My Dramatica blindspot: Romance genre

writing
#1

I’m stuck. I’m frustrated, so I’m going to lay it all out.

Brief rundown.

Beginning -
Boy meets girl when their parents marry. Boy and girl fall in love.

Middle -
Boy and girl deny/hide/prevent/control their feelings all the while being stuck together in same house and unable to avoid certain seemingly innocuous activities that only nurture their attraction and love.

End -
Boy moves out and the separation becomes unbearable so they finally decide to be together in spite of the consequences.

Now, is that all OS? RS? If it’s RS, what’s OS?

Once we figure that out, what domains do those sound like for OS and RS?

I’m confident I can flesh out any gaps. I just need to be able to answer enough questions to have Dramatic fill in those gaps. Please help!

#2

How do parents / friends / neighbors feel about the budding romance between the step-siblings?

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#3

They’re unaware. The closest they get is my (the author’s) suggestion of slight suspicion at the end.

It’s entirely about the step-siblings’ perception of the consequences and their own self-judgement.

It’s not even one of those stories where they try to keep a relationship secret like Brokeback Mountain or Brief Encounter.

They succeed up to the climactic breaking point where they lose the futile fight against their feelings. My intended audience appreciation of the ending is bittersweet insofar as the romance genre obviously cheering for the couple together but the costs and consequences being extremely high.

#4

Well, my first question is why do they succeed in keeping their feelings secret? One of the questions you should always be asking yourself is “What is the worst thing that can happen to this/these character(s)?”

I’m pretty sure having the parentals notice is one of the worst things that could happen, right?

Do either of them confide in anyone? Does another girl like the boy and so she sees what’s going on and tell or threaten to? Is one of them failing at school? Or trying out for a sport or cheerleading/flag/drill team? So far you aren’t describing any sort of OS. The OS will work to complicate their relationship/feelings on top of their own misgivings/taboos.

#5

What format of story is this (screenplay, novel, short story, other)? Keep in mind not every story needs to be complete.

Do you feel like there are MC or IC throughlines here?

#6

Why can’t they avoid doing innocuous activities, together? (i.e. Why can’t one do sports and be gone a lot? That hints at some kind of OS.

#7

Self-restraint, carrying on with normal routines (work, school, friends, etc), avoiding each other, putting on false attitudes of coldness/gruffness towards each other. But as it develops into love, seach of these things wear down over the course of story.

Yes, absolutely, but that’s a different story from what I want to tell.

No, never. Nobody can know about their feelings. The brother and sister would be mortified if the other one even knew about them.

Yes, but this is one of the things that happens near the end, thus forcing the optionlock. She doesn’t even see them together or anything. She sees the brother essentially avoiding the sister and then a lightbulb goes off in her head and she puts all the brother’s behavior into context.

The external complications are that they go to school and NOW live together, so their proximity to each other from all the kinds of things that occur naturally from that ends up being the crucible they must go through.

Then there’s things like a third party expressing romantic interest in one of them. This makes one of them jealous, but obviously he/she can’t express or admit it or else reveal their feelings for their stepsibling. The object of the third party’s affection has to reject him/her without exposing the true reason why.

Things like that.

#8

Screenwriting is what I have experience with. I’m not opposed to trying a novel, though.

Yes, I have a couple of possibilities depending on which domains I end up with in those throughlines.

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#9

Well, they live together and go to school together, so they can’t separate themselves 100%. The story is really about the moments where they are forced together from one reason or another. And, you know, you can’t stop love, so their feelings just get stronger over these forced together moments until they hit the breaking point. They certainly do what they can to limit these moments, but eventually you’re going to end up doing things with a new sibling that you live with.

#10

Is any part of the story about how their feelings for each other, and efforts to avoid each other, impact their family or others around them? (I mean indirectly, since no one is aware of the feelings.) Is there any kind of “what the heck is wrong with our family dynamic?” story going on at all?

.

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#11

In addition to what @mlucas said have you considered having an OS that’s just completely separate – doesn’t actually deal with the romance – but uses the RS players + other OS players and just fits in structurally (per the storyform)? Technically it wouldn’t have to be nearly as developed as the RS. So even as this RS is happening, the family is getting evicted from their house, or all their school friends are trying to put on a school play but having trouble, or whatever problems the “group” is having. This conflict in the OS might give you storytelling opportunities to push the two lovers together – to set up the sources of conflict in the RS. Or it might just be completely separate.

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#12

Or the new family unit could be buying a house. It would make sense that they had to be involved in the purchasing and selling of previous homes and moving into the new one. That fits innocuous. It’s too bad that they could not demand not to be adopted, so there were no complications. An interesting possible civil right, isn’t it?

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#13

It would potentially be RS if the MC and IC have 2 different approaches/perspectives and one of them changes by adopting the other’s perspective by the end.

Read the analyses for these 2 movies that often have people asking “What is the OS vs the RS?”
http://dramatica.com/analysis/when-harry-met-sally
http://dramatica.com/analysis/four-weddings-and-a-funeral

#14

Yeah, these two approaches seem to be the best solutions now that the responses seem to confirm that this is just a heavily RS-focused story rather than the romance being in the OS. I’m reasonably confident I can brainstorm encoding and illustrations for an OS once I get the storyform nailed down.

So what domain does this sound like for the RS? My gut tells me either Mind-Innermost Desires or Situation-Future. Romances tend to be bottom-left quadrant stories. Can a case be made for other quadrants?

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#15

Romeo and Juliet is upper right. The RS Concern of Being might be interesting to you–the problems of your characters seem a little similar in that they are “star crossed lovers” who are prevented from being together because of their roles as step-brother and sister and members of this new family.

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#16

That always seemed to me like an MC throughline, where the MCs are a dual brother/sister.

#17

bumping for possible domain help

#18

Just checking - that sounds like you mean you’re thinking of both brother and sister sharing the MC POV? The Incredibles does this, but it doesn’t sound like what you’re up to, is it?

#19

It’s a possibility I’m open to, sure. I can explore the MC/IC a little better once I’ve settled on their domains, which I’m leaving to Dramatica to suggest based on my choices for OS/RS.

#20

You seem to have a very fleshed out idea for your RS, which is a good thing. However, trying to choose the OS/RS Domain pair without an idea for the MC or IC is dangerous. Without one of these to lock the choices down, you could very well find yourself able to justify each of the rotations:

  • Universe (OS) / Mind (RS)
  • Mind (OS) / Universe (RS)
  • Physics (OS) / Psychology (RS)
  • Psychology (OS) / Physics (RS)

This is especially true if you don’t know or have a good grasp on what OS you want to tell, or at least have as background. I would suggest choosing the MC, at least. On the other hand, this is a very Linear way of thinking, which is absolutely my preference. You’ll see this Linear thinking in my attempts to describe a Holistic approach below, so that description won’t be complete, at all. Hopefully, the ideas are amenable.

If you are more Holistic, you might choose to look at the Element quads first. With this way, figure out which set of Elements most fits your RS. Determine which Element in quad is the real source of problems, as you as Author mean it, for this growing relationship, and set that as the RS Problem. Figure out, at the same time, which Element the relationship sees as the source of problems, and choose that as RS Focus. In doing this, you also must maintain an awareness of the the RS Solution and the RS Direction pairs to these choices. Feel out the balance that you’re looking for here, and you might find something that works.

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