At Life the Universe and Everything symposium, there was a panel on the story cone. Any inaccuracies or confusion, it is the fault of the note taker.

• The information in this panel comes from Prof. of Utah Valley State college. she did decades of research on what makes successful books, plays, movies.
• There are seven key elements to making a successful story. I’ll present the key elements and populate them from the movie store wars
• Primary actor: usually the person where the story revolves around. (Luke Skywalker was prefacing
• Central viewpoint character: often the primary actor but is the person from whose viewpoint we see the story. (C-3 PO – Luke Skywalker)
• Primary norm breaker: is the character that breaks the rules. (Luke Skywalker)
• Norm breaker chaos creator: usually the person – event that contends against the primary norm breaker. (Luke Skywalker)
• The hero – antihero etc. is usually the person who saves the day it in the story. (Luke Skywalker)
• The system. Usually the culture – individual – event that the primary norm breaker contends against (the Empire)
• Inciting incident: Is usually the moment in the story that causes the story. (Princess Leia giving R2-D2 the plans of the death star)
• You use the overall story to make a determination of which character serves which role. This gives you an opportunity to judge own story
• The types of stories created by the number of roles shared by an individual can help you determine if the story is a drama, tragedy, farce etc. the more roles one individual holds the stronger the potential that the story is a success.

Do you have something to add? Please do so in the comment section of this blog. If you would like to diagram a movie you like or your book with just the cone and are familiar with the process, please do so in the comment section of this blog.