My attempt at Storyform analysis of Little Brother by Cory Doctorow

Little Brother is a dystopian cyberpunk story which deals with subject matters of privacy, terrorism and police state. It had been described as “a rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion.”
I know this is a sensitive issue now more than ever, but I am NOT interested in discussing any political matter at hand; I just want to analyse the storyform because I believe this story holds up really well.

My attempt at storyform breakdown is down below. I am working to illustrate each points with specific examples. I will post all the illustration examples of appreciations here once I’m finished. I would appreciate any feedback if anyone read the book.

The author even provides with free digital copy of the novel if anyone is interested with critiquing my analysis. http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/

Resolve: Steadfast
Growth: Start
Approach: Do-er
Mental Sex: Male
Driver: Action
Limit: Optionlock
Outcome: Success
Judgment: Bad

THE OBJECTIVE STORY THROUGHLINE:

Domain: Psychology
Concern: Conceiving
Issue: Permission
Counterpoint: Deficiency
Problem: Potentiality
Solution: Certainty
Focus: Acceptance
Direction: Nonacceptance
Benchmark: Being
Catalyst: Need
Inhibitor: Investigation

THE MAIN CHARACTER THROUGHLINE:

Domain: Universe
Concern: The Present
Issue: Attraction
Counterpoint: Repulsion
Problem: Reaction
Solution: Proaction
Focus: Acceptance
Direction: Nonacceptance
Benchmark: Progress
Unique Ability: Attraction
Critical Flaw: Prerequisites

THE OBSTACLE CHARACTER THROUGHLINE:

Domain: Mind
Concern: The Conscious
Issue: Appraisal
Counterpoint: Reappraisal
Problem: Potentiality
Solution: Certainty
Focus: Proaction
Direction: Reaction
Benchmark: The Preconscious
Unique Ability: Appraisal
Critical Flaw: Permission

THE SUBJECTIVE STORY THROUGHLINE:

Domain: Physics
Concern: Learning
Issue: Prerequisites
Counterpoint: Preconditions
Thematic Conflict:
Problem: Reevaluation
Solution: Evaluation
Focus: Acceptance
Direction: Nonacceptance
Benchmark: Doing
Catalyst: Strategy
Inhibitor: Work

It’s been a while, but I finished the comprehensive analysis. It was hard to separate out MC and IC from OS because its structure was melodramatic. (Archetypal hero and villain in the same story)

Dramatica Storyform analysis of “Little Brother” by Cory Doctorow

Story Dynamics

Main Character Resolve of Steadfast:
Marcus still wants to revenge against DHS for his friend even after all the hardship. He keeps his non-conforming fortitude throughout the story even when offered easy way out.

MARCUS: "I had the chance to run. Last week. Someone offered to take me away, get me out of town, help me build a new identity. Instead I stole her phone, escaped from our truck, and ran away. I turned over her phone — which had evidence about my friend, Darryl Glover, on it — to a journalist and hid out here, in town. […] I decided that I couldn’t run.”

Main Character Growth of Start:
Marcus is holding for other Americans like his father, Charles, Andersen to realize that DHS is violating their liberty.

Main Character Approach of Do-er:
Marcus takes action first and suffers consequence later. Marcus hacks school security measures because he doesn’t like it. He skips school to play a game with his friends. He establishes xnet to undermine government surveillance because he feels vengeful. When spies within his network become a problem, he establishes the web of trust right away. He steals his Masha’s phone to corroborate his story. Marcus finds it very uncomfortable to adjust his behavior which is why he hates surveillance in the first place. When Masha gives Marcus choice of “being a fighter than a martyr”, he almost goes crazy because he is not used to making internal deliberation.

MARCUS: “When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.”

Main Character Mental Sex of Male:
When Marcus thinks something is problematic, he works it out without considering relational dynamics. After determining DHS to be his enemy, he gets his hacking community attacking DHS although attacking DHS makes the hacker group look suspicious, especially right after terrorism attack. He cannot understand how joining a protest movement can possibly resolve his personal issues because he thinks that DHS is the cause of his problem. He also thinks that constitution is a black-white matter without any in-betweens. Marcus has tendency to determine a problem first and make into procedural steps especially when it comes to hacking.

Story Driver of Action:
Action forces the decision from the characters. Bombing of Bay Bridge. Darryl getting Stabbed. Passage of Patriot ACT II. Zeb running into Marcus. Presence of spies within xnet. Web of Trust breached by Masha, Him getting Caught by DHS and being rescued by the state troop.

Story Limit of Optionlock:
When Marcus gets caught by DHS for the second time, story reaches climax. Marcus proclaims his victory on his second detainment while being waterboarded because he had done everything he could to fight against DHS.

MARCUS (as a narrator): I had won. And if I hadn’t won, I had done everything I could have done. More than I ever thought I could do.

Story Outcome of Success:
Marcus is successful in preventing paranoia from spreading by exposing DHS.

BARBARA: “The point is, it’s over. The Governor has thrown the DHS out of the State, dismantled every checkpoint. The Attorney General has issued warrants for any law-enforcement officers involved in ‘stress interrogations’ and secret imprisonments.”

Story Judgement of Bad:
Marcus is still tormented because the “military tribunal [has] cleared [Johnstone] of any wrongdoing” along with other DHS officers.

Overall Story Throughline: Terrorist Paranoia

Domain of Psychology:
Terrorists bombs the Bay Bridge to cause terror. DHS (Department of Homeland Security) manipulates and deceives people through media, interrogation and surveillance. Mass paranoia sweeps across the nation as Patriot ACT II is decreed. Activism like Xbox Network (Xnet), youth riot breaks out to in effort to incite emotions and sway public opinions. News media portrays sensational information which invoke fear.

MARCUS: Homeland Security had my city and my country caught in a massive, irrational shrieking freak-out where anything could be done in the name of stopping terrorism.

Concern of Conceiving:
Benson tries to come up with any reason why school needs surveillance system. DHS devises to make people conceive that “there are threats everywhere.” DHS and saboteurs come up with novel ideas to infiltrate each other. Andersen and Charles tries to convince Marcus that in times of danger and insurgence, individual liberty must be yielded. Marcus as a protagonist wants the public to conceive that DHS is violating their liberty. Marcus as a main character wants readers to conceive that mass surveillance is not an answer to terrorism.

Issue of Permission:
Overall story’s thematic point explores excessive governmental permission. Authorities wouldn’t allow large gathering whether it’s an illegal rock concert or group role playing. People find that security measures like RFID tracking analysis, security camera surveillance techniques are violating their liberty. DHS has to get approved by the congress to increase budget for mass surveillance. Groups of parents sues school board over the surveillance cameras. Passwords and cryptographies are mentioned as a way to limit access to information. Xnetters, a hacker group rebels against DHS because they believe that they have rights to do so. Civil rights movements are discussed in social studies class, which actually get the teacher in charge suspended.

MARCUS (citing the Declaration of Independence): ‘Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.’

Counterpoint of Deficiency:
Deficiencies of privacy, liberty and happiness is brought as an argument against government’s surveillance. Many people including Marcus feels that their liberty are taken away.

MARCUS (as a narrator): It’s not about doing something shameful. It’s about doing something private. It’s about your life belonging to you. They were taking that from me, piece by piece.

Permission vs Deficiency:
Should the government be allowed to suspend individual rights at all? Does the government have permission to take away people’s liberty in the name of its protecting its citizen?
As the story progress, it becomes clear that as granting government permission to withhold individual rights is problematic as DHS fails to apprehend any terrorists, abuse its power and limit freedom of speech.

ANDERSEN: “The role of government is to secure for citizens the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In that order. It’s like a filter. If the government wants to do something that makes us a little unhappy, or takes away some of our liberty, it’s OK.”

Problem of Potentiality:
When characters determine or fathom uncertainty, problems of overall stories deepen. Potential threats of surveillance, terrorism and security breach are driving characters paranoid.
Vanessa finds Marcus’s activism problematic due to its potential that he would get himself and others into trouble.
Marcus considers potential that he and Ange would break up and betray each other.
People see that there are always chance that newly invented security measures will be breached.
“Millions of have-you-seen sites [has] popped up on the net” out of chance that they might return.
Benson determines Marcus as the hacker that stole the last year’s standardized tests without any evidence.
DHS detains the innocents out of the chance that some might be terrorists.
DHS and police treat all their citizens as potential terrorists by data-mining.
Saboteurs determine that the terrorist tests can be potentially abused.
General Sutherland wants people to consider the potential that the impressionable young people might be recruited to “fight the war on the home front” for terrorists
The government is alarmed that high number of “false alarms are potentially ‘radar chaff’ intended to disguise real attacks.”
Marcus’s father is convinced that methodology of DHS has potential to arrest terrorists although it has proven otherwise.
Jolu mentions that police and DHS determine that brown people have more potential to be criminals, thus giving them harsher punishments.

MARCUS (as a narrator): What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!

Solution of Certainty:
The problems of overall stories are resolved as characters embrace the certainty.
Marcus establishes web of trust to know for certain that his ring of communication cannot be breached.
Marcus knows for certain that Darryl is in DHS’s custody.
When Marcus finds out for certain there has been spy within the ring of trust, it provides him with new opportunities.
Masha’s photo and camera footage turns out to be hard evidence that indicts DHS for certain.
Marcus is rejoiced that he proved DHS as “chumps and despots.”
Ange “solemnly promise[s] that there is nothing [Marcus] could ever do to [her] that would cause [her] to betray [his] secret.
Marcus tries to convince himself that DHS couldn’t kill him while being waterboarded
Father finds out exactly who to blame (himself and DHS) after Marcus tells him what really happened after bombing.
Marcus finds it for certain that he can trust Vanessa to the point of confiding her with his password, which he “never” does.

MARCUS: “Now, though, I have evidence. This stuff – it could change the world. This is my last hope. The only hope for getting Darryl out, for getting a life that I don’t spend underground, hiding from the cops.”

Focus of Acceptance:
Objective characters focus their attention on the presence or lack of acceptance.
DHS forces cooperation to the detainees and citizens.
Dad claims that DHS increasing budgets and surveilling more people will solve the problem
Governor pleads that no price is too high for security, urging people to accept the security measures

MARCUS(as the narrator): The law said they couldn’t force us to go to school with cameras all over the place, but it didn’t say anything about us volunteering to give up our Constitutional rights

Direction of Nonacceptance:
In order to remedy to seeming problems, characters are driven not to compromise.
Characters who find surveillance unacceptable actively jams and thwarts the security measures
Xnet community stands up to surveillance
Illegal concert is held in protest for DHS

ANONYMOUS XNET USER: “Let them hire a billion pigs and put a checkpoint on every corner. We’ll jam them all! […] We’re jamming up the system because we hate the Homeland Security, and because we love our city.”

Catalyst of Need:
When characters appeal to need for security to justify DHS’s enforcement and police interrogation, conflict accelerates. Congress approves DHS’s budget requisition, justifying that “no price is too high for security.”

MARCUS: “Have you noticed that they haven’t caught any terrorists? Dad’s all like, ‘We need to be safe,’ but he needs to know that most of us don’t feel safe. We feel endangered all the time."

Inhibitor of investigation:
Investigation is what causes the xnet community to dissolve. There seem to be investigation that disguised itself in forms of livejournal questionnaire spreading throughout the xnett community. When several Xnetters gets arrested, Marcus pleads others to stop jamming.

MARCUS (as the narrator): “It’s stupid to get arrested. It’s only jamming if you get away with it.”

Benchmark of Being:
Characters judge the progress of the story by seeing how much people act like compliant citizens.

FATHER: “This isn’t the time to be playing lawyer about the Bill of Rights. This is the time to make some sacrifices to keep our city safe.”

Plot Progression:

Conceptualizing: After the terrorist attack characters try to re-imagine what has happened by mourning. Plans for maximizing securities are implemented. DHS’s detainees tries to imagine what has just happened.

MOTHER: “Marcus, we thought you were dead. Do you understand that? We were mourning you for days. We were imagining you blown to bits, at the bottom of the ocean.”

Conceptualizing to Being: Passage of Patriot ACT II gives DHS permission to conduct mass surveillance.

THE TURK: The government. They monitor it all now, it was in the papers. PATRIOT Act II, the Congress passed it yesterday. Now they can monitor every time you use your card. I say no. I say my shop will not help them spy on my customers.

Being: People have trouble adjusting to new lifestyle of being surveilled. People’s private lives are invaded.

MARCUS (as the narrator): The Xnet was full of these stories, and so were the newspapers and the TV news. Husbands were caught cheating on their wives; wives were caught cheating on their husbands, kids were caught sneaking out with illicit girlfriends and boyfriends. A kid who hadn’t told his parents he had AIDS got caught going to the clinic for his drugs.

Being to Becoming: Police strikes down the illegal concert.

Becoming: Xnetters get a bad reputation after news media’s disinformation. Xnetters try to form an identity to their movement. Public opinions start to split as people determine each other’s identity.

CHARLES: It’s easy to tell who’s us and who’s them: if you support America, you’re us. If you support the people who are shooting at Americans, you’re them.

Becoming to Conceiving: Marcus’s story is covered on the press.

Conceiving: Public is finally convinced of DHS’s wrongdoing and incriminates DHS and the government.

Main Character Throughline: Marcus Yallow

Domain of Universe:
Marcus as a “marked man” finds that world is his extension of his prison. He takes DHS’s surveillance very personally as they has had abused him and his friends.

MARCUS: “I decided that I couldn’t run. That I had to face justice - that my freedom wasn’t worth anything if I was a wanted man, or if the city was still under the DHS. If my friends were still locked up. That freedom for me wasn’t as important as a free country.”

Concern of Present:
Marcus is concerned throughout the story about Darryl’s current status. Marcus initially thinks that DHS has had let his friend die, but he is informed that Darryl is still detained by DHS and still finds it problematic. Additionally, Marcus finds himself at odd with his present situation from being detained by DHS. Being M1k3y. Being a fugitive to finally being detained again to being on a trial.

Issue of Attraction:
Marcus puts himself into trouble by pursuing what he finds attractive since his close friendship with Darryl makes him want to avenge against DHS in the first place. ex.) He skips school to school to play Harajuku Fun Madness, which get his group detained by DHS. Marcus attends illegal concert which almost gets him and Ange arrested. Marcus is rewarded with sex with Ange after telling the press his story. Marcus finds learning and dissecting technologies highly attractive to the point that he finds smart hacking “practically perverted.”

MARCUS (as a narrator): “If you’ve never programmed a computer, you should. There’s nothing like it in the whole world. (…) It’s awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.”

Counterpoint of Repulsion:
Marcus is scared of being cooped in the security shelter. He finds that his favorite pizza is repulsive because he was fed the same pizza in the detainment. Marcus’s favorite laptop which he named Salmagundi, is repulsive after government has wiretapped it. Marcus is made to pee and puke over himself while on his detainment. DHS’s torture and interrogation technique demoralizes Marcus. Marcus doesn’t understand why Ange uses painfully hot pepper spray to on her food to taste. Police uses pepper gas to ward off the protesters.

MARCUS (as a narrator): My heart thudded and my blood sang in a cruel parody of the way I’d felt when we got home. This wasn’t sexual excitement, it was raw terror.

Attraction vs Repulsion:
For Marcus personally, how much is Marcus willing to pursue carrot even when he is met with stick? How does his environment and institution shape his sense of pleasure and pain?
In his both literal and figurative prison, Marcus cannot help but notice the dichotomy of pain and pleasure everywhere from chairs in the interrogation room to slices of pizza. However, as story progresses, he finds that the fine line of pleasure and pain is blurred. Being a fugitive, Marcus finds “Domino’s -the worst pizza in town-” to be delicious. When DHS abducts him for the second time, he looks forward to heading to the prison in hopes of seeing Ange and Darryl. While in physical restraints, he even manages to find comfort covered in vomit and urine.

Unique ability of Attraction:
His magnetic presence online and offline make Marcus uniquely suited to handle the story goal. Moreover, he frequently uses attraction like party, game and role playing to his advantage.
He distributes ParanoidXbox which has “been sneakernetted and copied all the way to Oakland in the space of two weeks.”
His online presence attracts people like Dr. Eeevil and Masha to assist in his effort.
Nate and Liam harbor Marcus on the run to let him get access to xnet because they admire Marcus.
Marcus’s attraction wins over Vanessa to hand the crucial information to the press.
Zeb knowingly risks imprisonment in order to provide shelter just for Marcus.

ANGE: “Who wouldn’t listen to M1k3y?”

Critical Flaw of Prerequisite:
Marcus finds that he has to proceed without Darryl who would usually handle prerequisites.
JOLU: “Darryl was… He was your second-in-command, the guy who had it all organized, who watched the details.”
Benchmark of The Progress: Marcus constantly assesses how much control he has over his environment. He tweaks his gadgets, builds a private community and engages in activism to be control of his life. Marcus loses his temper when he fears his secret identity is leaked. During his second detainment by DHS, Marcus find himself to be in comfort.

MARCUS(as the narrator): “The sensation of giving orders, of controlling my destiny, was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt.”

Problem of Reaction:
Marcus’s reactions against DHS is the root of Marcus’s problem as Vanessa points out.
When he gets confined in DHS’s van he thinks that he “didn’t like these people. [He] decide[s] right then that they would pay a price for all this.”
During initial detainment, Marcus couldn’t stop himself from “mouthing off” to Johnstone, so he gets retaliated.
Marcus vows vengeance against DHS after he finds out Darryl has disappeared.
When Marcus rashes out to Andersen when she argues that constitution should be suspended in times of crisis, he gets suspended from the school
When Marcus as a fugitive encounters Vanessa, he realizes that his source of problem was his reaction, acknowledging her that she was “right, at least partly” but he still decides to stick to his old way.

Solution of Proaction:
Vanessa pleads Marcus to “do something positive” like joining protest movement to prevent future abuse.
Marcus is tempted to give up activism before DHS closes in on him and almost loses sight of Darryl.

MARCUS (as a narrator): Zeb had showed me a secret, something I hadn’t anticipated: there was a whole hidden world out there, a way of getting by without participating in the system.

Focus of Acceptance:
Marcus find it that problematic his friends like Van and Jolu and tolerating DHS’s abuse.

MARCUS: Jesus Jolu, thanks so very much for abandoning me! Do you forget what it was like when they took us away?

Direction of Nonacceptance:
Marcus plead others that what DHS has done to Darryl and themselves is unacceptable. Marcus also is inspired by civil rights movements and yippie’s activism.

MARCUS: “I’m doing this because the alternative is to let them get away with it all.”

Plot Progression

Past: When Marcus is detained, he reminisces about his previous ordinary life as he wishes it back.
MARCUS (as a narrator): I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to go home and have my friends and my school and my parents and my life back. I wanted to be able to go where I wanted to go, not be stuck pacing and pacing and pacing.

Past to Progress: Marcus is released

Progress: Marcus doesn’t like how surveillance system is being implemented and tries to gain control over his life by tweaking gadgets, hacking, building anonymous community and so on.

Progress to Present: Marcus gets a note from Zeb saying that Darryl is still being detained

Present: Marcus decides to blow whistle on DHS by telling DHS’s illegal detainment. Masha comes to aid Marcus’s escape.

Present to Future: Marcus discovers that Masha holds the picture of Darryl that was taken right before imprisonment.

Future: Marcus releases the evidence to the public in hopes of toppling DHS’s reign. Marcus lives a life a homeless fugitive without any future. His freedom will be taken away forever if he gets caught again.

Impact Character Throughline: DHS (collective influence characters)

Domain of Mind:
Through impact characters and their mouthpieces like Andersen, Marcus is confronted to face his fixed attitude regarding the constitutional rights. Additionally, high ranking DHS officials believes that San Francisco is “Sodom and Gomorrah of fags and atheists who deserve to rot in hell” and that“the only reason the country cares what they think in San Francisco is that they had the good fortune to have been blown to hell by some Islamic terrorists.”

MARCUS: “Constitutional rights are absolute.”
ANDERSEN: “That’s not a very sophisticated view.”

Concern of Conscious:
Impact characters points to Marcus that he is failing to consider that the recent terrorist attack justifies DHS’s abuse.
Andersen: Marcus, you seem to think that nothing has changed in this country. You need to understand that the bombing of the Bay Bridge changed everything.

Issue of Appraisal:
Through DHS, pitfalls of appraisal are explored. It is seen repeatedly on how first impression can cloud judgment. DHS detains innocent bystanders near the terror sight just because of its initial suspicion. DHS’s surveillance system presumes all innocents to be potential criminals, which causes public inconveniences and false alarm.

JOHNSTONE: “Even once you tell us what we want to know, even if that convinces us that you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, you’re a marked man now. We’ll be watching you everywhere you go and everything you do. You’ve acted like you’ve got something to hide, and we don’t like that.”

Reappraisal:
DHS’s supporters like Masha and Marcus’s father reappraise their initial understanding in light of new evidence. Public reappraises DHS after Marcus blows whistle through news media. DHS is also forced to reappraise itself.

MARCUS(as the narrator): "The DHS would hold a closed, military tribunal to investigate ‘possible errors in judgment’ committed after the attack on the Bay Bridge. The tribunal would use every tool at its disposal to ensure that criminal acts were properly punished.

Appraisal vs Reappraisal:
Guilty until proven innocent or Innocent until proven guilty? Which of the evaluations does DHS prefer? What are possible merits and pitfalls of both sides?

DHS puts more emphasis in appraisal than reappraisal, which proves to be damaging as illustrated below.

ZEB: I had a burst appendix the day afterward and ended up in the infirmary. In the next bed was a guy named Darryl. We were both in recovery for a long time and by the time we got well, we were too much of an embarrassment to them to let go. So they decided we must really be guilty. They questioned us every day.

Problem of Potentiality:
DHS takes terrorism as an opportunity to stay in power.

MARCUS(as the narrator): President’s Chief of Staff gloated at the attacks on San Francisco and admitted that he knew when and where the next attacks would happen and that he wouldn’t stop them because they’d help his man get re-elected.

Solution of Certainty:
Marcus decides to end DHS’s impact over him by submitting crucial incriminating evidence against it.

MARCUS: “I am so sick of being scared,” I said. “Let’s take this to Barbara and have her publish it all. Put it all on the net. Let them take me away. At least I’ll know what’s going to happen then. At least then I’ll have a little certainty in my life.”

Focus of Proaction:
DHS finds it problematic that M1k3y is putting the brakes on.

ROONEY: “So long as they’re moderates, they’re a liability.”

Direction of Reaction:
DHS focuses on retaliating against activism to keep them radical.

ROONEY: “Keep them radical”

Unique Ability of Appraisal:
DHS has power to use and manipulate people’s first impression to their advantage to undermine Marcus. DHS controls what information gets out and gives off impression Xnetters support terrorists.

Sutherland: "I want you to look at these for a moment. Let me read you their titles. WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED: A CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO OVERTHROWING THE STATE. Here’s one, DID THE SEPTEMBER 11TH BOMBINGS REALLY HAPPEN? And another, HOW TO USE THEIR SECURITY AGAINST THEM.

Critical Flaw of Expediency:
Masha who has evidence to incriminate DHS defects because she finds it expedient course of action.

MASHA: “They offered me a job: help them hunt down the terrorists who’d killed my neighbors. It sounded like a good deal at the time. Little did I realize that my actual job would turn out to be spying on kids who resented their city being turned into a police state.”

Benchmark of preconscious:
Degree to which DHS has impact on Marcus is measured by Marcus’s preconscious reactions to DHS. DHS makes Marcus feel wide array of preconscious emotion from esprit de escalier, feeling like throwing up, raw terror and finally calmness.

Plot Progression:

Preconscious: Marcus is alarmed that DHS officers doesn’t give off any emotions and treat detainees impersonally “like someone at McDonald’s putting together burgers”

MARCUS(as the narrator): She did, and her face slammed into a totally different configuration, dispassionate, even robotic. The smile vanished in an instant.

Preconscious to Subconscious: DHS’s security measures are met with huge backlash and sabotage, which angers officers.

Subconscious: DHS gets into hotheaded controversy after openly expressing hatred especially to general Claude Geist.

MARCUS(as the narrator): Abuses of Authority: it’s the latest craze on San Francisco’s notorious Xnet, and it’s captured the world’s attention. […] The rallying cry is a popular viral video clip of a General Claude Geist, a retired three-star general, being tackled by DHS officers on the sidewalk in front of City Hall. Geist hasn’t made a statement on the incident, but commentary from young people who are upset with their own treatment has been fast and furious.

Subconscious to Conscious: DHS uses the youth riot to their advantage to distract the public.

Conscious: DHS officers knows where next terrorism would be, but plans not to act. At the same time, they are framing Xnetters and rebels to be real enemies of the state.

Conscious to Memory: Masha defects DHS, disillusioned by their deception.

Memory: Masha’s evidence incriminates DHS. Johnstone is brought to the court to testify her statement, but she refuses to say anything.

continued…

Relationship story Throughline: M1k3y vs DHS Techno-war

Domain of Physics: Marcus and DHS engages in physical activities as they play cat and mouse.

Concern of Learning:
DHS and Marcus both concern over extracting or hiding information from each other. On Marcus’ first encounter with DHS, he inquires identity of his captor, whereabouts of Darryl, reason for his captivity. After Marcus’s release, DHS investigates the identity of M1k3y using surveillance tactics.

JOHNSTONE: “We will be watching you. We’ll be waiting for you to make a misstep. Do you understand that we can watch you closely, all the time?”

Issue of Prerequisite:
There are layers of Security measures that Marcus has set up to prevent DHS from infiltrating his information while DHS sets up surveillance measure of their own. The nature of relationship hinges on hacking each other’s prerequisite put in place by each other. Marcus sets up Xnet community, fake email address, anonymous handle, web of trust and various other security measures. DHS on the other hand, comes up with credit card monitoring, transit tracking and various other securities measures.

MARCUS: “I’m 17 years old. I’m not a straight-A student or anything. Even so, I figured out how to make an Internet that they can’t wiretap. I figured out how to jam their person-tracking technology. I can turn innocent people into suspects and turn guilty people into innocents in their eyes. I could get metal onto an airplane or beat a no-fly list. I figured this stuff out by looking at the web and by thinking about it. If I can do it, terrorists can do it.”

Counterpoint of Precondition:
During DHS’s initial detainment, Marcus finds himself unable resist DHS’s domineering preconditions to get his “privilege.” Whenever he tries to set his own precondition like getting a lawyer and claiming his rights, he is met with harsher punishment and even death threats. Even when Marcus is released after complying to sign DHS’s legalese paper, DHS’s threats still haunts him “like eyes watching [him] from all directions.” However, as story progresses precondition of legality gets best of DHS.

JOHNSTONE: Here’s what we want from you. You unlock the phone for us today. If you do that, you’ll get outdoor and bathing privileges. You’ll get a shower and you’ll be allowed to walk around in the exercise yard. Tomorrow, we’ll bring you back and ask you to decrypt the data on these memory sticks. Do that, and you’ll get to eat in the mess hall. The day after, we’re going to want your email passwords, and that will get you library privileges.

Prerequisite vs Precondition:
Regarding DHS and Marcus’s relationship, how far can the technologies go? How is it kept in check?

Marcus gives many historical examples explaining in order for technology to be truly secure one must “tell as many people as possible how it works, so that they can thwack on it with everything they have, testing its security” He finds that putting legal constraint like classifying “crypto as a munition and made it illegal for anyone to export or use it on national security grounds” ill-conceived, calling it “illegal math.”

Problem of Re-evaluation:
Problem stems from the fact that DHS cannot re-evaluate Marcus to be M1ke3y that they have been looking for. Also Johnstone refuses to believe Marcus’s innocence even after the re-evaluation. Marcus cannot re-evaluate his idea of Constitution more in line with Johnestone.

Solution of Evaluation:
Court fails to evaluate DHS’s abuse against Marcus adequately and lets Johnstone get off the charges.

Focus of Acceptance:
At a face-to-face level, two subjective characters’ primary focus is on acceptance. During the first detainment, Marcus finds it problematic that he has to tolerate DHS’s abuse. Johnstone forces Marcus to "cooperate, or [to be] be very, very sorry.”

MARCUS (as the narrator): She wanted me to submit to her. To put her in charge of me.

Direction of Nonacceptance:
Because Marcus cannot stand the DHS’s surveillance and security measure, he makes personal retribution against DHS and continues till he caught again. During his second detainment, Marcus is resolved to be unencumbered by threats of waterboarding and firmly resists cooperation with Johnstone.

Catalyst of Strategy:
Whenever new strategies employed to break each other’s security measures, the relationship story intensifies.

MARCUS: The important thing about security systems isn’t how they work, it’s how they fail.

Inhibitor of Work:
When a strategy are put to work even after its flaws exposed, the relationship encounters a stalemate.
When DHS’s RFID tracking is employed after Marcus exposes its flaw, DHS’s investigation is put to a gridlock.

MARCUS: “But by taking in all that data from the transit system, they’re creating the haystack,” I said. "That’s a gigantic mountain of data and there’s almost nothing worth looking at there, from the police’s point of view. It’s a total waste.”

Benchmark of Understanding:
In the relationship, Johnstone appraises their relationship by asking if Marcus understands. In this sense, the relationship can be measured by their misunderstanding of each other.

JOHNSTONE: “— smart kid like you. You’d think that you’d know better than to mess with us. We’ve had an eye on you since the day you walked out. We would have caught you even if you hadn’t gone crying to your lesbo journalist traitor. I just don’t get it — we had an understanding, you and me…”

Plot Progression:

Understanding: Johnstone and Marcus both have hard time understanding each other’s motivation under interrogation

MARCUS: "Listen — this is some kind of misunderstanding”

Understanding to Doing: After trying to figure Marcus out, Johnstone release Marcus after making him sign some legal forms

Doing: Marcus engages in xnet activism against DHS

Doing to Obtaining: DHS has gotten a lead to track down M1k3y

Obtaining: After DHS figures out the identity of Marcus, they try to detain him again.

Obtaining to Learning: DHS catches Marcus

Learning: DHS tortures Marcus to get his password.

Static Plot Points:

Story goal:
DHS wants public to conceive that there are “threats everywhere.” Marcus as a protagonist works to prevent it.

MARCUS: “So aren’t we doing what the terrorists want from us? Don’t they win if we act all afraid and put cameras in the classrooms and all of that?”

Story consequence of Learning:
If public gives into the terror, DHS will continue data mining and surveillance, invading their privacy.

Story Requirements of Being:
Marcus and other activist must hide their identity

MARCUS (as the Narrator): I used the Xnet for almost everything now. I’d set up a fake email address through the Pirate Party, a Swedish political party that hated Internet surveillance and promised to keep their mail accounts a secret from everyone, even the cops. […] My new handle, come up with on the spur of the moment, was M1k3y.

Forewarning of Progress:
As the DHS infiltrate and gains control of xnet, we can see DHS winning.

JOHNSTONE: “Our people in the Xnet have built up a lot of influence. The Manchurian Bloggers are running as many as fifty blogs each, flooding the chat channels, linking to each other, mostly just taking the party line set by this M1k3y.”

Story dividend of the Present:
Marcus finds out about whereabouts of Darryl.

Story Cost of The Conscious:
Marcus has to think about what Darryl, his father, Ange and other dissappeared people must have gone through.

MARCUS: “They arrested [Ange]. She’s in Gitmo – on Treasure Island. She’s been there for days now.” I had been trying not to think about this, not to think about what might be happening to her. Now I couldn’t stop myself and I started to sob. I felt a pain in my stomach, like I’d been kicked, and I pushed my hands into my middle to hold myself in.

Prerequisite of Doing:
Marcus finds that he must be able to do things freely to be able to fight DHS.

MARCUS:“I want us to fight back,” I said. “I want to stay free so that I can do that. If we go out there and blab, they’re just say that we’re kids, making it up. We don’t even know where we were held! No one will believe us.”

Preconditions of The Preconscious:
Marcus is saddled with innate fear and disgust response against torture and imprisonment, which discourages Marcus from achieving the goal.

MARCUS: “They told me I’d go to jail if I talked about it. Not just for a few days. Forever. I was — I was scared.”

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Good work @Lorno It must have taken you ages. If you care to share steps you took when storyforming, that could be of help to the group. I’ve downloaded the book. It might take me a little while to read but I’m interested. Neil Gaiman loved the book so I’m guessing it’s very solid.

I actually consulted an university play production. It was my job to figure out the structure of the book to adapt it into a play. There were some confusion as nobody had a clue what Dramatica was (not even professors). Play ended successfully although some crucial story points got glossed over.

As for my process, there wasn’t much to figuring out the storyform.

I went back and forth between re-reading the book and double-checking the storyform. I soon found myself remembering all the dialogues.

It was pretty easy to figure out protagonist/antagonist and MC/IC. Marcus is the protagonist who constantly pursues bringing down DHS and DHS is the one wants to stop Marcus. (DHS was represented by Johnstone(severe haircut lady)) Also, Marcus and Johnstone have you-and-I moment right off the bat and again at the end.

Since MC=protagonist and IC=antagonist, logistic argument and emotional argument are fought between the same characters. Because of this, OS and RS were melded together, making it difficult to pick out the story goal.

Whole community is built around to aid Marcus’s techno-war against DHS (Relationship story), so this relationship story has incidental effects on the Overall Story like causing traffic jam, riot, policing and so on.

However, once I determined OS to be internal conceiving goal with issue of permission, every unique ability and catalysis fall into the place. It had to be. His parents, teachers and other students all had paranoid psychological conflicts without getting involved in Marcus’s techno-war.

So that was my process. There were a lot of backtracking and tweaking some choices on Dramatica software. However, out of dozen possible storyforms, this has to be it. I’ve checked them all.

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I didn’t realize you had done so much work on this. I’ll try and find some time to read this and report back. Thanks!

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