciplining my creative potential, and I am willing to make amends to them all.
9. I have made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. I continue to take personal inventory and when I am wrong I promptly admit it.
11. Through prayer and meditation (or medication, depends on how bad off you are) I seek to improve my conscious contact with God praying only for knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out in my creative life of writing.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, I will carry this message to other writers, and to practice these principles in all my affairs.

BTW: The 12 Steps of A.A. are sometimes used as the basic structure (or inspiration) of a story; MY NAME IS EARL is a great example.