Contextual Subgenres

theory
#54

Of course!

If you mean lining up, for example, the Obtaining subgenres with the Obtaining variations, the answer is yes and no.

YES: like all of the quads, the subgenres obey TKAD, so they do broadly line up with the variations beneath them. Obtaining has Competitive (Approach), Security (Attitude), Benefit (Self Interest) and Rebalance (Morality) stories; Being has Persona (Desire) and Expectation (Ability) stories, etc. You absolutely can do it.

NO: But most of the stories don’t line up that way. While some do, the majority tend to be elsewhere in the quad. Most of the Rebalance stories tend to be in the Self-Interest quad, for example. If all subgenres shared the same variation, it would become very ‘samey’ pretty quickly because every story would be dealing with the same issues.

My personal theory (and I haven’t tried this) would be to tie the subgenres to the signposts. Whereas the Issues are variations on theme, the subgenres are variations on the story ‘type’ itself. I think the finesse you’re looking for might be hidden in there, and would probably be less ‘samey’ – because, for example, an Investigation story can be anything from a detective looking to find out what happened to his missing wife to a cowboy trying to find out which anthropomorphic horse drank his beer.

For example, if writing a dark comedy movie, you might have this:

Signpost 1 - Learning (Self-Discovery): After his wife abruptly divorces him, a high school teacher begins to see that he’s wasted his life teaching kids that have gone on to be disappointments or criminals. His life’s work is for nothing, and he is once again alone and miserable.
Signpost 2 - Doing (Endeavour): The teacher quits his job and turns to a life of adolescent joy: egging houses, shoplifting, spray painting. Anything that will give him a thrill.
Signpost 3 - Obtaining (Benefit): After getting a rush from shoplifting, the teacher turns to more and more intense ‘lifts’, breaking into the home of his former boss and stealing his rug. He’s soon arrested when his boss checks in on him, and sees the rug firsthand.
Signpost 4 - Understanding (Appreciation): Unable to explain what happened, the teacher is placed in a correctional facility, where he is taught to understand basic concepts like ‘why stealing is wrong’ by a former ‘disappointing’ student.

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#55

thanks [quote=“jhay, post:54, topic:1893”]
My personal theory (and I haven’t tried this) would be to tie the subgenres to the signposts. Whereas the Issues are variations on theme, the subgenres are variations on the story ‘type’ itself. I think the finesse you’re looking for might be hidden in there, and would probably be less ‘samey’ – because, for example, an Investigation
[/quote]

very interesting. I’ll focus on maximizing your discovery for now.

There’s a lot of potential to develop the whole contextual subgenre process using the quad operations…

#56

@jhay, I’m working through a storyform with a Goal/Concern of Concieving and looking for the fourth item in that one. Do you know which three types might line up with the three types of stories you have listed?

#57

These are all my notes on the Psychology quads:

Conceptualizing:
Conspiracy – Situation
Legacy – Circumstances

Being:
Expectation – Ability
Persona – Desire

Becoming
Social Change – Rationalization
Makeover – Commitment
Evolution – Responsibility

Conceiving
Expose – Permission
Inception – Deficiency
Idea – Need

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#58

Do you have a process for determining those? How did you determine that Expose was the most like Knowledge or Permission and not Idea?

#59

This is my biggest weak point, because my mind is strongly creative and not especially academic or technical, so I’ll be the first to say I couldn’t identify a ‘T’ from a ‘K’ if you paid me. In the above cases, most of the notes have been applied to the variations based on their Dramatica definitions. They just ‘feel’ right to me, there’s no technical logic in it. I did add the physics notes and a little disclaimer about it being subjective to the above comment, but the edit seems to have not been made for some reason.

But the process for those was basically:

  1. Identify concerns of various stories.
  2. Find repeated patterns of behaviour.
  3. Group them as subgenres.
  4. Find the closest variation.

So, for Conceiving, we had:

  • stories dealing with exposing the truth
  • stories dealing with planting ideas
  • stories dealing with coming up with ideas

Then I just thought logically. To expose something, you don’t get permission, you just do it. To plant an idea, you need a subject that is deficient of that idea. In coming up with a new idea, there has to be a need for it. Same with Becoming: you commit to a makeover, an evolution of life forces you to be responsible, and social change is about breaking a community’s rationalizations.

There’s honestly no science behind me listing those things, and I imagine you could make an argument for a different way (you could easily say planting an idea in someone’s mind doesn’t require permission, etc.). I don’t know, I trust you guys with the TKAD stuff more than myself. It’s kind of why I’ve stayed away from listing them properly (as well as the fact that it doesn’t really line up with the variations consistently): I know it works, I know it’s there, but I don’t know how.

If anyone wants to look into the TKAD connection further, feel free! Perhaps it will help me understand it finally. :sweat:

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"Reverse" Conceiving?
#60

Well, before you gave me your notes,I tried to see how I’d align them, and the first way I came up matched what you have. So we’re on the same page. I was just hoping to get some insight that might help me figure out that last one.

Without putting in the time to watch the movies that you have, I don’t think this is something I really need to be doing.

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#61

Ooh, that’s interesting! Maybe we’re onto something, then.

Re: finding the last one, I’ve had to pursue a new strategy for the Mind concerns that might help illuminate some of the currently absent story types in future revisions. Once the Situation concerns are done, we should be a little closer to some completed quads. Hopefully.

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#62

Speaking of the missing item in some of the quads…

It’s interesting that Obligation is the one that’s missing from this quad. The story I’m working on has OS Issue Obligation, and when I looked at your Becoming subgenres, I had trouble pinning it as one of those. It has some elements of Makeover, Evolution, and Social Change but I wasn’t sure if any really fit.

If I had to suggest a subgenre based on my story I’d say something like “stories that explore the changes of nature that occur naturally and inevitably through close exposure to other ways of thinking”. Maybe call it Contagion or Infection.

But it’s only one data point, useless to call it a “subgenre” without others that fit. I’m in the weeds (first draft) with my story right now, so hard to see the trees let alone the forest… It’s very possible my story is one of the existing ones!

(In fact, I almost deleted this post, but decided to save it since maybe people’s own stories might help fill in some of the gaps in the analysed films.)

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#63

Melanie said something along those lines, the story points are all related and sometimes you need to look at the Story points in context with others to get a better picture.

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#64

I feel this process can help shed more light on the subgenres

#65

So, yeah, if I were going to delve deep into this I’d need to watch a lot more movies with this specifically in mind. What i’ve decided is that I’m comfortable with the idea that each Concern can be explored in a way that looks like KTAD, or I actually prefer Universe, Physics, Psychology, Mind. But while I can take something like your descriptions of Expose or Inception stories and see how they fit, I have a hard time using the same idea to describe what one of the missing genres looks like.

Like Mike, I think the story I’m currently looking at would fall in the missing genre under Conceiving. And I can see the three that are present and even line them up to specific Sign Posts. When I look at the Sign Post that’s missing a sub genre description, I can kind of fill in the missing gap, but can’t really describe it. It doesn’t help that this is probably one of the weakest Sign Posts as far as the conflict I’ve used it to create.

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#66

Totally. As you say, you need to see more of the movies to figure it out.

To try and gauge it from the table of elements is impossible because it’s too small a sample size. Since you’re only seeing the actual element (say, Expediency), you miss out on the actual pattern of context (for example: ‘these six Conceiving stories deal with people doing X’, etc.), so it’s hard to tell if it is a popular ‘subgenre’ of story, or if it’s just your mind creating one particular story and illustrating it a certain way. It becomes guesswork.

The new strategy for the Mind domain will make finding those missing genres easier, I’m very confident. Once Universe is done, I’ll go through Psychology and Physics again and see if we can find those missing ones, but for now, there’s not really too much that can be done to find them until I have the notes from the ‘state’ domains.

Update on Mind: I’ll have it posted at the weekend, but there will be few ‘consequences’ until Universe is done, and I’m having a hell of a hard time trying to define the Preconscious subgenres. My brain is getting a major, major workout on these ones.

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#68

We wait. We remain steadfast @jhay :slight_smile:

#69

it’s been mentioned a few times that scenes should have something Universal, Physical, Attitudinal, and Psychological to round them out. I’m kind of looking at what you’re doing with that same idea, that each Concern (and every level, really) can have aspects of each of these. So Conceiving, for instance can be explored with a Universal aspect, a Physical one, and so on.

So it would seem a story that explores Universal aspects of Concieving will treat the Conceiving of ideas as something external and static. I would assume this would look like getting an idea about an external state (can you believe the government would be that corrupt? I’m shocked, I tell you) or maybe it would look like someone getting an idea would be the external state (the government is Conceiving of corruption). Either way, this gives us something to look at, something to explore, to uncover. That’s your Expose stories.

Conceiving being explored with a Mind aspect, then, would treat coming up with ideas as something internal and static. If you uncover an idea in someone else’s mind-rather than showing them it exists externally as in Expose stories—then you have what looks like planting ideas in the minds of others. This would be your Inception stories.

Tell me if any of that sounds too goofy, or like I’m trying too hard. Personally, I’m kinda digging it at this point.

But now we get to Conceiving being explored with a Physics aspect. Coming up with ideas is treated as external and changing. This sounds like your Idea stories about the journey to come up with an idea. Like maybe the writer trying to conceive of the next great literary work has to put in some physical work to get to that idea, reading, studying, meeting middle Americans and seeing what the human condition is so that he can properly conceive of this masterpiece. I’m still kind of on board here, but feel like I’m starting to lose it.

Then we get to Conceiving being explored with a Psychology aspect. Conceiving treated as internal and changing. This seems to be the quad that carries all the vertical rise in my mind. When I think of internal ideas that change I think of improvising and conspiracy theories that are always changing to include new and seemingly contradictory information. But I don’t know. I don’t really feel like that captures what it should be at all.

I’ve only tried this with Conceiving so far. I’ve glanced at a few others and i think I could do the same thing with some of the other Concerns, but I haven’t really sat down and tried yet.

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"Reverse" Conceiving?
#70

Okay, so here’s my best attempt to predict the final Conceiving sub genre.

The Psychology aspect of Conceiving should be about the behavior of coming up with an idea, or coming up with ideas about behaviors. It’s also about the Desire or Time of coming up with ideas. So it’s about changing. Changing the way one comes up with ideas, changing what ideas one comes up with.

Where Inception stories are about uncovering the ideas in one’s mind, Psychology-Conceiving stories would be about the change in those ideas. So maybe a story about getting one to stop conceiving of the government as the enemy and start conceiving of the government as the great protector.

Where Idea stories are about the physics of coming up with an idea, Psychology-Conceiving stories are about behaviors in regards to coming up with an idea. So maybe a story where one starts out trying to conceive of the next great novel, but ends up conceiving of personal service as the greatest way to have a positive change on society. Or maybe a story where one starts out with ideas about being the champion, but in the end decides it’s not important that you win, but that you did your best and played by the rules.

And remember, this is also the Expediency aspect of Conceiving, so stories about coming up with ideas about the most efficient course considering repercussions, or stories about what one should do. So does this work? Can you see that being a valid sub genre? And what would you call it?

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"Reverse" Conceiving?
#71

this works, there’s tkad happening through all the types, all I’d say for now is contextual subgenres seem to be variations on the static and progressive plot points. So the tkad is to be applied with regards to the types, static and progressive plot points.

I’ll jump in later on and see how I can help define the story concern and story consequence in terms of tkad for each term.

Key variables are the story concern, story consequence, the dramatica types and application of ktad.

#72

also, dramatica being fractal, I’m sure there’s tkad underneath the subgenres, we may unearthing sub-subgenres in the future but I think we shouldn’t unearth that level of contextual subgenres yet.

#73

I’m also asking myself, these contextual sub genres seem to want to form a quad of sorts, meaning there’s companion, dependent, associative and dynamic relationship to be formed from each quad of contextual sub genres.

Coming up with a quad of subgenres of each type means those quads will evolve into some higher level relationship between the contextual subgenres once they are completed.

I was thinking, without being able to satisfy all quad operations, we maybe creating gists and calling them subgenres.

#74

It sounds good, and I can see where you’re coming from – your analysis of the other types is totally right. You may well be right on the fourth, but I’d need the examples of analysed stories to back it up to ensure it’s not overlapping with another ‘kind’ of story or mistyped.

I don’t think it’s worth looking that deep, honestly. A little like how Chris and Melanie restricted the scope of the software, I think this needs to have a defining ‘scope’. Otherwise, it’ll just become subgenres within subgenres, with far too much information and too many levels to do anything particularly helpful. I can imagine some writers getting obsessive over fitting everything in, to the detriment of their work.

Well, the ‘subgenres’ are more like storytelling conventions than actual structural points. So, to that degree, they are gists. They’re ways of colouring a throughline. You can write a Western Noir as a Defense story, but also as a Legacy story. It’s just whichever way you want to tell your story.

I’m gonna ask to just hold off on the TKAD/missing subgenre talk for a little bit until all four domains have been done and the others updated accordingly. I’ll explain exactly why when I post the Mind subgenres in a couple of days, but I just don’t want anyone getting too far ahead right now. It’s highly likely some of the missing ones will turn up very, very soon and if not, we’ll deal with it later.

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