Why can't a Do-er MC have a Throughline of Mind or Psychology?

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#21

I appreciate your input @MWollaeger Mike. That does help. What I’m wondering, specifically… The Psychology domain has specific issues within it. With respect to the Dramatica software in particular, how would one give his doer an issue of State of Being, for example… with a problem underneath that issue, such as Inertia?

Would it simply be a matter of mapping State of Being to the most similar Issue under Physics? and how would one ensure that the right choice is made so that the story actually explores what the author wants to explore? Or would such an exploration simply require that the story not be a GAS, but instead a tale?

I’m truly not trying to be obstinate. My mind just keeps asking me “If Do-er/Be-er is truly just a preference, why can’t a Do-er have a problem in Psychology?” If there’s a way to map everything to it’s proper location within the model, so that such a thing can be explored within a GAS, I just hope to find some guidance. :slight_smile:

#22

The software is going to prohibit you from doing this directly. So, if you want to, it’s not going to be a GAS… except that I strongly suspect you are going to find that your character is not really acting like a do-er if you take this route. You’ll end up writing a be-er most likely, possibly not even being aware that you are doing it. (I once made a very concerted effort to write a character in Fixed Attitude, but the end result was that I wrote him in Situation and all the other appreciations changed as well.)

But, enough about generalizations. How is your character definitely a do-er? How is he trying to deal with State of Being?

#23

My questions here aren’t really related to a story I’m working with. I was just toying with ideas the other night, playing around in the software, and it dawned on me that I couldn’t have a do-er with Mind or Psychology problems.

I’m thinking (and please correct me if I’m off-base) that the answer could be in which parts of the story an author chooses to emphasize and which parts he chooses to make more obscure. If I want a Do-er with a psychology problem, couldn’t I just make him a Be-er/Psychology MC in the software… and then in the storytelling, downplay a lot of the Be-er stuff, and emphasize all the Do-er stuff?

I know the truth of the matter is not as simple as this, but as I mentioned earlier, it almost seems that Dramatica is suggesting that Do-ers are immune from psychological problems, as the only way to have it that way is to throw something off kilter in the model and end up with an incomplete GAS (a tale).

I suppose all this, all my questions and pondering, is an effort to understand the theory as deeply as possible. I’m the type of person who likes to make informed choices… If I make a choice in the software and that choice causes other changes elsewhere in the Story Model, I want to be able to understand why that additional choice was made.

I’m completely in love with Dramatica, and as such, I just want to know it, backwards and forwards.

#24

A Do-er/Situation has panic attacks any time someone mentions his upcoming marriage (The Future) to Sweatlana (the sadistic Swedish trainer), so he tries to be open (Openness) to the Stoic Philosophy of controlling your thoughts to control your emotions (Faith).

Panic attacks, Openness, Faith… hopefully these are internal enough to demonstrate that Do-ers can have psychological problems.

#25

I think I heard way back when with dram 1.6 that certain decisions were made for the software program, using the most common choices. It was a practical compromise. Anything goes in making a riveting story.

#26

If you want to have a Do-er MC in a Throughline of Mind or Psychology then you don’t have a Do-er MC.

And its not as if Dramatica is preventing you from writing a character like this, it’s telling you that if you want to explore a Main Character who struggles with a Fixed Attitude or a Way of Thinking, then their Approach would be to solve internally first (Be-er).

Stories are completely made up things. They aren’t about real people. They are analogies for how we solve problems in our own minds. This idea that you should write a “3-dimensional” character that is a living breathing human in every sense of the word is probably detrimental to actually writing a good story.

The Do-er Approach is not something that comes before the choice of Throughline; it happens as a result of the Throughlines. They are interconnected and are two of ways of seeing the same thing.

It’s all about problem-solving, right? People who have problems of a Fixed Attitude or Way of Thinking look for the solution there first BECAUSE once you identify the problem you automatically identify the solution as well. Problems don’t exist without solutions.

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#27

you should read this article by Jim Hull http://narrativefirst.com/articles/when-backstory-is-not-backstory
When you get down about half way to the section titled The Meaningful Character Arc there is a great section on Batman (who is a very Do-er kind of character) from Batman Begins who moves from Be-er to Do-er and then in The Dark Knight he moves from Do-er to Be-er. it’s a good read and in my mind answers this question.