Arguing outside of the story

mlucas · May 7, 2021, 4:28pm

I honestly think we’re all saying the same thing now. EXCEPT that we haven’t really addressed how best to use this technique. It might be worth watching the latest Conflict Corner where the analogy of a puppet was first mentioned. The characters are puppets, the story world is the cool little stage. And finding these true sources of conflict is like figuring out the puppeteer’s hand that is driving the story. What’s behind the puppets.

With that analogy in mind, I would suggest that for most writers it’s not very useful to start with the puppeteer’s hand. Who cares about a puppeteer’s hand without the puppet? I would MUCH rather start with the puppets themselves, the architecture of the stage, make those cool and interesting. Only then do I start to care about the forces driving the puppets.

Putting away the analogy, something like “Should I make progress toward what I want if it destroys my present?” is almost meaningless without characters and storytelling context. I don’t care about it one whit. But look at it in the light of Star Wars (a farm boy who wants to be a freedom fighter), or some other cool idea (a child discovers that the geometrical arrangement of the benches in the park near his house is the key to holding back the apocalypse), and suddenly it starts to mean something.

I think you’ll end up with much better sources of conflict (puppeteer’s hands) by starting with the storytelling context (the puppets). That’s what will what make everything meaningful to you, and you’ll come up with meaningful sources of conflict naturally, without having to try.

But with all that said, the Conflict Corner process is eminently useful for a later stage in the process. When you find one of the puppets is not pulling his weight, you can figure out if the hand underneath is timid or weak, and use the process to give it strength and passion. And the point of Conflict Corner is to get better at doing this.

Of course, all this is just how I see it working based on the type of writer I am. For others YMMV. (I know some people like to start with a theme/premise as their story idea, which seems insane to me! But to each his own, and if that’s the case you would certainly approach things differently.)

jhull · May 7, 2021, 4:59pm

This is a great point (though “better” is subjective) and something I hope I can encode visually into Subtext.

If this is a Storybeat (a moment along the narrative thread):

Then you’re advocating a top-down approach, from Illustration to Source of Conflict—whereas the technique in Conflict Corner would be bottom-top (Source of Conflict to Illustration).

Gernot · May 7, 2021, 6:18pm

For my current WIP I use a graphic to visualise The StoryMind at work:

I went thorough each scenes and identified approaches/feelings in terms of the source of conflict. Each term in the graphic is shown and represented by a player. The protagonist main trait could be summarised by being strong-willed, the influence character by sense of security …

The road in the example above starts at »Being Stuck in a Position of Power« and ends at »Working out How to Stop Something«

Character models are often visualised in circles … which could represent a story mind as well. Here are some examples:

Lakis · May 7, 2021, 8:56pm

My mileage is all over the place

However, after much experimentation I’ve come back to being firmly in the “narrative first” camp for myself. It’s too easy for me to get sucked into the poetry of a particular piece of writing and then not want to get rid of it even if it doesn’t serve the story, and/or I find I’m just throwing away thousands of words, which is painful.

The conflict corner classes where @JohnDusenberry has described his process of source of conflict → treatment → draft have actually been extremely helpful to me – I think this approximates how I’m naturally inclined to work, although I’m not sure because what I’m doing is more of a second draft than a first.

Ask me again if I ever finish this book and move onto a new one, but I can imagine going forward some kind of process that does more character/setting/worldbuilding work up front without actually writing a draft and then uses the CC process to get to a treatment and see what the actual scenes would look like.

mlucas · May 7, 2021, 9:46pm

This is awesome. The CC Process (aka Sources of Conflict) is another great tool in the toolbox and I have to remember there are so many cool ways you can use it. Even though I sounded averse to it in my previous post, I can totally see myself using it before writing a difficult scene. I might even realize, after delving into the true “what’s the problem?” dilemmas for PRCO elements, that the scene would be better served by changing the storytelling aspects. So kind of mixing in a bottom-top approach with my usual top-bottom, as Jim aptly puts it.

Greg · May 9, 2021, 1:29pm

So you do agree. The mind isn’t just observing conflict. It’s actively trying to address conflict. Addressing conflict doesn’t solve an inequity, it merely addresses conflict. We all know that Judgment is a dynamic that has an effect on the story. But it doesn’t just effect the end. It flows throughout the story letting us know, after exploring each side, which one is good (or bad, depending on context).

Totally correct. The choices that luke makes represent the minds exploration of the inequity. That Luke agreeing to go to Alderaan feels to the Storymind like the right choice to make represents the stories judgment that choosing to make progress is, in this context, a good attempt at

.

See? Once again, you seem to think you’re disagreeing and then immediately describe the intent of the process as to try to solve or resolve the inequity by removing or hiding it. That’s the choice the mind is making. How do I remove or hide the inequity? Is this path the best option or is this path the worst option?

Greg · May 9, 2021, 2:22pm

What’s tripping people up is that there is a conflict—two things that cannot work together—and then there is the tension felt from the conflict when engaging in the process that is the source of conflict. In the example John gave of wanting to make progress but progress destroys the present, the tension felt is that when you protect the present (or explore protecting the present) it feels like being stuck on a moisture farm on a desert planet, but when you make progress (or explore making progress) it feels like losing your parents and home.

The choice the mind makes isn’t how to “solve” or get rid of the conflict. You can’t do that. Two things that don’t go together will always not go together. The choice the mind IS making is, given a particular context, which side of the conflict is the most appropriate to engage in (do I want to protect the present or make progress?) in order to ease the tension felt from the conflict. The conflict cannot be resolved, but the tension CAN be addressed.

The Star Wars mind has decided that making progress is an appropriate side to engage in in the given context. We know this because it presents making progress as a good path toward success. We know that when attacked by a bear, then, the Star Wars mind would opt to make progress in order to address the issue.

JohnDusenberry · May 9, 2021, 4:41pm

The main thing that keeps tripping me up is that the actions of Luke and the underlying subtextual forces are not as directly related as you’re describing. The whole point is that these things are subtextual. The things between the lines, not the actual lines themselves.

The part of my text you overlooked is that story is an ANALOGY to a mind trying to solve an indescribable inequity. It’s not the mind actively trying to solve the inequity. There’s a big difference. Seeing Luke’s actions and choices doesn’t illustrate a choice to make progress.

Luke agreeing to go to Alderaan would not be a direct representation of a subtextual choice to make progress. It would probably be part of the driver. What APPEARS like a choice of progressing would be better described as the illustration representing that conflict of Action of Doing leading to a Decision of Learning (driven by a problem (conflict) of Test). This is the part I’m not seeing you make a connection to. The illustration of Luke choosing to go to Alderaan is an illustration of the ongoing problem of Test-ing, not Progress. By the time Luke makes this choice, the mind is done processing the problem of Progress and is in the space between things.

I think the word conflict might be throwing people here too. Jim had someone suggest using “contention” to better illustrate the fact that choice simply has nothing to do with it. There are not really two sides of the conflict… the way we write that out is just a way for the mind to tap in to that feeling of contention.

I’m not sure if this analogy is helpful to you, but think of it like you’re on a road… and each Problem you drive through on the road is just something you pass through. Progress is just a sign that says “Albuquerque 200 miles ahead” … and seeing that sign on your way to solve the overall inequity means something when you look at the road as a whole, not at the point when you see the sign. It’s a one-ray road with no options to turn left or right.

It’s as if I were to describe

Driving along degrades from asphalt to dirt
Cactus barbs litter the highway
Barbs pile up on the tires
The tires pop and the car stops

From these points we moved through (in that order) you can probably glean that one should not take this desert road because they’ll get stranded in the middle of the desert. That’s the argument the mind would come to know. But, no choices were made. I didn’t say the word desert. I didn’t even directly say the people driving the car were stranded. The things I wrote down also don’t directly describe the sources of conflict underneath them.

These two examples of the processes you just described are great examples of the mind trying to remove an overall inequity… but they’re simply NOT CHOICES. They’re the mind wondering is this way good, or that way? But the critical thing is that no choice is made, and no choice that the Players appear to make represents any underlying choice made in a source of conflict. The mind WANTS to make a choice, but it doesn’t. This seems to be the big disconnect I’m seeing in your logic.

Lakis · May 9, 2021, 5:07pm

Okay, that’s helpful/clarifying.

One thing I’m still working out is the distinction between P R C and O.

I realize that you clarified this source of conflict so maybe I was understanding it wrong, but the part that clicked for me in the original thread was the idea that “Luke needs to be smart (etc.)” is the Potential of the scene and doesn’t “resolve” until the outcome, but, in storytelling terms, hangs over the sequence as a dramatic question that drives the story forward, amplified by the conflicts of Skill and Experience, and resolved (or feeling resolved?) by the outcome of Enlightenment about who Luke is. This Enlightenment, however, also pushes the story forward into the next circuit.

Greg · May 9, 2021, 5:11pm

Don’t know why this would trip you up. We are in complete agreement. That we are talking about how this plays out in a story seems to be what’s tripping you up. But you can remove all of that from the conversation and I’ll still have the same point because the story is just an analogy for what we’re discussing. The fact that we talk about how it plays in the story does not mean we’re talking about the story. We’re still talking about the mind. You get that point because you keep mentioning it. You just don’t seem to be applying it to this conversation because you really want for me to not be looking deep enough to be an issue. But that’s just not an issue at hand.

Correct. The mind has explored both making progress and not making progress. The mind judges that one of these routes is good. We know this because it’s in the dynamics. Good determines the path. The path determines good. Luke making a good choice to go to Alderaan (whether it’s about making progress over keeping the present or keeping the present at the expense of progress) is just the story’s way to represent that the mind sees that path as good. It has nothing to do with a choice Luke made. It has to do with the choice, or judgment, the mind made. The only connection im pointing to here is that the story is an analogy for what’s already happened in the mind.

I think the word “choice” is. Change “choice” to “judgment”. It’s literally right there in the dynamics. The whole point of exploring the inequity is literally to say that this path will lead to Success or Failure and will be Good or Bad.

The reason the bear thing absolutely applies is because in the real world, when things happen to you that you address, like a bear charging you, your mind addresses the issue in order to determine how to address the issue. If you are trying to decide between playing dead and running, the mind absolutely is there to decide between those two. If the mind didn’t choose or make judgments, you would never do anything. It’s not that the bear is a problem. It’s that a bear charging at you is what creates the inequity in the mind. It’s what winds the mind up and gets it to exploring sources of conflict to decide whether to run or play dead. By discounting that the mind is trying to make a choice between running and playing dead-or whatever- you overlook the point of the whole process.

JohnDusenberry · May 9, 2021, 5:51pm

Not sure what you mean by this. The conflict isn’t progress vs not progress. And it very well could be described as progress vs. progress or lack of progress vs. lack of progress. Judgement is not related to each signpost or conflict like you’re describing. It’s to the story as a whole.

It’s not that “this path will lead to Success or Failure” it’s that this path IS Success or Failure. The part of your argument that isn’t resonating with the way I understand things is that it’s not an active process, but you keep talking about it as if it is.

The bear charging at you does not create an inequity. Choosing between playing dead or running is also not an inequity or problem. That’s a choice. Dramatica is not about being presented with choices. It’s about being presented with X=Y.
Half of what you’re saying is right, it’s just that last bit that keeps throwing you off and missing the point of my explanation.
You keep describing binary choices. Luke could progress or not progress. He chooses to progress, and that’s an example of how overall this is a good path.
And that’s just not how it works.

To use your bear example, the mind would be stuck when it comes into something like this… illustrating a conflict of Doing:
“I should run from/play dead/attack/scream at/fight/hide from/etc. a bear in order to survive, UNLESS strenuous movement leads to a heart attack.”

All the instances of your examples are on the same side of the way we illustrate the source of conflict. The ACTUAL conflict has no solution.

I can already hear you saying, so the choice is between doing something about the bear or being okay with doing anything and suffering a heart attack… so the person chooses to deal with the bear—but the conflict of that movement leading to a heart attack STILL EXISTS. They’re still “choosing” that too. So really, no choice has been made because there IS no choice to be made. The two exist at the same time no matter what. You couldn’t make a choice of one side or the other if you wanted to.

Hunter · May 9, 2021, 11:22pm

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on the forums, but I’d like to address what I’m seeing happening throughout this thread:

Given this justification pair or inequity phrase,

we have the following.

Paraphrasing John: This inequity must exist, and you cannot choose.
Paraphrasing Others: Yeah, but characters have to make choices and take actions.

You’re both right! – which explains the conflict in this thread.
(Two different contexts trying to exist at the same time…)

The inequity, no matter what one does, so long as those contexts continue to exist in the same place at the same time, continues to exist, also. But, when the author goes to illustrate the inequity represented by the phrase, they’ll have the player make choices, take actions, etc… The puppeteering gives tools to the Author to portray the feelings arising from the question: “Should I run from the bear when doing so could lead to a heart attack?”

“You can’t choose or balance an inequity out of existence.”

But, of course the players are going to make choices and take actions. There would be no reason for the audience to pay attention otherwise. And, in reception, this is going to feel like someone “choosing a side” or “finding balance” in regard to the inequity, in an attempt to ease the pain. And, the author shows the audience what they feel: “Run from the bear, even though it means risking the heart attack.”

“You need to establish your message through action or decision.”

Thus, here is what I think the ultimate question of this thread, as it went, actually is:

If we must consider the players as not choosing or balancing anything in regard to the inequity represented by a justification pair, then how are we meant to actually use that justification pair to illustrate the players such that the audience perceives them as making choices and taking actions?

Greg · May 12, 2021, 2:47am

It was a shorthand way of referring to the inequity you set up. Making progress vs protecting the present may have been a better choice for a shorthand description.

I already addressed this by taking out time and saying that it’s not that a choice is being made but that it has already been made. The mind is made processes. Dramatica is a structural view of structure and does not give a view of an active process. It gives a view of a state. But that is only one view.

The mind addresses the bear charging at you. It just does. You even showed how the bear creates an inequity with movement causing a heart attack.

All of what I’m saying is right. There are both binaries (I’ve already explained the progress/not progress as shorthand for your inequity) and non-binaries. And that is how it works. Tgats what makes it relative.

I used YOUR example. We already both admit there is no solution. But the mind explores it, nonetheless. You can progress toward being someone, but progress destroys the present. That’s basically your example. The way the mind explores this is to see what keeping the present in tact looks like while not being someone (Luke is stuck on the farm) and then what being someone while losing the present looks like (his aunt and uncle are burned in their house). There is no solution, but that is not the end of it. In relation to the goal, one of those is a more appropriate path. The point of the story, not the mind but the story, is to prove that to us. The whole story proves it, but just as you said you can zoom in earlier, so too can you zoom in here to to see that each signpost, each individual act, is working toward proving that point. It takes the whole story to make the whole point, but each piece is a part of the argument.

Exactly. Even though you address the tension that comes from the conflict, the conflict will ALWAYS be a conflict.

Did he run and risk a heart attack or did he not run and risk the bear? If he looked at it and did nothing, what was the point of spending the mental energy to look at it when he should have been figuring out whether to run or not?

The whole thing is a choice. The whole thing is a choice to run or to not. Every thing you say tracks perfectly with what I’m saying. If it’s that I’m treating it as a process when dramatica looks at it as a state, then fine. From the point of view of Dramatica, it’s a state. But from a dynamic view of structure, or maybe a dynamic view of dynamics-valid views-it would be a process. If you just don’t like the idea of it being a choice, fine. Since we’re still in alignment, whether we call it a choice or not is just semantics. But the point is that there has been a judgment made and that judgment is what is being argued in the story.

It is. It affects the whole thing.

Greg · May 12, 2021, 1:42pm

At least the ideas are. If I’m not using the best words to describe them, that’s on me, but does not reflect on the accuracy of the idea being portrayed.

Everything is simultaneously both binary and non-binary. But you can only see one at a time. An inequity cannot be a choice when seen as solely and singly as the inability for two things to co-exist. An inequity can be a choice when seen not as one inability, but rather as two separate contexts that can each exist in their own right. Two separate contexts where the existence of one context prevents the other from coming into being.

MaddyV · May 23, 2021, 6:41pm

I admit to skimming the back half of this thread, and I also admit to having fallen sorely behind on Conflict Corner, so perhaps my input here will be completely useless. But I thought I would throw in an example of how scenes/sequences work with PRCO (wasn’t it also called PRCP with the second P being “Power” at some point or did I make that up?) and not choosing any one justification to continue driving the story forward.

In a story I am currently writing, the first signpost is Conceiving (looking at Worth) in the OS. My justifications may be poor, as I said I am behind in CC, but hopefully they’ll get my point across. So I have used these: People want to be worthwhile to someone in order to feel like their existence is meaningful unless realizing they have personal significance allows them to have no obligations towards anyone.
(minor detail - i used the obligation/responsibility/commitment/rationalization quad for that second one, but i’m seeing John using situation/circumstances/state of being/sense of self for his example, perhaps this is a new thing in CC I haven’t gotten to yet!) So this may be not be a great dilemma, like I said I am not an expert at crafting justifications, and if anyone wants to strengthen it, feel free to give me some pointers but my point is how I used it and how the scene does not end with the “narrative” saying which is correct.

My main character is having a conversation with another character who is extremely devoted in his work for the Church. Through subtextual dialogue and storytelling, this conflict between the two justifications plays out. This is the P in the PRCO for my first Signpost in the OS. Pitting this concept, with this one character representing the first half of the justification, and the other justification being brought up by my main character (though she doesn’t, nor does the story, choose either side) pushes the OS Throughline forward into the Resistance of the sequence. It’s conflict, and it’s subtextual. You feel it boiling beneath the surface, at a low simmer, in the dialogue and the tension between characters and their situations.
This little dilemma is not the main point of the story - a story doesn’t go through each beat and tell you which justification for each PRCO is correct. A story is an argument about a very specific context. Your premise is the place where you choose to nail down one side of the overall conflict (if Linear, but even in Holistic, the story is still moving towards something, even if that something is a balance).
But these two justifications about conceiving one’s worth push the conflict of the story into the next beat, and so on and so forth. I hope this makes sense and was helpful! I have no idea if I am even “correct” but this is how it feels to me! (I can see how a Linear thinker would want to pick one and even though I tend towards Holistic thinking, when I first learned about justifications of course I also wanted to pick one each time, because it is uncomfortable to leave tension and conflict hanging unresolved, but that is what a story is! It builds and builds until finally the choice of the premise has to be made at the end.)

Lakis · May 24, 2021, 1:44am

@MaddyV I think if your story is holistic, you do use the Becoming quad for the second half (obligation/responsibility/commitment/rationalization) so if that’s the case for your story you’ve got it right.

JohnDusenberry · May 24, 2021, 4:33pm

Yes! Jim had mentioned that again to me recently too and it’s totally right. Probably a better way to think about PRCO because the word “outcome” is misleading.

Not a new feature, your story must just be Holistic. You’re looking at Conceiving in order to Being, UNLESS Conceiving leads to Becoming (Those are the elements under becoming, while Situation/Circumstances/etc. are Conceiving leads to Conceptualizing, which is the Linear path).

jhull · May 24, 2021, 4:40pm

Already changed in Subtext

The New Modalities of Scene Structure

Once you the know the PRCO of a quad—particularly the Signposts—it doesn’t make sense to call it PRCO. PRCP is better, and more conducive for creativity (pun intended )

Greg · May 24, 2021, 6:51pm

Correct. It is not even A point of the story. It is simply a dilemma. The point of the story is to express the appropriateness of a given means to address the dilemma.

Correct. There is not a correct side. The story looks at how conflict was addressed (which choice was made) and makes a judgment on it.

A story is an argument about the appropriateness of a specific means of addressing an inequity.

The premise is the basis for the argument being made, a shorthand expression of what needs dozens and dozens of pages to express fully.

Regardless of linear or holistic, the premise is the basis for the argument being made. It’s not a choice about one side or the other or both in balance (first one and then the other). It’s an assertion about the appropriateness of the choice.

Then your story is not making an argument.

When the mind is facing an inequity, it addresses it. There is no choice here. Addressing inequities is just what it does. When there is an imbalance that gives us two contexts that cannot coexist, we can actively bring about one context or the other, we can sit back and just let one context or the other come about, or we can try to balance the two by having first 1 and then 2, or first 2 and then 1… All of those—even sitting back and doing nothing as the contexts come about on their own—are options for addressing the inequity. So the inequity simply will be addressed one way or another. Which way it is addressed just is the choice.

If your signpost has a character who a feels like existence is meaningful while having obligations, that was a choice. If they have no obligations and do not feel like existence is meaningful, that’s a choice. If they have first one and then the other, that is a choice. If your story is just two characters saying it’s impossible to have both at the same time and having neither context, then it’s not an argument.

mlucas · May 24, 2021, 7:32pm

So, I totally agree on Power but there is one shortcoming to PRCP – now the letter P becomes ambiguous. Probably too late to change it, but the letter W would work well to represent power for three reasons:

poWer – there’s a W in the middle
Power is simply Work per unit time
Power is measured in watts which are represented by the symbol W (SI units).