By framing the temporal causality of Goal/Consequence as “if the consequence persists, the goal will fail to be reached,” does that have any affect on how one should approach the other story points?
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If the Consequence is already in place that’s a Stop story. In a Start story, the Consequence comes into play only if the Goal is not achieved.
http://dramatica.com/theory/book/storyforming
Is that what you meant?
Of course Start/Stop affects lots of other things, like how the Domains of the throughlines are aligned, etc.
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Sure. That’s one story point.
Similar to the way you kind of have to reframe your thoughts about the MC Problem/Solution depending on the MC Resolve and Outcome, does the aforementioned temporal switch affect anything else?
I find it really useful for my current work to frame my Goal/Consequence that way. I just want to make sure I’m not ignorant of any inconsistencies that might inadvertently create in other story points.
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What do you mean by this?
“For the Success/Good and Failure/Bad combinations, the Main Character was on the right track, according to the author. In the first case, it paid off and that was Good. In the second it didn’t pay off and that was Bad.
The value Judgement of Good /Bad tempers Success or Failure and in these two cases tells us that the Main Character’s Problem was really best seen as the source of her drive to set things right.
However, in the Success/Bad and Failure/Good stories, the author’s message is that the Main Character was actually the cause of everyone’s problems and therefore, what drove her was really the source of the inequity.
In this case, the Main Character Problem really IS a Problem, and needed to be solved.
Whether it was or not is determined by Success/Failure.”
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The relationship between Goal and Consequence is that they are opposite sides of a ‘single coin’, so to speak. One way to look at it is if the outcome is success, the goal is achieved and the consequence averted; if the outcome is failure, the goal is not achieved and the consequence occurs.
Sometimes the goal is to remove a bad condition, e.g. domination by a despot, a degenerative disease, predation by antagonists, etc. In those cases, the consequence usually means the worsening of those bad conditions. “You thought things were bad BEFORE, now it will be ten times worse!”
The consequence is a major reason the effort to attempt the goal has been resisted before the story begins. The attempt to achieve the goal must be worth the risk of the consequence. If there is no consequence, there is no risk, and therefore no tension or reason NOT to achieve the goal.
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