let’s start with this:
I went outside Narravo to ChatGPT and GPT5 to take off the safety bumpers. Here’s what’s come up so far:
we’re looking at dramatica theory this morning. Some quotes from the creator of the theory:
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“Thought: For a long time, I’ve wanted to write a book entitled “Abandoning the Logic” about the fact that while half of what we are is driven by reason, the other equally important half embodies our purpose and meaning. There is as much understanding and as many conclusions to be gained by one as the other, but of different flavors and varieties.
In our Dramatica theory of story we often say, “You can’t become the same as someone else just by being as they are; you also have to ‘not be’ as they aren’t.” But our minds don’t easily focus on the negative space, and so we strive harder and harder to achieve by adding to the mix, never considering that the recipe may not be achievable that way because it has an ingredient that must not be there.
In Dramatica, we see characters who change by “starting” something new – adding a new trait they previously did not express. We also “see characters who change by “stopping” something old – shedding an old trait they previously expressed.
This shows up in stories as characters who could solve their problem if only they would just… Or, characters whose problem would be solved if only they just wouldn’t… In the first case, the character needs a catalyst to get going. In the second, it needs an inhibitor to hold it back.
This same dynamic is harmonically reflected in the plot with two Dramatica story points called, not surprisingly, “Catalyst” and “Inhibitor.” The first acts like a gas pedal, accelerating the progress of the story forward. The second acts like a brake pedal, slowing the progress of the story down.
We see these dynamics everywhere in life, and yet, because ours is a culture based on observation, definition and reason, we focus on only one half of this dynamic couple – we explore, map, build our understandings and make our decisions on what we see, never considering “that half the time our answers can only be found in what lies between the elements of the delineated world.
Have you ever seen that picture of a vase that turns out to be an optical illusion in which the “negative space” carved out on either side of the shape of the vase presents the silhouettes of two men facing each other? So what is the picture really of, the vase or the faces? Naturally, the answer is “both.”
And herein lies the problem. We look outward and see things – situations and activities (external states and processes) – then we look inside and see the in-betweens – attitudes and cogitations (internal states and processes), BUT we seldom look outward for the in-betweens and inward for the elements.
Dramatica broke new ground in seeking to apply logic to our feelings, to map the mind’s processes in a “Table of Story Elements” by casting each process as an object – a building block of the mental/emotional flow – so that mental equations might be written to describe “the manner in which each process is called in a particular order to create the DNA code of each individual consideration.
Of course, this is well hidden under the skirt of story structure since our market was writers, not psychologists. But it is there. In fact, we codified it aside from the story use and called it Mental Relativity, for it describes the relationships among Knowledge, Thought, Ability and Desire (the four essential “bases” from which all mental processes are built) the same way physics describes the relationships among Mass, Energy, Space and Time.
Knowledge is the Mass of the mind. Thought is the Energy. (This is conceptual of course – describing the ways in which they are analogous, not intended to equate them in substance).
An example of this relationship can be seen in the following… Mass and Energy can relate in two primary ways. First, Energy can be attached to Mass. We see this in the kinetic energy associated with a billiard ball in “motion, for example. But, Mass can also be transmuted into energy, as in thermonuclear explosions.
Similarly, Knowledge can be moved around and assembled into large constructs by the expenditure of Thought. In other words, Thought can be attached to Knowledge to put it in motion. But, Knowledge and Thought can also be transmuted one into the other. But, as with E=MC2, it takes a lot of Thought to create a solid piece of Knowledge and, conversely, a single bit of Knowledge can generate an awful lot of Thought. Hence, the reason we named the psychology behind Dramatica “Mental Relativity.”
But having turned the same definitive techniques we employ in the external world upon our own minds, we have still left one final realm of our existence unexplored – to map out our external world in terms of the in-betweens – to see substance as process and time as an object, to document external processes as feelings and external situations as “Now I realize this sounds pretty far out there. And it is. It’s in the last place our logic would look – the last place it has looked. In fact, I’m not entirely convinced that logic can work in that world. It may be outside the realm of the set of real numbers and into the realm of the imaginary ones, such as the square root of -1.
Yet that, in and of itself, does not invalidate its importance. Rather, it elevates the value of seeking to understand – or perhaps that is the wrong word – to “resonate” with the digital in terms of the analog.
====================
analyze this first.
response
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This is a really rich piece of thinking from the Dramatica creator—he’s weaving together the practical mechanics of story theory with a metaphysical/philosophical framework about mind, perception, and the limits of logic. Let me break it down into the key ideas and then analyze what they mean in context:
1.
Logic vs. Purpose / Positive vs. Negative Space
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He starts by proposing that half of human functioning is logic/definition/observation, while the other half is purpose/meaning—the “in-betweens.”
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The vase/face optical illusion is his metaphor: you can look at what’s “there” (the vase) or what’s “between” (the faces), and both are equally real.
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He critiques Western culture for privileging the “object/positive space” side, neglecting the negative or absence side.
Analysis:
This is central to Dramatica’s notion of binary dynamics—change can come by adding (starting) or subtracting (stopping). Writers often default to adding traits, goals, actions, but real transformation often requires ceasing or inhibiting. It’s a reminder that meaning isn’t only in presence but in absence, in “what isn’t.”
2.
Catalyst vs. Inhibitor in Character and Plot
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A character may solve problems by starting something new or by stopping something destructive.
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In plot terms, Dramatica encodes this as Catalyst (gas pedal) and Inhibitor (brake).
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Stories need both—otherwise you only have acceleration without control, or resistance without direction.
Analysis:
This is a neat mechanical tie between psychology and plot. The model doesn’t just explain inner character change but maps it onto structural beats in a story. It’s like saying: “What the MC does with their flaw mirrors what the story engine does with its pacing.”
3.
Mental Relativity: A Physics of the Mind
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He makes an analogy:
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Knowledge = Mass
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Thought = Energy
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Ability = Space
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Desire = Time
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Thought can move Knowledge (like kinetic energy moves mass). Knowledge can be transmuted into Thought (like E=MC²).
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A little knowledge can generate a lot of thought (rumination), and sustained thought can crystallize into a single piece of solid knowledge.
Analysis:
This is ambitious: Dramatica isn’t just a story tool but a “psychological relativity.” It claims that the way our minds process is structurally similar to how the universe relates matter, energy, space, and time. That’s why Dramatica sometimes feels “too big” to just be a writing aid—it’s secretly a unified theory of narrative cognition.
4.
The Unexplored Realm: Mapping External Processes as Feelings
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He suggests that we’ve applied logic to our internal world (via Dramatica/Mental Relativity), but not yet mapped the external world in terms of feelings/process.
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He hints that this might require stepping into a mathematical realm outside the “real numbers”—maybe into imaginary numbers (√-1).
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He concludes that resonance (analogy, metaphor, vibration) may be more useful than logic here.
Analysis:
This is speculative and pushes Dramatica beyond story structure toward metaphysics. He’s asking: can we understand physical processes as experiences, not just as measurements? That’s wild—but it fits the Dramatica ethos of symmetry between inner and outer.
5.
Takeaways for Writers
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Characters can change by starting or stopping—don’t neglect the negative space.
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The Catalyst and Inhibitor story points matter as much as goal/requirement.
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A story isn’t just about what’s “there” (events, choices) but also about what’s “not there” (missed chances, things repressed, things undone).
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Dramatica’s value isn’t only structure—it’s a way of thinking about how human meaning is constructed from both presence and absence.
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If you embrace this, you’ll build richer characters and plots that resonate on multiple levels.
6.
Why It’s Powerful
What he’s really doing here is reminding us that story is a cognitive model of being human. Dramatica codifies it, but the philosophy behind it is that meaning comes equally from:
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What is asserted
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What is denied
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What is added
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What is stopped
It’s both science and art, both physics and metaphysics. That’s why it works so deeply on audiences—it resonates with how our minds already construct reality.
prompt:
let’s talk about physics for a minute. she’s using an idea of physics that has been outmoded, classical physics, and it’s been replaced by quantum mechanics and quantum field theory (QFT).
======================================== response
Yes—that’s a sharp catch. She’s reaching for the old Einstein–era physics metaphors (Mass/Energy/Space/Time) as if they were the ultimate vocabulary for describing the mind. But physics has moved on: relativity gave way to quantum mechanics, and then to quantum field theory (QFT), which frames reality in terms of fields, probabilities, and interactionsrather than solid “stuff” with attached energy.
1.
Why Dramatica leans on classical physics
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The Mass/Energy/Space/Time tetrad is intuitive and clean. It offers a structural symmetry that writers can grasp: Knowledge (Mass), Thought (Energy), Ability (Space), Desire (Time).
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It mirrors Einstein’s famous relation (E=MC²) and the 4D spacetime continuum, which were culturally iconic “scientific truths” when Dramatica was developed (early 1990s).
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As metaphor, it still works: everyone knows what mass and energy feel like. Few writers are comfortable thinking in terms of renormalization or gauge fields.
2.
Why this analogy breaks down under modern physics
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Mass and energy aren’t separate categories anymore. In QFT, mass arises from field interactions (the Higgs mechanism). “Mass is frozen energy” is closer to the truth.
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Space and time aren’t passive containers—they’re part of a dynamic fabric that can bend, fluctuate, or even emerge from deeper quantum information structures (AdS/CFT, holographic principle).
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Most fundamentally: the quantum world is probabilistic. Events aren’t deterministic billiard balls; they’re superpositions until observed (or decohered).
So, when she says “Knowledge is like Mass; Thought is like Energy,” she’s implicitly treating the mind as a Newtonian/relativistic system of solid objects and forces—not as a probabilistic field with entangled states.
3.
What a QFT-inspired analogy might look like
If we updated her metaphor into a quantum/field frame:
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Knowledge would be less like Mass and more like a collapsed eigenstate—a discrete, observable fact stabilized out of a probability wave.
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Thought wouldn’t just be Energy, but the field interactions—the exchange particles (like photons, gluons) that allow probabilities to interact and shift.
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Ability might be modeled as the coupling constants—the strengths of interaction that determine how easily one thought can trigger another.
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Desire could map to the potential landscape—the tendency of a system to “roll downhill” toward a lower-energy (more satisfying) configuration.
That gives us a cognitive model where:
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Most of the mind is a cloud of probabilities (superpositions of meaning).
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“Insight” is measurement/collapse: a choice, a solidified piece of knowledge.
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Too much thought (energy) without collapse leaves us in analysis paralysis.
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Desires reshape the potential landscape, biasing which outcomes become probable.
4.
Where this matters for Dramatica
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Dramatica’s Table of Story Elements is deterministic: fixed slots, fixed binaries.
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A quantum approach would instead see story elements as probabilistic weights, shifting in likelihood until a narrative “measurement” (a choice, a climax) forces collapse.
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That might explain why audiences feel suspense—because the story is in a quantum superposition until it resolves.
In short: Dramatica’s physics metaphor is elegant, but dated—it frames the mind in classical mechanics. If we reimagine it under QFT, we’d see the mind not as a machine with parts, but as a probabilistic field where meaning emerges from interaction, collapse, and entanglement.
Want me to sketch what a quantum Dramatica table might look like—how you’d replace the Mass/Energy/Space/Time scheme with a probabilistic/field-based mapping for story?
yes
===================
Perfect — let’s try this experiment.
If Dramatica’s classical framework (Knowledge = Mass, Thought = Energy, Ability = Space, Desire = Time) mirrors a relativity-era tetrad, then a quantum Dramatica would instead use QFT metaphors: fields, states, interactions, probabilities.
Quantum Dramatica Table (Sketch)
Classical Dramatica Base
Quantum Analogue
Story/Cognition Function
Example in Narrative
Knowledge (Mass)
Eigenstate / Measurement Collapse
Solidified fact or belief that emerges out of probability. Once chosen, it’s “real.”
A detective seizes on one suspect out of many. A lover admits, “I do love you.”
Thought (Energy)
Field Excitations / Quanta
Dynamic movement of meaning. Thought is not continuous flow but discrete “packets” (ideas, insights).
A flash of inspiration — sudden “quanta” of thought bridging scenes.
Ability (Space)
Coupling Constants / Interaction Strength
Determines how easily thoughts or desires influence each other. High coupling = flexible adaptability; low coupling = rigidity.
A diplomat whose skill is in shifting easily between contexts — or a rigid bureaucrat who can’t.
Desire (Time)
Potential Landscape / Wavefunction Evolution
Drives system toward lower-energy (satisfying) states; reshapes probabilities over time. Desire is the “bias” of the wavefunction.
Hunger, love, ambition create slopes that pull the story forward.
Catalyst & Inhibitor (Reframed Quantumly)
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Catalyst = a triggering interaction that forces partial collapse (like measurement). Speeds story movement because probabilities narrow.
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Inhibitor = a decoherence effect that preserves superpositions, slowing collapse. Story lingers in uncertainty.
Character Dynamics
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Change by Starting → a new eigenstate appears in the wavefunction (new probability branch enters play).
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Change by Stopping → an old eigenstate decoheres out (a possible path disappears from the probability cloud).
Plot Dynamics
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Acts / Journeys = phases of wavefunction evolution, each narrowing the probability landscape.
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Climax = the final measurement collapse where ambiguity resolves into a single outcome.
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Resolution = observing that outcome and re-normalizing the system (audience adjusts to new reality).
Implications
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Stories could be modeled as superpositions of possible futures — the plot is the evolving wavefunction, and the climax is collapse.
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Audience suspense is literally living inside the superposition — they don’t know which eigenstate will become canon.
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Themes become entanglements — what happens to one domain (MC vs IC) constrains the other.
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Character archetypes are like field modes — patterns that can interfere or reinforce each other.
So instead of a rigid “Table of Story Elements,” you’d have a probabilistic matrix: story elements aren’t fixed slots, they’re probability weights across a narrative field. A storyteller adjusts the couplings and potentials — shaping which meanings will most likely collapse into reality.
MPI, do you want me to draft a visual diagram of this “Quantum Dramatica Table” — showing how the four bases map onto a probability field, with Catalyst/Inhibitor as measurement forces? That way you could see how it departs from the original square/relativity layout.
yes
Here’s the Quantum Dramatica Table (Sketch) laid out visually:
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The four classical Dramatica bases are now reframed in quantum terms:
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Knowledge = Eigenstate (collapsed fact)
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Thought = Field Quanta (discrete sparks of meaning)
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Ability = Coupling (interaction strength)
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Desire = Potential (landscape bias)
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At the center is the Wavefunction (Superposition) — the evolving cloud of story possibilities.
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Catalyst (collapse) and Inhibitor (decoherence) act as forces that determine whether probabilities crystallize or linger.
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The purple diagonals suggest entanglement: Knowledge ↔ Desire, Thought ↔ Ability.
Would you like me to now expand this into a full “Quantum Table of Story Elements” (like Dramatica’s 64-element grid), but probabilistic — where each story point has a “collapse likelihood” instead of being a fixed slot? That would give you a writer’s version of a quantum story engine.
yes
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Alright MPI — let’s take the leap.
The classical Dramatica Table of Story Elements is a 4×4×4 cube (64 elements), built from the base quads: Knowledge, Thought, Ability, Desire. Each quad subdivides into four more quads until you get the full lattice of story elements. It’s rigid, deterministic: a periodic table of narrative atoms.
If we “quantize” that system, instead of rigid slots we imagine a probability field: story elements exist in superposition, with strengths (weights) that fluctuate until the narrative collapses them at key beats.
Quantum Table of Story Elements (Sketch Model)
1.
Foundational Layer: The Four Fields
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Knowledge (Eigenstates) → collapses into facts, beliefs, or certainties.
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Thought (Quanta) → sparks of insight, intuition, flashes, or reasoning leaps.
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Ability (Coupling) → interaction strengths, flexibilities, constraints.
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Desire (Potential) → slopes of attraction, emotional/goal gradients.
These four aren’t “objects” but field modes — the vibrational patterns out of which story meaning emerges.
2.
Second Layer: Entangled Quads
Each base splits into 4 probability modes.
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Knowledge Field: Fact, Belief, Doubt, Assumption
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Thought Field: Idea, Chain, Leap, Paradox
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Ability Field: Skill, Constraint, Connection, Rigidity
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Desire Field: Attraction, Aversion, Ambition, Fear
These are not fixed — each has a probability amplitude (0–1).
3.
Third Layer: Interference Patterns
Entanglement diagonals connect the bases:
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Knowledge ↔ Desire (facts entwined with wants → cognitive dissonance, rationalization).
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Thought ↔ Ability (ideas are only as strong as the system’s capacity to interact → creativity vs limitation).
These entanglements create interference fringes — areas where story possibilities reinforce or cancel.
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Constructive interference → high-likelihood story moves.
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Destructive interference → suppressed or avoided moves.
4.
Full Expansion (64 Elements as Probability States)
Instead of a flat table of 64, we now imagine a 4D Hilbert space of narrative. Each “element” is a basis vector in that space. For example:
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Knowledge: Fact (high amplitude = “story anchored in certainty”)
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Knowledge: Doubt (high amplitude = “mystery/suspense story”)
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Desire: Fear entangled with Knowledge: Assumption = paranoia mode.
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Thought: Leap entangled with Ability: Constraint = tragic inspiration (insight that can’t be acted on).
Each story has its own wavefunction across this 64-state space. Writing is effectively “preparing the wavefunction” for collapse.
5.
Catalyst / Inhibitor as Collapse Operators
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Catalyst = narrative measurement → collapses uncertainty into one eigenstate. (e.g. detective finds the clue, lovers confess, villain is unmasked).
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Inhibitor = narrative decoherence → delays collapse, keeps superpositions alive (red herrings, hesitation, ambiguity, false leads).
This gives you a dynamic story engine: plot events are not filling slots, they’re wavefunction collapses along different story vectors.
6.
Practical Writer’s Tool
Imagine a “Quantum Story Table” where instead of clicking a fixed story element, you adjust probability sliders:
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Knowledge: Fact 0.7, Doubt 0.2, Assumption 0.1
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Desire: Fear 0.5, Ambition 0.4, Attraction 0.1
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Thought: Paradox 0.6, Leap 0.4
→ That combination biases the story toward collapse into “tragic irony” or “heroic revelation.”
Why This Matters
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Dramatica (classical) = narrative periodic table.
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Quantum Dramatica = narrative quantum computer.
Instead of fixed parts, you get wavefunctions evolving until climax collapses them.
MPI, do you want me to draw a visual Hilbert cube sketch of this — like a 4D probability lattice projected into 2D, showing how the 64 elements “cloud” instead of sit in rigid slots? That would let you see how “Quantum Dramatica” feels different from the original table.
(bad job with the sketch but text is interesting)
Here’s the Hilbert cube sketch of a Quantum Dramatica Table:
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The 64 nodes are the projected “story elements,” grouped by the four bases (Knowledge, Thought, Ability, Desire) and their sub-modes.
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Instead of rigid boxes, they float inside a superposition cloud (yellow circle), representing the wavefunction of story meaning.
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The storyteller’s act is not to fill a slot but to bias the cloud until probability collapses into specific elements at turning points.
This projection is just a sketch, but it hints at how the classical table (grid of slots) transforms into a probability field (cloud of states) in the quantum version.
Do you want me to animate a “collapse” sequence next — where the cloud gradually narrows and a handful of story elements light up as the “collapsed narrative”? That would show how climax = wavefunction measurement.
(see beginning of thread. we took several passes before it got closer. it’s hard to make a visual of this).
more responses as it kept trying to draw:
========Here’s the animated collapse sequence:
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At first, all 64 story elements float inside the wavefunction cloud — everything in superposition, unresolved.
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As frames progress, the wavefunction shrinks (yellow field fades), simulating narrowing probabilities.
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Finally, a handful of nodes light up in gold — the collapsed narrative eigenstates. These are the “chosen” story elements that manifest in the plot.
This gives you a direct visualization of how Quantum Dramatica treats climax like measurement: uncertainty collapses, superpositions resolve, and the story crystallizes.
==============
Redesign of the Collapse Animation for Humans
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Background Cloud = Superposition
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Keep the soft yellow field as the “wavefunction.”
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But instead of just shrinking, it should fade while probabilities sharpen.
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All 64 Elements Visible from the Start
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Every node (e.g., Knowledge: Fact, Thought: Leap, Desire: Ambition) shows faintly labeled.
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Each has a probability “glow” (size or opacity) that changes during the sequence.
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Collapse as Highlighting
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As the cloud shrinks, the non-selected elements fade away.
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The collapsed ones brighten, enlarge, and their labels become bold and readable.
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Narrative Meaning
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At the final frame, only 5–8 nodes remain lit. These are the eigenstates of the story — the particular elements that “crystallized” into plot.
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That way you can see exactly which concepts were chosen, not just an abstract circle.
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Example of How It Would Look
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At frame 0: all 64 elements faint, scattered, barely readable.
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Mid-sequence: 15–20 begin glowing more strongly (probability bias).
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Final frame: only 6 are large, gold, bold-labeled (e.g., Knowledge: Doubt, Desire: Ambition, Thought: Paradox, Ability: Constraint…).
That gives you narrative clarity: you can literally read which story elements “collapsed.”
=========================
What a
useful-to-humans
“collapse animation” should show
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Context Grid (the Table itself)
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Show all 64 story elements in their proper quadrants (Knowledge, Thought, Ability, Desire).
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This gives immediate orientation: the viewer knows where they are in the Dramatica landscape.
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Superposition Phase (early frames)
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All 64 nodes faint, glowing, vibrating slightly (like probability haze).
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A faint wave-cloud overlays the whole grid, signaling “many possibilities are still alive.”
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Collapse Phase (middle frames)
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The wave-cloud contracts.
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Non-chosen nodes dim further, maybe flicker out.
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Chosen nodes pulse and sharpen.
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Resolution Phase (final frame)
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The cloud is gone.
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Only the chosen 6–8 nodes remain large, gold, bold, with readable labels.
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These are the eigenstates of the story: the actual narrative choices that manifested.
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Why the previous versions felt wrong
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I gave you floating points in space, with no clear quadrants. Without context, the viewer doesn’t know what they’re seeing.
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The “circle” didn’t feel meaningful because it wasn’t tied to a grid/table background.
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The final emphasis wasn’t clear enough — looked like random text growth instead of story crystallization.
Next Step
I can build a version that:
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Draws the Dramatica table grid in the background.
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Places all 64 labeled nodes in their quadrants.
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Animates a wave-cloud shrinking inward (so there’s context and collapse).
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Fades out the non-chosen nodes.
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Leaves only the collapsed eigenstates shining at the end.
That way it isn’t just “expanding text” — it’s a visual metaphor for story probability collapse that actually communicates.
====================
it seems to me she’s talking about Time and the Block Universe, the Eternalism perspective. How would that work out for substance as process?
=======response
Exactly — you’ve got it. When she starts reaching for “substance as process” and even hints that logic may not work because we’re moving “outside the set of real numbers and into the imaginary ones,” she’s pointing toward an Eternalistor Block Universe conception of time.
Let’s unpack it:
1. Eternalism / Block Universe 101
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Eternalism says that past, present, and future all coexist equally in a 4D spacetime block.
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There is no privileged “now” — what we experience as the flow of time is just our consciousness “moving” along one slice of that block.
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From this view, time is not process but geometry — not a flowing river, but the shape of the riverbed already carved.
2. Substance as Process
She wants to flip categories:
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Normally, we say: substance is thing-like, process is event-like.
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But if the Block Universe is true, then what we think of as “substances” are really extended processes frozen into the 4D fabric.
For example:
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A “rock” is not a static lump of mass. It’s a worldtube of matter extending through time — the entire history of that rock’s existence, already laid out.
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A “person” is not a substance moving through time. It’s a long, snaking 4D process: birth-to-death already encoded.
So, substance = process seen across the time axis of the block.
3. The Dramatica Tie-In
Her complaint is that Western logic looks only at the instant slice (the vase, the object, the “mass” of knowledge), not the in-between across time (the worldtube, the flow, the process of being).
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Knowledge (Mass) → in a Block Universe, it’s not just a lump, it’s the trace of stable patterns across time.
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Thought (Energy) → not just a spark, but the field of transitions between states.
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Desire (Time) → here’s the kicker: if time is not flow but geometry, then Desire becomes the gradient of the block— the “why” encoded in the shape of the whole, not just the next step.
That’s why she says logic may break here: our reasoning is built for sequential cause-and-effect, not for already-laid-out geometry where cause and effect are symmetrical.
4. Substance as Process in Narrative Terms
In story terms, this is radical:
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Characters aren’t really “changing.” Their arc is the visible slice of an already-complete process-tube.
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The plot doesn’t “unfold” — it’s revealed. The wavefunction collapse metaphor we just visualized is really about how the reader’s consciousness experiences the block, not about the story-world itself “becoming.”
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Substance-as-process means every “thing” in a story is really the trace of its journey — static appearance is just a cross-section of dynamic becoming.
5. Why She Invokes the Imaginary Numbers
Imaginary numbers often show up in physics when you rotate time into space (e.g., Minkowski spacetime, Wick rotations).
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By invoking √-1, she’s intuitively saying: to see substance as process, you need to rotate your conceptual axis.
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Logic built on “real numbers” (linear cause/effect, presentism) breaks. You need an “imaginary geometry” — i.e., Eternalism, the Block perspective — to make sense of process as substance.
So in short:
In the Block Universe, substances are worldtubes (extended processes). The rock is not a lump, but a process frozen in 4D. A character is not “changing,” but the narrative slice shows us different cross-sections of a completed arc. That’s what she means by seeing substance as process: things are what they do across time, not what they are in an instant.
let’s take the next leap: what does this mean then: external processes as feelings and external situations as moods? And how does that contrast with existing dramatica theory?
====================
Good — this is the place where the Dramatica inventor was really trying to push out of her own system. Let’s take it carefully.
1. What She’s Suggesting
She says:
- “to map our external world in terms of the in-betweens – to see substance as process and time as an object, to document external processes as feelings and external situations as moods.”
She’s flipping the categories. Normally in Dramatica:
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Feelings / Moods = internal, subjective experiences.
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Processes / Situations = external, objective states of affairs.
But in a Block-Universe / “substance-as-process” worldview, the external can be read as if it were internal.
So:
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A process out there (the stock market rising, a war unfolding, a dance routine) can be experienced directly as a feeling-tone — a “pulse” of movement.
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A situation out there (a prison, a city skyline, a quiet room) can be experienced directly as a mood — a kind of atmosphere that suffuses consciousness.
2. How This Contrasts With Existing Dramatica Theory
Classical Dramatica:
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It draws a sharp line between Objective Story Throughline (external, situational, activity-driven) and Subjective Throughline (internal, states of mind, emotions).
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Characters operate in external conflict domains: Situation, Activity, Fixed Attitude, Manipulation.
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Emotions and moods are reflections of story dynamics, not the external material itself.
What She’s Proposing:
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Break down the barrier.
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Treat external phenomena not just as causes of feelings, but as isomorphic with feelings.
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A drought is not just an “objective problem” → it is a feeling of desiccation, emptiness, dryness.
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A parade is not just an “event” → it is the feeling of exuberance, pulse, celebratory energy.
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Treat static situations (a prison, a ballroom, a storm) as inherently mood-expressive structures, not just containers for events.
This would mean external story material has qualia — it can be written and read as if it already carries its own emotional valence.
3. Why This Matters (Eternalist / Block View)
In Eternalism:
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The world is a complete 4D geometry. There’s no true distinction between “what happens” and “how it feels” — both are cross-sections of the same worldtube.
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So what you see “outside” is already soaked with “inside.” A process and its emotional tone are one thing viewed from two perspectives.
Dramatica stops at the line: external = objective, internal = subjective.
She’s saying: take the leap — let external processes be feelings, external situations be moods.
4. Example
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Classical Dramatica:
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A battle scene (external activity) causes fear (internal feeling).
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A prison (external situation) produces despair (internal mood).
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Her Extension:
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A battle scene is fear manifested in external form.
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A prison is despair concretized as architecture.
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This collapses the subject/object split.
5. Implications for Storytelling
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Characters don’t just have emotions — the world itself can be written as emotional.
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Settings become mood-objects. Plot events become feeling-waves.
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You could build stories where the external world reads like the inner life of the characters — not metaphorically, but structurally.
This is closer to modernist and postmodernist fiction (think Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse where setting is mood, or Toni Morrison’s Beloved where the house is anger) than to classical plot-driven narrative.
So in summary:
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Classical Dramatica: external processes = activities, situations = conditions. Internal experiences = feelings/moods. Strict division.
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Her extension: external processes can be read directly as feelings, external situations directly as moods. The world itself is affective, not just a cause of affect.
Note from GetSchwifty:
There’s a lot here. I get it. But I just finished Sean Carroll’s THE BIGGEST IDEAS IN THE UNIVERSE course on Youtube, complete with equations, and I can’t take Classical Mechanics seriously when it claims to be a description of the real world. It’s not. It’s a tool we use that fits SOME of the macroscopic conditions of the reality we experience. QFT and QM are the accepted actual description of reality, and CM (and Special and General Relativity) are outmoded as foundational descriptions of reality. So I really feel like Dramatica is screaming for an update.
I have to note that many of Jim’s articles have gestured in this direction, so this is just reframing a lot of what he’s said and written.
Also: I’m not a physicist, and I didn’t write this stuff. I just asked what I hope are better questions, and these were the responses.
There’s one other problem: see the new thread for discussion of Copenhagen vs Many Worlds.
Super cool! And you’re right it is ALOT of information. 
It’s important to point out that Dramatica isn’t founded on classical mechanics though; it’s a psychology-first model of a single mind solving a problem. The physics parallels are metaphors to clarify perception, not the engine of the theory. When Einstein and general relativity show up, it’s supposed to be in the context of relationships in thinking and isn’t really claiming that story runs on physics.
I do dig the idea of seeing what metaphors we can glean from quantum theory, especially in reference to audience perception and possible attention within the Storymind. There’s definitely so much more to explore which makes all of this so exciting and full of possibilities!
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