Hadn’t thought about a sub-story. You might have a point there. I don’t remember enough about it to add anything more, though.
I struggled to decide between Psychology and Activity – also because of the townfolk – but the sheer amount of physical comedy coming from within the castle and the musical numbers, etc. (and consequences of Becoming – which feel perfect to me) made me think it was an Activity story. What makes you think it’s a Psychology story?
It seemed like the root of the problem was more to do with manners of thinking, rather than physical activities. It wasn’t an external process like a war that needed to be stopped. Even the Enchantress’s curse wasn’t the root of the problem – it was in response to the way they treated her, which is similar to how everyone treats the Beast, or treats Belle for being different.
If you took away the “bad activities” like storming the castle and the wolves, these internal problems would still remain.
(That said, a lot of what I describe above sounds like Fixed Attitude, and maybe some of it’s in the sub-story? This is where I start to get confused…)
That does make sense. I’m not sure.
I guess we’d have to define what falls under the substory, because that does sound like it’s right on the borderline between Psychology and Fixed Attitude.
Mike, I wondered if there was a second story as well, but decided not to pursue that line of thinking, although I felt like the townspeople really needed to be in an internal quad of their own somehow as well.
Regarding the falling petals, I can see that it’s meant to be an option lock. Still feels to me like the witch coming in to save everyone after the last one has fallen is cheating.
Oddly enough, it doesn’t necessarily feel to me like Joy was cheating when she uses the trampoline after the last Island of Personality has fallen. Perhaps this is because the rose was specifically named as the limit to solve the curse while the Islands were not said to be the only way back to HQ, but the fastest?
Maybe what’s really going on is a bit of misalignment, rather than a sub-story.
So, maybe this is why the film has 70-odd percent on Rotten Tomatoes rather than 90+%? That said, I saw it more than a week after it opened and everyone in the theater applauded at the end – so there was still a good story in there!
Hey everyone,
Sorry to bump this up again, but I just went to an (extremely impressive) high school production of this and couldn’t stop thinking about the storyform and was surprised to see it hadn’t been done already. Did anyone come up with anything more on it?
On my own (before reading this thread) I came up with:
Steadfast/Start
OS: Psychology/Becoming
MC: Mind/Subconscious
IC: Universe/Future
RS: Physics/Obtaining
Working on some other choices now.
Its also an optionlock.
I wouldn’t mind going through it again. I’d most likely come up with something very different, and much better, than what I would have said last year. How similar was the version you saw to either Disney version? Because those are the only ones I’m familiar with.
Also, what are the problems for each throughline as you have them listed?
“OS: Psychology/Becoming
MC: Mind/Subconscious
IC: Universe/Future
RS: Physics/Obtaining”
I agree. And what about OS Problem as Temptation?
(Examples: " The woman asks for shelter from the cold, and in return, offers the young prince a rose. Repulsed by her appearance, the prince turns her away. The beggar warns him not to judge by appearances, but the Prince ignores her and shuts the door on her.", “(Belle) is the object of unwanted attention from the local hunter, Gaston”,"The Beast, however, is enraged when he discovers Maurice and is about to throw him out, not caring that the wolves would eat him, when Maurice says he needs a place to stay. ", “After dinner, Belle asks the servants for a tour of the castle. Lumiere and Cogsworth happily oblige, but Belle manages to sneak away from them and penetrate into the forbidden West Wing…” etc. (synopsis: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101414/plotsummary#synopsis))
It seems to me that there is a decision driver, and MC’s Unique Ability is Hope (she is the only hope for the Beast).
It was pretty much straight from the Disney version(s?) – though I can’t remember if there are significant differences between the two movies.
As I was watching, I started thinking about the story Goal. Was it about the everyone Obtaining freedom from his curse? Having a Future? No, the only thing that made sense was Becoming/Changing One’s Nature — everyone is affected by the Beast’s Changed Nature, and his “Becoming” a prince again. So that of course puts the OS in Psychology.
Other examples of Psychology:
The prince is dismissive the old woman/sorceress because he is repulsed by her appearance. This could be a Mind issue, but the point as presented is less about not being prejudiced against ugly people as it about not being an odious jerk and not being fooled by appearances — which sounds like Psychology to me. (Synopsis in Shmoop: “Turns out, he was rude to the wrong lady.”) She also puts a spell on the town, causing them to forget about the castle (Manipulation).
The only way to get out of the curse to convince someone else to fall in love with you (Psychology/Manipulation). (That’s a cynical way of putting it, sorry).
In the village, Gaston is the ultimate low-life manipulator, the kind of guy who surrounds himself with sycophants and tries to gaslight Belle into believing that she’s always been in love with him and pressure her to marry him (by staging a wedding in front of her house with the whole town watching! Spoiler: it doesn’t work).
In the castle, the servants are always trying to manipulate things so that Belle and the Beast fall in love.
Gaston gets a brilliant idea: if he can just convince the magistrate/authority guy to commit Belle’s father to the asylum, he’ll have leverage he can use on Belle!
When Belle shows the town that the Beast actually is real, Gaston manages to turn that around too and get the village to riot against the Beast!
Etc.
OS Concern of Becoming:
Like I said, I think the whole story is about the Beast Becoming a prince again. This impacts everyone — Belle, the servants, the village etc.
MC: Mind/Subconscious
If you think about it, the provincialism of the village isn’t really a problem for the villagers — it’s a problem for Belle, because she can’t stand living in a place like this (Mind). She has bigger dreams (Subconscious/Innermost Desires). The movement and shifting of these Desires (e.g. falling in love with the Beast) is her personal problem.
I think it’s pretty clear she’s Steadfast. She certainly grows, but doesn’t fundamentally change her worldview.
IC: Universe/Situation | Future
The Beast (and he fellow IC’s the servants) are pretty clearly stick in a bad Situation.
As for Future, I’m a little less certain on this, but the choice is implied by other choices so far. I guess it makes sense: if the Beast can’t figure this out before a certain point in the near future, he’ll be stuck in this state forever.
RS: Physics/Obtaining
As always, this is the hardest for me, but Obtaining true love as the goal of relationship seems to work. Also the quads underneath — they have to learn things about each other, they have understandings and misunderstandings, things they do together — I think we could come up with examples that support all of these things either threatening the relationship or causing it to grow.
Oh, also I think it’s a clear Success/Good story.
I was entertaining this idea last night. I’m not sure about all of your examples though. I can see it with wanting to go into the forbidden West Wing, but I feel like being repulsed is more like Preconception, and Gaston would be a problem less of Temptation than Pursuit or something. What do others think?
I was going to suggest an OS Issue of Obligation – in return for releasing her father, Belle is Obliged to stay with the Beast – and then an OS Problem/Solution (don’t laugh @Gregolas ) I was going to suggest Hinder/Help. Examples: The Beast Hinders Maurice by preventing him from going home. He then prevents Belle from leaving as well. The story doesn’t start to get resolved until the Beast releases Belle and then Helps her by saving her life from the wolves. She then returns to Help him. I would need to think of some more examples.
With that OS choice, you have an MC Problem/Solution of Uncontrolled/Controlled. Because she’s Steadfast, her solution doesn’t come into play, and we see Uncontrolled (Free) as her central drive, which fits in so many ways. Her Crucial Element as a Steadfast/Stop character becomes Feeling – she falls in love with the Beast, which allows the OS solution to come into play. BTW, this puts Beast’s Symptom/Response as Uncontrolled/Control – e.g. he throws a fit when people are wandering around loose in his castle and tries to control them in one way or another.
I pulled up my storyform attempt from when I saw the 2017 film. I had the same Domains/Concerns and agree on Steadfast MC etc.
I actually have the OS Issue as Responsibility, but honestly I can’t remember very well why I put that. I might have just been trying things … I’d have to see if I made some notes. Obligation sounds pretty good too.
Also, I’d hesitate to assume that the cartoon and the 2017 film have the exact same storyform. They’d probably be close, but I think for storyforming we should be careful to analyse only one version.
Hmm… OS Issue as Responsibility + implied choices looks pretty good too.
Regarding which version – should we say the 2017 version? (I think I watched it last year but I’m not sure if I could remember all the differences).
I’m thinking of the animated version, which I’ve seen way more. Might have to give the live action version another watch if we start getting deep into this.
I don’t have a storyform in mind so I’m not arguing that Belle isn’t in Mind, but I want to ask the question 
Wouldn’t living in a provincial village be an external problem? And how does not liking the village cause problems for her?
It’s a problem because she perceives it to be a problem. She feels like a weirdo, but there are plenty of weirdos in the world who just are and don’t worry about fitting in. It’s not like she’s in prison, or is forbidden from reading books.
On the other hand, if she had a different mindset, couldn’t she just marry Gaston and be happy? Of course stubbornly refusing to marry Gaston leads to all kinds of conflict, including, eventually, the almost-commitment of her father and the attack on the Beast.
She perceives her own mindset of not liking the village to be a problem?
First: blah, blah, blah disclaimer I don’t know what I’m talking about. But here goes:
She perceives living in the village to be a problem, but this is more a matter of her own internal state than something objectively external that’s holding her back (i.e. the problem is in her internal perception). Of course we don’t see her actually trying to leave, so we don’t know just how tied down she is externally.
Now if she were a Universe character, we might see her trying to figure out how to get out of the village, but being trapped because she doesn’t have enough money to leave, or being conflicted about leaving her elderly father alone. Maybe she would be putting a lot of effort into changing the village itself – starting book clubs and promoting literacy to make it a more tolerable place to live. Instead we see her going about her day, picking up books and reacting negatively to her life, Gaston’s advances, etc.
The trouble I’m having is that this seems to suggest that Belle just isn’t provincial enough. If only she’d be more provincial, she wouldn’t have a problem. But I don’t feel like that’s what the movie is saying. Instead, the movie seems to say everyone else needs to stop being so provincial…or that if everyone else wasn’t so provincial, Belle wouldn’t have a problem.
Hmmm … I’m not sure that the story is actually saying that, but it’s difficult because we’re talking about the MC throughline rather than the whole story. Maybe I’m encoding it inartfully. So allow me to express it differently and maybe contradict myself 
According to Dramatica, if Belle is a Be-er, she can’t be in Universe. I don’t see anything that suggests she’s a Do-er rather than a Be-er. She complains, but takes no action to change her environment or escape it. She escapes internally into books and imagination.
By contrast, the Beast seems to be entirely focused on his external situation, and controlling the environment (keeping people out, threatening people, imprisoning people, etc.). When she reads to the Beast it’s actually moment of bonding for them – and is a step toward him taking on more of her Be-er approach (looking inward) and changing.
So from a storyform perspective, I think that it’s arguing that as a Be-er, if you hold out against the controlling and/or provincial Do-ers in your world who are trying to change/control you, you’ll have success and maybe even turn your Beast into a prince. Or to put it another way, don’t be swayed from who you are (Fixed Attitude).