So, I don’t know if this will go anywhere, but from what I’ve read in this post thus far, and from my own personal biases, here’s how I respond.
It sounds to me like everyone (government and anarchists) in your story is working to maintain or seize control in some way. Personally, I view trying to set up an economy as a way of seizing or establishing some minimum amount of control for the group. Thus, based on your current possible story forms, this would be in response to something chaotic and unorganized, possibly the perception that the other group lacks or has too much leeway, read: freedom, in their dealings.
For a Consequence of Conceptualizing, it’s possible and probable that you’ve already hinted at this within your own posts. If the story is a Stop story, then perhaps the Consequence might be the planning and scheming that is currently happening in order to set up dominion? In which case, I suspect that the Goal of Understanding might be something along the lines of “appreciating something” instead of plain “understanding something”…
Of course, don’t let me put words in your mouth. This story is yours, not mine.
Part of my problem is in posting before I have a more firm idea of what I’m doing
I know I referred to anarchists as group, but I’m actually imagining it as more of a spontaneous response of the marginalized to being pushed out of the current system (Inequity).
But you have a point! From the perspective of the government, this response looks like Chaos, but it’s really a self-organizing system (Order).
Of course I’m realizing that this all still just looks like setting as Mike said. I need to create more concrete examples for the story.
There must be something here though. I just had this thought that part of the government’s response to create more Order was in itself a response to the inability to control climate Chaos.
Again, this all has to be represented in actual story illustrations somehow. But what I’m seeing so far is basically a Chaos-Order-Chaos loop. I’m just wondering if it matters (practically, for writing) which one is Focus and which Direction. (To answer my own question, I’m going to say no…)
Just thinking out loud here, but what I’m seeing in your explanation (which, as you know, isn’t enough to lock in a storyform) is a government focused on the chaos of weather and rebels that takes a direction of trying to impose themselves over each of them.
And this part:
Sounds like the evidence that inequity is problematic.
But of course, a slight change in perspective could change all that.
I agree. I find even I’m writing, even when know the storyform, sometimes the Focus element seems like it’s being used as Direction and vice versa. I’ve learned not to worry about it – it comes from being too deep in the story and seeing things subjectively, which is what you want when drafting.
So now I see it as a good sign whenever the Focus or Direction element comes up naturally, and leave it at that.
I also think any dynamic pair exists on a kind of continuum. Like they’re two sides of the same coin but the coin has some of the properties of Möbius Strip. Some things that come up in the story are very close to the edge of the coin, and it’s hard to tell which side they’re on.
(Problem vs. Solution is a different experience though. The Problem is always overshadowing everything, while the Solution is hiding, peeking out every once in a while, until coming out in force near the end.)
Just a thought, and this is going to maybe be similar to some of what Mike said. Looking for what came first is a temporal view and is an ongoing process that, as we’ve seen before, can lead to an infinite regress or fall into an unending loop.
But a spatial view-seeing everything at once with no before or after-would give you a way viewing the relationships between everything without falling into that cause-effect loop. Like how you can see one element as Potential and another as Resistance, and they can appear in any order.
For instance, the government could impose itself on the citizens as a way to deal with the chaos of an angry and uncontrolled populace prior to the rebels forming a group. Temporally, that’s the direction coming before the Focus. But spatially, that’s the Directions efforts being applied to the Focus that hasn’t happened yet. Or you could say that the government is still focused on that even though it hasn’t happened yet.
I think this makes sense – definitely (and we’ve seen plenty of story examples) its not a strictly temporal relationship.
Hm. I had a sudden thought on the other hand. I wonder if there’s an analogy here somehow to Drivers, where it’s less about what precedes what and what drives what. Maybe this is where it’s useful to think in terms of Symptom and Response.
Being silly here, but in the spirit of Dramatica, let’s say it’s both a strictly temporal relationship AND a strictly spatial relationship AS WELL AS both a spatiotemporal relationship and a temporospatial relationship.
I’ve struggled with Drivers a lot. Doesn’t an action always follow a decision and vice versa? It always seems like you can back up and find a prior cause. I wondered my problem with Focus and Direction was based on an analogous confusion. Drives is the wrong word though.
I probably shouldn’t say more as I haven’t thought it out much beyond that.
We are driven by problem elements, but Actions are driven by Decisions and Decisions by Actions. And the idea being discussed is that being driven (with Drivers or otherwise) doesn’t just mean ‘this was the first thing that happened’ but that it also refers to ‘this element is present within the structure’.
Is this true for the particular quad always, or is it based on the context? i.e. in Help/Hinder/Support/Oppose (under Attitude) is Help <-> Hinder the continuum while Oppose and Support are binary, always? Or does it depend on the story?
It seems to me that the Focus and Direction tend to be a continuum while the Problem and Solution are binary; but maybe I’m looking at the quad of Problem/Solution/Focus/Direction!
I suspect some of this thread has got into that territory too – the theory is neat but I’m guessing @Lakis that once you can see things like Goal and Consequence and MC Domain more clearly, the other parts of the storyform including Focus and Direction will “yield” (to use Mike’s term).
Even better is writing about thinking about the theory
EVERY quad is KTAD which means every quad has static (KT) and process (AD). Which is which is completely contextual (and ultimately not helpful when it comes to writing a story).
I had a similar problem. I ended up having the OS goal be the anti-goal for the MC antagonist. We have two opposite currents, the OS issue (Interdiction in the trilogy) is both sides righting the wrongs of the past using their Skills. “Skilling their way to the solution/Proof of Skill is the change required of everyone” The problem is ultimately Trust (they don’t realize it, I do). Going both ways up and against Trust. The whole problem in society is an issue of Trust.
Throughline: PHYSICS
Concern: DOING
Issue: SKILL
Problem: TRUST
Solution: TEST
Focus: EFFECT
Direction: CAUSE
But mine is a failure/good. The method of doing fails for both sides, which in my bittersweet end, neither side gets to the Cause, though the MC has a path out.
I had to really push to understand WHAT was going to fail, HOW would that fail endgood with an antagonist MC?
Every character is focused on the Effect they are having, doing what they’re supposed to to enact that --doing their skill-part in bringing about the repair of society.
So from both perspectives, the anarchists and the status-quo, my OS characters are pushing for that.
Each side is trying to push society in the direction of exposing the Cause of problem, their definition of Cause is the source of society’s woes.
The PRO say this way <–EFFECT–> ANT say this way.
So they’re pulling society, like a tug-of-war.
Another way of seeing it, too, is the winning side of the tug-of-war becomes by definition the Winning Cause of world peace their way. This problem will be resolved, they say, when one of those prove to be the Cause.
Another way of seeing it, is the antagonists are also AGAINST the status-quo’s EFFECT leading to their bringing about that type of repair. They win (OS fail) because they stop that EFFECT from becoming Cause of repair. Since it’s the first of a trilogy, there’s a carry-over to the fail/good where the bittersweet failure has hope in it.
I need to make sure to finalize this failure as good, in spite of the dual-direction EFFECT goal of DOING this thing that fixes society.
As far as everyone else knows, they just want to be seen for their skillful participation bringing about change. Focus Effect.
The author knows differently, if I could rap them on the head I’d tell them they don’t trust each other. Forget the tug-of-war.
Would you mind sharing your whole storyform? I’m sure we are writing very different stories but there are several elements that seem to jibe with a story i’ve been struggling with.
