Hey, all. I'm busy cranking out dialogue trees and journal entries for my playWRITE project. Since my last blog, my mentor and I have green lit a concept I'm calling "I Survived an Alien Game Show." It's a short sci-fi adventure in which the player struggles to find a teleporter on a starship that's set to self-destruct. I'll post details on the plot and characters later this week.

What I want to share today is my approach to the story. During the playWRITE boot camp, we learned how to use the Hero's Journey model to tell a video game narrative. Essentially, you fill out the steps and then design some flexibility on when players experience beats. This gives a video game a non-linear feel. For example, a player may meet the mentor character at the beginning of the story, near the middle or perhaps not at all.

I think that's a great model. But since my story is short, I needed something more stripped down. Enter "Nika's structural beams." This is a model I picked up from Nika Rylski, an awesome screenwriting teacher in Toronto. Here's the jist of it:

Point of attack: sets up the problem for the protagonist

Rising complication #1: makes the problem more difficult for the hero

Rising complication #2: same as RC#1 but makes the problem even more difficult

Rising complication #3: same as RC#2 but makes things even harder

Turning point #1: twists the story in a different direction (by typically giving the hero a different goal to solve the problem)

Aha moment: hero tastes some success in their quest to fix the problem

Mid point: acts like a turning point

Uh oh moment: event that makes hero (and audience) doubt the problem can be solved

Crisis: major drawback for the hero in the quest to solve the problem

Turning point #2: same as turning point #1 but can also get the hero out of the crisis moment

Crisis: another crisis beat, but this is the worst thing that can happen to the hero. The hero loses it all moment.

Lifeline: something that gets the hero out of the crisis

Climax: hero faces the final struggle to solve their problem. (If you can, the hero should have to make a tough choice and in choosing the right one, grows as a person while solving the problem. Think of Luke Skywalker relying on the Force to destroy the Death Star rather than his computer.)

Conclusion: scene showing the hero changed for the better

As always, feel free to comment or flame away.

Cal Tech