Eating Worms for Inspiration. Good or Bad?

questions
#21

I think what @MWollaeger pointed out is that the text above is more allegorical than actual story. There is no IC in here yet.

Chris Huntley, in the analysis of Cool Hand Luke, asks a question that, I now realize, really helps isolate who the IC might be. After listing off possible candidates for IC, the question he asks the group goes along something like this: “What’s the relationship between the MC and the [optional ICs] that doesn’t have anything to do with the OS?”

The answer, with what we have in the text so far, would be NO ONE.

All we have is an OS throughline with an issue of “looking for a quick fix,” which I interpret to be Approach: the manner in which a character seeks the solution to a problem.

While the MC struggles with writing, the writer friend preaches, “Practice makes perfect, keep at it.” Meanwhile, the muse whispers, “Here, take the easy pill.” I guess as archetypes, they would be the classic guardian VS contagonist pair.

#22

You don’t even have an MC at this point. Potentially it’s Mind : Stubborn, but that’s not explicit.

#23

By Stubborn, do you mean Denial?

#24

No, I mean stubborn.

But you’re jumping the gun. What is the MC Domain? I don’t know if you’ve even delineated it yet.

[The choices you make when putting together the storyform are not topics. Denial is a way of looking at a topic, not a topic in and of itself.]

#25

Yikes! I wasn’t expecting to go this far when I started the thread, but these questions are so tempting…

Okay, working this into a story based on the entries above, I’d say…

Logline: Desperate to find fame and fortune, an aimless man chances upon a muse who guides him through his endeavors, but always leaves him one step short of success.

Assuming the MC is a heterosexual male, I’d lay down the four throughlines as follows…

OS: Success. What is success? All the character in the story have their own definition of what constitutes success and how to achieve it.

MC: Writing, singing, dancing, painting, acting, etc. A fame seeker.

IC: The girlfriend wants to settle down and start a family. Her uncle has a plastic molding company and is willing to give her boyfriend a job, if only she can convince him to take it.

RS: Being in a romantic relationship.

I’d also make this a cautionary story, so have the MC be steadfast and the outcome be Failure with a judgement of Bad.

Does this make sense so far? (Too much too fast?)

#26

I don’t think you are parsing your story correctly. To begin with, this is vague and it sounds like you are dodging the hard questions:

#27

Sorry, but I don’t follow. How am I dodging the hard questions? What constitutes a hard question?

#28

“Success” doesn’t mean anything. You can have success in overcoming the past, or in understanding something, or in developing a plan, or… you get the point. :stuck_out_tongue: What about success in achieving their desires for happiness? The Main Character can only be happy with fame, the girlfriend needs to start a family to be happy, the muse specifically helps others fulfill their desires.Then your Overall Throughline would be Mind/Desires…/Dream, maybe? Do you see how that’s a little more clear than just “success?”

#29

Ah! Okay, now I understand. Yes, that’s much clearer, thank you.

Love your suggestion too, Andrew. Success in achieving one’s desires for happiness makes perfect sense to me.

So the throughlines would be…

OS: Fixed Attitude:
MC: Activity
IC: Manipulation
RS: Situation

#30

Wait.

This is still vague, and unless you are careful, it’s not going to be helpful. And the way @actingpower wrote this, it does not work.

Success does not apply to the Main Character, the girlfriend or the muse. It applies to the Story Goal (and most likely in this capacity to the Protagonist but that is not a requirement).

So what is the Story Goal? What does the Protagonist want? What is the inequity that is causing all of the conflict and how can it be resolved? If it’s resolved – Success.

Everyone being happy is a different beast: probably the Dividend, possibly the OS Benchmark.

Also, just because people end the story happy doesn’t make the OS Fixed Attitude. I’d be happy if I got out of prison (Situation) and so would my mother. That makes being happy the result of getting out of prison, but the goal is still in, say, The Past (resolving a false conviction).

#31

You’re right; I was overly vague in my explanation. I meant exactly what you said, though. The writer (specifically as Protagonist in this case, though he’s also the Main Character) does have a Goal specifically about Desires. I mean, it ultimately boils down to which story Jerome wants to tell. I meant to make a reply saying that the story would work just as well if it was about Obtaining something, or about the Future, or about Becoming something, but I forgot (like an idiot). But the way the story seemed to me, it made the most sense for the Overall Story to be Desires, precisely (as Jerome put in his reply) because the Main Character Throughline seemed to be Obtaining, the Impact Character Throughline seemed to be Becoming, and the Relationship Throughline seemed to be Future.

Those four are the block of Motivations, so they are very similar. But what are the characters pursuing: a future completion of a Situation, an Activity, a Way of Thinking, or an Attitude? I, personally, saw it as the last. They would only be happy once their Desires were satisfied. Not in completing an Activity, not in reaching a Situation, and not in reaching a satisfactory mindset. Only by fulfilling their Desires.

#32

Would something like this work?

GOAL To assert one’s importance by having it acknowledged by others.

INEQUITY It’s a cold, cruel world out there. Everyone is out looking for themselves and ready to cut off others at the knees. No one has time to look out for others.

SOLUTION To receive recognition (encouragement, praise, respect, love) from others.

#33

It’s hard to see exactly how you are thinking about this, but from the words you are using, you are saying:

The goal is the be acknowledged.
The solution is to be acknowledged.

That’s not really how it works.

It would be more like “The goal is to be acknowledged” … the problem is that the artist focuses too much on his results (he calls reviewers and butters them up to get the results he wants, but the real critics see through it) and it gets resolved when he focuses on his process.

#34

Ah, yes. I was reading solution as being what the protagonist believes will solve his problem and not what the real solution to the problem is. Sorry about that.

Well, perhaps to keep things in the spirit of this discussion :slight_smile: the solution would be to master one of the many arts he’s dipping his toes in, instead of jumping around from place to place, seeking fame. In other words, he’s unfocused and needs to learn to focus?

So perhaps a problem of uncontrolled and a solution of control?

(Or is that the same thing?)

#35

@Jerome, I opened a Dramatica file and tried plugging in some selections you have seemed to imply. I’ve also tossed in some brief illustrations of how I’m interpreting the selections. I don’t expect any of this will match yours exactly, but it might give you some food for thought.

CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC RESOLVE: Steadfast (he keeps “dipping his toes in” “many arts”)
MC GROWTH: Start
MC APPROACH: Do-er (he’s busy, though scattered)
MC PROBLEM-SOLVING STYLE: Linear (he’s always in mid-process, missing the big picture)
IC RESOLVE: Change

PLOT DYNAMICS:
OS LIMIT: Optionlock (no life-altering deadlines are mentioned)
OS OUTCOME: Failure (no gold ring is gained, by anybody?)
MC JUDGMENT: Bad (lots of effort, all of it futile?)

RELATIONSHIP (Romance)
RS DOMAIN: Situation (stuck in a non-stimulating, disunited relationship)
RS CONCERN: The Future (that gold ring — success for him, marriage for her — that they both see as “out ahead”)

INFLUENCE CHARACTER (Girlfriend)
IC DOMAIN: Manipulation (psychologically nudging him, mind-game-playing)
IC CONCERN: Changing One’s Nature (becoming a wife to a guy who has become an 8-to-5er)

MAIN CHARACTER (Meandering “Artiste”)
MC DOMAIN: Activity (lots of this and that and this and that)
MC CONCERN: Obtaining (the “brass ring” of fame, fortune, popular success)

OVERALL STORY (Grabbing the Gold Ring)
OS DOMAIN: Fixed Attitude (lots of characters affixed to grabbing their own personal gold ring, despite weighty evidence that it’s simply not “there” for all of them)
OS CONCERN: Innermost Desires (personal-identity-maintaining reasons for “needing” that gold ring)

ADDITIONAL STORY POINTS
OS GOAL: Innermost Desires (see above)
OS CONSEQUENCE: The Future (a hopeful one could be lost if the Problem isn’t solved)
OS COST: Changing One’s Nature (it won’t happen, or it won’t be a change toward the good)
OS DIVIDEND: Obtaining (or also, in Dramatica terms, Not Obtaining/Losing)

And yes, Uncontrolled could certainly be the OS PROBLEM and MC PROBLEM, with Control as the mutual SOLUTION.

#36

I see him as STOP (he needs to let of of trying to master many things). He eats the worms, so I see him as CHANGE.

This isn’t to disagree with @keypayton, it’s just to say that I don’t think you’ve shared enough for anyone to determine what direction the story is going in just yet.

#37

Unless I’m mistaken, uncontrolled can’t be MC PROBLEM, only OS, IC & RS. The MC PROBLEM would have to be reconsider (undermines resolve with every new obstacle that crosses one’s path). So he’s constantly saying, “Ah, shoot. That didn’t work. I guess I should try something else.”

Other than that, those are exactly the same appreciations I have plotted out as well.

Here’s the basic 12:

CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC RESOLVE: Steadfast
MC GROWTH: Start
MC APPROACH: Do-er
MC PROBLEM-SOLVING STYLE: Linear

PLOT DYNAMICS:
DRIVER: Decision
LIMIT: Optionlock
OUTCOME: Failure
JUDGMENT: Bad

OVERALL STORY
DOMAIN: Fixed Attitude
CONCERN: Innermost Desires
ISSUE: Hope vs. Dream
PROBLEM: Uncontrolled

#38

To be honest, there’s not much else to share because I haven’t figured anything out – and never really planned on originally. Though I’m very much enjoying this and find it very educational – it’s already got me re-reading the manual.

How I would imagine the story playing out is something like this.

The hero (MC/pro) is on a quest to find fame (to be acknowledged) and goes from one discipline to another, waiting to find that thing that’s going to make it work for him. While he’s expending all of that energy, his girlfriend uses temptation to lure him to something more reasonable because she feels her relationship with him is going nowhere (what kind of a future can she have with him?). Maybe she sticks with him because he makes her feel needed (he depends on her for financial support).

After many failed attempts, with the last one being an especially big blow, she gives him an ultimatum, your next-sure-to-fail project, or me. When he insists it’s going to be great and everything’s going to work out, she walks away.

Granted, this is still vague, but I imagine there should be enough to work out a storyform and go from there, no? Don’t the DWG make storyforms from loglines sometimes?

#39

You certainly can make a storyform from that, especially if you are involved in a back-and-forth (which helps make a lot of decisions).

But you have to consider that you have written very little, if anything, that emotionally resonates about your MC. Without that, you have no subjective storyline. And without that, no meaningful storyform.

I get that this is an exercise. You are using it to help understand Dramatica, and I think it’s the right way to go. You can’t learn Dramatica without jumping in and trying mold a story. But it’s revealing to me to see what information you are putting out there – it gives the rest of us a sense of your story-instinct.

What I see is that you get a lot – you have an understanding of plot and irony. But characters are just chess pieces that you move around to make the plot and irony work. There’s nothing wrong with that, that’s where I started. But Dramatica is going to demonstrate that this won’t be sufficient if you want to weave amazing stories.

This is one of the things I love about Dram. You come here to learn the program, but in turn, you become a better writer by finding holes that have nothing to do (directly) with Dram.

#40

@Jerome, there’s no “technical” reason why the MC PROBLEM cannot be Uncontrolled (using the exact same settings you cited). Maybe you have a storybuilder’s reason for focusing on Reconsider, but Uncontrolled is definitely a viable option in the software and the theory.