Antag achieved his goal when outcome is failure?

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21

Well, I haven’t read anything that addresses this specifically. It isn’t in the book or the many articles I’ve read on Dramatica.com or Narrative First.

The Storyform doesn’t seem to make a big deal about it, there are only Requirements, Prerequisites and Preconditions etc… none of them are typically the OS Solution.

Also, the definitions of Story Goal, Success or Failure don’t mention anything about the need to employ the OS Solution. They mention that Success could be a bad thing and Failure could be a good thing and by those definitions I could see Success occurring while the OS Problem is still in effect and vice versa.

The reason I’ve thought about this recently is I have felt that in about two of my stories so far the story was a Success but the OS Solution was never needed. The Antagonist was utilizing the OS Problem in a way that was not productive you could say while the Protagonist was utilizing the OS Problem in a more proper way.

22

That’s not how Dramatica works. You can’t fight fire with slightly-better fire. You have to use the Solution to solve the Problem.
Also, the Problem and the Solution are Elements, while the Goal and its kin are Types. The Solution is the character method by which the plot Goal is reached. So Luke Trusting rather than Testing gives the Rebel Alliance the capacity to Do their rebellion. (Maybe I should have used Back to the Future as my example. :stuck_out_tongue: )

23

It sounds like you may have the wrong storyform. AFAIK, it is specifically the OS Solution that leads to Success.

The way I think about it is this: There is an ever-worsening problem (or ever-worsening results from a fixed problem) that will continue until the OS Solution rights the ship.