Gists According to Throughlines

#1

To spin off, [quote=“Lakis, post:17, topic:2587”]
I agree! Maybe this would be a good thread to start here sometime – we could take a few illustrations with gists (from Subtext maybe, or just Dramatica) and practice illustrating them as different throughlines. Like, what are some examples to make this illustration feel more like IC than MC? I know this would be beneficial for me.
[/quote]

Let me start with a couple gists, and those gurus among us can spin them according to the throughline. I hesitate to fill in the example, but here’s my attempt

Throughline One: FUTURE: **sees a future world ruled by others **
OS: They all are pushed up against a wall because of the fear incited by the prophecy of the mountain men taking over.
-or-
MC: I scramble to get my bearings. My personal issues revolve around other people manipulating me for the rest of my life.
-or-
IC: You keeps trying to control me, keeps trying to take over every bit of control I have in my life.
-or-
RS: We’d better do something together to make this future we’ve talked about happen.

yes, or no?

Try these:
FUTURE: sees a future world ruled by others
BECOMING: is transformed by something
MEMORY: reclaim a particular group’s memories
SUBCONSCIOUS: buries ones grief

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Multiple POV, IC as OS Protagonist, MC as OS Antagonist
Multiple POV, IC as OS Protagonist, MC as OS Antagonist
#2

Help me spin this. (An opposite way of doing gists)

How would ABORTION look merged into
OS:
MC:
IC:
RS:

or, can it be actually addressed in all throughlines?
Fixed Attitude:
Situation:
Universe:
Psychology:

I’m trying to see the “flavor” of the difference between the quads and the throughlines, because it helps determine how to tweak the gists.

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#3

OS: A bunch of co-workers at an abortion clinic struggle with the aftermath of a shooting
MC: A pregnant teen tries to decide whether to have an abortion
IC: A woman discovers that the reason her father forced her to have an abortion as a teen was because of the alien genetic material she carries
RS: Teenage BFFs struggle to maintain their friendship during an abortion scandal within their social circle
RS (symbolic): a friendship that keeps trying to be romantic but every time there is an advance they immediately terminate it

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#4

wow! sounds like an adventure. I’m guessing that any of these should stand inside a completely different set of throughlines. Or could they be in one story? It seems like it would be not enough scope, and too heavy, to have all four in one like that.

Addendum: Of those above, which quadrant-class would/could each be in?

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#5

This is an interesting thought experiment.

Of course you could arrange Mike’s examples in any number of ways. But just for fun:

MIND: the community struggles with mutual suspicion and ingrained attitudes on both sides about the issue of abortion, which makes healing difficult.

PHYSICS: We see the process of the girl as she Learns she’s pregnant, tries to Understand her options, searches (Doing) for safe clinic (the one in her community is shut down because of the shooting), and ultimately must decide whether or not to go through with it (Obtaining).

I love where your mind goes @mlucas! But I don’t have any ideas on this one, so I’m going to change it to something more ordinary: the girl’s loser “boyfriend” pressures her relentlessly to have the abortion, because he is much older (in medical school) and is afraid that having this child will affect his ability to Become a doctor (PSYCHOLOGY).

RS UNIVERSE: In my scenario, the RS Is between the boyfriend and the girl. The relationship between them struggles right off the bat because of their different ages. Now there’s this pregnancy Situation. How will the relationship deal with the Progress of the pregnancy? Does it have a Future? Etc.

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#6

Right, they were intended to be in different stories. Trying to put all those in the same story would be crazy!

Oh, the IC one with the alien genetic material was actually something from the IC throughline in my own story!

I was picturing the OS one as Psychology, the MC as Situation, the IC as Situation. Not sure on the RS ones. But @Lakis is right, you can spin them any way as he showed.

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#7

Universe: with the abortionist horribly disfigured in the attack, the co-workers struggle to keep the business open
Physics: the inability to keep victims of the attack alive with their specific medical equipment and expertise leaves the co-workers all facing an existential crisis.
Mind: Fearing a follow up attack, co-workers struggle
To return to work
Psychology: having PTSD after an attack causes co-workers lives to fall apart.

Those examples could conceivably all describe the same characters in the same story, so you might not be able to determine that the OS for this story is, say, Physics until you determine the other three throughlines.

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#8

Breaking this into the essential position words…

I have a feeling this is showing something important. The location of the characters in the sentence structure reveals the OS gist. (Like when @jhull tells us not to use the element as the direct object of a gist)

With _____ (situation), the story people struggle to _____(goal)
The _____ (problem) leaves the story people needing to ____(activity) for ____ (goal).
Thinking ______ (attitude), the story people struggle to _____ (goal)
Having _____ (consequence) after ______(manipulation element) causes trouble for the story people.

Or is there a better way to understand the flavors?

Forgive me for my “color-by-number” approach, but I’m a chart person. Structure frees my creativity.

#9

My thought process was just to illustrate a term and provide the material that shows it’s a problem. So something like:
(Class)(is the source of)(conflict/problem/proof that class is a problem)

Universe: with (here meaning ‘sourced in’) the abortionist horribly disfigured in the attack(Universe/Sit), the co-workers struggle to keep the business open(proof of problem)
Physics: the inability to keep victims of the attack alive with their specific medical equipment and expertise(Physics. As worded, it’s sort of an UnPhysics of not keeping people alive) leaves the co-workers all facing (is the source of) an existential crisis. (Proof of problem)
Mind: Fearing a follow up attack(Mind/is the source of), co-workers struggle To return to work (proof of problem)
Psychology: having PTSD after an attack (Psych) causes (is the source of) co-workers lives to fall apart (proof of problem).

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#10

As a follow-up on this tangent, I did find in Dramatica for Screenwriters a nice way to explain the essence of the story, using this pattern…

Driver + Consequence
Goal + Requirements
Forewarnings + Limit
Driver + Outcome

He says if you plug those in, you can find if your storyform fits. (I know this has been on here before “Dramatica in Thirty Seconds”).

Then Armando walks you through the “Instant Dramatica” of putting two elements next to each other, add the Signpost for the sequence and content of each Throughline. I found it useful, studying the slant he takes as he “instantifies” his Throughlines. Things I’m mixing in that shouldn’t be there (a pinch of MC in the IC, or a scoop of OS in the RS). Dramatica has these in the program, but this book teaches you to walk step by step.

[I just want to make a point that I’m very appreciative of people on this forum, people who are involved in the teaching arm of this, people who don’t just leave the rest of us floundering, but care to help us figure out this amazing system.]

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