Ligature Beats

I've had this idea for literal decades, and with the help of some AI agents I finally made it a reality.

The most interesting part of any story, to me, is the relationships between the characters. I'll go watch one of those movies that's two people talking in a room for two hours, if the dialogue is compelling. I want to know who they are to each other, and how it changes, and why.

I imagined a tool for diagramming those relationships. We define a set of relationship axes - let's use trust, power, and affection for our example. Then we look at all the different character pairs and ask, Is there a relationship between these characters at the start of the story? Is it the same at the end?

And that's where the heart of the story lies - how do we get there. At the start of my story, Victor trusts Calvin, because Victor's got power over Calvin. As the story shift, Calvin gains power but loses Victor's trust. In the end, the trust is gone, and so is any power Calvin may have had.

Hannah and Jake's affection for each other starts high at the beginning of the story and peaks when Jake asks for Hannah's hand. Then the unthinkable happens, affection crumbles, trust is destroyed. Will they manage to rebuild either?

That's what Ligature Beats does. It's not where you write the story, but it is where you brainstorm out these ideas. Tell it your characters and it helps tug at these threads, giving you something to think about. Maybe there's no relationship between two characters. Fine, but at least you stopped to ask the question. Focus on fleshing out the ones you know you want, or use to discover new ones you hadn't considered.