Sherlock, S1 Ep1, A Study in Pink

Well, he wouldn’t be able to stay in London without a flat mate. Could the health things be limitations he places on himself? Mycroft says fire the therapist but she gave him good advice about writing the blog.

Did he need permission to get into the building next door and into that specific room? I can’t rewatch right now, but it pops into my head. I like the gun permission a lot. Maybe there are lots of permissions going on. I wish I could look at the gists, now. Later.

Could it be that he recognizes if someone has the necessary prerequisites to be able to work with him, and/or be of help to him? This sounds kind of what you’re saying.

Also able to be a go between?

In fact the blog itself IS a Precondition because she is prescribing as necessary for his recovery, when in fact it is only an additional restriction that causes conflict in Watson when he is unable to write.

Oh, I get it. He is able to ‘recover’ without writing anything. It is, actually, part of what is freezing him up. That he will be writing, later, has nothing to do with this storyform.

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This is how I interpret it. Watson’s medical issues originate from himself, which is why they vanish once he’s in on the action. They’re also literally a precondition in the medical sense, like a pre-existing condition, which maybe doesn’t quite conform to Dramatica’s definition, but it is cute.


I have a couple of final things that are niggling at me.

First, how do we interpret Consequence of Conscious/ Contemplation?

Second, this story bears many similarities to The Silence of the Lambs, which we’ve remarked on before. The story begins with an active serial killer, a brilliant but socially objectionable expert is brought in to assist the investigation after a new crime in the series is committed, the relationship between the expert and the investigators sours in the third quarter, the OS is brought to an end by a one in a million gunshot.

I see these similarities, and I start wondering why our concerns are different. What makes “A Study in Pink” Present, and The Silence of the Lambs Progress? I’m guessing that it’s because “A Study in Pink” doesn’t have much in the way of a supervisor type character demanding results, while TSotL has Clarice’s boss and the senator. Plus, in TSotL the victim is still alive, so it puts this sort of ticking clock aspect into it. I guess “A Study in Pink,” when it comes down to it, is all about the investigation of a single crime scene, and that part of it all takes place over the course of a single day.

Any expansion on this would be really helpful to me. I find OS Situation Concerns to be difficult to recognize in general, but especially Present. There are only twelve stories with this OS Concern in the database, and I admittedly am not helping much by only having seen two of them, both years ago.

He’s able to write later because he has fixed this particular aspect of his life. He’s no longer frozen up by the relative Inaction of everyday life, which he feels isn’t worth writing about because “Nothing ever happens to me.” That he’s found a life of action through Sherlock, that’s no longer true.

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I’m back, still on meds, but back. Just an aside, if “passing a kidney stone” isn’t already a gist it certainly could be. I could now tell you all about the conflict that comes with that.

I’ve scanned over everything, but forgive me if I repeat something that’s already been suggested.

REQUIREMENTS: PAST
I think Prish is right in that they had to dig into the pink lady’s past. I also suspect they had to determine that the murders were murders and not suicides.

PRECONDITION: UNDERSTANDING
They can’t solve the case until they understand how the people were killed.

MC UNIQUE ABILITY: PERMISSION
Watson is not on the police force and yet is allowed to be a part of the investigation at all stages. In the end, he doesn’t ask for permission to follow Sherlock, just does it.

CONSEQUENCE: CONSCIOUS/CONTEMPLATION
I suppose that if they don’t stop the killer, someone else is going to have to contemplate which pill to swallow?

I actually wondered if Sherlock could have been in Progress, but they’re not really worried about who’s going to die next, or the progessively worse nature of the murders or anything. I can’t remember, but I believe there’s something about a promotion being sought in Silence and finding the missing girl before she dies. I don’t see the same types of concerns in Sherlock. [quote=“Etherbeard, post:130, topic:2017”]
OS Situation Concerns to be difficult to recognize
[/quote]
part of my hesitation in this storyform, at least initially, is that i tend to gravitate toward wanting to put Universe issues in Present first and then look at other areas of the quad.

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Thank you. That’s very helpful.

I think another example is, again in the journalist scene at the beginning, the questions–other than being about whether the deaths were suicides or murders (the Universe/Situation)–were about why they were investigating if they were suicides and how do we stay safe. Both seem to point toward Present to me. It feels like progress when one of the victims finally leaves a note, I suppose, but that SP should actually look to Future in the storyform we’ve decided on. Even so, a lot of that scene is about Present. Sherlock is told he has two minutes to view the scene, there’s a line from Watson about a woman lying dead, Sherlock asks Watson his opinion on the current state of the body, and so on.

It seems like I’m pulling a whole lot from that first scene with the journalists leading me to believe I may be putting too much emphasis on that one scene.

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Just to sort of finish this thought… You’ve got good examples from first two signposts, if we look to the second half, I see them tracking the phone during SP3 only to reveal the killer is presently standing at the door. There’s an inequity between how Sherlock interprets this information, realizing the killer is the cabbie, and how the police interpret it, Sherlock must have dropped the phone in the apt and not realized it.

SP4 is Present anyway, so we’ve already illustrated that one. The fifth killing, Sherlock’s, is happening right then.

There probably aren’t but 7 or 8 OS scenes in the story (just guessing), so finding Present in at least half, spread across the story should be sufficient.

I think part of the Pink Lady leaving a note feeling like How Things Are Changing is because it’s part of the Story Driver or act turn, which I feel naturally have sense of change about them. Once we move on from that transition and actually get to the crime scene, like you said, it seems more about investigating what this crime scene tells right now (OS Concern: Present) and concluding that this a serial killer who will strike again (OS SP2: Future). All the talk about the note and why she left and what made her different from other victims is saved for the next Signpost, which is Progress.

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Also, that first transition is a Bump, so that sense of change is heightened. One minute they’re talking about the apartment, and the serial suicides are just this thing in the news, and the next the police are blaring up Baker Street. and puking into the apartment.

But the Present is still built in to that driver. They’ve found a fourth victim and they’d like Sherlock to come take a look right now.

Compared to The Silence of the Lambs the corresponding transition is all about Starling’s boss explaining to her how everything had changed, and they’re hoping to see progress made in the case by sending her to Lector.

Also, something I just thought of is that Lector is concerned with the progress of the case and how his own situation is changing. Buffalo Bill is concerned with the progress of his suit and the progress in slimming down his victim. There’s nothing like that in “A Study in Pink.” In fact, the Cabbie really only has the present because any breath might be his last, and he savors that moment before he reveals the second bottle.

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Good Point Out! I live for these moments.