Playing a role - MC throughline

questions
#13

The characters are all suspicious/wary of each other because of their prejudices - some of which are learned and some of which were “earned.” The events that will tackle these issues involve spending time together, getting to know one another, learning each others hopes/fears, developing empathy for one another. The character who is pushing for these things to happen most is the one I designated as the Reason Character, Rose, who is the daughter of the IC. For example, when the injured MC is brought to the IC in order for the IC to care for her, the IC is upset that she is being asked to care for a “white girl.” She has been badly treated by whites (including the killing of her parents at the Wounded Knee massacre). It is her daughter, Rose, who interferes to convince the IC that she must care for the MC, if not because she cares, but to please the Spirits. When the IC has a PTSD episode which scares the crap out of the MC, it again is Rose who explains to the MC why it is that the IC is acting the way she is (she describes the trauma that the IC has endured) and tells the MC what she can to do to help the next time it occurs. I have only worked out these two examples but they are significant, and they might be enough.

But if Rose is the Protagonist, what is my MC? Could she be reason? or are these characters complex?

#14

Your characters are probably complex. Most characters are, and it’s not totally worth worrying about if you have a grasp on how your characters will act.

Your MC is probably still Anna. You gravitated to her for a reason. But the question you have to ask yourself now is along the lines of What problem is unique to her in this story?

In Lord of the Flies, everyone is stuck on the island, but only Ralph has been nominated Leader. And, more pertinently – since Piggy, too, has a unique feature: butt of the jokes – Ralph’s struggle with his Leadership is explored. Piggy’s low status never changes and is never explored.

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#15

The MC unique problem is chaos. Specifically the lack of order she feels after the death of her foster-mother. This is what drives her to seek out her biological mother.

Regarding complex characters, can a character have qualities of both a driver character and a passenger character? As long as they are not in conflict with each other?

This board is really helpful BTW, thanks everyone for your help.

#16

Maybe they are, but I want to define the characteristics to make sure that all the bases are coverered.

#17

Yes, and if they aren’t dynamically opposite, a character can have them. By definition, because they aren’t in the same quad, any driver and any passenger quality can exist in the same character.

Let’s stay away from things like Order/Chaos for now. Not because I want to disregard the work you put into getting there, but since you are just learning this system, it’s unlikely you’ve hit on the right storyform. Holding onto it can make it tough to see the light, so to speak.

And just to reassure you, it took me 27 full storyforms to get my first one correct, all for the same story.

Your character’s mother died. I can see why that is a problem, but what exactly is the problem here? For our hotel manager in Psycho it’s one kind of problem. For Tyrion Lannister, it’s a different kind of problem. I’m sure someone here could come up with a story where a maternal death is liberating. So, before jumping into things like Chaos and Order, tell us like you would have the character tell their shrink or best friend.

I can’t think straight.
Every time I go to bed, her ghost comes to me.
I fear my own mortality now.
I worry she never loved me, and now never can.

That kind of thing.

#18

Yep, I’m starting to realize that! I still believe I have a fixed attitude story, but “Memories” doesn’t seem like the right goal. I want the characters to think about prejudice, and to consider the past circumstances that lead people to act the way they do. I think “Contemplations” might have been a better goal.

So, if Anna was talking to shrink (in my story I imagine her talking to her pastor after church), here’s what I imagine she would say:

She was my rock. She always helped me to put things into perspective. Without her, I have no one to guide me, tell me when I’m going down the wrong path, encourage me when I’m down, etc…

Also:
I never knew my father. My mother left me when I was a baby. She couldn’t take care of me. She knew my foster-mother could. I love my foster-sisters but I never felt equal to them. They always made me feel a bit inferior for not being a blood relative. And for being an illegitamate child. My foster mother made me feel like I was family. She never treated me different. With her gone, I feel like I have no one.

#19

It’s hard to say given what I know if Memories is the wrong way to go. For instance, nobody is born racist, it must be learned. And when it is learned, it goes into our Memories. [It’s hard not to think of Memories as something other than how we experience memories in our conscious – Haha, it was so funny when Dad got drunk and went into the wrong bedroom, where our guests were staying.]

But, they can be more like pattern recognition: My mother’s attitude towards the Latinos in our neighborhood trained me to think of them as inferior. But now, thanks to some catalyst, you bump into Truth and Falsehood. [Oh, man, my dad wasn’t staggering around; he was trying to get some action with Mrs. Henry!]

And from there, you can see things like how the economics of your neighborhood kept Latinos in an inferior position, but it had nothing to do with them. There was a built in inequity. [My mother and father had a lopsided marriage, where she demanded things from him, but gave nothing in return. No wonder he sought comfort in Mrs. Henry!]

But, you can do the same kind of thing by going down Contemplation as well.

I just want to point out that the goal is not the element you have chosen. The goal is more human than that – who doesn’t want to feel like an equal partner in their love affairs, just like our errant patriarch?

And, by the way, you already have Equity/Inequity baked into your description. But for the MC, this wouldn’t be part of the OS. It would be something like Psychology>Conceptualizing>Circumstances>Inequity: I don’t know how to plan things without someone guiding me. I get emotionally turned inside out whenever I try, because I never developed a way to do this on my own, because I was always felt inferior and relied on their greater wisdom.

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#20

Hey, Leah:

I read some about your story in the other thread about the IC’s influence, and when I read some more here, I couldn’t shake this thought:

If the MC has abandoned her goal by the end of Act 1, that wasn’t really her goal in her storyline.

Now I read this bit about Anna’s internal thoughts:

And now the thought I can’t shake is “She doesn’t seek order. She seeks to fit in.” Or like the song in Disney’s “Hercules” says, “I would go most anywhere to find where I belong.” (But that sounds like a do-er, not a be-er.)

All I can really advise after getting lost in the program for about an hour while resting my back today is to remember that problem/solution is paired in a 2 X 2 grid with symptom/response. The symptom is what Anna thinks the problem is, and the response is how she tries to solve it. The problem element is what the problem really is, and the solution is how it’s really addressed.

Is the problem really chaos, or is that how Anna perceives it (the symptom)?

If you have this in Fixed Attitude/Memories, then chaos/order is either the problem/solution or the symptom/response. The other pair is change/inertia. Does that seem right? Perhaps you could look at chaos/order in other quadrants and see if the complementary pair for symptom/response is a better fit. (That would upend your storyform, of course, but that’s what the process is like.)

If none of them seem right, then that would be a strong sign that you are fighting the storyform so much because it’s not the right one. You can see this in the big levels like jwollander suggests, or in the small ones, but if it doesn’t fit you must…rejigger.

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#21

Just when I think I have it all figured out…lol. Seriously, though, how do you know when you finally have the right storyform? Here’s where I’m currently at:

OS Throughline - Fixed Attitude
Concern: Memories
Issue: Truth
Problem: Perception

MC Throughline: Manipulation
Concern: Developing a Plan
Issue: Situation
Problem: Perception

#22

Is it the intent of Dramatica to have the IC have a unique problem as well (unrelated to the OS Goal) or is their role related to the OS throughline or the MC throughline?

#23

At the heart of it, there are four throughlines with unique problems. The OS is Objective and impersonal. The IC and MC are our subjective characters and have a bit of oil/water going on with the Objective stuff.

Does the IC have their own problem? That’s a great question, and there are two ways to go about learning this:

  1. The IC has their own problem: this is how I learned it, but…
  2. The IC is the you perspective in a story, meaning that I am looking at you. That’s a better way to look at it. Think always about the effect the IC is having on the MC. They are an obstacle, an impediment, a hiccup in the way the MC wants to go about doing things.

So, while a very optimistic IC can be looked at as “Hey, that IC is really boppy” and it’ll work, it’s a smarter plan to look at the IC and ask, “Is this boppy nature of the IC affecting my MC?”

You can look at my answers in this thread to see an example of how and IC can affect an MC.

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#24

I wanted to go into this just a bit more. It is not the intent of Dramatica for the IC to have a unique problem because Dramatica is a descriptive model, not a prescriptive model.

Dramatica has no intent.

People who push Dramatica and want you to use it well have the intention of you understanding how ICs work in the model, but the model itself was built from the ground up to model how we think.

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#25

Don’t know if this will be helpful but don’t forget to keep the older Dramatica definitions in mind when encoding.
Jim had a great article on this subject https://narrativefirst.com/articles/the-difference-between-becoming-and-being-in-dramatica

Playing a role = Being

I prefer the older definitions personally

.
Conceiving an idea = Conceiving
Playing A Role = Being
Changing One’s Nature = Becoming
Developing A Plan = Conceptualising

.
And if you’re struggling with a point, look up the Dramatica definition because sometimes it’s very counter-intuitive! :grinning: I never would have known that Permission related to a lack of ability otherwise

#26

Better to think of it as limitations imposed on ability, rather than just lack of ability. (this is kind of off-topic so let’s start a new thread if you want to discuss further)

Definitely agree with the rest of your post though, @furiouswolf!

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#27

Permission = Can or Can’t
Need = Need or Needn’t
Expediency = Should or Shouldn’t
Deficiency = Want or Wont

Can, Want, Need, Should - Waaaaaaaaay easier than the definitions.

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Blind spot: the dynamic pairs I don't get
#28

Well put! Thanks for the correction

#29

You really need to write Dramatica for Dummies :smile:

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#30

I keep reading bits like this from Jim and everyone else and can’t figure out where to keep all these notes where I’ll remember them when I need them.

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#31

Call it Dramatica Basics. Writers are very, very smart people.

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#32

I’m starting to like my macbook pro’s Notes for that. command-N and I get a whole other page, ready to go, and they all stay in the same spot.

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