Wiki page for gists

[YellowSuspenders]

You know what I think would be really cool? A wiki page which any of us could edit which is just a list of gists (appropriately sorted into through line, problem, issue, etc.) and a voting mechanism. We could add gists we came up with and those gists could be voted on by the community at large so that the bests gists float to the top of the list.

[Khodu]

Fantastic idea. This would greatly help the entire community and new people too.

[YellowSuspenders]

Nobody else like this idea? I was thinking of writing it after I got my first draft finished this month (and assuming I can find a free host which permits server-side scripting), but not unless there's a lot of interest in it.

[Khodu]

I'm very interested in this. But we'll need some serious quality control though. We can't harm proper appreciation of elements of the theory.

[YellowSuspenders]

I assume the quality control would come from it being a wiki

[Greg]

I like it but you might want to get that ok’d first. Not sure how that works. Could it be done on here somehow?

[Greg]

Something else I like that I’ve mentioned before would be a list of problems that could be mixed and matched with the gists.

Gists-
superheroes fighting
Failure to conceive of Rats cooking
Fear of Predator animals
Killer on the loose

Is a problem because-
The dragon has been freed
There’s conflict within the family
No one can go outside after dark

Something along those lines. Writers could pick and choose and the challenge would be in showing how something like “killer on the loose” is a problem because of “conflict in the family”. It could be fun. Not every combo would be literary gold, but you could get some interesting stuff going on. Might be a little too close to a Mad Libs though.

[YellowSuspenders]

I assume the "because of" provides the domain and concern?

I don't want to chase that idea down too much in this forum as I don't want to get accused of "promoting my own versions of Dramatica" here, but I like the way you think.

[YellowSuspenders]

One thing that I do find highly annoying is all the existing gists which are just copies with minor variation. I'm talking about things like
* Actualizing Something
* Being a Real Group
* Being Real
* Being Someone Real
* Being Something Real
In my opinion, this sort of filler only makes the hay stack bigger and the task of finding the needle that much harder.
Consolidate it into "he, she, it, or they is / are real"

[mlucas]

I think the wiki page is a great idea! However, because the Gists that ship with the software are the intellectual property of Write Brothers (Dramatica company), you'd want to make sure you didn't duplicate any of those gists directly. And maybe see what @chuntley thinks of this idea.

Ditto for @jhull since he has Narrative First gist collections with thousands of gists which you can get access to with a paid membership, and his Atomizer includes gist features too.

[YellowSuspenders]

If I could get a list of their gists, it'd be a simple thing to see if the new gist a user is adding (identified as a text string) matches any string in a look up table. That look up table would include all the proprietary gists that other people such as Jhull have already came up with. If there is a match, then the wiki would not permit that gist being added to the site.
New gists would also be given a date of creation to protect gists on the website from later being claimed to be someone's property.

[Greg]

I assume the "because of" provides the domain and concern?

The ‘because of’ is meant to show what is making the gist problematic. While it seems obvious that a killer on the loose just is problematic, it really isn’t inherently problematic. If a killer is on the loose in a room full of people you ar at war with, for instance, it’s not a problem. If a killer is on the loose and this creates conflict within a family as they decide whether or not to keep a gun in the house for protection, then you have a problem. If a killer is on the loose, and there’s a city wide lockdown preventing a character from getting to his medication, you have a problem. If there’s a killer on the loose who has freed the kings dragons as a diversion, you have a problem.

[Greg]

• Actualizing Something
• Being a Real Group
• Being Real
• Being Someone Real
• Being Something Real

There’s been a few times that I’ve found this helpful. For whatever reason ‘someone’ doesn’t bring anything to mind, but then I get to ‘a particular group’ and suddenly get a great idea.

[YellowSuspenders]

The ‘because of’ is meant to show what is making the gist problematic

But, it would identify the domain and concern wouldn't it? I mean, if you worded it carefully. The user wouldn't even have to think about domain and concern, but gists like "you join a neighborhood watch program whose members all have a tenuous grasp of reality" vs. "your relationship with your family suffers as a result of your paranoia" would carry certain domains / concerns implicitly.

[Greg]

But, it would identify the domain and concern wouldn't it?

I don’t know. I’m going to say not necessarily. For instance, if you come up with ‘Running a race is a problem because it overworks the MCs bad heart’ are you saying that might suggest both Physics and Doing where Physics=running a race and Doing=over exerting a weak heart?

I’d fear I’d end up combining two levels and hurting the story because of it if I looked at it that way. I’d feel like I still needed to make overworking a weak heart a problem and then instead of having a Domain and a Concern, I’d have just one of those and it would be very overloaded,very over justified. Also, I might want the Physics of running a race as the overall problem, but for the plot to deal with the problems around Obtaining a replacement heart. So, yeah, you might could look at it like that, but I’d be careful with it.

[YellowSuspenders]

Now, I would look at that and say that the MC domain is Situation (on account of having a physical quality of a bad heart). Dramatica explicitly states in reference to the MC having Domain: Situation, "What is it like to have the Main Character's physicality?" Then, the Concern would be "How Things are Changing". He's not the only character in the race. So, I'd put the Domain: Physics and Concern: Doing in the OS Throughline.

[Greg]

Now, I would look at that and say that the MC domain is Situation (on account of having a physical quality of a bad heart).

First, see, here's where the 'is a problem because' comes in. How in that example is having a bad heart shown to be problematic? Having a bad heart isn't inherently a problem. It has to be made a problem. You can take the info in that example and twist it to say something like 'having a bad heart is problematic because it keeps the character from racing', but that is not what's in the example above. That is a different problem, different story.
You also look to Progress because this character is in a race and presumably has some concern about his progress against the other competitors. But that also was not in the example and hasn't been shown to be problematic. That also dismisses the idea that the plot should revolve around the problems associated with obtaining a heart.

Second, let's see if I can adjust the problem to match how you're seeing it. Having a bad heart is a problem because it prevents the MC from giving his all during the race. You could assume that being unable to give his all is preventing him from making better progress, and maybe that works. But you wouldn't want to cut yourself off from being able to use the same gist to tell a story with a Past, Present, or Future concern.

[YellowSuspenders]

This is remarkably difficult to explain once we move beyond the simplest explanation.

Why is having a bad heart a problem? 'having a bad heart is problematic because it keeps the character from racing' But, why is racing important? What is the inequality being explored? It has something to do with him physically and it has to do with something he was once able to do and can no longer do it.
Let's imagine the two drop downs as you've described them. Under "What is the problem?" we've left it blank. Under "Why is it a problem?" we've put "He is growing more feeble" In other words, simply identifying the Domain and Concern does not tell us what the problem is.

[Greg]

Let's imagine the two drop downs as you've described them. Under "What is the problem?" we've left it blank. Under "Why is it a problem?" we've put "He is growing more feeble" In other words, simply identifying the Domain and Concern does not tell us what the problem is.

In this example, we haven’t identified a domain or a concern. “Growing more feeble” is showing why “blank” is a problem. “Growing more feeble” could be used to identify the domain or concern if used as the gist and then shown to be problematic.

Why is having a bad heart a problem? 'having a bad heart is problematic because it keeps the character from racing' But, why is racing important?

I don’t think this matters structurally. This is a storytelling concern. Racing is important because the MC loves to do it/needs the prize money/has defined himself by his ability to win. Racing is important because being #1/reaping the rewards of hard work/showboating are how the IC challenges others.

[decastell]

Racing is important because the MC loves to do it/needs the prize money/has defined himself by his ability to win. Racing is important because being #1/reaping the rewards of hard work/showboating are how the IC challenges others.

Isn't the inequity always the gap between that which is and that which the character desires? I think the Dramatica example is often of the MC wants a new car but doesn't have money. The "problem" is not having a car, but what makes it a problem is desiring a new car.

I could be totally off about this because I've never really fully grasped Dramatica's notion of inequity. But assuming the notion above is correct, then in a sense you could pair almost any problem with any desire because the relationship between the two comes from the throughline perspective. So, for example, the gist might be "forgetting one's long-lost pet" and the desire "wanting a new house" – which sound unrelated, but which the author could define a connection between those two things (the MC can't pick a new house because none of them feel right because what will make the house feel right is if it reminds him of living with his long-lost pet ... or whatever).

Just curious if I'm looking at this correctly?