The IC throughline, language

in the Writer’s Room yesterday, we briefly discussed how to use language to establish the relationship between the MC and IC on the IC throughline. Here’s how I do it (the white boxes). It’s what the MC is seeing and perceiving in the IC that lets us measure the meaning of the changes the IC is ringing up.

Great interpretation and visualization!

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What I like about it is that it shows a meaningful progression in the POV. Here’s the visualization that includes the signposts:

Can you elaborate a bit on this?
for instance, if the influence character’s signposts are Conceiving, Being, … then what are Present, Past, Progress, Future? Relationship?

Interesting, how or why does the IC appear to the MC … annoying, useful, a friend…? Is it based or the signpost and/or the Issue?

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busy few days, I’ll 'splain mahself a bit later this week, as best I can.

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Thank you so much for this post. It helped me figure out the final act for my IC Throughline! (I’d been struggling with that for quite some time, now.)

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I’m very pleased to hear that. You helped me quite a bit too!

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And thank you for reminding me I did this. I’m notorious for forgetting my own work.

I think of this as the musical movement of the story and the broadest application of cause and effect.

Like musical movements, each creates a different space and mood.

The MC sees the IC as an annoyance in Act 1, what changes to make him useful in Act 2, a friend in Act 3, a man apart in Act 4?

This is true of every Act/Throughline, in my opinion. You should ‘hear’ the difference, and feel it. It’s a benchmark, a measure of change, and is one of the main things that gets the readers/viewers attention, and keeps them involved in the story. “Oh, look, he thinks differently now…oh, I see why…”

Act 1

The MC is conceiving how to deal with his new relationship with the IC. from the perspective of the PSR Universe Quad, he seems to be annoying, possibly because the IC isn’t matching what the MC is conceiving. There’s a space between the two.

The MC is observing the Psychology of the situation, probably figuring out how to get the IC to match his expectations.

The Universe concerns are affecting the psychology. This is the PSR Twist, the introduction of the second element that alters the course of the plot. If there was Equality there would be no conflict and no story.

“Annoyance” answers the question “How is the MC conceiving of the IC”

The IC’s behavior comes out of his own Conceiving, not matched to the MC’s.

Act 2

The MC and the IC are settling in and Being, and now the MC is seeing the IC’s value and how he might think of him as being useful, just as he is. There is how the MC perceives his being and how the IC perceives his Being, and also how the actually are Being, and the two are not matched, once again. The IC may or may not be useful, or be willing to be useful.

The MC is observing the Psychology of the situation, probably figuring out how to get the IC to match his expectations of Being. He’s having guests over, he wishes the IC would pick up, get out of his gym clothes and put on something decent, take a shower, dress for company.

The Universe concerns are affecting the psychology. This is the PSR Twist, the introduction of the second element that alters the course of the plot. If there was Equality there would be no conflict and no story. If they were exactly alike in their Being, they would be Felix and Felix or Oscar and Oscar.

“Useful” answers the question “How does the MC see the Being of the IC.”

The IC’s behavior comes out of his own Being, not matched to the MC’s.

Act 3

Because of the Conflict around Being, one of them is now Changing and Becoming; either the MC is Becoming and so his perspective on the IC changes, or the IC is Becoming and the MC notices it, although his perspective is unchanged. Because they have found some alignment of Equality they can possibly think of each other as friends, meaning that they care about each other’s comfort and problems. But they may not work out as friends, and even if one of them sees the other as friends, the other may not; or they may see each other as friends at different times and never connect.

The MC is observing the Psychology of the situation, probably figuring out how to get the IC to change in the direction that the MC wants him to change in. If he’s changing in a different direction, that creates conflict, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be friends.

more to come…

Act 4

The attempt at thinking of each other as friends either fails or runs its course.

In the IC throughline of Psychology it’s what the IC is thinking, seen probably through his behavior as well as his dialogue, and what the MC thinks of what he’s thinking.

This all is centered around the IC solving his problem and pursuing his desire, and the MC observing it.

(more to come…)

Just thought of this language

The present is intruding on conceiving
The past is intruding on being
Progress is intruding on becoming
The future is intruding on conceptualizing

Affecting or interfering would be other verbs that might fit.

I think of the psr type as noise on the line of the act type. It’s messing up the pure signal. So a kind of current and resistance …

Think of the wave form…hmmm…the act type the wave peak, the psr type the trough

Btw melanie says in secrets of the quad video they haven’t figured out ow to predict positive and negative pairs in the quad …

Just thinking out loud…so the psr variations are temporal interference with the space of the act type…

And the act type variations are just static arguments, logical points, in the context of the act.

Wow OK, I can see it in my head. The waveform is the temporal expression, the circle created by the cosine is the spatial movement which pushes it around the PSR quad.

I can see the bloody mechanism moving in my head.

But the quad is also traversed in the temporal expression. Just thinking about how the z pattern, hairpin pattern, U-turn diagram works out with that.

The theory book keeps emphasizing the rubrics cube. Does the waveform and spiral always remain the same? And it’s the arrangement of the minicubes in the rubrics cube that produces the combinations? As well as the position of the spiral in the cube? It seems as if the spiral always remains the same, the jumble of mini cubes changes, and the starting point and angle of the spiral changes.

I’m also wondering what makes it a K based system…I guess K generates the specific elements in the cube…?

wow, late night, drifting off to sleep visions of Dramatica machines whirring in my brain…

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The things themselves are taken as givens. Past, Present, and Future are sections of Universe that you can cordon off from each other.

Now, imagine a consciousness where these concepts of time are not assumed to be definable…now you’re looking at a D-based model.

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mmm am separating my theory madness from actually writing my story :slight_smile:

@jhull This is the bit I was referring to.