Story Compass

Story Compass gives you a fast, structured first pass at story direction from two inputs: your logline (or story ideas) and your Genre. It does not lock your Storyform. It gives you a reliable starting hypothesis you can test and expand.

Concept

Story Compass is an early-stage Storyform discovery tool. It identifies the four Throughline Perspectives, proposes key audience dynamics, and translates your premise into a workable narrative map.

Plain-language translation: Story Compass helps you see what kind of argument your story is already trying to make before you start drafting scenes.

Why It Matters

Most story ideas feel clear in your head but fuzzy on the page. Story Compass turns that fuzzy idea into explicit structural choices so you can write with direction instead of guessing.

When the four Throughline Perspectives and core dynamics are visible, you can decide what to draft first, what to revise, and where your current premise is under-specified.

In The Platform

1. Story Compass Action: Select a Genre and enter a one- to three-sentence logline, story idea, or a few idea variants. Outcome: Story Compass generates a first structural read. Validation: You see all four Throughline Perspectives plus audience dynamics in the result panel.
2. First Look Action: Read the Throughline summaries first, then read Character Evolution and Story Ending. Outcome: You understand what conflict each Perspective carries and what emotional resolution the audience is being guided toward. Validation: You can explain each Throughline in one sentence without re-reading your input.
3. Open in Subtxt Action: Choose Open in Subtxt, Open in Narrova, or Open in Storyform Builder. Outcome: You choose the right next workspace for your process: Subtxt to get right to Storyform development, Narrova to explore the story further, or Storyform Builder if you are fluent in Dramatica theory and want to inspect thematic structure immediately. Validation: The selected workspace opens with the same structural baseline from Story Compass so you can continue without re-entering setup.

TIP

If the result feels close but not right, revise only the sentence (or idea note) that states the central conflict and run Story Compass again. Small wording changes often reveal a cleaner Throughline split.

IMPORTANT

Story Compass is a discovery layer, not final proof. Treat results as a strong first model, then validate in full Storyform development before committing to major draft decisions.

The Four Throughline Perspectives

Each Throughline is a different lens on the same inequity. You need all four for a complete argument.

Objective Story Throughline

This is the they perspective: the external conflict everyone is caught inside. It defines the shared problem space, pressures, and stakes at the societal, institutional, or situational level.

Writing use: Use this Throughline to design plot pressure and group-level consequences.

Main Character Throughline

This is the I perspective: the personal, first-person experience of pressure. It tracks the Main Character's internal justification, pain, fear, and coping posture.

Writing use: Use this Throughline to shape internal struggle, decision tension, and personal vulnerability.

Influence Character Throughline

This is the you perspective: the challenger to the Main Character's current way of seeing or being. The Influence Character does not need to be a mentor; they need to pressure change.

Writing use: Use this Throughline to create scenes that force worldview friction, not just external obstacle.

Relationship Story Throughline

This is the we perspective: the conflict inside the bond between Main Character and Influence Character. It tracks trust, alignment, resentment, attraction, dependence, or rupture as a dynamic system.

Writing use: Use this Throughline to write the emotional engine of the story, independent of plot mechanics.

How Story Compass Pulls Signals From Your Input And Genre

Story Compass reads both what your premise says and how your Genre frames expectation.

• Input signals: conflict verbs, central pressure, who acts, who resists, what is at risk, and whether stress reads more internal or external.
• Genre signals: expected conflict arena, likely pressure patterns, and audience assumptions about resolution style.
• Combined inference: Story Compass maps these signals into candidate Domains and Throughline roles, then returns a coherent four-Perspective structure.

Example interpretation pattern:

• If your input emphasizes social collapse, institutions, and public stakes, Story Compass will weight an external Objective Story pressure profile.
• If your input emphasizes identity fracture, guilt, or self-justification, Story Compass will weight internal pressure signals for character-centered Throughlines.

Common mistake: treating wording polish as cosmetic. Correction: write your logline or story ideas to expose conflict mechanics, not just premise flavor. The clearer your pressure language, the cleaner the Throughline extraction.

Audience Experience Dynamics

Story Compass also surfaces two high-impact audience dynamics so you can understand the emotional contract of the story.

Character Evolution

Character Evolution indicates whether the Main Character is structurally aligned toward changing or holding. This is not a moral label. It is an audience expectation signal for how personal conflict resolves.

Writing use: Use Character Evolution to decide whether key scenes test flexibility or conviction.

Story Ending

Story Ending identifies whether the audience experience is oriented toward closure through outcome satisfaction or unresolved cost. This helps you calibrate final-act payoff, tone, and aftertaste.

Writing use: Use Story Ending to align your climax and final image with the promised emotional resolution.

Common mistake: forcing a preferred ending tone that contradicts the current dynamics. Correction: either revise the premise/Throughline pressure to justify that ending, or keep the existing dynamics and rewrite the ending for structural consistency.

What You Unlock Next In The Storyform

Story Compass is the front door. The full Storyform contains hundreds of additional Storypoints and Storybeats you can develop once you continue in Subtxt.

As you go deeper, you can refine Domain-level conflict, Signpost flow, Progressions, Variations, and scene-level Storybeats with much more precision than a first-look pass.

Writing use: Move into full Storyform development when you are ready to convert the Compass hypothesis into repeatable drafting decisions across acts and scenes.