Converting an "inequality" or Source of Conflict into a scene

workshop
#21

So here’s how I would tackle a scene like this. I don’t know the full context of your story, so mine won’t look completely like yours.

Sign Post 4-Obtaining.
What a Sign Post of Obtaining means is essentially that you are trying to prove to your audience that approaching this inequity as one of Obtaining will create conflict (here conflict is just being used to mean trouble…I haven’t come up with a full statement of conflict in the sense that we’ve been using it here in the boards)

So we’ll say that everyone is experiencing conflict/trouble because Character1 (C1)is trying to get rid of a gem by dropping it into a cave in order to achieve a goal of doing something. This creates problems in that while C1 is off trying to get rid of the gem in order to break its hold over him, no one is there to help his sick mother or look for his lost girlfriend. The sick mother and lost girlfriend who have no one to help is our evidence that Obtaining is a source of conflict. The characters might know that the C1 getting rid of the gem is a source of conflict, they might not. Doesn’t matter because the Storyform isn’t about them. It’s about the message. But let’s say the characters don’t know this.

Okay, so I’m going to have a scene where C1 sets off to get rid of the gem. He has no idea that his mother or gf even need help. Maybe someone even tries to tell C1 he shouldn’t go. But he does. Along the way, he has to do some of the things you mentioned. Meanwhile, we cut back to the mother who starts having a coughing fit and falls down. She reaches for some miracle medicine but collapses, unable to even crawl over to it. The implication is clear. If only C1 hadn’t gone to get rid of the gem, he could grab the bottle and help his mother take the medicine. But the story need not even state that. The relationship between those two scenes is enough to show it. Maybe from within the story problems look like they arise from fighting phoenixes and and being too weak to get to the medicine, but the structure holding that scene together…the subtext…is that getting rid of something prevents someone from being there to help.

And then we have the PSR elements of Rationalization, Commitment, Responsibility, Obligation.

We already mentioned that C1 was going off to get rid of the thing despite someone asking him not to go. This is a perfect place for a rationalization. C1 tells his mother he has to get rid of the gem in order to save the world when really he just needs to get rid of the gem to break its hold over him. And maybe mom knows C1 is lying and they get in a fight proving that Rationalization creates conflict.

And now Obtaining, already subtext, is starting to look less and less like the surface level problem because within the story, it already looks like C1s attempt to Rationalize this journey is what is really causing problems.

Is that helpful at all, so far?

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#22

This has helped me, I hope it helps the OP too!

#23

Here is the example I promised. PM me if you don’t have access and would like a copy.

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#24

People should do things for themselves in order to be the lone survivor and win the contest
UNLESS
People should risk their lives for others in order for humanity to survive.

(self interest vs morality are the Resistance/Current under Obtaining)

#25

well…

is inaccessible to me. It’s wrapped in meaning that I cannot decipher. “Approaching this inequity”…

Does this mean that the Obtaining itself isn’t the cause of the inequity-conflict, but bringing Obtaining into the picture is the inequity?

Also, @Greg,

are the PSR, but Obtaining’s quads are Approach, Self-Interest, Morality, and Attitude.

Is the direction one goes here a matter of preference? Is it overlapping?

In a short story, would it be simpler to stick to the Obtaining Quad rather than PSR?

This is helpful. His attempts to be proactive in understanding (the power of the gem, what the gem wants)(action) lead to decisions of obtaining.

#26

I want to address the rest and make sure that makes sense and then come back to this later.

It just means that the perspective on this inequity is that it is an inequity of Obtaining as opposed to something else. For instance, let’s say that I am losing my freedoms. I could approach that as a problem of Obtaining in that I am no longer in possession of certain freedoms, or I could see it as a problem of Progress in that the state of my freedoms is growing progressively worse. Or I could approach as any number of problems. And the goal I set for solving that problem will depend on which perspective I have.

I’m not sure of the best way for describing the PSR, but here’s my best attempt.
When you have a concern of Obtaining and an Issue of Self Interest, or whatever yours is, those are the objective sources of conflict. Whatever the source of conflict may look like, those appreciations are what are actually creating that conflict.
But when you select a Storyform, everything gets twisted up so that from within the conflict, it no longer looks like Obtaining and Self Interest are causing the conflict. Instead, because of the way the story is twisted up, the dramatic tension between Obtaining and Self Interest now looks like it’s coming from
Rationalization, Commitment, Responsibility, and Obligation. It’s not actually coming from those four, but only appears to be when looking from within the story.

While both are true about the nature of your story and you can write to both, which one you focus on is up to you as the author. Do you want to focus on what you want to objectively say? Or do you want to clue the audience in to the nature of the problem by focusing on what your message looks like from within?

If your short story doesn’t have a complete Storyform, I’m not sure that it makes a difference as long as you give them enough to feel like they’ve fully explored that part of the problem, whichever way you go.

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#27

@didomachiatto It sounds like you’re pitting Self Interest vs. Morality here (Self Interest UNLESS Morality). But the way we’ve being doing these exercises, both sides of the statement should be different illustrations of the same Concern (or Variation or Element).

So using what I understand as @jhull’s modified approach, assuming your story is linear, your Potential would be:

People should [ILLUSTRATION “A” OF SELF INTEREST] in order to [KNOWLEDGE/THOUGHT/ABILITY or DESIRE] UNLESS people need to [ILLUSTRATION “B” OF SELF INTEREST] in order to/because [CONCEPTUALIZING (blending STATE OF BEING/SITUATION/CIRCUMSTANCES/SENSE OF SELF].

Unless I’m missing something (which is possible).

But anyway I think using different illustrations of the same story point is harder but gives you more mileage (my experience so far).

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#28

So it has a complete storyform, as is, without expanded PSR. Which is why I telescope the scenes, as mentioned by @Lakis

Not pitting them as much as stopping at an earlier level where Self interest merges into Morality under the Obtaining quad.

Because alternately, I would have 8 conflict-inequities going on in one short scene.
The Contestants have a commitment that leads to being responsible while acquiring something

This works in a scene.

The Contestants have a Pursuit/Faith/Pursuit/Avoid commitment that leads to being Control/Conscious/Temptation/Uncontrolled responsible while acquiring something

Is a bit more complicated, but doable.

But…
The Contestants have a Pursuitconflict/ Faithconflict/ Pursuitconflict/ Avoidconflict type-commitment that leads to being Controlconflict/ Consciousconflict/ Temptationconflict/ Uncontrolledconflict type-responsible while acquiring something

Is too long of a scene. And to think that each conflict needs an inequity pitted against another unrelated context seems like overkill.

Now here’s something new…

In particular the contrast of

and

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#29

Check out this Writer’s Room episode if you have access: https://narrativefirst.com/courses/writers-room/on-conflict-context-and-justification

(I think that’s the right one anyway…)

#30

You’re illustrating an entire form in a short story? Or you selected a Storyform and are illustrating part of it within the story?

Either way, you can focus on either. I believe the idea is that in a story that properly follows the Storyform, the PSR should come out pretty much as suggested even without trying and that a PSR points the audience toward the true nature of the problem. Either way, one path sort of suggests the other.

This reading isn’t what I intended, though since you know your story, it may well make sense in this way. All I intended to convey was that de-Obtaining the gem in order to break its hold on him was a problem because it kept him from being there for his mother.

In regards to what Lakis said, there’s a perspective in which comparing Morality to Self-Interest this way makes sense. The inequity as seen from a perspective of Obtaining will fall somewhere within that space where all four corners of the quad meet. The inequity is not Self Interest, Morality, Approach and Attitude, but something that falls in the middle of those. So in order to explore it, we need all four corners to surround it. Morality unless Self Interest works to describe part of the inequity in that way.

But as an illustration for a source of conflict, you really want to look at how Self Interest in one context is incompatible with another context without bringing in the rest of that quad. By looking at the whole quad underneath Obtaining, you’re looking more at how Obtaining is a source of conflict than at how something like Morality is a source of conflict.

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