Overall Story Throughline: Situation or Activity?

writing
#1

I just need some clarification on my throughline because I’m fairly certain it’s a Situation story but I’m not sure if what I’m writing fits in with that.

The general concept of the Overall Story is a hostage crisis on a ship. Which is obviously a Situation Overall Story.

But there’s also a lot of activity in the story. Executions, cover-ups, destruction of evidence and attempts to rescue those onboard.

Regarding the question of “What starts the story?” The ship is returning early, but the story doesn’t “begin” until it arrives and reveals what is happening onboard (the first driver).

Am I right in thinking this is a Situation story? Or is it an Activity?

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Siege Scenario- Situation or Activity?
#2

I find it helps to dig down a level. You can ask yourself if you’re making a Past-Present-Progress-Future story, or a Doing-Obtaining-Learning-Understanding story. Also ask yourself which of these most aligns to what the Protagonist is pursuing.

But most importantly, mentally take one or the other (Situation or Activity) out of the picture and see if there’s still potential for conflict. By doing this you figure out what’s upstream vs downstream.

My guess (based on what little I know of your narrative) is that if you took out the executions, cover-ups, rescue attempts, and any other activities, you’d still have a hostage crisis. These are all reactions to the problem; they’re not generating it. But take out the hostage situation and…you’ve got no story.

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#3

Thanks, Brant!

The concern level didn’t help too much, but the theme level helped tremendously. Particularly ‘The Present’ (Working to rescue the hostages, Attempting to cover tracks, Unwanted Attraction/attention of the situation by the media, Repulsion as the hostages are executed).

It definitely matches up with what you said. The story is all about the hostage crisis, everything else happens because of that. Thank you!

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#4

Totally Activity Overall Story Throughline. Characters can get on and off the ship so it’s not a situation–there is no external fixed state that is creating conflict here. You’re looking to the storytelling to determine the Throughline’s Domain instead of the actual source of conflict.

It’s really hard for people to sometimes differentiate between the two. The quickest easiest way is to ask:

  • Is something stuck that needs to be unstuck?
  • Is there some bad things going on that need to be stopped?

A hostage situation is a bad thing that needs to be stopped.

I had an article I wrote about this exact thing in reference to Collateral but for some reason I can’t find it on my own site! Let me look for it and I’ll post it here.

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#5

Thanks Jim! I was trying to work out, because early on, nobody can get onto the ship (it’s actually a spacecraft but I didn’t want to get too specific because of storytelling). That feels very much like a situation because everyone is stuck on the outside or inside.

My issue was always that the situation kept evolving, so it didn’t feel like a Situation story but in my mind it was. I’ll go back and rethink my storyform, try some new versions.

Thanks guys!

#6

Whoops. Mis-called it.

After posting I started to mull over my assessment. Sometimes the original Dramatica terms are illuminating: Situation used to be Universe, suggesting that the conflict arises from the world environment, whereas in Activity it arises from the actions of willful agents.

So even though in popular vernacular these crises are called “hostage situations,” the reality is that the story won’t happen if the hostage takers do not act?

#7

Well yeah. People aren’t physically stuck somewhere. It’s like Die Hard, if Bruce Willis just stopped trying to fight back conflict would die out. If Alan Rickman left the building with his buddies, there would still be conflict.

Another good litmus test is to ask - if this situation didn’t exist, would there still be conflict?

And ALWAYS the old terminology is better. ALWAYS. Psychology is SO much better than Manipulation because it knocks out all the other examples of psychological conflict

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#8

OK, finally found it, cleaned it up, and republished it in the Vault section of Narrative First…an article I apparently wrote NINE years ago lol - A Simple Way to Look at the Throughlines of Your Story

Hope this chips a decade off of your Dramatica learning…:laughing:

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#9

Jim, that article is awesome. It really helped me confirm that I have the right throughlines for my story.

One question though: if you have a Situation throughline where something is stuck, is it okay if during the course of the story it goes from one ‘stuck situation’ to another?

Like say your MC Throughline is Situation: Being a Demon, to take a random gist. At the beginning of the story this demon main character is stuck as a pet for some mean wizard who mistreats him. Then he gets rescued and it might seem for a while that he is unstuck, but he now he is wanted by the authorities for being a demon, and the people who rescued him will only hide him if he uses his demon powers to do something for them, etc. All of that is still the Being a Demon situation, even though the situation details change, right?

Pixar’s Cars analysis
#10

If you bring in the Demon issues when he is stuck as a pet–the Domain is for the entire narrative (storyform). If that is the Situation you are exploring then you need to make sure it is there from beginning to end.

#11

Hmm. I definitely see what you are saying. To take Star Wars (Ep IV) as an example, it would be wrong to say Luke’s stuck Situation is “being a farm boy stuck on Tatooine”, because that changes after Act 1. Instead it should be something more inclusive of the entire story(form), and indeed the analysis shows “Luke is a whiny farm boy who has tremendous amounts of unrealized potential because his father was a Jedi Knight”.

So my demon example would only work if “Being a Demon” itself was the stuck situation, like a demon who was a saint in a past life, or a princess transformed into a demon, something like that. Does that make sense or am I getting further off-base?

(Jamie, sorry for hijacking your thread. If you feel it’s off topic let me know and I will create a new thread.)

#12

It’s not off-topic at all! I’m glad you brought it up, Mike.

I have a story in which the IC (who changes) is a very well-known figure. He hates it, he wants to leave it behind. That’s a Situation that cannot be unstuck. I thought this very same question because his ‘status’ and the influence it has on people is the focus for his entire throughline, but he consciously tries to change. So I wasn’t sure if that was allowed in Dramatica (I’m not sure why I thought that, since he is a Do-er). But, the status is there from beginning to end so your question clarified that.

Also, thank you for the article, Jim! Your site is like Mind Botox. My mind looks and feels a bit better and you’ve taken a few decades of ‘learning frustration’ away. Appreciate it!

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#13

I was having some trouble in the past few hours with “Is something stuck that needs to be unstuck?” If Situation means a stable, fixed, unchanging state of affairs, then how can the Concern of Progress, or “How Things Are Changing,” be nestled underneath it? Wouldn’t a story about Progress be looking at a changing situation rather than a fixed one?

So I thought about it some more, and realized that the Concern is simply that: a concern. If a character is in a ‘stuck’ situation, then there are a number of ways it could be concerned about it, and one of them is, “How fast can I get un-stuck? Why is it taking so long?”

It’s like a young kid stuck in a hot, travelling car who asks, “Are we there yet?” every five minutes. The kid is clearly concerned about Progress.

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