Absent Player as Influence Character?

questions
#1

I’m sorry if this question has been asked before, but I wanted to ask with context from my project and hopefully get some more insight into Dramatica in doing so.

In my current project, due to both character and story reasons, the player representing the IC since the start leaves the MC after securing both a place of residence and respect in a foreign land for them. This happens rather suddenly at the end of IC Signpost #3 for reasons personal to the IC, but of which the MC is completely unaware.

Now, what I’d like to do is have the memory and the apparent secret agenda of the IC affect the MC in the final stretch as IC Signpost #4. That is, I’d prefer that there be no “real” character influencing the MC at this point in the story, and have only those lingering effects from the player that left.

My question is:
Does this make sense structurally with Dramatica? Can I use a lingering memory or effect of the original IC player in IC Signpost #4 this way, or will I need to find some other way of presenting this influence?

I suspect that if the influence is clear, I can do this, but I wanted to verify my suspicions before moving forward.

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#2

Absolutely you can do this. The IC character is about the perspective of YOU as seen from the MC, so it’s less about the actual character and more about how the MC sees that character.

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#3

Hi Hunter, I’m still pretty new to Dramatica, but I have the same issue with my IC. He dies and the MC is left with the memory of him to finally change. Funnily enough the IC Signpost 4 is not Memory but Contemplation which fits perfectly, as it’s not the memory as such but the consideration of what is remembered in context to the MC’s status quo that really affects the MC to change. So on a deeper level Dramatica understood my story better than I did :smile:

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#4

Hi, Niandra. That’s actually kind of funny. The IC Signpost #4 for my project is actually Learning…
Same quad location, but under a different context. :grin:

What I’m really wanting to do is have the efforts and blockages the MC deals with in his attempt to learn what the IC is up to mark a final attack on his justifications. (In my story, the MC is actually Steadfast.) I had already worked out the general feel of this when trying to encode IC Signpost #3 (Obtaining) incorrectly, but I LOVE the result of what it brings.

Yeah, it seems to be really good at this. I actually had a structure problem that I intentionally put in for my first draft where the IC left the MC. I knew why he needed to leave, but I didn’t really know when or how. Dramatica gave me that Obtaining signpost, and that felt so darn right that I knew I had to have the right story form, finally.

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#5

Yup, everyone’s had good points so far. The Influence Character’s influence can easily continue, even if the player you usually associate with them is absent. That voice in the character’s head that says, “What would they do?” or anything that continues to act out that character’s will–those can be agents of the Influence Character. I think the example I’ve given previously is the characters looking at an empty chair and thinking, “This was X’s dream, and I’ve got to keep fighting for it. It’s what X would have wanted.”

#6

In the film, “The Big Chill”, the IC is a character that only appears in the title sequence as a corpse, yet the characters gathered for his funeral reflect on their own lives by comparing theirs with his. One character even says to the group, after a particularly introspective, post dinner group discussion about where their lives have led them, “I know what Alex would say. ‘What’s for dessert?’”

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