Knowing the order of your elements before knowing the elements?

writing
#1

A strange thing happened while making new discoveries to a storyform of mine: usually, it’s the main character or the relationship where my initial ideas are the strongest, but in this script, it was the influence character I found the strongest and the most intriguing part right from the beginning – he’s a sort of mix between Richard Feynman and (old) Obi Wan Kenobi.

I figured quite early that he’s a Physics character (the Feynman part), with Doing as the area of his impact. But the details of what the story is about have been buried in my subconscious.

What I sometimes do to “dislodge” a story is go to theme storyforming and select elements that have a good feel to them depending on which Throughline feels the most solid in my head. What I noticed was that I intuitively selected Theory, Trust, Expectation, and Ending as possible Problem elements in the IC Throughline; all upper right corner elements in their quads. With the other things I’ve figured out, this placed the Focus in the upper left corner, Proven, Effect, Accurate, and Result; all extremely fitting points of focus for the character, but not yet set in stone.

So, I started wondering: since I’ve read every quad is really about Knowledge, Ability, Desire, and Thought, could it be that even before knowing what specific Elements the Problem, Solution, Focus, and Direction are, your subconscious might already know whether they go in Knowledge, Ability, Desire, or Thought?

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#2

I don’t have much to add, but I’ll pay attention and let you know if I notice anything like this when storyforming my own story ideas.

I really like the approach (and attitude) that you mention for storyforming your stories. The idea that there is a valid storyform in there that you’re trying to “dislodge” is really powerful, kind of like ice/wood/stone carvers feeling like the sculpture is already there and they’re just taking away the extraneous parts. And using the Theme Storyforming to multi-select things is how I like to approach it too, sort of carefully and with an open mind. Like the carving artists, you’re really removing elements that you’re sure don’t belong.

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#3

Thank you, @mlucas. Haven’t thought of it like that, but the analogy definitely rings true to me.

Please, do report back if anything like this happens in your own work.

#4

This one turned out to have a much earthlier explanation than I initially thought! I had too hastily pinpointed the OS Concern to the Preconscious, thinking, surely, the subject matter of absent-mindedness must concern itself with the Preconscious; but I realized what I was writing about actually concerned loss of memory, with the Preconscious as the benchmark.

Cool thing is, the IC problem elements I was considering under “Doing” turned out to be extremely fitting OS characteristics; so, I unknowingly made a ton of headway on his OS role. Very, very, strange way to arrive at a storyform, but whatever gets you there, right? :slight_smile: