I have a cast of some few characters, and I am trying to encode my story. I hope I am using correct terminology here, that’s how new I am to Dramatica. The story is told through the POV/narration of a character, who is a ghost. I gather, he might be a Guardian (A). The MC is female (B), but the story concerns two other people (C and D). I am finding it is hard to understand who is who here. These two other characters come together, they have an affair, and there is an unfolding drama around them. There is an Antagonist (E) and some other minor characters. How do I know who is who?
Hi Jenya,
The most important thing for Dramatica is to figure out your throughlines. Figuring out archetypes could help, but may confuse you if the idea you have actually involves “complex characters” who don’t fit the standard archetypes. So, I would assign the ones you are sure about (maybe use lower-case letters, antagonist rather than Antagonist – maybe you’ll have two antagonists! that sort of thing).
I (and I’m sure others on this site) would be happy to help you identify your throughlines but first let me know if you’d like to attempt that and how much you understand about the four throughlines already.
Another thing you could try is to go to http://narrativefirst.com/ (@jhull’s site) and wait a few seconds, a little box should pop up where you can sign up for a free e-mail course to help turn your story idea into a Dramatica-inspired treatment. The emails are perfect for someone new to Dramatica. I hope you don’t mind the recommendation, I think it might be really helpful in your situation.
It will be helpful to know why you are assigning the characters. What progress are you aiming to make taking this step?
Hi Mlucas!
Thank you and I appreciate the suggestion. This discussion group is amazing. People are really helpful and supportive.
What I am trying to do is work some of my structure through Dramatica. I have about 60 pages written from different angles and ends of the story. It is not fully formed in my mind, but I am using my MFA to further my writing. English is not my first language. I have two novels in Russian and trying to transition my writing into English if not completely then for the most part. This is the first time that I am consciously plotting and outlining. Dramatica helped me in the past, even with my Russian projects, and I had high hopes, but then got stuck with semantics and details, also I am not completely comfortable with the theory. My Protagonist is a woman, who is traumatized by the death of her parents. She is having a hard time of letting go, she wants her old life back, her childhood, her parents, her safety. So she decides to “save the world.” Her father comes to her as a ghost (being Guardian as he is). He narrates the story and tries to “save” his daughter. She works with an elderly couple and tries to “save” them, preventing their separation. The unfolding love affair of the couple opens up two different worlds of cultures, countries, and societal systems. They exchange their life stories. Meanwhile the Protagonist is fighting with Antagonist to save this love.
My confusion comes from the lack of understanding how I will be positioning these throughlines, who narrates what, and who is who. I believe that my other female, an elderly musician, should be a MC and also a Reason; her lover, an elderly professor is Emotion. Professor’s son could be an interesting addition as IC who might develop a love-hate relationship with the Protagonist.
The first thing I want to point out is that understanding who is Reason and who is Emotion (and the rest of them) isn’t likely to help you understand how to position your throughlines. Those characters exist solely in the OS, so yes – sorting them out will force you to know what the OS is, but I suspect you know that anyway, or can find it more easily a different way.
My gut tells me that you are mixing up the Protagonist with the Main Character in part of your paragraph. I suspect that your Main Character is traumatized by the death of her parents, and that is the unique problem she has to work through. The Protagonist is probably fighting to prevent the couple from breaking up.
Likewise, it is difficult for me to imagine an Antagonist in this story. Is someone actually trying to make them break up? What is pushing them apart? That event might serve the purpose of the antagonist. For instance, Antagonists make people reconsider – if the woman in the relationship was feeling ready to give it another go, remembering that her husband cheated on her once would make her reconsider. That is an antagonistic force, but not necessarily an Antagonist.
But, you seem to have an antagonist in mind, so you can ignore what I’m saying.
I agree with @MWollaeger , the woman dealing with the death of her parents and being visited by her father’s ghost sounds most like the Main Character. Perhaps she also fills the Protagonist role, if she is the one working hardest to keep the couple together.
Your comment that the elderly musician “should be a MC” is a bit confusing – there is only one MC in a particular Story / storyform. (Now, if you are writing a novel it is definitely possible that you have more than one storyform in there, i.e. a sub-plot, but I would recommend to put that aside for now and just concentrate on the main storyline.)
So, who is the character in the story that the reader will identify with the most? The one whose perspective the reader will “see” the story from more than any other, whose personal baggage or issues feel the most “personal”? If you can answer those, you’ve found your Main Character.
Hi Mike & Mike (or should I call you by your forum’s names?). Thank you! I think you are right that I have my MC in Sophie (the one who is dealing with the death of her family). More likely than not, that the Antagonist is the System, red tape, considering the setting is either a nursing home or assisted living place (didn’t decide it yet). The love of two elderly characters is central to the story. That’s what is confusing to me, who are these two elders if its their story, is it just a subplot? The System is being represented by the management, maybe one or two people. The separation is a result of management’s decision to move people. At this point, I am struggling to understand if the OS throughline is activity and MC is situation. I guess, I am just so eager to use the software when I am stuck with my writing, I simply plunge ahead, but don’t understand or know enough about the theory. That’s my learning curve, but you are helping a lot. I think I understood some of my problems just by writing it down and exchanging these messages with you. Thank you!
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Hi Jenya, yes please call me Mike, I find actual names make internet communication feel more real. 
One thing to remember with Dramatica, the throughlines are not all the same “size”, and the OS throughline is often the “biggest”, so you could still have a huge amount of the story’s energy and material devoted to the elderly couple even if they are “only” OS characters. Since it sounds like the Story Goal revolves around them, that is naturally going to be true anyway.
Your idea for MC throughline being Situation sounds spot-on to me, she’s stuck “Being an Orphan” and having trouble dealing with that. And she’s a Do-er in that she tries to go “save the world” (or at least the nursing home) in order to help deal with her own issues.
The other Mike is a lot more experienced in Dramatica, so I’ll stop there and see what he has to say!
I really dislike thinking about stories in terms of subplots. To me, subplots are either:
• An exploration of a character in detail
• A journey that has to happen in order to get over some hurdle
• A separate story
You see the first (an exploration) in a movie like Dead Poet’s Society when one of the young boys goes out to a party and then drunkenly makes a move on someone’s girlfriend. I don’t think of it as a subplot because it’s an essential demonstration of going after what your heart wants, which is essentially what the movie is about. This is the OS Concern.
You see the second in… well, the only story I can think of at the moment is an obscure book, but what happens is, these adventurers need to get their hands on a magical item, and they send a small group of people to get it. Meanwhile, the major plot continues to unfold. This is a Requirement.
Finding Nemo has the story of Nemo in the tank. It gets it’s own storyform.
Anyway, your old couple could be a couple things. An exploration of the OS Concern maybe, or maybe they are the Consequence of the story – they would have to Change their nature if they end up separated. At any rate, if you don’t know where they belong, trust your storytelling gut to put them into the right place, and focus more on things like who the MC is.
If it makes you feel any better, the only way to learn the software is to plunge ahead and make mistakes. We all did it, now it’s your turn. 
PS. You can call me @mwollaeger because that will alert me to a message. Or Mike. Or всезнающий мозг if that makes you feel like you are talking to the right person. 
Mike, thank you. Still, I am not sure that SO thougline is Action. This is almost painful Is it what Dramatica does or is it writing itself? And they say people who write probably love it Checkov said that kids need to be punished so they would not become writers.
Dear @mwollaeger! Dear Всезнающий Мозг! Do you speak (write) Russian or just know how to use Google Translate?
I am using your suggestion and plunging right ahead. I think my old couple (what a good question!) is a couple of different things: an argument about religion (they are of different persuasions), history, humanity (we all get old and die, poor or rich, marginal or mainstream). They are an opportunity to talk about death and aging (how does it feel, what does it all mean, do we even understand), institutionalization for older people (for any people), society’s discomfort with death and old age, our obsession with youth (isn’t it because we work and produce when we are younger?), and much more. It helped to analyze it here.
Thank you!
Это Гугл переводчик. Я понятия не имею, о чем я говорю!
Я рад, что вы двигаетесь вперед!
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Hi Jenya, picking the MC Throughline to be Situation only sets the IC Throughline as Fixed Attitude. OS Throughline could still be Manipulation/Psychology (unless you have decided your Main Character’s Growth is Stop, but that is a really tricky story point to figure out so I would ignore that one unless you’re sure about it).
If “the System” antagonist is trying to manipulate people through red tape, I could certainly see your overall story as falling in Manipulation/Psychology. The best thing to think about is if you removed the manipulation, would the overall story’s problems go away? If so, it’s a good sign that’s your OS domain because of the conflict it’s generating.
If you’re still not sure, one thing you could try is to summarize your overall story in a few sentences, trying to get to the essence of it, and leaving out the MC’s truly personal issues. Try not to think about Dramatica when you’re doing that. Then post it and we can try to help!
P.S. I don’t speak Russian but I’m impressed the forum supports Cyrillic characters!
Thank you for your help, mlucas. I am about to post another question, as I am confused by my haphazard way of writing. 