Baseline

Let's start writing.

The story opens with the baseline version of the world.

High level, this snippet just introduces a series facts.

But if we break it down in more detail, we can see a pattern that sets up the conflict to come between Jade Dragon and her children:

Once when there were no rivers on the earth, the Jade Dragon was in charge of clouds. She decided when and where the clouds would rain upon the land and when they would stop. She was very proud of her power and of the reverence the people of earth paid her. Jade Dragon had four dragon children: Pearl, Yellow, Long, and Black. They were large and strong and good and kind. They helped Jade Dragon with her work and whenever they flew in the sky she was overwhelmed with love and pride.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

This is the beginning of the story, and it needs to introduce the key parties—Jade Dragon and her children—as well as set the preconditions for their conflict.

To do that it uses a couple of special mini-loops

For each party the snippet:

Introduces them with a statement of fact.
Describes their baseline behaviour (deciding when the rains come vs helping mother with her work).
Describes their baseline emotional state (proud vs good and kind).

At the very end a relationship is created between the two parties, because the behaviour of the children is a trigger for the mother (they fly and she feels proud).

Here's an example of a rewrite using the same elements:

Once at Park High there was a senior caretaker called Mr O'Malley. He was in charge of keeping the facilities clean and tidy and running smoothly. He was immensely proud of his work and drew great satisfaction from the sparkling floors and fresh-flowing water fountains. Mr O'Malley didn't work alone; he had a team of four junior caretakers: Jules, Jenny, Shawna, and Pat. They were easy-going but diligent about their work. They were devoted to Mr O'Malley and he was grateful for their support in his quest to make Park High the cleanest, nicest, smoothest-running school in the state.

When we tell a story, we don't always describe every step in an emotion-behaviour loop.
Sometimes we tell the steps in a different order.
And sometimes the steps overlap so much that it is hard to decide how to highlight them.

We will give you all the highlighters to remind you what elements are available.

But when you start writing, don't think you have to use every step or highlighter.

And don't think you have to always use them in strict order.

(If you compare the snippet to the worked example each time, you'll see variations between them.)

You'll need your main character and their role in serving the community.
You'll need the allies.
Introduce each with statements of fact, and describe a little about their baseline behaviour and emotions.
Connect them with a trigger and emotion at the end.

Set up a baseline for your story world and key characters, including baseline behaviours and emotions.

Emotion 1: Emotional cause and effect