The Spine

The spine is the setup or backbone of the dramatic story, and therefore the most important first step a writer must take before sitting down and typing away their first draft. Without the spine, one risks veering off track and writing themselves into a corner. The essence to successful dramatic writing is making the big structural decisions first and staying with them as you write. Don’t go off on a wild goose chase. Decide what the story is going be about and stay with that. Make the most important decisions first and the small ones later, like a pyramid going from the ground up. Without a strong solid foundation the house will fall. So start off right and avoid the sand.

 
The spine consists of the hook, hero, goal, central question, and central conflict. 

The hook is what gets your audience out of they’re couches and into bookstores and movie theaters to spend money on your product, sometimes it can be a theme or genre that interests the audience or your premise. 

The hero or protagonist is usually the main character and whom the story is centered around. There can be multiple protagonists in a book, but only one main character at any one given moment/scene in the story. (Unless there is none, like in Animal Farm, which is allegory territory) Dividing up ensemble casts and their points of view into individual chapters is a great technique to keep the focus of the story and drive dramatic tension.

The goal is what the hero must attain or overcome in order to achieve the outcome they desire or believe will make them happy. Get the girl, slay the villain, or win the big game and so on.  The hero does not have to succeed in achieving his goal.

The central question is what the audience is asking themselves while reading and ultimately what keeps them on their couches up late at night to find the answer. Will he find the cure in time? Will she defuse the bomb? Will he ever confess his feelings to her? 

The central conflict is usually between the hero and the main villain/antagonist or it can be between two lovers or friends or partners, in any case it’s the main “battle” between the hero and anyone keeping him from his goal. 

Doing a spine helps you find out what your story is about and more importantly what it's not about. Storytelling after all is just a series of decisions on what to include and what to exclude. Can you find each part of the spine in your story? 

Spine

Hook:

Hero:

Goal:

Central Question:

Central Conflict: