All nodes by ontology level #
The four levels organize the story model from intent and context to concrete presentation. Each node represents a distinct story element. Use this overview to find its purpose and the chapter that explains it.
Level 0: Intent and context
- Transcendent ideal: an ultimate ideal of overcoming a human limitation, such as courage overcoming fear.
- Authorial intent: the stance and promise you want to develop for viewers.
- Audience segment: the viewers you are writing for and what they might hope to find in the movie.
- Creation context: circumstances outside the fictional world, such as the conditions of the work’s making.
Level 1: Story structure
- Seed: the document’s starting promise—genre, tone and logline, relationships and requested storyline count. Our example asks how courage can include mercy.
- Thematic arc: a question or tension developed through the story, such as whether courage can include mercy.
- Setting: the fictional world’s constraints, texture and mood.
- Storyline: an intention under pressure, with a question, objective, stakes and cost. Can Bilbo get past Gollum without killing him?
Level 2: Dramatic action
- Action frame: a small progression examined through four checkpoints: mixture, contradiction, decision and transformation.
- Actor: a participant, such as Bilbo or Gollum; participants can also be groups, places, objects or abstract forces.
- Associative state: a condition, belief, possession, relationship or capacity, such as Bilbo being invisible.
- Action phrase: an actual occurrence expressed through participants and a predicate, such as “Bilbo spares Gollum.”
- Projected outcome: a possibility, such as Bilbo being killed, rather than evidence that it happened.
Level 3: Screenplay presentation
- Production scene: a unit of screenplay presentation containing lines and optional shots, with its own order, working name and summary.
An Action frame groups a progression; action phrases and states supply its checkpoint evidence. Screenwriters can connect that evidence to the telling in a production scene.
Supporting structures and connections
Relationships within the Seed, actor facets, Action frame checkpoints, storyline stage assignments, screenplay lines and shots support these nodes; they are not additional node kinds. They describe bonds, contextual claims, evidence, membership or presentation. The sections below explain how to follow these connections without duplicating story elements.
Share an Action frame without copying it #
A storyline develops through six stages. An assignment places an existing Action frame in a stage. Another storyline can use the same Action frame; removing one assignment leaves its other uses intact.
Bilbo’s Arkenstone handover develops both a search for settlement and a test of loyalty to Thorin. Those readings refer to one handover. The example of a shared Action frame develops this after the simpler mercy example.
Relationships and actor facets #
Relationships are described within the Seed. Each pole identifies a role and the actor filling it: traveler and pursuer, for example. An expression points to a state or actual phrase revealing the bond.
A facet describes an actor in a particular context, such as Bilbo’s role in the escape storyline. Changing a role label does not create another actor. Changing trust or hostility belongs in relationship evidence, rather than a history written into the role label.
Recognize automatic connections #
A derived connection is an overview connection inferred from information you already supplied. For example, storyline participation follows explicit Action frame assignments.
An overview connection does not itself assign an Action frame or establish evidence. Inspect its underlying authored relation when changing meaning. The editing reference explains the projection rules.
Keep placement separate from meaning #
Analytical chapters organize where actors, states, projected outcomes and phrases are first analyzed. Later references reuse the existing element. Action frames belong to the document and can draw evidence from several chapters or episodes.
A state or phrase can serve several checkpoints. Reusing a phrase refers to the same event; reusing a state does not force its uses to share one time. Assignment does not automatically change semantic classification.
Where Story stages fits #
Story stages maps how Action frames connect across storylines. Learn to read one Action frame first in the dramatic-action chapter (Level 2). The interface’s Action frames collection lets you inspect or edit these nodes.