How does "dual encoding" the IC and M/I stories affect story reception?

theory
#1

A problem that I, and I think others, seem to have is not separating the IC and M/I stories very far, which causes the same story encoding to essentially show up in both throughlines. Is there any type of consensus on how this affects the story reception?

For example, will this cause the story to appear to be missing a throughline, or appear to have a throughline in the wrong Domain? Or do the throughlines still come out properly, but make the story seem smaller than it could have been if the IC and M/I were further separated?

#2

I don’t have a great example here, but I think the result would just be a smaller story.

If the IC is Fixed Attitude (“must chew gum all the time”) and the M/I is Activity (“Going to Church”), the Relationship is going to suffer – “Your gum chewing in church is disrespectful” but that can be seen largely as a kind of antagonist that only matters in the IC Thread. It wouldn’t really get any life of its own until you had the MC attending church without the IC (to Teach him a lesson) or stealing his gum (Obtaining, but also a sin). And suddenly, you have to add scenes to accommodate this.

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#3

so you don’t see that as damaging the story form in any way, then? It’s still a GAS? As long as all the story appreciations are accounted for, of course.

#4

I think the only true answer to this is in the audience appreciation. If nobody feels a hole, then things are good. My guess is that you should keep ideas in your back pocket, and use them if you need them.

That’s a different way of saying, “What does the story need?” If your M/I relationship isn’t that relevant, or would be distracting, then it would injure the story to put too much of it in.

Have you listened to the analysis of Spotlight? The M/I is basically only in one scene. (There are actually three scenes, but only one gets at the emotion of the relationship.)

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#5

I haven’t seen the movie or the analysis for Spotlight. I’ll put both on my list. Sounds like exactly what I’m asking about. Thanks for the suggestion.

So an example closer to the one i’m working on right now (i’m not going to give the actual story i’m working on right now as example, although i’ve given it in other threads. I personally love the story i’m currently working on, but think it sounds stupid when i say it out loud, haha. and yes, this example is probably going to sound a bit stupid out loud, too. oh well) would be of someone with a Fixed Attitude who is trying to show others through Activity that their Fixed Attitude is best. So think of someone like a personal trainer who thinks they know the best way to train even though others think their exercises are useless. So that attitude would be the IC story. Then the MC comes along and needs some personal training. So the encoding for the IC story is something about “the best way to train” and the encoding for the M/I is something about “training together”. There’s a slight difference, I suppose, but it feels almost like they are the same thing. Like two different stories in one encoding.

I’ve been going through the Sign Posts and Journeys and turning them into story points with the end goal of having a list of about 150 to 200 bullet points of everything that will need to happen in the story. Between the OS acts 1 and 2, I have about 100 points. Between the M/I acts 1 and 2 I have about 10, and that’s stretching it.

What I feel like I’ve done is encode the IC and M/I together into one throughline so that all the right issues and concerns and elements are covered. But I’ve left out anything personal to the IC, which doesn’t bother me because I don’t feel like that’s necessary to the story. I just don’t want this idea to turn into a book, and then the book turn into a movie, and then the Dramatica Users Group analyze it and decide it’s not a GAS because it’s missing a throughline. If they do, I’m blaming you, @MWollaeger. :wink:

But seriously, considering what you’ve said, I feel like I’m probably still on the right track. Thanks again for your time.

#6

I believe this quote deserves to be spotlighted because it can be very useful information for newcomers to the theory. The Influence Character does not need to explored in a personal manner like the Main Character does. When I was first introduced to the theory, I mistakenly thought that you had to look at the IC personally, but soon I learned that he/she was meant to provide the “you” perspective, as opposed to the “I” perspective the MC has.

Sources: @jhull’s brilliant website “Narrative First,” specifically his article “Writing Complete Stories.”

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#7

Exactly. The IC provides the “you” perspective, meaning they should have a side we don’t see. While we may see them other than in the presence of the MC, it may also be that the only time we see them is while the MC is present. I think that’s what makes it difficult to separate the IC and M/I throughlines during encoding. If the MC and IC are both present, I want to look at that as relationship. But there has to also be something for just the IC showing how the IC is impacting the MC, but not in a way that is directly through the relationship if that makes sense.

#8

My guess is that you have woven them together.

Contradictory advice:
• If you have that many bullet points, then (after you get all the way through to the end) the best path forward might be to write the story. You will feel things that are missing, or add things that aren’t in the outline. After this you can return to Dramatica and see how what you have actually written looks under analysis.

OR

• Pay attention to where things show up now. An IC with a Fixed Attitude will: Get angry when people don’t listen, feel pride when his techniques show results, push you to ignore the lactic acid building up in your muscles, goad you by talking about that time you were a 97-lb weakling, get you to change how you eat by walking you through the carb–>sugar–>fat cycle. None of this is actually an activity, although it will happen in the gym while lifting.
• So, the M/I is going to either be: doing the weights, hitting your goals, checking yourself out in the mirror, finally seeing why you can’t skip leg day. Or it could be: picking a program to follow, giving up and coming back, buying muscle shirts… that kind of thing. But those are all things people do and not what relationships are so the trick here is to frame these things in a relationship: Friends, Coach&Student, Mutual Respect, Competing Scumbag Pick-up Artists.

The argument where the Trainer pushes his client to ignore the fatigue he’s feeling by focusing on the goal (Fixed Attitude), and gets frustrated that the client can’t do it (Impulsive Responses) is also the moment where the Relationship moves forward through Mutual Respect… which is fun, since those things generate different emotions: “I hate it when you push me, but I love how it makes me feel. You’re a dick, but I gotta hand it to you… this works.”

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#9

One way to do it is to encode your IC without thinking about the MC at all, and make sure that he impacts everyone around him with all his encodings. Then, when you weave that IC Throughline into the rest of the story, he will naturally impact the MC along with everyone else he doesn’t have a Relationship with.

That said, I think there are some stories where the IC throughline is like a shotgun, impacting everyone, and others where the IC is more like a guided missile or sniper rifle, seeking out and impacting the MC almost exclusively. The above technique tends to push you towards the “shotgun IC”, so if you want the more guided missile one then you should downplay the impact on others when you weave the IC throughline in with the rest.

#10

Thanks all, all good advice.

@mlucas, i think i mentioned to you before about encoding the IC first on the next story I do. I can’t wait to get that one started (even though it’s probably a month or two away at this point still) so I can see the difference between that and how I did this one. I definitely think the one i’m working on now has a more guided IC. She’s not just looking to impact the MC directly, but she is looking for people in a certain group. There’s something about the MC that falls just outside of that group, but that also puts him in more dire need of her help so that there’s a focus there with him that isn’t there with others.

@MWollaeger, the next step is definitely to write the story. The bullet points were my way of making sure I didn’t feel any holes before starting and to make sure I could move smoothly from Sign Post to Journey to Sign Post without any big surprises while writing. I’d hate to get 250 pages into a novel only to realize i’ve encoded my MC to be in two different places at once or something.

Also, I started to go through the Plot Sequence report and try to make sure I had all of that in the story, and then to follow that up by making sure all 64 elements were present in all 4 throughlines. More for the experience and to explore the Dramatica theory than to craft a proper story. but that proved to be just too big a project at the moment.

The advice about what to look for in IC and M/I throughlines is great and I think considering it will help me to find ways to show the IC throughline even when it seems like I haven’t otherwise left room for it. Same with the M/I. Since I encoded them so close together, showing throughline specific moments like those you listed should help pull them back apart while writing.