Quick story development using dramatica chart

Just a quick queston to make sure I understand. When using the idea of becoming to write the relationship it would be the relationship as a whole becoming something as opposed to one of them becoming something since we are dealing with the relationship throughline correct? Or am I misunderstanding?

Great question! I’m a bit fuzzy on it myself, but I think it can be anything to do with Becoming that truly affects or concerns the relationship, and causes conflict.

So if one of them wants to Become something, but this doesn’t really matter much to the relationship, it doesn’t work. But if the Becoming of one of them really impacts their relationship, it should work. That’s why I thought Bill’s becoming a police officer was a reasonable example, since the policeman would care about that, it would take their mentor/mentee relationship to a whole new level. So Bill’s becoming sort of reflects onto the relationship, giving the relationship a chance to change its nature.

I find that all the time with Dramatica, this mysterious pattern of conflicts reflecting in the story. So like, if you really made the devolving of the city into a huge concern for their relationship, if you really made that work and cause conflict, somehow you will find that their relationship can’t help changing its nature. By focusing on the first part, the second part sort of happens automatically.

Ok, lets go with that then. So we now have covered all the throughlines correct?

One other quick question. Is it possible to have a story where both characters stay steadfast in their own throughlines? I imagine if that’s possible, there would be something else in the story that would mirror that and change?

Wait, which one did you want to go with, Bill wanting to become a police officer, or the devolving city?

Yes we should have all the throughlines covered now. Maybe you could pick the MC Resolve (Change or Steadfast, it seems like you’re leaning towards Change), and MC Judgment too?

To answer your other question, no, either the MC or IC must change their perspective for a valid story. (Both can be seen to grow, but only one changes)

Let’s go with Bill wanting to become a polive officer and see where that takes us.

For MC resolve I would choose change and for MC judgement I think it should be good.

Maybe I’m wrong, but in the Dark Knight neither Joker or Batman change from beginning to end. Bruce Wayne breaks down for a moment, but returns to who he was staying steadfast in the end. The Joker even comments on it towards the end of the movie. One is an immovable object and the other is an unstoppable force.

Another movie that I’ve had difficulty seeing the change in is the original Rocky movie. Both him and Adrian seem to be defined by their values and they stand by those values and keep standing back up with those values after each time of getting knocked down. It seems to me that it’s the outside world and their relationship that changes while they both stay steadfast. Maybe I’m wrong.

One other thing that this brings to mind is a movie like Avengers that is written with a group of main characters. I’m sure you say that one of them is THE main character of that movie, but I’m not so sure. Would dramatica handle a story like that or would you say thats a different story form than a grand argument story?

I don’t remember Rocky or The Dark Knight enough to really comment (actually I don’t even think I saw the Dark Knight). Looking at those analyses though:

  • Rocky is Steadfast, so Adrian is the Change character. Looking at his Problem/Solution, Adrian goes from being driven by Non-Accurate to embracing Accurate.
  • Batman is Change, and with his Problem/Solution, he goes from being driven by Process to embracing Result.

If that doesn’t help, I notice both of those analyses have podcasts; Rocky even has a video one. So definitely check those out, I’m sure you’ll learn how the Change characters changed.

Also keep in mind that a Change character’s change is all about his/her personal perspective which is related to his/her own issues. My guess is what you see in both Rocky and The Dark Knight is totally on the money, but it’s part of the OS. Someone can keep from backing down and be an immovable object from the overall perspective, but still change from the subjective perspective.

Finally, a group of main characters does happen (see Stalag 17, good write-up on NarrativeFirst.com) but I think it’s fairly rare. Usually a story like you describe with Avengers, if it’s complete, would have a lot of focus and screen time on OS and all the OS characters, but there would be one character who is the one with real personal baggage and a personal viewpoint that the audience naturally embraces. Or like you suggest, it might not be a GAS.

For our chart-driven story development, we’re actually almost as far as the chart can take us. Maybe I’ll take the time to summarize all of our story points so far (maybe tomorrow, it’s late now). Then we can look at that as a roadmap of this story and see how it informs our ideas. But it would be up to the writer to start doing the heavy lifting now, consulting the storyform from time to time to see if he’s on track.

We could also go to the Issue level if you want; to me that’s where the fun really starts. If we stick with Approach for OS, the RS Issue is set to Rationalization, and for MC Issue we have a choice of either Openness or Choice, while the IC Issue can be either Closure or Dream. (They’re related though, we either have to pick Openness & Closure or Choice & Dream.) Believe it or not, we’re down to 8 possible storyforms, and selecting the MC Issue will bring us down to 4.

If we do that we might as well go down to the complete storyform, which will tell you the Act order (Signposts). But in that case you should probably get at least the demo version of the software if you didn’t already!

Hmm, with the ideas of non-accurate to accurate and process to results. They could really describe any character they are so vague, well any character that is temporal, not in a vacuum. All characters start at process/non-accurate etc, otherwise there wouldn’t be a problem and all characters have a problem I think.

In fact ALL characters will feel the pull of ALL these opposing forces, not just a particular 2 of them. I’m not sure I see the use or relevance of the elements.

I used to think that when I started learning Dramatica, but now I don’t think it’s the case at all. The Element definitions are necessarily vague because they have to cover a certain amount of territory and they often describe concepts which don’t fit our language very well. Gists (available in the Mac version, or through a Narrative First subscription) can really help you realize the difference between elements.

Keep in mind the MC Problem is saying that this is the main underlying thing that is causing problems and driving the character, which the character is unaware of, or is aware of but doesn’t consider a problem. It doesn’t just “describe” the character. Put that together with a gist like “Being Careless” (Non-Accurate) or “Hating Someone’s Process” (Process) and you have a truly interesting source of dramatic conflict for the character.

So even though the Elements can be vague and cover a range of concepts, in a particular story there are very specific instances of those elements which aren’t vague at all. It is through these instances that the audience can appreciate the storyform (hence you will often find people calling story points like MC Problem “appreciations”).

That said, the 16 “Motivation” elements are a lot easier to grasp than the others, so you would be better off starting with those when learning. Logic, Feeling, Pursuit, Avoid, Help, Hinder, etc. The Problem/Solution/Symptom/Response quad for all 4 throughlines will come from this group of motivation elements whenever the story uses “lower left” Concerns, such as in The Matrix or The Fugitive or our developing burger story.

“With the ideas of non-accurate to accurate and process to results”

I’m not sure if this is what you meant, but non-accurate to accurate doesn’t mean doing something wrong and solving the problem by doing it right. In Dramatica terms, it means not within tolerance to within tolerance, and either can be the problem.
Examples:
Non-accurate problem with accurate solution- if your neighbor buys a bunch of rabbits and let’s them run free, and they get into your carrots, that would not be within tolerances and thus non-accurate, but if he bought a fence for his rabbits to keep them out of your carrots, that would be within tolerances and, thus, accurate.

Accurate problem to non-accurate solution-you are a judge that does everything by the book. That would be within tolerances. But when a kid comes into your court and he committed a very minor offense and the book says to throw him in jail for a decade, you feel like that would ruin the kids life. So you solve the problem by giving him a slap on the wrist. That would be not within tolerances and thus non-accurate.

So not every character would feel a problem with or start as non-accurate.

Yes what I said about every character starting on one is wrong. I should have worded it better. You can start on either one because it’s a circle. Every character that deals with a problem and goes through the full cycle of dealing with a problem will hit every element unless they are suffering from some sort of disorder. Often watching characters who are in shorter stories who are simplified or are poorly written we may only notice certain of these elements explicitly, but the others are all still implied. So I guess I could see how a writer could emphasize certain elements at certain times.

Also these seem to be based on Jungian psychology in an odd way. I think the difference is that Jung would see it more as a color wheel or analog. Where as this actually has digital splits in the ideas, which I’m not sure actually have splits in nature as they may be more fluid.

Not sure if any of what I’m saying is making sense to you guys. Sorry for trying to dig. I really trust my own process and anything I add to it I have to understand it inside out as most theories have problems with them, but there’s also a lot of truth in them too (otherwise nobody would use them) so I try to seperate the good parts of the theory from the bad.

To be honest I would have to trust the fundamental reasons why dramatica works or doesn’t. The reason I would use dramatica, even if it has faults, is because of the possibility of it speeding up my own process and the possibility of catching my own oversights in terms of aesthetic balance at a micro level.

I appreciate you guys walking me through the broad strokes of how it all works. Definitely think it can be a useful tool if used properly just not really convinced on the reason WHY it works on a micro level or even if it does.

I totally see where you are coming from. I had some of the same reservations initially, wondering about the accuracy of the theory. The fact that the theory book devoted so much time to the archetypes of the original Star Wars, which seemed spot on to me, helped pull me in. (I grew up playing Star Wars and happened to have a last name of Lucas, so it’s kind of in my blood – even though no relation to George my name was literally on all the toys!) Then as I got the software and started to apply Dramatica to my own work, I decided to put any doubts I had aside and just act as if I knew the theory was rock-solid. That may not be easy for everyone, but I think it’s required to really progress with it; you can’t work with tools you don’t trust.

Anyway, by taking that approach it didn’t take long before I became absolutely convinced in the accuracy of the theory and the effectiveness of using it in my writing. It may not be for everyone, but for me it has helped immensely. (The problem I had before was that I could not follow any other advice on narrative structure, they all seemed wrong or just like they didn’t work for me. Heck, before I found Dramatica I was forcing myself to write about my main character’s Lie and Wound, and Truth that she had to find, because I thought she had to Change. Except every time I would force myself to do that, I would literally feel sick to my stomach, and not know why. I thought it was because I wasn’t cut out for writing this way with outlines and character sketches, that maybe I had to “pants” everything, but I knew that had never worked for me in the past. Then I found Dramatica and it made me realize that my MC is a Steadfast character! And suddenly once I had a storyform I became someone who could write oodles of stuff about the characters, really get into outlining the plot, etc. No more sick stomach.)

If you want to be convinced, go watch Zootopia and then (and only then – you have to watch the movie first!) read the article analyzing it on narrative first. You will be utterly amazed at all the stuff that Dramatica predicts with so little input (all the red stuff in the screenshots is Dramatica’s output, while blue is input). For example, while watching the movie pay attention to how the main character (Hopps) at one point is able to solve a major problem in the overall story through some silly ability she has (MC Unique Ability). Think about what realm that ability lies in, and then see what Dramatica says about it from the storyform. It seems incredible that it could predict that at all, let alone on so little input, but there you go.
NOTE: I just realized some of the screenshots are missing on that article, so you can’t see the full red vs. blue domination*, but you can still get the gist. (*No, that is not a political statement, I live in Canada. :slight_smile: )

I’ll have to check out Zootopia sometime. Never seen it.

Here is the summary so far:

Story Goal & Limit: Getting a cheeseburger before the restaurant closes
Story Outcome: Success
MC Resolve: Change
MC Judgment: Good
MC Problem-Solving Style: Linear
Overall Story Domain & Concern of Activity & Obtaining: Driving fast, trying to avoid getting caught (for speeding, or as a stray dog), maybe some cooking / preparing fast food, managing a restaurant, etc. – all somehow related to the goal of getting a cheeseburger.
Main Character Domain & Concern of Situation & The Future: Bill is stuck in a relationship with his overbearing girlfriend. She’s trying to figure out if he’s marriage material and is pushing him to hurry up and achieve things in life. But Bill isn’t sure if he’s cut out for marriage. The future of their relationship is at stake.
Influence Character Domain & Concern of Fixed Attitude & Innermost Desires: The police officer hates disorder. Whenever people break or even bend rules, he’s not willing to compromise, and this causes trouble for people because, well, doesn’t everyone need to bend the rules sometimes? He is also driven by his cravings for donuts and other baked goods, which causes trouble for him, his family, his colleagues, etc. and somehow will also cause trouble for Bill in this story.
Relationship Story Domain & Concern of Manipulation & Changing One's Nature: Their relationship is centered on one being a role model for the other, or possibly both being role models for each other in different areas. (They may even keep this from each other) Through this, their relationship undergoes a transformation that is of significant concern to them.

Feel free to suggest a change to any of these.

Using hunger as a representation of Innermost Desires (Subconscious), means that this is not a physical hunger but a mental craving, such as a hunger for revenge, or a hunger for attention, or a hunger for companionship.

Thanks for the pointer Chris, that’s very interesting. Does it still work if the focus is on the cravings that drive him, even if he tries to satisfy those with food but the food never suffices? I’m thinking that can work if he has some deep longing that is undefined, which manifests as constantly craving things including food, but the food never truly satisfies those cravings.

He can eat as a way to try to stop the craving, but you should be clear what that subconscious craving is for the audience to understand the storyform accurately. It will also be ‘truer’ to your Fixed Attitude domain.

Makes sense. Thanks very much Chris.

Hey folks, whatever happened to this exercise? Was the storyform completed?

Just riffing on the “hunger” aspect… maybe the dog was fed bacon by its original owner, and has fond associated memories of the owner he longs to be reunited with ever time it eats bacon. Perhaps the dog is lost and must find its way home and the bacon cheeseburger is a stop on the journey. Perhaps there is a scene where the dog pulls a Lassey move and barks to get someone to give them their burger while having flashbacks of the little old lady that is its owner feeding it bacon as a puppy. The dog could enjoy the bacon and feel satiated in a physical and emotion way, but then get sad about missing its owner and a tear could fall as it dreams of sitting in her lap. … Perhaps the dog is eventually going to save someone and get on the news and that will aid in the reuniting. Could tie bacon into the entire mystical path home. Holistic problem solver. Funny scene, the dog sits next to a homeless guy that has a sign that says Got Bacon?

No we didn’t go any further … We went almost as far as you can go using just the Chart though (we could’ve gone one step further to Issue level, but didn’t).

It was actually the police officer that turned out to be the IC, not the dog.

It was kind of a neat exercise, even though I wasn’t that engaged with the subject matter (making it a story about “going to get a burger” almost seemed like we were setting it up to fail, but it turned out pretty cool).

Re-reading my response to @Doctorfunk_15 's question about Steadfast vs. Change in The Dark Knight and Rocky, I feel like I really missed the boat on that. I should’ve mentioned to make sure you’ve got the right context, considering the Main Character’s perspective and personal issues. That’s a much more reliable way to evaluate Change vs. Steadfast than trying to see whether and how the Solution was adopted.

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