Grand Argument Stories

theory
#1

Greetings everyone! And as it is my first time this year - Happy New Year to you all!

So much for my New Year’s resolution to engage with the forum at least on a weekly (if not daily) basis. Its taken me to mid-Feb to do this. Geez I suck at time management!

I have been diving back into Dramatica again and working through the theory to get a better grasp of it all and have a few questions rattling around in my head. I will take them one step at a time though so I don’t get too confused.

Question number 1:

Regarding Grand Argument Stories - from the theory point of view - is a Grand Argument Story when all the four Domains of the story form are covered by one of the four differing POVs? (e.g. OS, MC, IC, RS)

If each POV is assigned to a different Domain then it is a GAS - as all the bases are covered in the argument? Is that right?

#2

I know others will have more thorough answers, but I think you could have all four Domains and all four perspectives in the right place and still break the storyform. For instance, if the MC and IC both change, or both remain steadfast. My understanding is that when that happens, it splits the stories argument essentially arguing that both sides are either right or wrong.

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#3

Really comes down to storyform, which includes the four throughlines and their respective story points:

A story that illustrates all four throughlines (Overall Story, Relationship Story, Main Character, and Impact Character) and their every story point so that no holes are left in either the passionate or dispassionate arguments of that story.

#4

Thanks for the replies everyone. A follow up ShowerThought…

Would it still be considered a Grand Argument Story if all the Domains are explored illustrating all the Throughlines, but not in the usual structure that the software presents it.

For example. Could a story still be considered a GAS if:

MC=Situation
OS=Activity
IC=Way of Thinking
RS=Fixed Attitude

I understand that in this case you would lose the “You and I are two sides of the same coin” as in this case the MC and IC wouldn’t share any common ground i.e. MC (External/Stasis); IC (Internal/Process). But it just got me wondering if there are films out there that follow this structure - and could they be called GAS?

#5

I think the answer is no, they would not be a GAS as they would not have a valid storyform.

Keep in mind that EVERY story point of the IC throughline, not just Domain, is exactly what is needed to challenge the MC’s justifications and world-view. The IC Issue, for example, is always the “super-dynamic-pair” Variation to the MC Issue. Openness challenges Closure, Denial challenges Preconception, Knowledge challenges Wisdom, etc. (I made up that term “super-dynamic-pair” because I think it’s a useful concept, maybe I’ll post about it later.) But I guess that’s kind of similar to how the Concerns are always in same quadrant. The Past challenges Memories, Innermost Desires challenges the Future. So the “two sides of the same coin” goes further and is important for challenging justifications (and works both ways, e.g. in a Steadfast story where IC changes).

Similarly, I think the RS needs to somehow reflect the OS with its issues. It’s not the same “challenging perspective” relationship, but there is a “two sides of the same coin” kind of relationship there too, I think. For example, with my current story I thought the theme of the whole story all centered around “the worth and effect of promises” – this was before I found Dramatica. When it came time to storyform it I kept trying the OS Issue as Obligation, but that never worked. Finally I completely gave up on Obligation and found the right storyform – only to notice afterwards that the RS Issue got set to Obligation based on my other choices! (back then I never used the Theme Browser, so I couldn’t see everything at once) And now I see how it works – the RS “heart of the story” thematically reflects and clarifies everyone’s problematic Attitudes on things, including their attitudes about their oaths and other promises.

All that said, I do recall reading Melanie suggest such a structure could theoretically work … that perhaps a very different human culture might allow for it? I can’t recall if she meant, like, far in the future when our minds have developed differently or something. Or maybe she meant cultures that currently exist, or have existed in the past?

#6

I think I vaguely remember reading what @mlucas mentioned, too.

I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about here, but I’m trying to imagine what a storyform like that would look like. I’m guessing one way it might look is you’d have an MC being influenced by everyone in the story, including himself, and an IC that was somehow trying to influence a change in the RS. At best it seems like that would come across as 2 muddy, somehow semi-related stories.

The other way I can see it coming across is as a GAS where everyone in the story looks like an IC and the IC looks like sort of a 1-man stand in for the OS, which might be better, but still a little weird because of the skewed perspectives. I don’t know if an audience would understand it the way it was meant if you ordered you perspectives and through lines that way.

(EDIT: I think I swapped what you would have had everything paired with, but you get the idea I’m sure)

#7

My take on Melanie’s theoretical “other structure” was that there would still be the same 4 distinct throughlines, but you’d have say, the MC in Situation/The Future/Preconception being challenged by an IC in Manipulation/Becoming/Obligation.

I think if this was valid, we’d have found great stories like this… sometime between Shakespeare and now someone would’ve written one!

#8

I understand. I was more wondering how it might be received by a society/culture such as ours that is used to placing everything the way Dramatica suggests. Re-aligning things like this would really warp the way everything fits in, too. I’m not going to do it here, but might be fun to try a few gists with some misaligned perspectives and domains just to see what that would look like.

#9

When I first came across Dramatica I thought that the domains were structured in a matrix format. I then realised that it wasn’t the case, but the Static vs Active components were actually on the diagonals.

I queried this in the old Convore days and Chris mentioned that he and Melanie chose this structure so when you put the IC and the MC opposite each other diagonally, then when looking at their sources of conflict they would have something in common, and also something they don’t share. In the Dramatica model, they would both have their sources of conflict come from an process/stasis, yet one would experience it from an external source, and one from an internal source.

From what I can deduce, there are 3 structures of the matrix. I would be interested to know why the other alternative model wasn’t included? i.e.(Where the IC and the MC share the locus of conflict, yet experience it from different states.)

I tried to draw it out below.

Slide1.jpg720×540 28 KB

Disclaimer:

I don’t want what I am about to say come across as if I am dissing the software, or the amazing narrative theory that Dramatic is. I am just arguing a point of view, which probably stems from my naivety. :slight_smile:

Interesting thought Mike. But I wonder if one has been written but we haven’t noticed it as we are measuring it with Dramatica. I would argue that we only measure stories with the tools we have and those tools, (by necessity) have restrictions.

I’ve been listening to some of the Dramatica User Group podcasts, and it seems as though some of the stories, (if not most) the throughlines can be argued to fall either of two or more domains. Eventually it gets settled as one of the other throughlines “force” the decision. e.g. “So we have good arguments that the MC is in Situation, or Activity. When we look at the IC, we all agree that it is in Fixed Attitude, which means our MC MUST be in Situation”. So no matter how strong the argument was that the MC was in Activity, the MC throughline can’t be put in that domain as it is excluded due to the model.

The Dramatica model forces you to adopt a storyform that always has the MC & IC sharing the Stasis/Process. In doing so, you will reject any story point that doesn’t fit into that model.

I would be interested to know how many stories out their have their IC and MC sharing the same locus (external/internal) yet differing on their stasis/process.

That said - I am not going to waste too much time looking for one - or trying to write one. Life’s too short. But it would be interesting to know that a black swan might exist out there somewhere.

#10

@brendon_oloughlin you can do as you suggest but it would require a different model. In order for Dramatica to work a bias had to be chosen and this was for the Dynamic Pairs.

You could create other theoretical models that emphasized Companion Pairs or Dependent Pairs, but it would by definition be incompatible with the current model.

#11

Cheers for your thoughts Jim. I think Chris mentioned something similar all those years ago on the conroe discussion. Though it could “theoretically” work - it would be a different beast entirely.

Though I do wonder what a GAS would look like under those models - I think it might be more prudent for me to try to get to grips with Dramatica during this lifetime than reinvent the wheel (or quads) as it were.