Arguing outside of the story

writing
#21

I think the rub here is between how the mind works and how the story works.

In the mind, all of these inequities are ongoing. They are happening at the same time. They play out in an instant. There is no beginning and ending.

In the story or argument, we’re leveraging the mind, defining a scope around it with drivers and limits, and defining a path through these inequities in order to make a point about how you should or shouldn’t deal with these things in your own life. We’re taking something meaningless and assigning a meaning to it.

In the examples, I can answer in the affirmative which path Luke took. It doesn’t resolve the dilemma’s in the mind, but it shows a potential path you can take through these things that will be a positive, negative, or somewhere in between.

You’re coming up with these examples on the fly, and the context hasn’t been stripped away, so I don’t want to ding you on that. But just like a story doesn’t have meaning if the MC / IC both change. There doesn’t seems to be a meaning without having to take one path or other. At least to me.

I think both things can be true and not contradict each other. YMMV with what you find beneficial to your own writing.

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#22

Dramatica sees the Mind and Story as one thing, the Storymind. It’s looks at mental processes in super slow motion, one little process after the next. The meaning doesn’t come from any choice that is made. Meaning comes from the structure and order of the processes from start to finish, seen as a whole.

I’m not sure how one can answer which path Luke took,

… when there is no path to take. The problem I’m seeing is the conflation of the subtextual source of conflict with the story illustration that represents that source of conflict. What’s described there is supposed to be a way of saying “A mental conflict of Wisdom” … not a binary choice of which Wisdom the mind is going to choose. The context of that example IS stripped away. What sage wisdom? From who? What’s the bad situation? All questions which have the same answer: It’s irrelevant. The point is that the mind is in conflict over Wisdom-ing.

The StoryMind is not fully self-aware… it’s not standing outside of itself presented with choices saying “I have a problem, and which way should I go? Should I stick with this problem, or move to a solution?”

The “Story” part is the Encoding process, which is really just like it sounds. You’re encoding the underlying conflict. Representing those forces with characters, plot, dialogue, images, words. The sources of conflict are not presenting characters with a choice for which path to take. The sources of conflict describe the mind processing angsty mental feelings, or thoughts.

EDIT/ADDITION:
Another way to think of it is that the story structure is a literal map. Each source of conflict is a Point on the road, but there’s only one road. It’s not branching off this way or that way depending on something you choose at each point. You can appreciate a story at any level of detail. So that road might look like:

MC Past-------------MC Progress-------------MC Future-------------MC Present

And seeing those things in that order (along with the other 3 roads) means something.
Or you can zoom in, just like Google Maps, and see specifics along each section of the road. Getting a more detailed look at it all.

MC Past-----(variations)--------MC Progress------(variations)-------MC Future------(variations)-------MC Present ----(variations)----

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#23

I would suggest that by framing the underlying process as two incompatible truths you are both encoding the story point and creating a binary.

I think it’s pretty clear Luke chose to ignore wisdom even if it lead to a bad situation, but maybe I’m just not seeing it.

#24

The thing is… Luke isn’t real. It might appear that Luke did something, but Luke was Mark Hamill and everything he did was filmed and edited together, printed on celluloid and shown to an audience.

What was actually happening is a form of telepathy, or manipulation to get you to recognize and feel the force behind Luke, which lived first in the minds of George Lucas, Lawrence Kasdan and Irvin Kershner as Wisdom-ing mental dilemma.

They put that into words and pictures (The StoryMind) which has the ability to maintain that mental dilemma, which when seen on screen… plants that in YOUR mind.

Luke was just the puppet. And so was Yoda (literally… double puppet).

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#25

Yes, I agree that Luke Skywalker is a construct created by George Lucas. This construct was used by Lawrence Kasdan for the purpose of exploring the personal conflict in a story.

I’m also agreeing that Uncle Larry, as I call him, used this construct (undoubtedly without awareness of it) to illustrate a personal conflict of Wisdom. I’m adding that Uncle Larry showed this construct was used to illustrate what happens taking a direction of ignoring wisdom as part of the argument they were making.

Then Mark Hamill acted this out so we could see how one approach to working through Wisdom leads to you getting your hand chopped off and finding out you’re half Space Nazi. Irvin Kirshner told him where to stand and yelled “Cut!” so he’d no when to stop talking. I’m skeptical of your claim that Yoda was a puppet, however, and would challenge you to provide evidence. :smile:

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#26

I think this is perhaps the best description of the lasting conflict at the end of ESB I’ve ever read.

And if you have a hard time believing Yoda is a puppet, just wait until I tell you his voice is actually Miss Piggy!

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#27

If a bear charges at you, your mind is going to address that. Dramatica is a model of the mind. Therefore, Dramatica is a model of a process that addresses things like bears charging at you.

The choice here is whether to move toward being someone or keeping the present in tact. The mind explores this. An analogy for this is Luke keeping the present and not progressing and feeling stuck on a farm and then progressing while losing the present and and finding his home and family burned.

The argument isn’t that Luke chose one therefore the mind chose one. The argument is that the mind explores the dilemma—What does it feel like to protect the present at the expense of progress? What does making progress at the expense of the present feel like?—in such a way as to provide a judgment on which way best addresses the conflict. Without the eventual judgment that making Progress is a good or bad way to address conflict, the problem solving process would not be a problem solving process. It would merely be a conflict observation process.

You’re really caught up in trying to use this as a defeater. But if you can replace all of the illustrations with a mental dilemma of your preference and have the point still stand-as it does in this thread-then this is not what you’re seeing.

If you still insist that the problem solving process stops short of deciding on a way to solve problems, so be it.

#28

I think one thing that may be tripping people up is that, even though the storymind isn’t choosing one side of the dilemma over another as it moves through it, it’s still okay to show a character making a choice or seeming to favor one side. Definitely not required, but not disallowed either. The puppeteer is exploring that dilemma and the dilemma is still there after he moves past it – but the puppets can do whatever serves the story.

Oh man. This thread is worth reading just for the double puppet comment. :smiley:

Somehow I feel like both of you guys are right which makes me think you are talking about different things. I definitely agree that a story(form) makes judgments on the right way to solve problems in a given context… And Star Wars certainly argues that it’s good to embrace Trust when facing problems stemming from Test.

But at the level where there is a dilemma within a particular story point element, especially in the plot progression (signpost / PSR variation / scene PRCO), I don’t feel that the story is trying to make a judgment on those dilemmas.

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#29

What I’m talking about concerns all the individual sources of conflict the mind processes on its journey, and trying to illustrate that Dramatica is not a series of minor problems being solved along the way to somehow solve the overall indescribable inequity. Dramatica is not a model of the mind, it’s a model of the mind trying to solve an inequity.

You can definitely have the characters appear to make choices all you want. But that has nothing to do with the underlying subtextual sources of conflict that those actions of Luke “choosing” something ultimately represent. What the choices Luke makes don’t represent are a choosing of one side of a source of conflict over another.

EDIT/ADDITION:
If Luke chooses something in the storytelling, that does not represent choosing one side of Conceiving in order to Being, UNLESS Conceiving leads to Conceptualizing. If Luke makes a choice, that action merely represents/stands in as a way of illustrating the source of conflict as a whole … not choosing one side or the other.

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#30

So how do you connect all of these points so you have a plot, not just a bunch of isolated conflicts?
If nothing is “resolved” from one point to another, what distinquishes the Potential of a circuit from the Conflict or Outcome? What pushes the story from one point to the next?

The answer would seem to have to do with things like drivers and the distinct functions and relationships between the PRCO. Drivers are actions forcing decisions or vice versa – so that case, a decision is probably “resolving” a conflict, no? Also you have the story limit – if it’s an Optionlock, isn’t the process of going through the story one of working through various options to attempt to achieve the Goal?

Practically speaking, yes, stories are not “a series of minor problems being solved along the way” because usually the attempt to solve problems makes things worse until you reach the end of the story.

Not trying to beat a dead horse here, just trying to understand this in a practical, applicable way.

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#31

I have read your discussions, and this is a very interesting question.

This gave me an idea. It’s inspired by a similar exercise from Jeff Kitchen’s Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting. In this book he brainstorms a complete plot based on a dilemma. I think it would work with dramatica dilemmas on signpost level, variation level etc…
It’s maybe similar to the exercise, what glennbecker adviced in the first comment.

So example:

I have a dilemma:

Bob needs to buy a racecar, because he wants to start a new career as a car racer (-> justification A)
UNLESS
Bob wants to secure his savings, because he terrified about the possibility of poverty (-> justicication B)

The next step is the “deepening” the both side of the dilemma.
This is goes from Storytelling perspective. It’s also bit shilly, but I just do it, for the sake of the example. :slight_smile:

So I’m brainstorming…

Why justification A is important to Bob?

  • Bob always dreamed about being a superstar car racer
  • A famous fortuneteller predicted that Bob will be the GREATEST car racer of the XXI. century
  • Bob hates his job as a highschool teacher, and feels that if he doesn’t quit NOW, the rest of his life will be miserable
  • Bob’s dying grandmother wished that Bob should pursue his dreams, and live his life happily

Why justification B is important to Bob?

  • Bob’s father lost their family fortune because his game addiction. This was a traumatic experience to the the young Bob
  • Because of this, Bob is very greedy (almost a modern Ebenezer Scrooge)
  • Bob also worries about his younger brother reckless behavior. His brother personality is very similar to their father’s, and Bob always feared that his brother will also make great debts someday
  • Bob wants to marry Alice, and he shoud save money for their new house

(**It’s also work if I ask: What can go wrong, if Bob goes with Justification A/Justification B?)

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#32

(Long comment, sorry…)

So the idea is to combine some of this statements to a mini-story with rising conflicts. Something like that:

In her death bed Bob’s grandmother wished that Bob should live a full life and pursue his dreams. Bob always wished to be a worldclass car racer, but now he thinks it is an unrealistic idea, and also too late for him to start a new carrier. It’s also a financially risky carrier, and Bob prefers to live his life safely.
After a particulary terrible day Bob realises that how much he hates his job as a highschool teacher. He feels, if he doesn’t quit now, the rest of his life will be miserable. The same day a wolrd famous fortuneteller predicts that Bob’s destiny to became the GREATEST car racer of the 21. century.
After this event, Bob is in battle with himself. He has enough savings to buy a race car, but the same time he hates irrational money spending. He wishes to buy the race car more than anything else, yet the same time he suffers from nightmares about being homeless. (Because what happened in the past with his father gambling debts etc.)
In the end Bob sticks with his decision, and buys the race car. Now he feels a surprising relief, and at night sleeps as peacfully as a baby.
However the next day, his younger brother, Tim, calls him on his phone. He made a shaddy business with the maffia, and now his life is in danger. Tim needs to pay a big amount of money to his “business-partners”, and he asks help from Bob. Bob just spent on all his savings, and now he needs to find a way to get a lot of money quickly…

I think, this exercise works, when we try to encode a dilemma on a storytelling level. In this way, there is a “tension” between the two side of justifications, and I think, it’s makes easier the encoding of the SRCA, PRCO, TKAD later. :slight_smile:

(And sorry for my English mistakes. :slightly_smiling_face: )

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#33

Your English is great! :smile:

The difference for my approach would be to list out every way you could get around the dilemma you’ve come up with:

  • Why not get a second job?
  • Couldn’t he pawn some of his stuff?
  • What if he went to a bank and got a loan?
  • Maybe he could find a sponsor?

Then, once you have that list, show why all of those can’t happen or make things worse.

After you’ve done that, you have a bunch of story beats and he’ll be boxed into spending his savings or giving up his dream.

Underneath all that storytelling, will be the “true inequity” which you’ve mapped out but haven’t explicitly stated.

Try to use that storytelling to draw a circle around the true inequity or move on to another illustration and save the drilling down for a second draft.

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#34

Not trying to be combative here, but that’s exactly it. Dramatica IS merely a conflict observation process. Dramatica sees any given story as nothing more than observing the process of searching for a way to solve an indescribable inequity. Any given story is an analogy to the mental process that happens when a single mind works to resolve that indescribable inequity, which eventually ends when that overall inequity is either removed or hidden away by the process of working to resolve said inequity.

A way for our minds to feel/sympathize with the specific sources of conflict on that journey is to approximate the problematic feeling at the point by building some version of Conceiving in order to Being, UNLESS Conceiving leads to Conceptualizing. But that text as written is not REALLY what a source of conflict is. The source of conflict is just a feeling. It’s one of the many points on the road that the mind looks at while searching for a way to resolve the overall inequity. We just need a way to understand that feeling using the english language.

A story like “Star Wars” is a stand-in, metaphorical illustration for the different feelings the mind encounters during the overall mental process of searching for the indescribable inequity that Star Wars never actually comes out and describes. Luke Skywalker isn’t being presented with an illustrated version of a source of conflict and then given an opportunity to make a choice about which side to favor. Everything we see Luke Skywalker say and do IS the illustration. It’s a metaphor that approximates the feeling generated by a problem (source of conflict). Problems don’t actually exist. They’re a construct in the mind… a feeling… a mental process.

I think the phrasing of this double-sided source of conflict is misleading. There’s an important next step which is to try to describe how or why both sides at the same time are a problem. And if you do that, you come up with something more like: “Should I make progress toward what I want if it destroys my present?”

A linear mind will want to answer “Yes” or “No”
A holistic mind will want to answer “I can balance both”

But neither ever will, nor will any character you’ve written to represent that feeling of wanting to solve or balance. For one thing, the problem of Progress is not the overall inequity. The point of the Progress dilemma is that there is a dilemma of Progress during the searching process which leads to a problem of Past, then Future, then Present. And that road, that neural pathway has meaning.

There is no active or self-aware problem-solving happening at each point of the journey of searching for a way to solve the overall inequity, nor is the mind leaning one way or the other when it encounters a new source of conflict. The road itself is the thing the audience feels leaning one way or another–just like you might see a road on a map bend to the right or left. But there were no alternative roads it could have taken. The road exists from start to finish… we just watch the process of driving it.

Dramatica does not deal with solving a problem like being chased by a bear. Being chased by a bear is not a problem. It merely allows us to see the process of searching through subtextual dilemmas created when the mind justifies being chased by a bear as a problem.

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#35

This seems like a great way to brainstorm ideas!!

I wonder if @JohnDusenberry would agree with me here, but I do see that individual PRCO units – thinking mostly of scenes here – actually do resolve. But the “resolution” is that we went through the scene’s conflict (dilemma), and that scene’s Potential has now shifted into a new dilemma process, the Outcome, which feeds into potential conflict for the rest of the story. (I hesitate to say “the next scene” because you might be shifting around between locations / throughlines / substories etc.)

The scene’s dilemmas were not “solved” but they are in a sense resolved, because we have explored that conflict and moved on.

This is similar to how the story resolves when it embraces the process/dilemma inherent in the OS Solution.

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#36

Ah, now I see the difference. It’s actually a great idea! :slight_smile:

** I just like to add to my previous example, that the original statment in Kitchen’s book is something like: “Damned if He goes with option A vs. Damned if He goes with option B”

I misremembered it, and I brainstormed with the “Why option A/B matters?” question. It’s not a huge difference, but I think, Kitchen’s original question probably leads to better conflict illustrations than mine and helps narrowing down the dilemma a bit more. :slight_smile:

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#37

My take on this is that the “dramatic circuit” is also an analogy often misunderstood.
Just like a Source of Conflict is an analogy for an author to understand what a specific Problem feels like… the PRCO circuit analogy describes how electricity flows through the “dramatic circuit” of the… Signposts, Variation breakdown, Scene Level, Problem Quad, etc.

P: Energy enters the circuit and could go left or right…
R: Energy is pushed one way…
C: Energy bounces all around the circuit until…
O: The Energy ends up finding a way out…

… and the Energy moves into the next circuit:
P R C O
… and the Energy moves into the next circuit:
P R C O
… until there are no more circuits to move through.

There’s the FEELING of resolution because it’s reached the end of the circuit, but the O isn’t a “solution” to the “problem” of P … it’s the final Outcome.

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#38

Right. That’s exactly how I think of it too. I think maybe I’m just using the word “resolution” as a short-form for “the feeling of resolution”. As in, a scene doesn’t resolve because it solves any problem, it just resolves because the circuit has completed. :slight_smile:

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#39

I’m not sure if we’re saying/thinking the same thing here and just talking past each other, or if there is still something I’m not getting.

Yes, of course there’s no “solution” at most iterations of the PRCO, because you still have more story. Typically, each resolution “turns” and leads you into the next scene, until the end of the story. However, the scene “resolves”. (Whether or not the Dramatica Solution is really a “solution” is I guess another question?)

So – same point as before. I would suggest that there’s a difference between “resolving” a scene and “solving” the problem. I’m not sure what the difference between having a “feeling of resolution” and “resolving” the scene is. And neither of these actually addresses the original question, which is whether or not there is “choosing” as the storymind (or characters?) are faced with dilemmas.

I know that “explore” is a favorite Dramatica term, but in this context I feel like it might obscure more than it reveals. “Exploring” feels to me like going on a nice hike – not being pulled through a great story.

Pretty much any other theory of plot or story talks in terms of cause and effect. One thing leads to another. Actions force decisions and vice versa. Choices have significance and consequences; each choice narrows further options. Each narrowing of options pushes you toward an outcome. To paraphrase Libbie Hawker, “it’s triangles all the way down”. When you run out of options, the story is over.

This process is expressed through the actions of the characters, but I really don’t see how it’s different if you’re talking about the experience of the mind’s options narrowing as it “explores” the facets of a problem. I was going to caveat this and suggest that maybe this only applies to Linear stories, but I’m not even sure that’s true.

I guess there are modern theories of physics which posit that there is no such thing as past or future, cause and effect. The storymind is one thing, existing all at once. I get it, kind of, but I’m not sure how that’s supposed to help me write an awesome story in which characters do things, one thing at least appears to lead to another and there are consequences to choices.

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#40

Yes, totally. A scene resolving is just that it’s over, it’s ending. A scene being “solved” suggests the eradication of a problem that existed for a time now does not. The latter doesn’t happen with the sources of conflict, prco, etc.

Not just in most iterations. All of them, including the final elements encountered in a story. The hiding of or removal of the overall inequity is not directly related to appreciating a Singpost or any other level of mental process problem.

I had a teacher from Pixar once talk about something that’s kind of related to this. He pointed out that any given moment in a story is no more incredible than any other if you look at it in isolation. It’s when you see it in context against everything around it that makes a story moment feel grandiose.

The scientist connects two wires together just in time for electricity to pass through them.
Not particularly wow-ing, right? But if we look at it with everything that comes around it, suddenly it can be. No one of these sentences is REALLY too amazing by itself.
The fated storm approaches as the clock ticks closer to 10:04pm. The boy and scientist know a lightning bolt will hit the clock tower at exactly that time. The boy drives the car down the road. The scientist attaches the wires near the clock. The boy drives the car closer to the finish line. The other side of the wire becomes detached. The boy is very close to the finish line. The clock ticks forward. The scientist slides down the wire. Lightning strikes. The scientist connects two wires together just in time for electricity to pass through them

My point is that I’m pulling you through each sentence, which when explored sentence by sentence ain’t all that exciting. This is the same thing that happens with exploring the sources of conflict in Dramatica.

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