Assistance with my Throughlines

writing
#1

Hey, guys. I’ve been developing a story using Dramatica, but nothing has quite settled the way I want it to. This is the general concept;

“A selfish toymaker attempts to sabotage the business of his kind-hearted brother when he discovers they are producing identical toys.”

I have a storyform already locked, but there are just a few things that I need to clarify (because the Universe domain has always eluded me).

OS: Universe/The Future
MC: Physics/Obtaining
IC: Psychology/Becoming
RS: Mind/The Subconscious

Now, the MC and the RS domains I completely understand and know how they will play out. The MC wants to destroy his brother’s business, and the RS is them conflicting over their fears and desires.

The OS domain has befuddled me slightly, would it be that the characters are fighting over the production of identical toys? Would that be considered a ‘situation’?

And the IC as psychology; could somebody explain how the IC works as a psychology character (MC changes)? I’m listening to the podcasts but it’s just not going in.

#2

The story you describe sounds more process oriented, rather than something that is stuck that needs to be unstuck. This would mean the Overall Story is either in Physics/Activities or Psychology/Manipulation. More likely than not it is the former and your Relationship Story would be all about Manipulation - two brothers whose relationship devolves from familial to adversarial.

The personal issues of the MC should be something that they would take into a completely different story – one that doesn’t involve a brother or toy-making.Destroying his brother’s business is the MC’s role in an objective sense (Overall Story). His personal baggage should be something external that is stuck (his appearance, his reputation, his wealth, his family life) or internal (what others think of him, his need to be right all the time, how history will remember his name, etc.).

#3

That’s really helped and I appreciate it, @jhull

I’ve recalibrated so now we have;

OS - Physics/Obtaining (Destroying the Toy Empire)
MC - Universe/The Future (Struggling Against a Bad Reputation)
IC - Mind/The Subconscious (Has a Deep Desire to Help)
RS - Manipulation/Becoming (Feuding Brothers)

Which does make much more sense to me, and the influence of the IC makes a lot more sense now.

Thanks again!

#4

I don’t know if this would help or not, but I tried something yesterday in the software’s Story Engine, that worked for me in starting a story. I ran down the list of Problems ( the 64 elements) and picked the conflict pair for my MC that closest described what I wanted her to struggle with.

I picked Inertia (Change is automatically filled in for solution).

I played with what to select next and choosing the Symptom-Chaos gave me the option of

Unique Ability=Truth which then fixes all the story points above Problem (Domain, Concern, Issue), felt right and began to excite me.

I indecisively played with a couple others, then tried Benchmarks=Impulsive responses. That still left Critical flaw open, so I jumped to the IC Story Points and selected the rest based on what felt right for him.

Looking over the other throughlines I was just stunned at how they all seemed to fit into the feeling I wanted. It took about 5 minutes, even clearing the story form several times.

Then I went to the Story Guide and started filling in illustrations and creating the characters as I needed them to come up with scenes.

This is what Armando kind of describes in his book Dramatica for Screenwriters, if you haven’t read that. I found it immensely helpful.

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