Another thought on the RS

theory
#61

Building off @Lakis, trying to see distinct stories in the throughlines:

Put the RS in Physics (Murder), and the OS in Psych.
The OS becomes about “How do we think about the world now that our understanding has been shattered by this black obelisk?” New religions pop up to explain it, new politicians show up to explain how the world should now run, people try to ignore it since it’s not doing anything so what has really changed?

The RS begins with a Misunderstanding when Martha recalls seeing John yelling at his TV remote (a long black object) and shoving it angrily into a glob immediately before the object appears in the sky. She thinks he is somehow behind it. When she starts paying attention to him, he gets his own misunderstanding that she is interested in him and is taking this weird time to act out on her feelings. Now or never, right?

She takes advantage of this, and on an intimate date, they play the “37 questions to make you fall in love game” which she sees as a way of uncovering his plan. This is an awkward phase of Learning for both of them as they expose their vulnerabilities. None of which explains the obelisk.

Embarrassed now by what they’ve shared, they avoid each other and return to their old lives. Some solid Doing happens. (Meanwhile in the OS, these activities are now out of sync with the new religions and politics.) Marsha spies on John, hoping he will tip his hand as to his connection to the obelisk. He doesn’t, but she sees that he has a diary.

Marsha breaks into John’s house to Obtain the diary. She gets her hands on it, and reads everything. It is clear that he has nothing to do with the Obelisk, and that he is heartbroken that Marsha has distanced herself from him. She returns the diary to its place, and runs to Best Buy where she gets John a new remote and then goes back to his house ready to admit that she has been lost without him.

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#62

Incidentally, there are only 4 possible storyforms with that RS Signpost order.

#63

Okay this is now a really interesting thought experiment which suggests the potential benefits of focusing on the RS first–maybe with at least a vague idea of the OS but doing the MC and IC later.

Not sure if it was intentional on your part @MWollaeger but I can see a whole story falling in place now from your example.

For example:

Put Martha as the MC and have her be a member of one of those new religions (Mind). John’s TV remote problem which is a misunderstanding from the perspective of the RS, is actually wrong-place-wrong-time Situation from the IC perspective–one that challenges everything Martha has been taught about the new religion. Actually, since that happens at the beginning of the story, maybe it’s not something she remembers right away, but is reminded of later. She tries to put the memory out of her mind, but it keeps coming back (Memory).

Right and so if you put that order into Dramatica, it tells you that the same signpost in the OS is Being, which fits perfectly – from the OS perspective, she is now pretending to be in love with him to figure out his plan.

It’s really interesting – I would not have thought to develop a story in this order.

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#64

The OS and RS are both about relationships. In my mind, I guess where the OS is about…mmm, not sure this is the best way to say it…is about how conflict separates mental processes, the RS is more about how mental processes move things around. So where the OS is a view of how Pursuit and Avoidance create dissonance between them, the RS is a view of how the presence of Pursuit creates dissonance that brings things together or pushes them apart, makes them weaker or stronger, etc. Beyond that, it’s an outside view vs an inside view. So if we say the presence of an Obelisk causes John and Marsha to fall in love, we can take an inside look at what it means if we fall in love and that creates the basis for an RS. Or we could take an outside look at what it means for John and Marsha to fall in love and that’s just the dissonance in the OS that’s created by the presence of an obelisk. Looking at “falling in love” without the context of that internal view, then—as is often how it is done since it seems extravagant to post entire sections of story to give full context—probably does tend to allow us to take the view of it that makes it feel more like OS.

If Beast were in physical control of the relationship, he’d just make Belle love him, but he can’t do that. Beast is in physical control of first Maurice and then Belle and it’s that physical control of another around which the relationship forms. Without that control over Maurice, Belle has no reason to offer to stay in the castle. Without that control over Belle, she has no reason to do any of the rest of it. And now consider what was discussed in the previous paragraph. If we were writing the story of BATB, without context it would be super easy to view Belle being Obtained as Belle Becoming a prisoner and, as such, as her part in the OS. But if we instead look at the relationship’s efforts to Obtain love as what brings Beast and Belle from strangers to lovers by way of imprisonment, then I think it’s suddenly much harder to argue that this could possibly look like OS. …Although even here I’m probably falling victim to my own point, which is that it’s hard to convey the emotion of the RS by speaking logically about it, as we are. If we can say that logically speaking the RS is just the movement within the relationship or whatever, then while technically accurate the purely logical discussion will always seem deficient because of the lack of emotional discussion regarding the RS.

This is 100% what Dramatica is about. But personal preference for “tightly woven storytelling” aside, maybe the perspectives just are so different that the storytelling no longer looks the same. Maybe “obtaining minerals from Mars” from one perspective really does look like “becoming Earths mightiest hero” from another perspective not because the storytelling is so different, but because the perspectives are.

So my follow up question is would it have felt more like an RS if I had just said that an obelisk appears and causes John and Marsha to fall in love?

#65

Okay, fine, but…

Not necessarily (but I am clarifying my thinking on this as I write). I think the only thing that helps me is to have the OS in mind, at least a little bit. That’s actually what helped me with Mike’s example. So if you’re saying the obelisk causes Marsha to want to kill John, then tell me what it’s impact/role is on the OS? Maybe for me it’s less about thinking of the RS as a character that wants things (which still seems weird to me) and instead about comparing the two perspectives.

So in the show Good Girls, it’s very clear to me that the relationship between the three women is all about doing crimes together. As plot points these are things like robbing a grocery store, smuggling counterfeit money from Canada, etc. These Activities are what bind them together and create tensions between them. However, those same crimes from the perspective of the OS are rooted in Psychology (not 100% sure, but most likely a Concern of Being). It’s easy to figure this out, because everyone is constantly lying and manipulating each other. So it’s the old litmus test–what is everyone concerned about?

If I were writing this though, I’m not sure I would get to the RS by asking “what does the relationship between the women want”. I might get there if I started with an idea of three women who get drawn into a life of crime together and imagining that relationship as driven by Physics.

Another example is the new HBO show Run. Only two episodes in, but it’s pretty clear that there’s similar setup. The relationship is two people who knew each other in college and decide to run away together on a train. So far, not much about the OS has been revealed – they don’t show us the characters’ prior lives. But we do see each of them on the phone lying to people from their former lives. So manipulation concerning/affecting everyone and “running” as the driver of the RS. I would guess the Concerns are upper left.

Again, I’m not sure I would get there by asking what the relationship wants. I might get there by starting with an RS in which a couple runs away together – maybe even plotting out the RS – and then figuring out how the objective characters fit in.

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#66

This is me with every post! :smile:

Since I don’t have an OS in mind at this point, all I’d be able to offer would be standard theory answers. It balances out the OS throughline, and such.

But if we were actually writing this thing, I suppose I’d want to address the appearance of an obelisk between neighbors as a Universe problem. So it would need to balance out (or be balanced by) an OS of MIND. The sudden appearance of the FEAR OF SOMETHING.

Okay, now we have the appearance of an obelisk in the neighborhood coinciding with the appearance of fear—like an ominous, black obelisk of the mind—appearing in the neighborhood. And while we see that the fear of something is driving everyone to panic in the OS, we can see that when FEAR is seen as a feature of the universe from a perspective of relationships (meaning an obelisk that causes attempted murder between neighbors) we can actually come together in love.

#67

I also don’t find that asking what the relationship wants is very helpful, at least not at the higher levels. (This may be where the “relationship as character” advice falls short.) I definitely don’t think the answer to that has much to do with Domain, and while it might be related to Concern, it could be misleading.

“What the relationship wants that is problematic for or challenging to the relationship” does connect pretty closely to the RS Problem, I think.

RS Domain thoughts
I think the best way to think of RS Domain is, they relate to each other through (Domain). These relations affect the relationship meaningfully by bringing them closer together or farther apart. I think it’s inaccurate, or at least confusing, to consider the Domain as always problematic. In a relationship, “source of conflict” can mean “source of challenge” or “source of change”.

So for an RS in Psychology, for example, manipulating each other might push them farther apart. But manipulation might also draw them closer together, say as one tries to convince the other to strive for something, or to help.

RS Concern
I feel like a good way to look at the RS Concern is, it’s the the thing that really challenges and tempers the relationship. It’s the fire they have to walk through. It might burn them. But if they make it through to the other side together, the relationship will be all the stronger.

So the “fire” in an Obtaining relationship is the getting together, the losing each other, the asserting control.
The “fire” in a Becoming relationship is what they are becoming, what they might turn into.
In a Learning relationship it’s the process of learning why they can’t be together, or why they can; learning how much they hate or love each other; teaching each other.

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#68

This is great, but it also gets to my point as to why I have trouble seeing the throughlines separately without reference to each other. The fear of the obelisk causing everyone to freak out totally makes sense, but if part of this freakout is causing people to kill one another, it seems like Marsha killing John would be an expression of that e.g. part of the OS.

I’m having trouble seeing this as an RS Universe problem, at least the way you’ve expressed it. If the RS is going to be someone trying to kill someone else, it would make more sense to me to have the obelisk arrival be an imbalance-in-the-Universe problem and the RS conflict be centered in the fear and freaking out.

But I’m also not that familiar with stories that have that arrangement (there aren’t that many analyzed).

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#69

I’m enjoying how our two examples are the mundane (couple needs to fix a bathroom) and the bizarre (strange obelisk leads to murderous thoughts).

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#70

This is more aligned with how I tend to understand the RS (so thanks–bookmarked for the terminology).

It occurred to me that another way to look at it might be to ask “What makes this relationship special? What makes it different from what everyone else is experiencing in this story?” (Especially for the Domain and Concern).

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#71

So to take off on what @mlucas said, @Greg I can see how Nick and Gatsby relate to each other based on their shared situation – aren’t they both “outsiders” to New York in different ways? And isn’t this “outsider” status something they share in contrast with the other characters of the novel (disclaimer – it’s been a long time since I read it).

So for our example, I think we would need to describe how John and Marsha relate to each other through their Situation – something not shared by the other characters.

EDIT – regarding the physical proximity of Gatsby and Nick, I found this in Spark Notes:

The difference between East Egg and West Egg is that East Egg is largely populated by those from “old money,” while West Egg is populated by those with “new money.”

So that’s how “being neighbors” unites them as opposed to the other characters.

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#73

I deleted my previous comment because I think it’s getting carried away with how or whether the appearance of an obelisk is an RS problem. Particularly since that was a randomly chosen illustration with no thought behind it anyway. What I mean to focus on in this thread is how to use the RS. Rather than look at whether the appearance of an obelisk works as an RS illustration (it could be better), I’m more interested in knowing what the RS needs besides source of conflict (or challenge, or change, etc) and movement or growth.

You make a good point, Lakis, that the RS can be described in terms of it’s impact on the OS, or vice versa. And I think that, speaking in general, besides the dynamically opposing perspectives the impact is also that we see that this conflict will generate that growth or this growth will come from that conflict, or whatever. Objectively everyone panics, but subjectively we fall in love. Objectively people are forming gangs and turning to vigilante-ism to deal with the threat, but subjectively we are shutting ourselves off from one another and ending relationships. That sort of thing.

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#74

Let me ask this way instead.
Where do you feel like we might look in order to find more mastery of the OS? We have a view both of and from a place dynamically opposed to that of the OS. If the Os gives us source of conflict and structure of relationships, then the RS gives us source of conflict and the process of relationships, or growth within the relationship.

Again, that sounds “cold” without the emotional feeling of what it’s like to grow in the relationship, but assuming the story offers that feeling, what feels like it’s missing in this description of RS?

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#75

I’m not sure in terms of the description.

But for the purpose of writing, thinking back over this thread, I am going to keep two possible exercises in mind:

  1. Encode/illustrate the RS first, without reference to the other throughlines, especially the MC/IC throughlines. My hypothesis is that it will be easier to figure out what happens with John and Marsha’s relationship–and maybe even to get in their heads to write–if I haven’t decided who is the MC.

  2. Instead of illustrating the throughlines completely separately, or weaving them together one beat after another, I propose illustrating the OS completely, and then looking at every story point and asking “how does RS Signpost of X relate to OS Signpost of Y”? This might work better with the static story points, I’m not sure.

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#76

Some writers visualize the ending they want, then use that, making ‘everything’ fit to accomplish it. I imagine ‘everything’ is the other three throughlines. Making the OS the main structure, the skeleton, at the beginning of the first draft could help with mastery. It sounds like the software program is helping people to do it, in spite of themselves … haha,

I had a lot of fun when I first started using Dramatica to just concentrate on filling out all the blanks of one throughline, to get a feel for what that throughline was all about. It helped tons in my gaining confidence. I’m no ‘expert’ but I sure am a confident end user. Confident that I have a feel for each throughline. To me, each throughline is a delightful separate solar system in a galaxy I’m creating. I get how some can describe a throughline as a living presence, unto its own. Writers do seem to meet parts of themselves while writing a story, don’t they?

#77

Maybe, it is a newborn whose lifetime is over when the story ends, like The New Year’s cartoon image going from a baby to Father Time holding a scythe and hourglass? Interesting … "caught up in Desire" gave me memory flashes of my baby brother years ago. Isn’t it [RS] struggling to pursue something better, innately, like learning to walk then run?

#78

This sounds like a fantastic way to go about it, especially if by “OS Signpost of Y” you actually mean, “what is happening in the overall story at that point”. Like, I don’t think it’s particularly helpful to try and figure out your RS SIgnpost 4 of Doing based on OS Signpost 4 being some gist of Conceiving. But if you had taken that Conceiving, and developed it into:

  • OS SP 4: the characters are on the run and working to get others to conceive that something terrible is going on

Now suddenly the RS Signpost of Doing presents all sorts of cool possibilities related to being on the run, making contact with associates, living in close quarters while in hiding, etc.!

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#79

Yes, exactly this! In fact, this is something that seems to come up naturally for me, even down to the PSR level.

That’s a beautiful description @Prish!

#80

The immediate answers that popped to mind were:
• Storytelling
• Make better choices with appreciations, have better gists

That’s interesting.

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#81

Yes, this is huge. Applying gists specifically to relationships. I know @jhull has said for example that Obtaining as an RS Concern often has to do with controlling the relationship, which isn’t obvious at first glance.

The other day I was thinking that an RS Problem (or Solution / Symptom / Response) of Proaction might have to do with “putting the relationship first”.

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