Weaving main character and throughlines

writing
#1

On the weaving front:

I’m starting to sketch out some scenes into a story and I’m getting tripped up on weaving the POV character and any other throughline that isn’t directly connected to the throughline of that POV character. I know each throughline is a perspective, but when writing a scene from a character’s POV, I’m getting tripped up by how a different throughline comes to be illustrated.

(For clarification, I’m using “POV” as the term used in writing e.g. 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, etc along with “main character”. Then, I’m using “perspective” in regards to a throughline and “MC”, “OS” etc., – as Dramatica terms. Also, for simplicity sake in the example below, MC and protagonist roles are combined.)

So!

Let’s say I’m writing a scene from the main character’s POV in 1st person. If, from the main character’s POV, I want to incorporate storypoints involving the OS, those storypoints will simply be the main character’s rendering of the OS storypoints? In other words, he will have an objective perspective of the OS storypoints? The same for the RS?

So, does that mean that since the main character tends to get the most real estate in a book, he will be rendering a sizeable chunk of all throughline storypoints in many of his scenes? (I suspect the answer is yes, but it would be good to get that clarified).

#2

The perspectives are perspectives for the AUTHOR, not the characters. It’s a means of communicating purpose and intent to the AUDIENCE.

If you’ve already worked out the basic structure of your story with Dramatica, you can pretty much stop thinking about perspectives and simply start writing whatever feels right to you. The purpose you put into developing storypoints with the model of the Storymind will carry over into your final work.

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#3

Very important point and reminder! Thank you, Jim!!!

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#4

This is one of the toughest things to understand without help. Thanks for restating it. I need to hear it a lot to be reminded.

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