Situation versus Activity in a Ghost story

Hi everyone. I am very new and trying to figure out the terms for my story. I have read a couple of articles and trying to finish the manual book but when I think I have it it just slips through my fingers. My story is kind of a ghost story. In it there is a woman that had a terrible accident and while being operated, she wakes up in a different world and she is chased by a ghost/person she had done injustice to in her real life. However, been in this new world she doesn’t remember what she had done.

So in a way in order to return to her old world alive she has to discover what the ghost wants and who it is and try to fight it. She will find out it’s a person she had done injustice to and she needs to undone it. This is also MC character arch of change.

Now as for the OS I am not sure if it’s a Situation or Activity. She definitely has to do certain things to defend herself and also find out things about the past but at the same time she is stuck in this world she can’t get out unless she wins in a way the ghost/person. I tend to go towards the Activity since I don’t see this as something generated by her being in this world but rather generated by the attack of the ghost/person/ guilt. This is not a hunted house story. It’s like she was carrying her own demons with her but in this world they woke up.

Also, not sure if she is a Stop or Start character. Does Stop or Start has to do with the plot action or her inner arch? She tries to stop the ghost/person from killing her that is the OS plot but the MC has to move on in her personal story by releasing her demons. Is that a Start ?

Thanks for your time.

Hey, welcome to the club!

From the way you’ve described your story, it sounds like the OS is more likely to be in Activity than in Situation. However, you haven’t given us enough information to be able to tell for certain.

When assigning throughlines to domains, I tend to think of it like this: which people are most concerned about the situation of the story, which are most concerned about what’s going on, etc.? In your story, you have a concern of being “stuck in an alternate universe,” which obviously belongs to one of your throughlines. So, ask questions. Who is concerned with being stuck in that alternate world, and who is concerned with returning to the normal world? Right now, it seems like the only one concerned with that would be your MC, which would put her throughline in Situation.

Meanwhile, fighting the ghost’s attack on your MC involves at least two people who are primarily concerned with the outcome of that activity: your MC and the ghost. This fact alone makes it much more likely that your OS throughline is in Activity than in Situation. With that said, if this ghost is your story’s Influence character (the character who forces your MC to change), then the fight between your MC and the ghost may actually represent the Relationship throughline of your story!

If your IC is someone else, of course, then obviously your RS throughline will not consist of fighting the ghost.

The nice thing about Dramatica (especially the software) is that you only need to know two of your throughlines’ domains to find the other two, since your OS and RS will always be mirrors of each other, just as your IC and MC will be mirrors of each other. So if your MC throughline is in situation (which would be my guess), your OS will either be in Manipulation or Activity, depending on who the Influence Character in your story is and what role they play with regards to your MC.

If your MC is a change character, than start/stop has to do with her INNER arc. If she were a steadfast character, start/stop would pertain to her outer world/“the plot”.

With that said, determining whether any character is start/stop can be quite tricky, and sometimes it’s easier to let the software determine it for you (if you are using it). My inclination would be to say she’s probably a STOP character, because of how you describe your story above: i.e. that your MC is being “chased” by a ghost of a person that she has hurt in her real life. In other words, she’s not chasing the problem, the problem is chasing her! Thus, in order to solve that problem, she has to STOP running away.

Just a guess, though.

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Thanks Audry for your quick and thorough response. I didn’t elaborate further on my story line because I thought my post was already long enough for someone to read.

Your note is very helpful. I hope that in a couple of months it will be easier to grasp these subtleties but right now I struggle a lot with them. I do have the software and run different versions in it but I want to be sure I am analyzing the right one in the end.

I agree with you that the OS is Activity and my guesses where that MC is Fixed Attitude, IC is Fixed Attitude and SS is Manipulation. The reason is that in the story the MC is trapped in an alternative world between life and death, as if she is the actual ghost, But she is not aware of this till the end. So I am not sure if that is sufficient for her domain to be situation or it should have more to do with her inner struggle to overpass her own faults and change therefore Fixed Attitude or MInd (that sound much better). That has to do with the IC that I think is her Sister who is dead and she finds her there and she wants to keep her with her.

So the IC becomes the Contagonist and their relationship falls easily in the Manipulation Domain. The Ghost is just the Antagonist. So the Plot OS Domain is Activity her and eventually her sister being chased by a bad demon and the SS Domain is Manipulation because her sister tries to fool her into staying there and the choices are between IC and MC and between Fixed Attitude and Situation in which case I guess the Situation goes better to the sister since she is trapped in this world while the MC is Fixed Attitude. I guess that will make more sense if the fault the MC has to make right has to do with her relationship with her sister. Like in the Atonement.

Thanks a lot for your time and help. As I will start to feel more comfortable with these terms I will participate more in the discussions.

I’m certainly no expert and the storyform is, of course, up to you, but with the details given I really read your MC as being in a situation. She has an accident and wakes up between life and death. You use the word “trapped” at one point. You also say your not sure that being trapped in this world is sufficient for Situation because she doesn’t realize she’s a ghost until near the end. I would say it’s sufficient if that’s still her source of conflict. She doesn’t have to know where her problems stem from as long as you do.

If your MC didn’t have the accident and end up in the other world, would she still have a problem? If she didnt find her sister in the other world, would she still have a problem with being in the other world? I’m thinking the answers are supposed to be no and yes respectively but I don’t know. If I’m right, I personally would put her in Situation.

So the way I’m seeing it is something like this:
OS Activity-escaping the other world/demon
MC Situation-stuck in another world
IC Fixed Attitude-something about staying dead or not thinking she can leave(as evidenced by her attempt to trick her sister into staying within your RS example, but just a guess), something about being mentally stuck in this world and not thinking she can come back(or move on or whatever)

Well actually you may be right because dramatica software also suggest she is a situation MC. I am still in the process in which I am trying to figure out the different elements. I find the storyform theory very intriguing. I am also interested in thrillers and I am trying to figure out how the dynamics work in a thriller. It is such a broad genre with very different examples among some analyzed the Sixth Sense and The Others and Babadook.

Would you mind sharing what you selected in the Dramatica software that causes it to put your MC in Situation? This might help clarify some things.

I was a huge Stephen King fan for a big part of my life. While I don’t care for his work over the last several years, I’ll always have a fondness for his early and middle stuff. and Sixth Sense is probably still one of my favorite movies to watch, so I’m right there with ya on the thrillers.

Yes I agree I also like to read a Stephen King book once in a while. My favorite I think is Salem’s Lot. He really got me in that story. He has great high concept ideas although his books could definitely benefit from some trimming.
Thanks for the help. So far what I have in regard of OS and MC
CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC ROSOLVE: Change,
MC GROWTH: Stop,
MC APPROACH Do-er,
MC PROBLEM-SOLVING STYLE: Holistic,
IC RESOLVE: Steadfast
PLOT DYNAMICS:
DRIVER: Action
LIMIT: Optionlock
OUTCOME: Success
JUDGMENT: Good
MAIN CHARACTER:
DOMAIN: Situation
CONCERN: The Future
ISSUE: Choice vs. Delay
PROBLEM: Conscience
SOLUTION: Temptation
SYMPTOM: Logic
RESPONSE: Feeling
UNIQUE ABILITY: Openness
CRITICAL FLAW: Denial
BENCHMARK: How Things are Changing
SIGNPOST 1: The Past
SIGNPOST 2: How Things are Changing
SIGNPOST 3: The Future
SIGNPOST 4: The Present
OVERALL STORY:
DOMAIN: Activity
CONCERN: Obtaining
ISSUE: Morality vs. Self Interest
PROBLEM: Conscience
SOLUTION: Temptation
SYMPTOM: Faith
RESPONSE: Disbelief
CATALYST: Approach
INHIBITOR: Obligation
BENCHMARK: Doing
SIGNPOST 1: Gathering Info
SIGNPOST 2: Doing
SIGNPOST 3: Obtaining
SIGNPOST 4: Understanding

One option I would like to try a different way is the MC being a Be-er. That would give me either a ACTIVITY or MIND DOMAIN for the MC. Is the IC the opposite of the MC in Approach? If the MC is a do-er does the IC automatically becomes a Be-er?

Do you know what selections you made that put your MC in Situation for that storyform? From your comment about looking at be-er next, I’m guessing the combination of OS Activity and do-er is what did it.

Be-er and Do-er have to do with solving problems internally or externally. If your MC is a be-er, they will find themselves in an internal quad (Fixed Attitude or Manipation) and if they’re a do-er they would find themselves in an external quad (Activity or Situation). So if you go from do-er to be-er while leaving your OS in Activity, it will put your MC in Fixed Attitude.

I think the idea is that if your MC is a do-er, then yes, the IC becomes a be-er if only because of the quad they are in. Although I’d like to see someone else’s thoughts about this rather than speak to it myself. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at that and don’t want to say something wrong.

When all else fails, look to the Types that fall within the domain (structurally-speaking).

Instead of asking, “Is my OS defined by a situation(s) or activity(s)?”, ask yourself, “Is everyone in the story more concerned with matters involving the past, present, progress, and future, or are they concerned with matters involving understanding, doing, learning, and obtaining?”

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Thanks. I am in the second part of the manual now. And I have done more than 10 combinations. It is really difficult for me to distinguish between the OS and the MC. Since the MC story carries the theme and essence of the story.

It seems that both are liable candidates for the OS domain. Because first and most importantly for the progress of the story they have to protect themselves from the ghost/demon. So that is an activity that requires Understanding, Learning Doing and Obtaining. They have to figure out what the Ghost wants and why it chases the MC in order to solve the mystery and save herself. So Inciting Incident is the intro of the Ghost. That is an Action driven story.

However the MC’s and IC’s psychological concern has to do with the Past, Present, Future, Progress. Since the IC wants to hide the past and the truth about the present from the MC in order to make her stay there. Of course that leads me to believe that their relationship SS is Manipulation, since the MC is been manipulated by the IC. So that helps put MC to Situation and IC to Fixed Attitude.

Therefore I think the:
OS is Understanding, Learning, Progress, Doing, Obtaining- Issue: Self Interest
MC is Present, Past, Progress, Future- Issue: Destiny
IC is Impulsive Responses, Memory, Innermost Desire, Contemplation- Issue: Denial
SS is Conceiving an Idea, Developing a Plan, Playing a Role, Changing one’s Nature- Issue:Knowledge

Another question.

If you chose one Domain for your MC like Situation and you think the best Quad is the Past can you assign to the other Domains different quads than the ones assigned by the software?

No. When the software assigns items, that’s Dramatica at work, showing you how to make your story complete. So if the MC Concern is The Past, it forces the OS (which you’ve put into Activity domain) to have a Concern of Understanding. If you try to make your OS Concern something else like Obtaining, your story’s message won’t be coherent.

That said, you may find Types that seem important to you show up elsewhere in the storyform (various Benchmarks, Requirements, etc.). And they’ll definitely all show up as a Signpost!

This can be really tough. What helps is to really focus in on the MC’s personal issues and the perspective or world-view that gives her.

It also might help to summarize each of your throughlines into a single sentence that captures the essence of the throughline. (No Dramatica terms needed in those sentences!)

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