Building a story with Purpose (and Methodology etc)

workshop
#21

The last thing to say about direction in regards to Methodology is how giving the Methodology to the pirates or the villagers affects meaning in that it changes how the story tries to achieve the Purpose. What I mean is if the Pirates are the protagonists, then the story is trying to achieve getting the pirates to find the treasure by pursuing putting the cabin boy into the pirates possession. But if the villagers are the protagonists, then the story is trying to achieve getting the pirates to find the treasure by pursuing putting the cabin boy in the villagers possession.

Either story can play out in a myriad of ways. But off the top of my head it seems the easiest way to write the former scenario is to tell a story about pirates trying to take the cabin boy from the villagers in order to get information from him. But in the second scenario, maybe the villagers attempts at obtaining the cabin boy will somehow draw the pirates closer to the treasure. Maybe instead of the pirates finding the treasure, the villagers, in an effort to keep the boy, pay a large ransom of treasure to the pirates.

And that’s part of what I mean when I say the direction of the Purpose is carried down into the Methodology. Either way “Obtaining” is the element implemented to achieve a Purpose, and yet deciding where the Protagonist comes from is like a fork in the road that turns the story to the left or the right.

Just because it seems easier I’ll use the first scenario. The protagonists, in general, are the pirates. The villagers, in general, are antagonists. We can pick a specific protag and antag later.

So if Purpose gives the story a direction to move in via an intended result, and Methodology sets a path via elements implemented in achieving a purpose, the Evaluations provide judgments that guide the story’s decision making along the path via an appraisal of situation or circumstance. Evaluations determine how the story progresses along the path. Will the story travel by wild abandon, or will it explore more methodically? Or will it be a high value on a willing attitude that guides the story along the path? Maybe a belief that self interest is too distracting that guides the story down the path of Methodology.

I’ll go ahead and list out the possibilities for Evaluation/Issue/Theme.

Approach-being cutthroat
Attitude-having an unfavorable attitude
Self-Interest-being greedy or selfish
Morality-being immoral (lack of morality)

Ill come back later to select one of these for my Evaluation/Issue and describe how an OS Evalution might look different from an MC Evaluation, or IC, or RS.

#22

So this is a bit of a side note to the conversation, but I was thinking about the idea that two opposing perspectives can be true, but that we can only accept one at a time. And while one appears true, the other will appear false, whichever side you are currently taking. If you’re not familiar with the idea, here’s an illustration. You can assume the existence of the universe, in which case the mind will look like an emergent property of the actions of particles, or you can assume the existence of the mind in which case the universe emerges as a projection of processes within the mind. Both are true, and yet you can’t take both perspectives at the same time. A second illustration is that you can measure light as a particle, or a wave, but can’t traditionally measure both at the same time (I vaguely recall seeing an article once where scientists claim to have taken a picture of light acting as both particle and wave, but never mind that for now).

The reason I bring this up at all is merely to suggest that when building a story, perhaps it’s a good idea to focus on one throughline to exclusion of all others. After all, if you can’t hold in your mind at one time that both universe and mind are fundamental, then you probably can’t also hold that you’re stuck in a corrupt prison while also holding that you have to get busy living or get busy dying (Shawshank Redemption OS and RS), or that one can see and talk to ghosts when one doesn’t want to see that one is a ghost (Sixth Sense IC and MC). Trying to work through both at the same time would be to try to hold two opposing positions that can’t exist at the same time, to hold that the mind emerges from the universe while the universe emerges from the mind.

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#23

Sorry, @Greg, a busy stretch there, couldn’t keep up with your posts. I think I’m now either closer to following your thinking or you’ve lost me completely. See if the following makes sense.

Okay, whereas earlier in this thread I’d convinced myself that you were talking of Purposes from the point of view of the OS characters, I can only think from the above quote that you mean Purpose from the point of view of the Storymind itself, that is, the Author’s Intention (conscious or unconscious).

So if the “Purpose” as you’re using it is the Purpose of the storymind, or “the story” as you’re saying here, then okay, now I finally get how the Purpose is really in no way the Story Goal. As the Protagonist by definition is the one pursuing the Story Goal, then if the Villagers are the Protagonists in this situation, then they are not at all in pursuit of the Purpose (“getting the pirates to find the treasure”), rather they are in Pursuit of Obtaining (or keeping) the Cabin Boy. The pirates as the antagonists in that alignment of the story are trying to prevent the villagers from having the Cabin Boy.

So if I’m getting you so far, then while what the Story wants is to end this story with the Pirates in possession of the treasure, the Archetypal and Non-Archetypal Characters orchestrated in Dramatica by their Motivations towards or away from the Story Goal/Success or Failure axis is a sort of mini-story within that larger story of the Pirates and the Treasure.

So that… the Story Goal may succeed or fail, the Purpose may independent of the Story Goal succeed or fail, and the MC (and others) may feel Good or Bad about all that.

And if in all of THAT I’m following you correctly so far, then I can also see why this may make more sense to a Holistic mind, which according to Jim Hull doesn’t concern itself much with the story goal or success or failure, but sees more in terms of relationships and the OS Issue.

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#24

I usually feel like I’m losing myself, haha. But I definitely think you’ve got it.

This exactly!

In fact, you shouldn’t ever storyform from the perspective of the characters, only the Storymind. Because from the perspective of the Storymind, the characters aren’t even people. They’re just individual aspects of a larger mind. It’s not the characters providing the message, after all. The Storymind, through characters and events, is providing the message.

There’ll be time to climb into your characters heads when you write the actual story.

Perfect! And as you’ve already pointed out, it’s not the pirates’ purpose to find treasure. They just want to get the cabin boy back. It’s the story’s purpose, by means of putting the cabin boy into the hands of the villagers, to have the pirates end up finding the treasure.

Even though it’s the same processes whether the protagonists are your pirates or villagers, the dynamics within the story change depending on which character gets it. A story that says “obtain and you can get the treasure” is different from one that says “obtain and someone will take your treasure”. That difference illustrates the importance of the direction im speaking about.

I’m not sure I understand this part. If your next paragraph where you say [quote=“Flight, post:23, topic:2774”]
So that… the Story Goal may succeed or fail, the Purpose may independent of the Story Goal succeed or fail, and the MC (and others) may feel Good or Bad about all that.
[/quote]

is elaborating this point, then yes, I think you can treat each level independently such that a Purpose can be achieved regardless of whether a Goal was accomplished.

I believe that you are

I lean about as linear as they come. It has been a long hard road to train myself to be more holistic and I don’t think it will ever come naturally. But now you mention it, yes, I think I’m looking at the storyform more in terms of balance and relationship when I speak of directions and how giving the goal to one group or another has an affect on the meaning of the message.

All that said, the more I get into it, the more I’m starting to think that Purpose, Methodology, etc are as important as source of conflict. And it may make sense to address these areas prior to addressing source of conflict.

#25

Okay, that’s all sounding good! I’m good with moving to Evaluations whenever you’re ready. While you’re doing that, this looks really intriguing - could you unpack it a bit please? It looks like you’re talking about using the Issues Quad as the Storymind’s Evaluation process for what it wants to do in response to the story events? (which sounds like a really cool way to think of using theme, though I don’t get quite how you’re thinking about doing that yet)

And this one as well:

More on that too please!

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#26

I’ve been working through purpose for a while and feel pretty good about it. For Methodology and below I’m pretty much unpacking/figuring it out as I type.

In that everything should be seen in terms of the Storymind, i think this has to be correct. I think typically we see characters espousing the story’s evaluations (such as when Scrooge refuses to give and suggests that Cratchit is picking his pocket by taking time off on Christmas, or when Scrooge’s nephew invites him to dinner) and we assign those evaluations to the characters themselves.

But look at-and apologies if you haven’t seen it-Saving Mr Banks. In that story you see Pamela setting up Preconditions (no animation, don’t use the color red, always say Mary Poppins and not just Mary). In that sense, she, like Scrooge, seems to be espousing the story’s evaluations. But if we think of evaluations not just as “how Preconditions create conflict” but as the stories appraisal, or judgment, of Preconditions, then I think we can see that Preconditions isn’t actually illustrated by Pamela setting Preconditions. Instead, it’s illustrated when the characters around Pamela set a high value, or importance, on meeting these Preconditions. Because the story values Preconditions, the characters in the story will strive to meet them. If the story did not value Preconditions, the characters would surely work to subvert or escape them.

I’m not sure how familiar you are with this site or the reason I started digging into this. But essentially, Dramatica appreciations were mostly looked at, as far as I could tell, as a source of conflict. I had sort of looked at how Purpose et al could be used here and there, but never got too deep into it. Then Jim went on a bit of a “genre” kick and how an appreciation could be seen as more than just a source of conflict. That spurred me to start digging into Purpose again and see how it might help add to the practical side of the theory. I assume what we’ve been discussing has all been thoroughly explored by Melanie and Chris and Jim, but it’s all new to me and so I assume it’s probably new to others as well.

I think that the focus on source of conflict was probably necessary for most because that helps newcomers figure out how to properly illustrate an appreciation with conflict. Because of how important conflict is, I started this journey assuming that Purpose might end up being a way to double check your source of conflict. That is, after determining that the pirates experience conflict from physically engaging in piracy, you could support that by showing that the story’s Purpose was to have the pirates find the treasure by engaging in piracy.

But look at how many times on this board it’s been said that you cant determine the source of conflict for just one throughline because just one throughline can look like anything. For instance, our OS could be about pirates fighting, or the nature of being pirates, or how pirates are cut throats, or how pirates believe in the code. Until you lock down the other throughlines, this throughline could go anywhere. But if you look at Purpose prior to looking at source of conflict, I think it becomes easier to lock down a single throughline. “Finding”, in an external sense, would be hard pressed to fit anywhere other than Physics.

That’s not to say that any “ing” word that you can put in a Purpose tells you what the Purpose is. For instance, if ones Purpose is “surviving the curse”, then the Universal problem of being cursed might have the emphasis rather than the surviving. But if you can determine the purpose to be to survive the curse, you probable already know that being cursed is a Universe problem and not Physics. And if there’s confusion, then looking at source of conflict is how you can check your work. Does the act of surviving create conflict? No? Does being stuck with a curse create conflict? Yes? Then the purpose of surviving the curse is a Universe problem.

But that’s just when analyzing. Now look at using Purpose prior to “SOC”’when building a story. How does determining that engaging in piracy creates conflict push the story’s message? If you start with that, then the story doesn’t even have a message yet. But if we know first that the story intends to show us the pirates finding the treasure and then use that to see that physically engaging in piracy creates conflict, then we have a little bit of the story’s message already. “Though engaging in piracy will bring conflict, it is also how the treasure will be found”.

And I started this story without a message, but if I had known before starting that the villagers and not the pirates would be the focus of this story, then we would know that “when others engage in piracy, we will lose our treasure”. So far those are statements and not arguments. But they’re still a lot more to go on than “engaging in piracy causes conflict”.

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#27

Quick note:please forgive the lack of proofreading. I generally make a small effort, but don’t have a chance at the moment.

I’m mostly basing the following off of the differences in how the descriptions for Issue in the Dramatica software (Windows version) differs for each throughline, though I do not have those descriptions in front of me as I type, but it’s pretty simple.

The OS is the “they” or “it” perspective. An objective, disconnected, outside view. The Dramatica software describes the OS issue as something like “dealing with the nature of (Issue)”. I could be taking things too literal here, but my interpretation is that the OS looks at whatever the Issue is (for instance Precondition of Self-Interest) as existing objectively within the world of the story and places some value or judgment on that process. Typically, we see the story’s value judgment through the characters in the story.

In the Saving Mr Banks example I gave earlier (there’s not an official storyform for it, I am using the one I have come up with for it), for instance, Pamela setting Preconditions would be seen as an objective thing, an absolute. We see the story’s values mostly expressed through the characters that struggle to play by her rules in order to get the rights to the character and make the movie. But at one point, the character with the limp doesn’t play along. He does not share the story’s value on Preconditions. The others try to get him to play along, but when Pamela demands he leave the room, they do not interfere. I’d argue that this is the story’s way of showing us its values on Preconditions. When Preconditions are challenged, whatever makes the challenge gets removed. So it’s not just the characters doing what the characters would do, but also the story itself taking action…or forcing actions on the story, I suppose…because of its values.

I might go more into how I think the above can be used in a story and allow you to play around with things in a bit, but for now I’ll move on to the MC Issue. If the OS looks at the Issue from a disconnected point of view, then the MC would look at what it’s personally like to hold this value. So from this perspective the Issue is no longer an absolute in the story to be dealt with. It’s now a value unique to the one perspective that, rather than coming from one place or another, can be aimed at one place or another within the story. All I mean here is that where an OS Issue might come from Pamela setting Precondtitions or from somewhere else, an MC Issue would look at Pamela and ask “what Preconditions need to bet met?” and then would look somewhere else and ask the same thing. And while an OS value would seem to just be what it is, I imagine that a more personal view of an Issue could be observed growing or changing as the story goes.

Rather than droning on in similar manner, I’ll just say (in what is definitely not an attempt to avoid discussing them directly because they’re much harder😄) that the IC and RS Issues would also change according to the function of the perspective. And while I’ve only discussed the way Issue works in different throughlines, I think it’s safe to say this works at all levels. So an OS Purpose would be an objective, disconnected Purpose while an MC Purpose should appear more personal-and yet it should still be the story’s MC Purpose and not the Purpose of the MC player specifically, if that makes sense.

Back to the pirate story, under normal circumstances I think I would end up choosing an Issue of Self Interest and a Problem of Pursuit or Avoid, but that seems a bit overused and for the purposes of this thread I’d like to avoid them. So instead I thing I want to go with an Issue of Morality. But rather than a gist of “being immoral”, i want this to be about the cabin boy, I think. Maybe there’s a family in the village that takes the cabin boy in after he washes up on shore.

If we go with that, then we’ll have a story about a coastal village that finds a boy swept up on the beach one day. A family takes the boy in and shortly after a pirate ship shows up and starts attacking.

I don’t have any preferences about how the story values Morality. @flight, what do you think? Is Morality in this situation good? Bad? Important? A hindrance? Something else entirely?

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#28

This is kind of the on-going curse within the blessing of Dramatica, I think. That by making all these choices conscious, I always find myself second-guessing the other options. “Yes, this is definitely a Universe story. Except… maybe Physics is really a better way to explore it after all… or is it?” I’m not sure that assigning the “lock down” moment to the Purpose achieves the solution to that curse of choice and second-guessing. I know I could easily find myself declaring the Purpose of my story to be one thing that defines it as a Physics story, and next day restate it as a Purpose to do a fixed state of thing.

That said, I think your idea of “checking your work” stands. That having the Purpose written down early creates a sort of Pre-Premise to keep looking back at, seeing if you’re still in line with it as the storyform develops, and keep adding to it as you’re showing throughout this thread. Such as:

#29

I like thinking of the story as demonstrating its own values on the OS Issue:

But there’s also the whole function of the relative advantage of the Issue weighed against the Counter-Issue, which is kind of clunkily advocated in the Query System as a slider scale. Melanie describes, probably in a bunch of places, I think I first saw it in one of her video classes, how she likes to show the Issue as having a positive value in some scenes, a less positive or even negative value in other scenes, and stack that up overall with the positive or negative value of demonstrated by the counter-issue over the course of the whole story. So that whether Pamela lays down Prerequisites, the limping man objects to them, and others don’t come to his side - is that really what shows what the storyform is arguing? Or do we need to see the results: can’t remember the scene but for example… protesting Pamela’s Prerequisites gets a writer fired in one scene, Pamela later has to swallow her pride when another writer defies the same Prerequisites and clearly improves upon the book. (maybe if there’s no judgement scenes that demonstrate the relative value of Prerequisites, then you’re right that the storymind is implicitly approving of Prerequisites by not challenging them?)

So as the storymind’s values direct the story, would you keep Melanie’s comparison method or just let the Issue (with or without comparisons to the Counter-Issue) assert its own supremacy?

What if the Cabin Boy thinks that the Pirates are horrible people that share none of the values of the family or country he came from, but after spending time with the villagers he realizes that compared to them, the values he’s grown up with are much closer to those of the pirates? So a gist of something like “looking out for a particular group” or to make one up, would something like “living by the law of Karma” work for Morality?

#30

Hmm. Maybe I haven’t actually answered your question or been true to what I just advocated about Melanie’s technique.

Suppose Morality is good - advantageous - in regards to Keeping the Cabin Boy. The villagers take in and protect the Cabin Boy for no advantage to themselves. Maybe that’s not even kindness or caring, it’s simply impersonal, part of the villagers way of doing things. Each time the Cabin Boy behaves by his own code of what he thinks of as morality, it offends his hosts’ way of doing things, maybe to the point that they have to decide whether to stop granting him haven. Does the code of doing right by others extend to the Villagers’ treatment of the Pirates? Does protecting the Cabin Boy cost the village the treasure? Or I think you said it’s the Cabin Boy who knows where the treasure is - does he ultimately choose to give up the treasure to save the village? Or give the villagers’ treasure to the pirates in exchange for passage home? And if the storymind values Morality, what punishment will the Cabin Boy then receive? He gets thrown to the sharks? On the way back home the pirate ship is sunk by the royal navy?

Is this in keeping with Issue as Evaluation, or am I missing the idea?

#31

I get it and have been there. What’s probably happening is that we know what we want to talk about-as in subject matter-but not what we want to say about it. If you want to talk about “writing”, there are 340 elements we can use to talk about that. But if we want to tell someone they can come up with the next great American (or wherever) novel when they start being less tolerant, there is only one way to say that.

The Storymind is providing both Issue and counter argument in the same manner. Where one scene will show that, even though it will have everyone fighting and struggling to come up with something new, it’s important to play by the rules to keep Pamela’s interest in making the deal. And sometimes playing by the rules is incredibly frustrating-like when you end up agreeing to make a movie without the color red-and sometimes it’s extremely satisfying-like when you get Pamela to tap her toes and even dance. And then other scenes, in the same manner, would show…whatever prerequisites would show-is have to watch the movie again for examples.

I’ll be back to reply to this a bit later.

#32

I think it largely is. And you’ve set up this Morality vs Self Interest conflict where, regardless of whether it’s caring and kindness or not, the story is showing us Morality when they take in the boy and then question whether they should continue. So there’s an act of Morality that exists in the story-the villagers take the kid in-and then we presumably see the villagers argue over whether they should continue to do what’s best for this kid or not.

But here’s the thing. The villagers arguments aren’t necessarily giving us the thematic argument of M vs SI. They could just be arguing over an abundance of Morality or a lack of Morality. Depending on the focus of the story, everyone arguing could be the story’s way of showing that Morality creates conflict of turmoil in the village, or it could be the story’s way of showing a low value on Morality. But if the story values Morality as being advantageous, then maybe the family who took the boy in, by arguing that they should continue providing him quarter, are showing a high value on Morality as they face off against the village. And if the story sees Morality as advantageous, then maybe we see a seen where helping the cabin boy has somehow given the family an advantage. Maybe because they helped the cabin boy, they now know that the better fishing spot is just beyond the reef instead of just before. I don’t know. But as a counter, we see that the pirates aren’t really interested in hurting the villagers that are willing to give the boy up.

And then I really like this part:

He does what’s best for the village (even if they don’t like it) at the cost of the treasure. If this works out for them, it would take a lot of SI on the other side of the scale to balance it out.

#33

This is great. All the ideas you’re spelling out in the “here’s the thing” paragraph all add up for me, and it feels like a ton of material could grow out of the ideas we’re already generating for Morality vs SI in the OS.

So how would you say our process for exploring or choosing the Issue is different - or maybe enhanced - by thinking of the Issue as the Storymind’s Evaluation rather than just using the Issue as usually discussed here - something like “what problems/conflicts are created by Morality as an inequity?”

#34

Edit:I see we cross posted. This isn’t a reply to your previous response. I’ll come back to that.

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. I’ve decided that, for me personally at least, part of what makes it so hard to stick to one perspective is that even when I think I know what I want to say, I’m mostly thinking of it in terms of what’s happening within the story. But Dramatica’s primary function is to structure an argument in order to present an already completed argument to the audience. The storytelling is just an analogy for that argument. So when we say things like “obtain (the cabin boy) and someone will take your treasure”, we’re not really arguing to the audience that adopting an escaped cabin boy will lead to pirates finding their gold and jewels. What we’re actually arguing is something like “when you are hoping to find something by holding onto something and value doing what’s best for others…”. So rather than focusing on what we want the story to be as an analogy for that, we could focus on what it is we are actually trying to tell the audience. Now, I realize that what that leads to is deciding on a Subtext-style premise and Jim already has that pretty well covered. But if I don’t know what it is I want to say just yet and can’t pick a premise, then we should probably put down the story telling we want to put in the story and work out the argument first.

As a test, I took an old idea this morning that was nowhere near complete enough to even begin a storyform. In fact, it was really just an idea for an IC stuck in the “5th dimension”. I assumed that the OS would be Physics where everyone is concerned about either where the IC is, or maybe the murderer that they think killed him or something. But I pushed that aside and thought to myself “what do I want the audience to get from this story?”

And as I thought about the answer, I realized that I really hoped this kind of story might get people to think differently about the universe and the mind. Not to change what they think, but the way they think about these things. And that seems to be a clear example of Psychology. And as I continued to write about what I wanted the audience to get from the story, I realized that I wanted them to think differently by challenging their current conceptions of the universe-Conceiving. And that doing things this way would mean pushing the envelope, challenging the placement of current boundaries-Permission. And the reason I assume people aren’t doing this already is that, having heard something enough times, they automatically reject anything that asks them to look further or deeper (“What do you mean ‘an objective analyses’?” they angrily scream from Twitter, “How can you do an objective analysis on a story?!?! Stories are subjective!!! My middle school English teacher said so!”)-non-acceptance. In order for the audience to do what I am arguing, then, I don’t necessarily need them to start accepting all ideas that come along, i just need them to stop rejecting things and actually look at the ideas as presented-Stop with OS Psych puts MC in Mind and IC in Universe.

So by looking at what I want the audience to get out of this story, over the course of maybe 20-30 minutes, I was able to figure out what I want to say about the ‘5th dimension’ to state that there’s more to the universe (or to a story, or whatever) than what you know, and now I’m only a few dynamics away from a full argument and a storyform.

Again, this isn’t really anything new, I know, but I just haven’t typically thought in terms of figuring out my argument rather than my story. So doing that almost feels like a revelation.

#35

It sure sounds like a revelation! That’s pretty powerful. I generally fall somewhere between structuralist and pantser - I’m heavy on the structure first part of writing, but very very open to re-structuring in response to the story material opportunities that arise as the writing comes along - the pantsing end. I totally realize that what you’re describing here doesn’t preclude that approach at all, but I don’t know that I’ve ever succeeded at starting with an abstracted statement of premise or theme first - even something as simple as the old Greed Leads to Unhappiness Lajos Egri style premise.

But… your method here sounds really reasonable and unintimidating (well - except in that you’re using the appreciations REALLY fluently here. It wouldn’t even occur to me to use Permission as “challenging the placement of current boundaries” - a limit on thinking outside the box - but of course it is! Please submit this as a gist immediately! :wink:). It does make me wonder if we (I) might have more fully thought out arguments available around a story much earlier than I would have thought - maybe the theory is right that the storymind is a model of how the brain thinks anyway, so we might jump quite easily to find a lot of the argument’s choices are already made - or to be made - as we give them just a bit of thought.

Nicely done!

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#36

Okay, I’m giving this one a try. By the most remarkable coincidence I too have a Physics story along similar lines - not about being trapped in another dimension but a time travel story of a couple - she seeks changes in their relationship, he thinks they’re too far gone, what’s done is done. He’s the IC, essentially a determinist who doesn’t really believe in free will - at least not after you’ve made enough decisions that your choices seem to close down. She’s a free willy - why does change have to be so hard, just make up your mind and starting doing things differently! They are granted the opportunity to see different versions of themselves in different lives - different universes essentially. But… as time travel stories go… my ending feels close to right but not quite there. So let me try following your path a bit here and test my thinking.

Originally I was really clear about what I wanted to get out of the story - yup, to offer the audience a different way of thinking about free will, so I’m going to follow your choice and go with Psychology. (I was thinking about it from what the characters were doing when I was storyforming, and after a lot of jumping around I’d also settled on Psychology a few months back.)

Your logic is convincing for concern - I want the story to offer a different idea about free will and determinism, so I’ll follow you here too with Conceiving. (I originally followed the characters - as well as the other throughlines working well in upper right - and chose Being - the conflicts caused by settling into dysfunctional roles in a relationship, which fit well with RS Physics Time Travelling, etc.)

I like your Permission - as in thinking inside the Box - but in my case I don’t think I want people to examine the boundaries in their thinking so much as to argue that determinism puts problematic - and unnecessary - restrictions on possibilities. So I’d say Issue of Deficiency with Problem of Possibility - though I’m not sure here whether the way I’m phrasing it is actually all that different than what you’re arguing through Permission and Non-Acceptance. What do you think here?

So here’s where my storyform is dragging me away from my original Purpose in telling the story: My storyform calls it a problem of Expectations with an Issue of Desire - they still want to be together, but they’re Expectations have been so continually unmet they’re ready to give up. The solution would be Determination - to start rolling with what life gives you instead of being defeated when it doesn’t go the way you expected. Which I can definitely get behind - but it’s less about how we actually think about free will now and more about an attitude or maybe an approach to life. Which again, I can get behind, but I abandoned my original conception of my story as exploring why we should consider a different way to think about life: because it’s more advantageous to see ourselves as free with infinite choice available.__

Hmm. Maybe…

#37

I don’t known if I even consider myself a hobbyist writer anymore. I’m much more interested in Dramatica and Mental Relativity these days.

Honestly, I’m still kind of working on an answer to this. But the most immediately available answer is that asking what conflict is created by X seems to be used in how it relates to characters. But what I’m saying should let us break free from what characters think about a given story point. For instance, a giant meteor headed toward Earth represents a threat even if none of the characters know about it, so the story should still be able to use that.

Morality and Self Interest are more difficult to use in a manner different from what is typical because we associate those words so strongly with humanity. And yet, they’re not referring to actual humans in dramatica. Just processes of the mind. As such, there’s no reason you couldn’t write about a dark cloud dissipating in self sacrifice that the plants below may thrive in the sun they need to live, or a dangerous mountain selfishly guarding the secrets held within.

I’m probably using the ideas a bit clumsily there. And keep in mind that most of the experts are on record as saying that inanimate objects cannot make an IC. I’m not sure if they would take the stance that inanimate objects can’t express any process without a human character or a stand in for a human (like a talking car) viewing or partaking in the process. But I’m certain this is sound because 1. if a story is an analogy for the mind, then there’s no reason no reason to limit the analogy to just human characters. It should go for everything. All events. 2. Character, in a Dramatica sense (at least as I understand it) is really just about motivations, so Characteristics (aka Elements) are carried by players and that makes them characters. Anything that can carry a characteristic should be able to be a character. Anything that can express a value should be able to work to make the authors point. And 3. It’s not even always about the players themselves, but how the story views the player. If the IC is the You perspective, there’s no reason the mind can’t look at an inanimate Object like a mountain and say “the world is changing and growing, and you, mountain, set there are unchanging for millennia and watch it all pass in a metaphorical blink of an eye” and be influenced by that. But I’m getting a bit off track here. Point is, when it’s how the mind sees what’s happening in the story and not the characters, it really opens up the storytelling possibilities.

#38

But it’s an analogy of the human mind. Other species or inanimate objects, assuming they had minds and stories, might use an entirely different model. I think this is the reason you need to attribute some human-like aspects to non-human characters in a story – the motivations are motivations as understood by the human mind, etc.

I think everything you said makes sense though, with that one contextual caveat.

#39

To be clear, I thought my OS might go in physics but learned it should be in Psych because of the argument I wanted to make.

This is going to sound nit picky, but there’s a big difference. Do you want to offer you audience a new way of thinking about free will, or do you want your audience to think differently about free will?

The first tells the audience “you think free will is this, I’m saying it’s this and I would like you to accept it” whereas the second is saying “this is how you think about free will, and I want to change that process of thinking”. The first one is just you as the author wanting them to take a different perspective on free will whereas the second is addressing an inequity by dealing with Psychology.

I don’t have a lot of time at the moment, but if you’d like me to work through your storyform with you just to see what happens, start a thread or shoot me a dm and we can try that. No guarantees on results though.

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#40

What I’m saying is that everything in the story is in the mind. If you remove the mind, mountains and animals and sun and wind wouldn’t still be there. The page would be completely blank, the screen completely dark.

Put the mind back in, and the mountain only exists if the mind needs it to make a point. The animal only exists if the mind needs it to make a point. The author may decorate with these things even if the mind doesn’t need them. But that’s just gussying up the storytelling. As far as the argument goes, the decoration is completely unnecessary.

If the mind needs to look at the process of withering away, it can see that in a human with a disease or a flower that’s been picked. If the mind needs to compare the process of being torn down against being built up, it can show us a human who’s taken one too many punches or a mountain that’s spent a million years being hammered by weather and glaciers. Analogously, a mind engaging in work can be expressed as a man placing gears in a machine or an engine spinning a bunch of gears. The process is still a part of the human mind regardless of what analogy is applied to it.

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