Another thought on the RS

theory
#93

I’d say it’s due to the fact that there is a borderline section between forming and encoding/telling that raises this position between AT and FROM to the forefront, as well as the duality of the questions within the thread itself.

As far as I can tell, the initial interpretation of the question that started this thread was how an author could write FROM a non-objective perspective that presents multiple heads to the author in the act of writing. That is, how can a writer take the storyform and turn it into storytelling for the RS, as they might do for any of the other throughlines. Later, it seems the question turned more toward how an author should think about the RS Throughline in order to help both in forming and telling.That is, how should one consider the RS when trying even to conceive of ideas about what should considered allowable or useful illustrations.

From evidence within this thread and elsewhere on the board: Questions like the first often focus attention for looking FROM the perspective. Questions like the second often focus attention AT the perspective.

This might be answering at a meta-level, rather than what was meant by your post, though…

Even so, I think that noting that divide between forming and illustrating for the RS expands upon the reasons that the RS seems more difficult to understand. That same divide between AT and FROM exists in the other three throughlines, but it is less pronounced. I think that is likely due to the stronger presentation of those three throughlines in many modern stories.

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#94

Yes. I’m saying that this is what we are supposed to do and that it is what we say we are supposed to do. But I’m also saying that when we demand that the appreciation describe the relationship itself–such as when we say that the appearance of an obelisk is too external to the relationship, or that the Universe needs to describe the relationship, or that the relationship needs to look only inward toward the relationship–that it seems to me that we are not doing this. That what we end up doing is changing the dynamic from Looking At/Looking From to Looking At/Looking At by tying the changing of the relationship to the source of conflict. I may be wrong about that, but that’s why i’m bringing it up. So we can discuss it’s merits or discuss why it’s wrong.

I’ll add to this, by the way, that I’m not suggesting that the RS cant look inward to the relationship. I just feel like the idea that the RS only looks inward to the relationship feels needlessly limiting. Additionally, I think that when the RS looks inward toward the relationship, it still needs to have source of conflict plus growth to be complete. So an inward looking RS, to me, might be the state of a relationship, or the state of being in a relationship, or relating to others, or being in love or falling in love, or otherwise as the source of conflict but will still need to describe how the relationship changes and grows.

The difference might be an RS that looks at how being stuck in a loveless marriage leads to undue stress and turmoil (an inward looking RS), and yet addressing the problem as such leads the couple to become really good, close friends once again, vs an RS that looks at how an obelisk that shouldn’t be leads to attempted murder (an outward looking RS) and addressing the problem as such causes neighbors to fall in love.

Maybe. I also know that the RS–to me, anyway–is the one that seems out of place and so even though I’m trying to describe it, i’m also assuming there’s a 90 degree turn that i don’t know how to make that keeps me from seeing why a relationship would need to look at a relationship. But the answer I prefer is one that i haven’t fully thought through the workings of yet. But it basically equates the MC perspective to mass/knowledge, IC to thought/energy, etc. And I think a full description of that view would address how AT/FROM works for each throughline individually.

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#95

Okay, I agree with this, and I think you’re onto something with this distinction. I feel like this is a way of restating the idea that the RS “looks” at the central inequity from a certain perspective.

However, the real challenge remains…

So to clarify my earlier point: I don’t think that there’s anything about “an obelisk that shouldn’t be leading to attempted murder” that’s inherently not RS. The problem is that whenever I come up with illustrations like that in my own stories, I find it difficult to separate them from the OS.

And to be very clear: I can describe how I think an “external” RS works in a number of existing stories (some of which I mentioned up thread). It’s creating new ones that’s difficult.

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#96

And just to be clear, it’s not that I’m picking on your response or suggesting it’s wrong, or I don’t mean to. What I’m pointing at in your comment is something that I think everyone has been moving toward, myself included. I’m the one that’s moving away from that in a manner, so it’s probably the case that I’m the one moving in the wrong direction here. Buts that’s okay as long as I can pull some understanding out of that.

So what I would say to this is that the storyform is structure. MC, IC, and OS, I think, are typically seen as more structural in nature, so they tend to match up nicely with a structural storyform. But as the throughline that mostly describes growth and direction, the RS is seen mostly in terms of dynamics. But this view doesn’t work so well with a structural storyform because we can’t see the dynamics within the form. Imagine a Dramatica based more in dynamics and the RS probably gets easier to see the more dynamic the model becomes where the MC and OS become harder to see.

So the way we take the storyform and turn it into storytelling for the RS as we might do for any of the other throughlines is to treat it the same as we would for any other throughline while understanding that, for the time being, we will have to trust ourselves with the dynamics. We know that the storyform provides the structure for the meaning of our story. So for the RS, we will have to trust or find a way to know that the dynamics we choose provide a certain particular meaning to the story. And we have to come to terms with the idea that if we get the meaning of the dynamics wrong because there is not a dynamic model to tell us what they mean, we are at least getting the structural meaning within the dynamics accurate because we do have a structural model.

And it’s not as though we are without dynamics in other throughlines. If we take the IC to be the energy to the MCs mass, then the energy of the IC is pushing the MC in one direction or another. Thankfully, the model provides us with guidance for that. It’s called the MC Resolve and the directions are Changed or Steadfast. So we can take that idea and apply it to the RS. What does it mean for the story for relationships to grow? To shrink? To continue? To end? To strengthen or weaken?

The model doesn’t currently tell us because the current model doesn’t need to. To satisfy the argument structurally, we have all we need. To satisfy the argument emotionally, well, we get to do that on our own. Good news for some of us, bad news for others. But if you have the idea of how dynamics work and know what you want to say about the relationship, then say it just like you would for any other throughline. Just add growth and emotion while you do it.

#97

I just described part of this, so might as well go for it.

So we know how the MC works. It’s a look at the inequity from a perspective of addressing the inequity personally. IF we see the MC throughline as being equivalent to mass, then the MC perspective is the particle view of conflict. Here’s the inequity. Here’s what addressing the inequity looks like.

If the MC is mass, the IC is energy. So how does that work? It still looks at the inequity and creates conflict by addressing it. But now addressing the inequity will create an energy within the story, a path that moves the MC toward Steadfast or Changed. By addressing the inequity by thinking he’s a real spaceman rather than a toy, Buzz creates an energy that influences Woody to remain steadfast in his resolve that what’s most important is that they be there for Andy when he needs them.

If we say the OS is equal to space, then…and here’s where I haven’t fully thought it out so maybe this is off or deficient…then conflict, or maybe how conflict is addressed, becomes a boundary that physically separates mental processes. The RS would be time, then, and conflict stops being a boundary or a barrier that separates processes and becomes the tie that binds mental processes together, that pulls and pushes and moves them around.

Of course that all changes if you start flipping and rotating that quad.

#98

Yes! Totally agree here.

When you make the leap from MC vs. IC to relationship, I think it’s natural to mistakenly think you have to make everything inward-focused. But as you said, that’s a needless limitation. The key is just to keep everything centred on the relationship.

One of the things that helped me with my RS in stories was to relax that apparent limitation. At the time I thought I was “cheating” but I found that:

  • Just going with an illustration of the RS Signpost of Learning of “teaching secrets to each other / learning secrets together” worked great. The secrets themselves were not about the relationship at all (they were OS stuff), so kind of like your obelisk @Greg. But the activity of Learning the secrets was how the two related to each other.
    At the time I thought this was wrong, esp. because of Jim’s comments in this thread (note: if you are currently alpha-reading my second draft, that thread will have spoilers). I thought it was just a cheat or shortcut to get to the real RS signpost of “learning how bad things really are in this relationship”. But having gained further understanding since then, and looking in light of this thread, I think BOTH were perfectly valid signpost illustrations. One outward, one inward.

  • Similarly, an RS signpost of Doing can involve very inward-focused doing like sex, but also more outward obelisk-like things like jumping off a cliff together or flying a spaceship together. The key is that those Doing activities are important in how they relate to each other and how the relationship moves/changes/grows.

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#99

I confess I only read half the thread… LOL But I wanted to throw in an idea. I’m quite new to this, but sometimes it helps, as I’m still fresh from reading about what underlies the theory.

If you go back to the concept of the storymind, there are 4 throughlines because there are 4 perspectives we usually consider when we set about making any kind of decision :
1/ what would happen in the world, and what would it look like from the outside, if people/anybody did X (OS)
2/ how I’d feel about doing X or why I would want to do it (MC)
3/ how you would react if I did X (IC)
4/ what would happen to our relationship if I did X (RS).

I think the subjective/objective binary often blinds us to these last two perspectives, which is perhaps why we have such a hard time explaining or formulating them. Yet, I believe we subconsciously take the ‘you’ and ‘we’ perspectives into account much more often than the ‘they’ one, at least when it comes to all our little everyday decisions (especially in these days of confinement).

Should I make dinner? There won’t be consequences for the world at large, and I don’t think people who don’t know me will care one way or the other. Objectively (ie in the OS perspective), there’s not much to help me make a decision. Subjectively, though, maybe I’m hungry (or not). Maybe I really want to try this new recipe (or maybe I hate cooking and am really terrible at it). Whatever. That’s the MC perspective.

If I live alone, that can be enough. But most of the time, it’s not. So let’s bring you (IC) into the equation. Say if I don’t make dinner, you don’t eat. That may yet influence my decision. But not so fast! Where’s our relationship (RS) at? It makes a huge difference whether you’re my young child, and I feel responsible for feeding you, or whether you’re my roommate. And it makes a second big difference if we (roommates) agreed to take turns preparing dinner and it’s my turn (or not), or if you keep taking advantage of my cooking skills without ever pitching in.

That’s the RS throughline for me. What your relationship is like, and how it may evolve according to the events that unfold. We almost never think about it, because it’s so obvious, but we constantly adjust our behaviour not only based on general human principles (OS), on our own feelings, fears and ideas (MC), on how other people may react to us (IC), but also on who we’re interacting with and how we conceive of our relationship with them (RS).

Concretely, I think the RS is created by you + me + context. And part of the context is shown by the interaction itself (that’s how it’s “alive” within the story). Say, if I don’t make dinner, you get angry (IC). But the way I will then react to your anger owes both to who I am (MC) and to what our relationship is (RS). Like, maybe I tend to cower before angry people or, on the contrary, anger directed at me tends to make me angry as well. That would be my general disposition towards unspecified people (that would be IC + MC without RS). But who ‘we’ are can put a serious spin on this.

Maybe I brush it off because I don’t even like you, and you don’t hold power over me. Or maybe it scares me, because I’ve seen you get violent when you’re angry, and I’m at your mercy. Or maybe I feel frustrated, because you get angry a lot. Or maybe I’m surprised and suspect something is off, because you never got angry at me before.

All these interactions, by themselves, say a lot about the relationship. But I can still imagine plenty of completely different situations to each scenario… Like, is the violent guy the MC’s captor, or her husband? Part of the context is also given by exposition. Now, exposition is usually rather static, but I guess even it doesn’t have to be… Married people can divorce, or someone’s identity could be revealed to be other than was initially believed. (Having said that, just like for characters, you can depict a relationship that doesn’t change, that endures in spite of all the obstacles thrown its way. That’s a story of its own.)

Playing with the RS is a good way to isolate it. Let’s say instead of coworkers, they’re lovers. Let’s say instead of mistrusting each other because of past deeds, they’ve just been introduced to each other. If not much changes in the story when you do that, then you’re probably not exploiting the RS throughline to its full potential. Remember, it’s supposed to be a fundamental perspective in an argument. It’s not just extra flavouring. And all this ‘advice’, of course, is completely directed at me too! Please let me know what you think, I am completely open to reconsider or complicate my current view.

#100

Theoretically, we take them all into account for every problem. But as someone with a strong tendency toward linearity, I rarely naturally take the RS into account in a conscious way. With Dramatica, I am training myself to do this more and more. But again, I do not do this naturally at all.

It sounds like maybe you feel like you naturally take the RS into account more than the OS. Do you feel like you’re more of a Holistic minded problem solver?

I think the way you’ve laid everything out is pretty good. The only thing I’d add is that when you discuss the RS, you should do also discuss it in terms of growth. What you describe just looks like conflict to me (I got scared, you got angry, etc). But me getting scared says nothing about the direction the RS is taking. Does it strengthen our relationship? Hurt it?

I can’t be sure, maybe it’s just me…but it seems almost as though you are describing these things as though they are directions to you. Do you feel that they are, or is it just me reading something weird into it?

Either way, I find the idea that something like “fear” or “anger” can be a direction that a relationship moves in to be pretty interesting. It kind of opens things up. Relationships can grow strong or weak, close or far apart, toward fear, out of happiness. Though the more I think about it, growth in relation to an emotion sounds more like how the relationship is being or becoming than a legitimate description of the space between us. Anyway, just a thought.

#101

Super happy that you found us and appreciate your perspective! :pray:t3:

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#102

Yes, I agree. We normally consider them all. I actually meant: we don’t let it hold much weight in the decision-making process. Doesn’t mean that we don’t instinctively go there, even if to come out as quickly.

Yes, I think I’m more of a holistic problem-solver. :slight_smile:

I did not get too much into growth and only described situations/scenes, but I think any conflict will lead to growth one way or another; that’s how a story works. To me, anger etc. describe reactions/feelings that belong to the IC and MC. But these very reactions/feelings are dependent on what the relationship is and, conversely, these reactions/feelings must impact the relationship and force it to grow.

But, again, different people in the same relationship would act/feel differently, and the same people in a different relationship would also act/feel differently. That’s why it’s useful to consider the RS itself, besides the MC and the IC who form it.

#103

I’ve kept thinking about all this, and particularly about a question that came up in the thread about identifying the OS from the RS, like in the example of the couple who’s doing bathroom reno. :wink:

I think romance novels are examples of stories where the story goal is the relationship, and then there’s going to be some action, mystery or other subplot that serves to add depth and nuance, and essentially to convince us that yes, the relationship is strong and is going to work.

Now, it’s very rare to have either character consciously think “I want to end up with this other person” (when they do, it’s usually the wrong one!). So the goal is not consciously pursued by anybody. But, in effect, the argument the author is trying to make is about the relationship… And that’s also why people read them. They want to see two people overcome obstacles to be together. Whether they find a treasure on the way or reconcile with their estranged father is just a means to an end.

But does that mean you need to find another relationship to act as the RS throughline? Maybe one that involves what we commonly think as the subplot?

Or can they be somehow superimposed? Like, the OS would be the objective process of forming a couple, and the RS would be the actual, personal and subjective content of that relationship? Not asking for a friend…

Oh, and thank you, Mr. Hull!

#104

You can treat each Concern as the goal for its throughline. And you can emphasize any throughline you want. So in a romance, I’d still treat the story goal as the OS goal, but might place more emphasis on the RS Concern than the OS Concern in order to play up the romance.

But yes, you can have the OS be about different relationships so that your Os goal is maybe about people being married while the RS concern finds a marriage growing stronger over spending time together.

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#105

One of the interesting things about the RST beats (to me) is that I see them as a requirement, prerequisite, consequence, or a benefit within the the OST.

Depending on the importance attributed to the RST in the story, I almost want to say that the OST beats could serve the same functions within the RST.

I don’t know if that is Dramatica theory.

I often see a shift in a relationship is necessary to facilitate a new development in the OST. And sometimes I see a shift in the overall development to facilitate a new dynamic in the RST.

I like Greimas Squares. I think it should be pretty easy to understand the RST, because we already know three things that it isn’t.

#106

I guess I should add, I think all of the beats, regardless of the throughline, follow Aristotle’s advice.

They all must be causally related to one another as being either necessary or probable.

And the distinction between necessary and probable is a matter of cause and effect and context.

In terms of connectivity, I think of a linear progression of cause and effect (Ouroboros) or connectivity through context (theme).

I’m pretty sure Dramatica and Aristotle say almost the same thing.

#107

Aristotle also knew things fell to the ground, but he didn’t come up with gravity.

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#108

You’re absolutely correct!

Poetics is descriptive rather than prescriptive. That was his intent when he wrote it. It’s the millions of writers and theorists after him that have converted those obseervations into prescriptive applications.

Dramatica is also descriptive (Isn’t that what theory does, describe a phenomenon?). The struggle is in the prescriptive side of the theory.

Prescriptive theory is often based on descriptive theory. I’d venture to say that Subtext is trying to fill this void. Great!

Isn’t that the whole point of your thread about the RST? Aren’t you trying to find something specifically prescriptive based on something descriptive and general?

I’m not taking anything away from the incredible minds who wrote this theory. I’d classify it as brilliant, but it obviously has been influenced by earlier efforts. If you are going to write a theory about story, then you are probably going to look at the material out there. Melanie has called Aristotle a genius, and rightly so. Takes one to know one I guess.

For example, look at a few D. Swain quotes (also drawing greatly from Aristotle):

“Once you’ve gained sufficient skill, however, you can make the disaster potential and not actual.”

Goals are of two kinds: goals of achievement, and goals of resistance. The first is explicit, as in our examples; the second, implicit.

“The future should always hinge on each scene’s outcome—that is, its disaster.”

“Similarly, you can reverse the disaster, as it were. Instead of ending your scene on a down-beat note… you play the other side of the record and set him up to ride for a fall.”

“What is a feeling?.. It’s a subjective awareness of the ebb and flow of inner tensions, expressing itself in a reaction.”

The power of the subconscious is an amazing thing. We get ideas from so many different places. We find pieces of what we need and fill in the blanks for what wasn’t available.

He didn’t. He came up with Poetics.

Further, you could say the creators of Dramatica didnt come up with anything besides Dramatica. Both theories describe a process (storytelling) that existed before them.

So, could you elaborate on your point?

#109

My point is just that I disagree that they are saying remotely the same thing, even if they both talk about stories.

I’m sure you know that Aristotle came up with Poetics by looking at plays that worked and then finding similarities and honing in on what he thought were best practices. This is not remotely how Dramatica was put together, and why it’s so markedly different from The Hero’s Journey or Save the Cat.

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#110

If you could explain what you mean by “prescriptive” then I can answer. It’s a loaded word (to me), so I don’t want to overreact.

#111

Science is to applied science as current RST theory is to “another tool.” When I say prescriptive, I mean a method of application.

I’d like to see someone write a story and completely eighty-six the RST. Just rip that inscrutable bastard out of there.

Maybe the question isn’t how do I use it, but what does it fix?

Personally, I think that it falls within the categories of preconditions, prerequisites, consequences, and benefits. Like a tumbler falling into place during a journey through cause and effect. But more than that. It also provides context, theme, and interspace.

Anyway, as you said, it is really easy to get theoretical. And that can be frustrating. You want techniques instead of theory.

#112

I think Nightmare before Christmas does this.

No, that is not the question.

Possibly. If anything (is this prescriptive?) my quest was to find access to the cause and effect chain that leads to said tumblr. If we can’t access it directly, what can we do to access it remotely? If our stories feel weak in their RST, how can we improve our RST?

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