Catalyst / Inhibitor - Delay and Dream?

writing
#1

Hi!

In my storyform - a Sciene Fiction / Drama / Espionage - Novel - i am trying to understand the following Output in the Report Section of Dramatica:

Fortunately, like a referee, there is a Catalyst that moves in to break it up. In “Pale Blue Dot,” Delay is the Catalyst that gets things moving again. However, once moving, the plot tends to pick up too much speed, as if the accelerator pedal were stuck to the floor. Once again, a force comes into play to regulate the speed. In “Pale Blue Dot” this Inhibitor is Dream. Any other means of arbitrating the speed of the plot might seem arbitrary. However, because of their relationship to The Future, Delay and Dream provide an author with unobtrusive tools to adjust the pacing of the story’s progress.

Ironically i can imagine it much better the other way round. I really have problems encoding (and understanding) how “dreaming” can inhibit a story and “delaying” is able to move it forward.

Do you have an (exemplary) idea how this dynamic could be encoded in a meaningful way?

Thx for your thoughts!

#2

I would like to get started with my project next week, but my boss tells me that that will be postponed for a few months. Instead of listening to him, I start right away, but get distracted by my day dreams.

Does that make any sense?

In addition, Catalysts usually heighten conflict, while inhibitors lower it. You could probably imagine how delay would heighten conflict between people and dreams might lower it.

#3

This is a very good example - thank you!
Especially the difference in “heightening” and “lowering” made it clearer for me.

So, in my Story…

… “Dream” as an Inhibitor could mean “not acknowledging reality” and living inside a cozy dream in which conflicts are washed away by wishful dreams - means “suppressing reality” and living in a cozy, illusionary, selfmade dream-world?

And “Delay” could potentially heighten the conflict when the IC (female) confronts the MC (male) with her perception that the MC is delaying action because “he always wants to stay in control and have every single bit of information available as little as it is” before he starts acting and subsequently suppresses a confrontation with the unknown, not controllable?

#4

I ask myself in addition if delaying is something that inhibits itself from being a trait for a protagonist - which inherently should not delay, but drive the plot forward.

#5

Braveheart, if I remember correctly, is full of delays acting as catalysts. The one that stands out the most is Longshanks sending the princess to meet with William Wallace. A) She sympathizes and helps him and B) learns that it was all a ruse, delaying Wallace while forces moved into place.

With regards to dreaming as inhibitor, thinking of dreaming as “reflecting” may help. If one is dreaming/reflecting, then their active pursuit of something has essentially stopped for the moment.

#6

What if the Protagonist knows that the best way into the secret room in the palace is to wait until the guards leave for the night?

Unique Ability of Delay
#7

Would procrastinating / putting things off (delay) give some characters the time to organize, plot, position themselves, steal assets, and etc.?

Perhaps as a character delays doing the things he knows he should be doing, he becomes troubled by the mounting evidence or increasingly hopeless situation he is in. This troubled state of mind causes bad dreams, and waking from a nightmare he is motivated to finally act (stop delaying).