Hello everybody!
I’m new to the forums, but I’ve been wondering for a while about one of the relationships in Dramatica’s quad. From what I have read, the top companion pair is externally focused, while the bottom companion pair is internally focused. So, what is the relationship between the two dependent pairs? I often see the external vs internal relationship explained in Dramatica theory, but not what the relationship between the dependent pairs is. They don’t share a trait of external vs internal, or dynamic vs static, as the companion pairs do, but it still seems logical to expect some sort of vertical relationship as there is a horizontal relationship. Thank you all!
Have you seen the youtube video here:
I think the 30-minute mark has some interesting commentary.
The relationship is that one is what the other is not. According to the video, there is a negative and positive relationship with each of the pairs.
Other than that, could one be spatial and the other temporal?
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Universe and Psychology are Spatial?
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Physics and Mind are temporal?
But, don’t the relationships spiral and change according to the level? Also, for what purpose are you interested in the answer to that question?
I was interested in PRCO, but after working through the metaphoric relationship between a circuit and a scene… which, in hindsight, made a simple concept difficult for me to understand… I just accepted that a scene has:
Outcome: Success/Failure +/-
Judgment: Good/Bad +/-
So you can have ++, ±, -+, --.
I can also use those concepts from a subjective or objective POV. A character might judge a scene --, whereas the audience might judge it as being any of the four combinations.
Not only does a scene have these things, but they also have magnitude. Failure in one scene might be a small hindrance but in another devastating.
It’s interesting to try and assign these values to spatial relationships in a quad, but I think it is limiting because we can’t see a quad as it really is… fully dimensional.
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Thanks for the reply! I was thinking again last night about this, and I developed a hypothesis about this. I wonder if the relationship between the dependent pairs relates to where energy flows, or perhaps relates to some sort of causality. So, energy flows from the external Universe into the internal Psychology, which would be an Internal flow of energy. However, the other dependent pair is the opposite. Energy from the internal Mind flows into the external Physics, creating an External flow of energy. I’m still thinking about exactly why this would be the case, but it seems to relate to companion pairs being internal or external, while dependent pairs would represent the internal or external flow of energy.
The reason I was wondering about this is because I was mapping my throughlines in the book I am writing by sequence. I wanted to know what thematic focus each sequence would have. At first, I only knew of external, internal, dynamic, or static focuses, so I wondered about the dependent relationships. While I understand the trap that the Dramatica theory can become once a person invests too much time and energy into the extremely fine details, I suspected this would give me a bit of guidance with the sequences of my story I am yet unsure of.
However, would these relationships of a quad still contain these characteristics of the dynamic, companion, and static relationships at the variation level, or of other non-class levels? Isn’t it that each level of type, variation, etc. have the skew of the above class, type, etc. on them, which changes them and eventually leads to differently ordered elements per class, which would cause the same relationships to occur in each quad, due to in being in relation to whatever the quad was begotten from? This could make some instances where there may seem to be contradiction, such as the elements being misordered, but in relation to what their quad was created from this should not be a problem.
Also, thank you for the other insight! I didn’t know about each scene having an outcome and judgment. Although, I suspect that your spatial and temporal analysis of the dependent pairs would just be the same as the dynamic and static characteristics they already have, as one relates to a state and the other to the passing of time, which inevitably causes change.
Don’t confuse anything that I said as Dramatica. It is purely my own toolbox. I doubt that any Dramatica Story Expert would agree with much that I say.
It is my belief that scenes create any of the following either on an objective or subjective level:
good/bad
intentional/accidental
success/failure
serendipitous/zemblanitous
There are more, surely.
In another thread, @crayzbrian remarked that PASS might relate to scene and sequel. It is my understanding that sequel can be implied, summarized, interrupted, skipped, contained, bottled, prevented, drawn out, etc. A sequel could be:
An intuition skittered up his back like a gecko on skates. No choice. “Time to rattle the cage.”
And that short paragraph (acting like a sequel) could easily be tacked on the backend of a scene, linking it to the next if that is all the scene and clarity demand.
Perhaps the dependent pairs relate to the amount (or lack) of transition demanded between scenes. The link between action and decision. The link between externalization and internalization.
A scene has motivational and reaction units. It also has exposition, summary, authorial voice, etc. That’s why I’m hesitant to label them as Passive, Active, Structural, or Storytelling. Perhaps on a sliding scale, I’d be willing to say a scene leaned in a particular direction, but labeling a scene entirely one or the other isn’t clicking for me yet. I see a scene and a sequel as shifting in and out of each of these categories during the scene or sequel.
found this out there on the web awhile ago. pretty well lays it out.
maybe someday the software can give us a tool like this, might be nice. might be overkill. dunno.
I believe a Sequel is a Scene driven by decisions and a regular scene is driven by action. A Decision Driver in Dramatica, if shown, will be a sequel type of scene.
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This looks useful. Do you have the URL or could you email a copy?
Cheers