Is it they don’t want to regret having blown it in the future, being aware now they have a choice to make that will determine future happiness or regret? Or is it they are blindly, bumbling through, and what ends up happening was never considered?
Hi SharkCat, have you narrowed down a storyform already? Or are you trying to figure out your storyform using the Consequence? Just going from my own experience, I would actually hold off on worrying about the Consequence’s Type and trying to use that to come up with a storyform. It’s totally cool to think about how the story ends in failure and what that means for the characters, but at least for me it seems like Consequence is one of those things that Dramatica figures out better than I can.
Incidentally I think the Consequence is always the same type as the RS Concern? That’s kind of interesting!
I think it depends on the character. One of them is taking care of things, thinking he’s right for exerting control that he does. On the other hand, MC already regrets his past of avoidance since he missed out on a lot and now has a second chance, but as much as he’d like to avoid further regret, can’t (in the beginning) fight his fears since they have such a strong hold on him.
I do have a story form, but I was hoping that narrowing down the plot points would stop me from changing my mind every time I look at it.
HaHa… this reminds me of the first month I used dramatica and I stayed up through the night working out my first storyform via the plot option. After about 8 hours of answering questions and only getting about a fourth of the way, I took a very long break. (day or two.) When I came back and started a new one via the character dynamic question route instead, I nailed my first storyform in an hour.
Well, remember that the consequence can be something that is already in place:
Sometimes the Consequence will occur if the goal is not met, other times the consequence already exists and can only be eliminated by meeting the goal.
(from: http://dramatica.com/dictionary/objective-story-consequence )
So maybe the characters already have a bleak future to look forward to, if they keep on avoiding trying new things because they’re too afraid to confront their fears. i.e. they sort of already know the path their lives are on and where it will take them; they may sense that allowing their fears to rule them will result in a dreary future full of regrets of what could have been.
(Heck, even if the characters don’t sense this, it doesn’t really matter because it’s your author’s intent that is stating it.)
That’s a cool catch!
I figured out what I think the throughlines should represent:
OS = negotiating how to handle fears (the best way to get rid of them being to face them)
MC = POV of “Better safe than sorry”
IC = POV of “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
RS = the conflict over determining which fears are worth facing/or risks worth taking
but are the throughlines for that (which may be a problem since I can’t pick Fixed Attitude or Manipulation for all of them), or are they for how those things manifest in the story (ex. IC prefers acting to worrying so that’s a Domain of Activity)?
Am I treating risk and fear too interchangably?
I think you’re getting somewhere! But I don’t know that you can use the MC & IC perspectives to assign the throughlines, since they don’t tell you what the source of conflict is. (They actually remind me a lot of the juxtasposed-truth statements from Jim’s recent article: finding-your-own-unique-voice-when-writing-for-nanowrimo which is great, since that’s how he was able to assign interesting perspectives to his example MC & IC).
I don’t think you’re treating risk and fear too interchangeably. They might even be the same thing from different perspectives (“It’s too risky!” “Oh, you’re just afraid. Get some balls.”)
Do you have a sense of which of your MC or IC is more a Do-er and which is more a Be-er? Really try to focus on their personal issues and perspective. From what you wrote I would guess the IC is the Do-er (going out and venturing) and the MC is the Be-er (accepting that the risk ain’t worth it) but I could certainly be wrong.
Yeah, MC is be-er and IC is do-er.
For the OS, is it possible the “negotiating how” is more of a source of conflict than the actual fears? i.e. if they didn’t need to negotiate how to handle their fears, they wouldn’t have a problem?
I’m asking because negotiating how sounds like it could be Manipulation & Developing a Plan. Not that I want to mess with your storyform, just want to see what you think.
EDIT: also because something about your story feels like the film Eat Drink Man Woman to me; but that might just be me reading too much into it.
I would think the Concern would be the Future since that’s what they’re worried about… unless conflict over whether they think the Future will turn out bad or good would be RS. Does that count as Future since that’s a way of thinking and/or fixed attitude?
Are they wanting to correct the future? Or would that be avoid the future that looms?
They want to attain certain futures they have in mind which they think will stop or hold off their anxiety (ex. trying to keep a relative out of a nursing home to avoid a future of loneliness from losing one’s family). Everyone is motivated by fear.
EDIT: I guess you could say that they are holding off potential future anxiety. I don’t know if the reality of the world being uncertain can be a Situation.
Well, if you think the OS Concern is Future that also means everyone is stuck in some sort of external Situation. It seemed like you were going for more an internal conflict with the OS (negotiating how to handle fears) but if you are planning to make those fears arise from the Universe around them, like say everyone is being held hostage, that could certainly work.
As far as “conflict over whether they think the Future will turn out bad or good”, I don’t think you can assume that is any particular Domain as it seems too broad. If that is at the root of the RS difficulties, it might point at an RS Problem or Symptom of Speculation or Projection or something…
The Universe inspires the fears, like one character having one family member left and not wanting to end up alone, although I don’t know if not wanting to be alone is Situation or Fixed Attitude.
Okay, let’s take that character as an example. He might be stuck in a problematic Situation (having almost no family left) or a problematic Fixed Attitude (afraid of being alone). Which of these things seems like a more obvious way to totally take away his problems:
- Without changing any of his attitudes or anything internal, make it so that he has lots of family left. Does he still have a problem?
- Keep him with just one family member remaining, but take away his fears of being alone etc. Does he still have a problem?
- He may, if he’s afraid of losing them.
- Not really.
If no one was afraid of anything, they wouldn’t have problems I don’t think. There could be loose ends like, for that character, needing money for nursing home bills. Would that mean Innermost Desires belongs in Story Goal/OS Concern (they want to get rid of fears) or Consequence?
I had Fixed Attitude for RS since they conflict on how they think things should be handled, but is that implied just by there being an MC and IC to begin with?
I would say Innermost Desires belongs as OS Concern then. (The Domain, Concern, Issue, and Problem are all different zoom-levels of the same problem, so that if you take them away, the problem in that throughline is gone. I’ve never seen this test applied to Consequences, as I don’t think it’s a primary source of conflict. I think you’re much better off worrying about Consequences later.)
Yeah, the MC & IC conflicting on their perspectives is probably true for most stories. Who are the MC & IC anyway? Is there a way you can picture them as stuck in a sort of situation? (e.g. Zootopia has a good example of RS Situation, where the fox & bunny are stuck working together, and that situation is problematic for several reasons)
IC is trying to help MC improve his situation (IC also wants a better life as well. Their preferences for the sort of futures they want may conflict) and gain the normal, productive life that MC wants, but MC’s fears get in the way, frustrating the both of them.
Has anyone worked on a Story Form and flip-flopped like crazy over not having a relevant term in there? Like my story has a lot of Worry in it, but since the characters are concerned with fears and desires all mixed together (so Innermost Desires makes more sense than Impulsive Responses I think), Worry doesn’t show up in my Story Form and I’d worry that I did it wrong. Is it okay that Worry isn’t in there?
Similarly, I worry about whether or not I’m stretching Dramatica terms too far with encoding. While experimenting, I got a Problem of Being Against Everything (Oppose) and Solution of Commending a Particular Group (Support). My instinct is to encode that instance of Support as being about a bunch of jaded characters who want to believe that people are fundamentally good (as in worthy of support). That sounds like Faith, so did I stretch Support too far?
To reduce confusion I’m numbering my answers to your three questions here…
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I think that can work but they really need to be stuck in some sort of problematic situation together, for the duration of the story (until the RS throughline resolves). Like say the IC gets assigned to help the MC and neither of them wants this but they can’t get out of it. Or maybe they are family and there was some ultimatum from an older relative that they need to work together on improving the MC’s situation or they won’t be in the will. etc. Or maybe they are both poor and stuck together because of that.
To be clear, I don’t think it can just be about the MC’s situation, although that could be a big part of it, but there has to be a way of looking at it like they are stuck in a Situation together, and there has to be conflict arising from that Situation. -
Remember that Worry will come up once in the story, in the PSR. Also, your characters can still be worried, it’s just that the worry is not the ultimate source of conflict there. It’s their fears and desires and longings that are the real sources of conflict, their dreams and hopes that they can never seem to give up on, yet always seem to be denied to them.
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I think for that to be a Solution of Support, you’d want the jaded characters who are against everything, to move away from being so jaded by showing support in some way (or asking for support, or gathering it, etc.). So it’s not so much about wanting to believe or believing, but if they speak up for or truly support in some way the idea that people are fundamentally good, then suddenly their being jaded doesn’t define them anymore.
Like say there is a sullen teenage boy who is totally opposed to being part of his family, won’t do anything with them, just hangs out in his room all day, complains any time he is dragged along for a family event. But when his sister is crying because she’s pregnant and he puts his arm around her and defends her in front of mom & dad, you can see how he’s not the sullen/jaded teenager anymore, he’s the supportive brother. Or instead if he confesses to his mom that he has a drug problem and asks for her support in telling dad and trying to quit. Or suddenly starts spending all his time trying to gather support for a local charity that his friend started. etc. All these are ways of resolving his “being against everything” attitude – but it’s the support that does it, not the faith/belief.