Story Goal if characters are trying to avoid what they secretly want?

questions
#1

Hello, I’ve been working on clarifying the structure of a character-driven story I’ve been writing so I have a story form, and to generate OS ideas I let Dramatica assign random Gists (the Playground Exercises from Narrative First). For OS Concern of Innermost Desires I got “Fearing Intimacy” and I really liked the idea of independent and stubborn characters wanting to feel a connection to others/the world, but being too afraid and giving in to the Temptation to avoid reaching out (my focus has been more on my MC who must learn to face unreasonable fears of causing bad things to happen, so that kind of OS would work well), however, I’m not sure how to determine the Story Goal from that, especially since I imagine it as being a collective goal.

Would the goal be wanting intimacy even if some don’t yet realize or admit it? Or is it avoiding/resisting intimacy, perhaps in a roundabout Response-like way in which they concentrate on bolstering self-reliance? I’ve imagined this story being Failure-Good in which the characters were maybe after a goal that wasn’t good for them until they realize their real problems… but I don’t know if that’s right since I want the ending to be ultimately mostly positive for the general characters. Maybe they want to attempt to avoid all suffering, which proves impossible, so they Fail, but learn to accept it?

#2

Is there someone who stands out as a potential Protagonist? Usually in ensemble pieces like this there is one character who is doing the “most” Innermost Desiring and that’s who the Story Goal revolves around.

All your suggestions for the encoding of the Story Goal in the 2nd paragraph work great…it’s just a matter of what story you want to tell. It sounds to me like Craving Intimacy would be your Story Goal–they Fail, esp. the Protagonist, but somehow find something Good out of it all.

Don’t forget you can also bring in the Story Dividends to help it make it a happier ending as well.

#3

This story sounds really cool!

Not sure how much I can help on exactly what the Story Goal should be, but I have a few suggestions that might get you thinking.

First, the Concern and the Goal are the same Type but not necessarily the same thing. So you are free to make your goal be any other Innermost Desires, like “Being Passionate” or something – note as a Goal I would phrase that “learning to be passionate” or “embracing passion”. Or you can keep the intimacy idea but phrase it like a goal, “overcoming the fear of intimacy”. For your avoiding intimacy idea, maybe a goal of “avoiding intimacy” or “giving up on intimacy” might work – it has to be a way in which the fearing intimacy problem gets somehow resolved.

The characters don’t have to be directly aware of the Story Goal, especially at the beginning. In the film Eat Drink Man Woman (OS Manipulation) the characters – a dad and his 3 daughters – were mostly focused on finding love outside their family, and trying to be happy with life in whatever way worked. They didn’t realize that they were all “working out how to be a family” the whole time. Or in Zootopia (OS Fixed Attitude like yours) there was definitely a problem of attitudes and innate responses of predator and prey. But they weren’t really aware of the goal of helping to make the whole city aware of those issues until near the end (they were just trying to find some missing folks).

Your instincts are right about what Failure-Good can mean when you say:

A judgment of Good actually implies that most of the overall characters generally feel good about things, a generally positive emotional judgement. It’s most strongly felt in the main character but I think the recent direction of the theory is that it applies to the emotional state of the entire story-mind.

#4

Thanks for weighing in. I’ve mostly imagined my IC (who is trying to get my MC to face fears) as Protagonist, but as I expanded my ideas (I was thinking there’s a family member w/ dementia who can no longer run the ranch she built and is getting aggressive, so the relative trying to care for her would really be pushing to help her) it could be a different character… who might also be IC since the MC looks up to him.

I think that like my MC, everyone is trying to avoid suffering (is that too vague?), but trying to or hoping to exert more control than possible. The dementia can’t be stopped. Fame is granted by and subject to the whims of the public, which can’t be totally controlled. One can’t hide from the world forever, at least without missing out on much better things. Etc. If that’s the case, they will fail, but cope (I suppose that story form would be OS of Dream vs. Hope instead of my current Denial vs. Closure). If I say that they want happiness or to feel worthy of love, which I’ve also considered, then I suppose it’d be Success, but tempered by some Costs.

So for a Story Goal, I could have one character wanting love, another wishing to feel useful, and another wanting happiness and it wouldn’t seem scattered? I guess you could lump that all under happiness since they’d be working towards that to be happy. I’m not sure how I could make that any different from an OS Concern of Innermost Desires. How would I determine an antagonist for all that, especially when the characters’ attitudes generally get in their own way?

Now that I think of it, if the Story Goal is the end point of the story, I’m not sure that the wish to avoid suffering is possible since it’s ongoing…unless there are specific events that they are trying to avoid.

#5

I don’t think you need a specific antagonist. Some characters may seem like antagonists to certain other characters, or to themselves. Maybe the character that is most responsible for preventing the protagonist goal will be the antagonist, even though he/she doesn’t do much to prevent the other characters from achieving their goals.

When you talk about “one character wanting love, another wishing to feel useful, and another wanting happiness” – I think that alignment of dramatic concern to the same source of conflict (Innermost Desires) is perfect and exactly what Dramatica helps you achieve. It especially works for the “ensemble pieces” that Jim is talking about.

Actually I checked http://dramatica.com/analysis/examine/os-concern/subconscious and several have those ensemble sort of goals, e.g. When Harry Met Sally “Most everyone in the Objective Story is concerned with finding the kind of love that will last for the rest of their lives.”

I think avoiding suffering can work too, finding love is one way of doing that, but another might be to get over the monkey on your back, etc. I think it can totally work, the key is just to show some sort of resolution. That’s the nice thing about story, if you show resolution properly, the audience doesn’t have to guess “what if they change their minds the next day or the next year?” If you make a complete narrative (grand argument), you PROVE that those particular problems have been resolved.

#6

So would whether I choose a Story Goal of Happiness or Avoidance of suffering depend on whether I want a Success/Good vs. Failure/Good? It’s hard because it’s a chicken/egg scenario of trying to avoid suffering because they want to be happy and wanting to be happy to avoid suffering. If it makes a difference, my whole theme is about trying to deal with inevitable fear/suffering and still live a happy life (avoiding risks and fears for fear of potential pain is the wrong way to avoid suffering because it means missing out on opportunities and good stuff, which creates regret and thus further suffering) so Failure and Negative feel seem right, but I’m no expert and I’m scared that if I don’t get my Storyform just right and understand everything just right, I might waste a bunch of time on the wrong one and fail-- I guess I need some Uncontrolled as a personal Solution. :stuck_out_tongue:

However, if each character has a concrete goal such as “I want to keep my relative from forgetting me” (which is meant to avoid the fear of losing his family and being unhappy and alone, so Innermost Desires), then I can easily say that that’s character’s goal fails, but if he finds some other form of companionship along the way that can, while not replace his family, give him some happiness and security, is that a Success or Dividend?

#7

Hi SharkCat, I can see why you are waffling a bit as this is tricky! It does sound to me a like your intent is Failure/Good, especially your example at the end. Do you have a Stop MC so Good Judgment = Negative Feel (aka feels Overwhelming)? That’s another good sign of the Good Judgment.

If it’s easier for you define the characters’ goal(s) as being in the “avoiding suffering” realm, as opposed to the “pursuing happiness” realm, then I would say that’s where you should put them. The ease or difficulty with which you can write an encoding is a good pointer towards your author’s intent, I would think. Especially when it’s easier to be “more specific” with a particular way of writing it – in your examples I would definitely classify “avoiding suffering” and “forcing my relative to keep me in their life” as much more specific than “wanting happiness”. Plus it does seem to fit your premise better to phrase the goal(s) that way.

One last thing, you can always ask yourself if it feels more like a somewhat bittersweet ending (Personal Triumph) compared to a plain old Triumph. You’ve probably already tried that though!

#8

The Storyform is what the author knows, not what the characters in the story know. So if they are trying to avoid intimacy, but you as an author are telling a story about finding intimacy, your goal is probably along those lines.

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#9

That makes a lot of sense.