Character Motivation, Purpose, Evaluation, Methodology

In the same vein as the previous question I asked, I am trying to get my head around some of the terms and how they relate to specific examples. Excuse the brain dump following - I am just trying to work through character examples and show how I am approaching the theory - I don’t know if I am approaching the theory correctly.

So - here goes…

In the book Chris and Melanie speak of an Archetypal Protagonist as: "A Protagonist is motivated by Pursuit, employs a Methodology of Proaction, Evaluates its progress by the Effect it has, and strives toward achieving Actuality as its Purpose. "

I would assume the Archetypal Reason character therefore, is motivated by Control, employs a Methodology of Inaction, Evaluates it progress by the “Trust” it has, and strives towards achieving “Aware” as its purpose.

So - dropping in some of the definitions into the template sentence, to see if I can make it work more fluidly.

The Archetypal Reason character therefore, is motivated by methodically directing its actions and deliberations to the specific purpose at hand. This leads to a great degree of focus. They employ a Methodology of taking no action as a means of response. Sometimes leaving themselves in harm’s way. They Evaluate their progress by an acceptance of knowledge as proven without first testing its validity, taking things at face value. Ultimately they strive towards (others/themselves?) being conscious of things outside oneself as its purpose.

Does this sound about right? I am struggling with replacing the “terms” with the definitions, and not sure that I have used the definitions correctly giving the final blurb the true meaning as intended by the theory.

Also, all of the terms are Action related. I was wondering how you would construct a blurb about the Decision character elements.

Archetypal Reason being: Logic, Probability, Theory, Ability

What I currently have:

When deciding the best course of action, the Archetypal Reason character therefore, is motivated by Logic, employs a Methodology of Probability, Evaluates it progress by the “Theory” it has, and strives towards achieving “Ability” as its purpose.

So swapping the terms out with definitions:

When deciding the best course of action, the Archetypal Reason character therefore, is motivated by a rational sense of how things are related. They will choose the most efficient course based on reason. They puts their beliefs and efforts behind what is most likely, as a way of doing things. They Evaluate their effectives by an unbroken chain of relationships leading from a premise to a conclusion. Ultimately striving towards achieving an innate capacity to do or to be, as its Purpose.

hmm - not sure how to weave Evaluate and Purpose definitions in to make it make sense as blurb.

You might be getting too deep into something that won’t help you in the long run.
For me, the often-mentioned archetypes (protagonist, contagonist, etc) pretty much fall apart once you leave the motivation set.
There are three other sets of archetypes, somewhere on storymind.com I believe, that tackle purpose, evaluation and methodology specifically. Here it is: http://storymind.com/dramatica/lost_theory_book/
Then there are the character examples (at least in Pro 4) e.g. Bully, Charmer, Coward, Extrovert, Hero, etc, that you can access by choosing “Typecast…” in the “Build characters for your story” window.
So might look into why the developers chose to give the “pessimist” Motivations of Disbelief and Oppose, Methodogoly of Potentiality, Evaluation of Test, and Purpose of Projection.
“optimist” has Motivations of Faith and Support, Methodology of Certainty, Evaluation of Trust and Unproven, and Purpose of Equity.
“nerd” motivation of logic and uncontrolled, methodology of probability and deduction, evaluation of theory and unproven, and purpose of aware and thought.

Really, to me a character called “Reason” would probably look like this: Motivations are Logic and Control (fine), Methodologies are Deduction and Certainty OR Reduction and Probability (it shouldn’t have anything to do with x-action, reason should be internal), Evaluations are Expectation and Theory OR Proven and Test. Purpose I’m not sure about.

It seems like a good idea to get away from these archetypes as soon as possible anyway.

It looks to me like your on the right track. We all gotta find our own way through this complex theory and it seems to me the way you are going about it is going to take a little time to get it to gel, especially once you start to get into the relationships they have in their quad: Dynamic, Dependent and Companion but it will result in a deeper understanding that will lead to a better crafted story with scenes chock full of conflict that will get easier to create with time.

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Thanks guys - really appreciate the input.

@bobRaskoph thanks for the input and for pointing me to the Lost Theory Book. A lot of mind-boggling hours ahead of me by the looks of it.

I was looking to move away from the Archetypes and into complex characters pretty much straight away but wanted to establish a baseline from which I could mix and match the definitions. Prior to doing that though, I just wanted to make sure that I had the definitions linked in correctly and that my thinking wasn’t faulty. To be honest, it was more for some of my colleagues who are writing a story and I am feeding back on it through a Dramatica lens. This is the first time i have really delved into characters and trying to hand on the information without drowning the poor victims. I was trying to put the concepts into the common vernacular a little so it made sense for them rather than have them hit by the steep learning curve themselves.

Cheers again for all the help.

Hi,
I’m new to Dramatica, don’t use the software, and I’m trying to make sense out of it.

My main question is:

  • How are the 48 elements for Purpose, Methodology and Evaluation structured,
  • How do the Archetypes map onto the Purpose and Evaluation Sets ? Because they have been introduced in the context of Character, haven’t they ? And we get a mapping for Motivation and Methodology ! So I’d like to undestand the complete archetypical relationships and the theory behind it, even if I then decide to go different !

Nowhere in the book have I been able to find it yet. And the author doesn’t explain why she is not providing that mapping around pages 65-67 of the 2001 Edition.
I found out by myself that the Motivation Set is identical to the Obtaining Set in Activity in the tables of story elements, but why ?..
Then I realized that the other Sets for Purpose, Evaluation and Methodology are also in Activity, with other names. Again, why ?

To use something I need to understand it, and I dearly want to understand the Dramatica model, but I fail to reach understanding with only the book and my brains… thanks for any help !

I don’t think anyone worries about the archetypes for the other sets much. There’s a lot more interesting and useful stuff in the other aspects of the theory.

Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll proceed with Theme, Plot, and The Art of Storytelling !

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The answer was prodived here : Complete Mapping of Archetypal Pattern on the 64 Elements

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