Dissecting a story to map it

analysis
#1

I keep trying to use Dramatica to map stories, mostly stories I find elsewhere, so I can find the holes. But most of the time, the values I pick create a story that’s completely the opposite of the original story, so obviously my analysis is wrong.
I’ve watched Jim Hull’s clip about dissecting Wizard of Oz, I’ve read “Dramatica for Screenwriters”, but something is just not clicking when I’m analyzing stories.

How do I determine the right elements so that I’m getting the story and not it’s opposite?

Here’s an example story summary I was trying to map.
MC - Rhonda is a psychology major at UCLA, who has fallen for her unmarried professor Chris, and wants to take their relationship from friend to lover. She is working as lab assistant on one of his projects, and when he asks to be involved in another of his projects, she predictably jumps at the chance the spend more time with him. She shows up and learns that involvement in the project, if she accepts, would be becoming the test subject for a study on programming new personalities and behaviors. She likes the thought of being programmed to be someone other than her mousy self, and likes the idea of working with Chris, so she agrees.
Chris (IC?) - is a professor of psychology who brings status to the university through his R&D in psychology studies. His latest published theory has come to the notice of a governmental agency who sees remapping personalities as useful for spies, and has told him to prove his theory or lose all funding. Rather than lose funding and reputation, he has chosen to prove his theory, and has chosen Rhonda as his subject. He asks her to work with him, knowing she’s infatuated with him, and will be easier to program/mold. When she agrees, he knows he’s halfway there.
University / World (OS?) - The university is none too happy about being extorted into what could be considered questionable activity by the governmental agency, and the world at large is pro-choice, anti-mind-control. But with proper PR and promises, they reluctantly agree to the tests.

That’s Act 1/Part 1.
So how do I map this correctly? I keep hearing / reading that the elements are “where there’s conflict”. But when I read through the examples in Dramatica, the examples are not always about conflict but instead desired outcome.
Is the MC throughline a Situation, because of the environment? Is it Activity since she’s trying to get Chris to fall for her, but he’s not being receptive? Is it Manipulation because in her mind she believes she can, through enough effort, make him fall for her?
These are the kinds of questions that keep popping up when I try to map stories. Nothing is ever OBVIOUS.

#2

It’s always hard to analyse without the whole story, but you’ve given a pretty good summary of Act 1 at least.

Rhonda stands out as a Be-er because she “likes the thought of being programmed to be someone other than her mousy self”. This seems rather personal (not just acting as a Be-er in her OS role). I’d guess Rhonda as Mind (Fixed Attitude) due to her infatuation with Chris and her low self-esteem (low opinion of herself). The MC throughline would be about those things.

This would put Chris in Universe/Situation, which seems to fit because of his status at the university, being the brainchild of the personality-change theory, etc. I’d guess he influences Rhonda through other physical aspects too (handsomeness / sex appeal)?

The OS seems to fit Psychology – the details of the psychological theory and personality remapping would fit here, as would the government’s extortion of Chris and the University. (This also fits with the psychological thriller feel that your summary conveyed!)

This would put the RS into Activity which is a common place for a romance / affair, but could also work if their relationship is based on the activities of the personality remapping experiments too.

Anyway, that’s my take. To help you see how this works, first you have to separate the throughlines and be able to understand the essence of each. A short 1-sentence summary for each throughline can help.

Once you have the summary/essence of each throughline, it’s easier to see what area the conflict is coming from. Do-er vs. Be-er helps a lot for placing the MC throughline. Then you can look for things that stand out, like Rhonda’s low opinion of herself (which to me seems much more like a fixed attitude, a problematic state of mind, than a way of thinking; and this had the benefit of saving the Psychology domain for the extortion-heavy OS).

To go deeper into the stoyrform is tricky without more info, although there is a clue with all the “prove the theory” stuff, suggesting that the Proven element might be in there, maybe as Problem or Symptom. I wouldn’t jump ahead that much though, before confirming that all the top-right Concerns fit. They certainly seem like they could, but it’s best to go slowly at this point.

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#3

The elements are the source of conflict. Your inequity/problem and your conflict are two different things. Let’s say your conflict is “Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing”. What is the source of this conflict? What process on the Dramatica table of story elements has led to this? Does Rhonda’s pursuit of a more intimate relationship with Chris lead to Rhonda being subjected to scientific testing? Does Rhonda’s refusal to say no to Chris (a lack of avoidance) lead to Rhonda being subjected to scientific testing? Is it her search for a husband (Physics) or is it the way he leads her to believe he might desire the same intimacy she does (Psychology) that leads her to be subjected to scientific testing?

*That was a quick, off-the-top-of-my-head example based on your storytelling. It may not be the best example and wasn’t meant to answer your example because I’m not sure what your conflict actually is.

One thing I noticed in myself, and I think I’ve seen others do it too, is a tendency to look at the conflict itself and start figuring out what that process is. For instance, in the example above, “Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing”, I think there’s a tendency to say “Rhonda being subjected to scientific testing sounds like Physics, so Rhonda’s problem comes from Physics”. I did this in the Wreck-it Ralph thread. I said something to the effect of “there’s conflict when characters don’t play their proper roles, so the OS Concern must be Being”. After Jim said the OS problem was Physics, I went back to look at it again. I eventually came to a point where I could see that the characters getting mad or fighting about playing their proper roles was the conflict itself, and not the source of conflict. Then it was easy to see that the source of conflict-characters getting mad about playing a role-came from the Physics of not being unplugged, as Jim suggested. I think this mistake is easy to make because the conflict will still be one of the processes on the Dramatica chart.

Here’s another off-the-top-of-my-head example, but going the other way where we start with the source of conflict and look at where the conflict itself falls. Let’s say that the source of the conflict is John is running an illegal gambling ring and it falls in Physics. This could lead to the conflict of John being investigated by the police (a Physics conflict), John being a suspect in the murder of a man who owed John a significant amount of money (a Universe conflict), John’s daughter believing that he is a bad man (a Mind conflict), or John’s wife falling out of love with him (a Psychology conflict). If you look at the conflict itself, each of those examples is going to look like a different throughline. But if you look at the source of the conflict, they will each look like the Physics of running an illegal gambling operation.

*If you look too close at either of those examples, the actual examples might fall apart. Again, they were off the top of my head. But I think the message I’m trying to get across is still there. Also, I feel like I’m able to use Dramatica to write a story, but I’m still terrible at analyzing so I could be way off here. This is just how I’ve come to see Dramatica and how I’ve had the best results with using it.

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#4

For what it’s worth, my first reaction after reading your post was to put the throughlines where @mlucas did – just based on what you wrote, that seems like it makes the most sense.

I second everything @Gregolas said but I would add that sometimes it’s easier shorthand for me to just think in terms of genre and plot. Is this story more of an action thriller or a psychological thriller?

I thought that for a long time too. Lately though it’s all starting to seem a lot more obvious – I feel pretty sure of myself identifying Domains and (usually) Concerns these days. I have more trouble at the lower levels especially the Element level where it’s sometimes hard to figure out what in the quad is Problem, Solution, Focus or Direction. But it does get easier.

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#5

Sometimes I find a partial story that I think has potential, and then my internal challenge is to map it so that I can - for me - fill in the holes and create a more complete and finished story. At least that’s how the plan is supposed to go. I usually only see all or part of an Act 1 and all or part of an Act 2A. There’s no end goal to see, other than conjecture.

In this particular partial story, there’s a limited act 2A where she starts being programmed. There’s a complication where her roommate has a crush on her and doesn’t want her to change. But after a couple of scenes, one of which is where the roommate tries to seduce her, there’s no more story.

But I digress.

I agree with your throughline assignments. It’s this whole essence vs conflict thing that gets me. Rhonda wants Chris, which is a Mind thing, so the essence is Fixed Attitude or Manipulation. But her activities to try and win him are likely to be problematic, so Activity is the conflict. Arg.

I like your statement about choosing the right Be-er/Do-er first to help determine Fixed Attitude or Manipulation. Seems like half the time I pick what I think is the Throughline, only to see that the model has made the mousy be-er into a do-er.

#6

I think that’s exactly what I’m doing, looking at the conflict itself, and that’s confusing the issue to me. So yes, in your example, to me the conflict is in Activity/Physics.
If the essence of a throughline is one thing and the conflict is another, just throws oil on the fires of doubt for me. Nothing is obvious at that point.
Hopefully I can get better at this.

#7

It’s more of a psych thriller, what there is of it, although a few Activities are involved in the programming.
Glad to hear I’m not the only one struggling, it doesn’t seem like it should be this hard. I’ll keep trying.

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#8

Your example with Rhonda is pretty clear so I think we can use it to help your learn. Which of the following sounds more true?

  1. Rhonda’s infatuation with Chris causes her to engage in some problematic activities to win him
  2. Rhonda’s activities cause her to fall in love with Chris

It’s pretty clear it’s #1. The impetus, the drive for Rhonda comes from Mind – her crush on Chris (although I think her low opinion of herself might be even more at the root). If not for that, her personal throughline wouldn’t exist. Any problematic activities, situations, manipulations, whatevers that stem from it are merely effects of that cause.

You’re always looking for the source of conflict in Dramatica. Note it often shows up as a problematic drive (e.g. the drive to Test, the drive to Help, etc.)

It’s hard for everyone for at least several months! Keep working at it! And if you have time, try this: http://storyrunner.houseoflucas.com/2018/02/getting-better-at-dramatica-analysis.html

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#9

“Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing” looks more like the set up of the inequity than the conflict. So let’s try this, let’s make that the inequity and see what happens when we put different types of conflict with it.

-Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing which is causing her severe migraines.
-Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing which is causing her to take on a completely different personality.
-Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing which is challenging her beliefs in the supernatural.
-Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing which is having a detrimental effect on her performance at work.

Hopefully the conflict in each of those (everything after “which is”) looks like a different area of the Dramatica table. And since you’ve already said that “Rhonda is being subjected to scientific testing” looks like Activity/Physics, you will hopefully still see that the source of those conflicts all stem from Physics. If you do see all of those as Physics, let’s see what happens when we change the inequity to “Rhonda is falling in love with Chris”, something I’m going to say is in Psychology, and keep the same conflicts.

-Rhonda is falling in love with Chris which is causing her severe migraines.
-Rhonda is falling in love with Chris which is causing her to take on a completely different personality.
-Rhonda is falling in love with Chris which is challenging her beliefs in the supernatural.
-Rhonda is falling in love with Chris which is having a detrimental effect on her performance at work.

Some of those sound a bit awkward (falling in love challenges a belief in the supernatural? hey, it could work in the right story), but all of those conflicts should now look like they stem from Psychology. When it comes to finding a storyform, it shouldn’t matter what the conflict looks like, but what the inequity looks like. I think I read on another post where Chris Huntley says the conflict is the smoke and the inequity is the fire. So when you’re trying to analyze a story look for the smoke, but don’t analyze it. Follow it to the fire, the inequity at the source of the conflict.

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#10

Sometimes I think the “source of conflict” test is both totally correct and too confusing to be useful and maybe over-complicates things. (Read the Captain America: Civil War thread lol).

What works better for me is to look at the Domain for genre/“story personality” and Concerns under that Domain as a guide to plot/“what the story’s really about”. (I’m talking about the OS here).

In any story people will do things and be in bad situations, and try to convince each other of things and have what look like problematic mindsets. But ask yourself, from a plot perspective, is this story more about the activities and challenges of people who are learning, understanding, doing and obtaining things? Or is the story more about the conflicts that come up as everyone manipulates each other, comes up with plans and ideas, the roles they play, what they’re forced to become etc.?

This is not a foolproof approach, but it usually clarifies things for me.

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#11

Thanks mlucas, Gregolas, and Lakis!
It sounds like I go with my impression of the essence and forget about looking at the conflict, I’ll have some better luck trying to map things.

Then I just have to figure out how to map the lower level stuff like Symptom/Response and Problem/Solution. That’s going to be several factors harder. If the characters can’t figure out the actual Problem, especially when I’m looking at unfinished stories in the first place… ugh.

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#12

Not exactly. If conflict is how we know there’s an inequity, how can we ignore conflict? If you’re trying to analyze an idea or a story and ignore conflict, then you’re just blindly picking out and naming the processes you spot in the story. What happens if you find a character that is a long distance runner (Physics), blind in one eye (Universe), fears snakes (Mind) and wants to be a good Christian role model (Psychology)? In which throughline do you place this MC? Now imagine you read a scene where he keeps darting out in front of cars as he runs, almost getting himself killed and causing accidents, because he can’t see them coming because he’s blind in one eye. Much easier to analyze.

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#13

That’s funny, in my story that I’m working on the MC is a long-distance runner, and I remember that when my ideas for the story were initially gelling, I thought the MC throughline might be Physics. But it turned out to be Mind (a big crush), while all the running stuff ended up super important in the Relationship Story, whose domain is indeed Physics.

It’s neat that I didn’t plan the running in the relationship at all, it just sort of popped into the scenes that they keep wanting to race each other. But it worked because the IC’s Universe throughline (she’s a product of a scientific experiment) made her physically gifted in various ways.

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#14

Yeah, I didn’t mean to imply that one shouldn’t look for the source of conflict, just that it can be difficult to do that at the beginning and sometimes approaching from a genre/plot perspective can clarify things (maybe).

That said, I actually think the most instructive analyses are the ones that seem to play against genre – when you can watch the first Incredibles movie and understand why it’s in Psychology rather than Physics, the whole theory starts to make more sense.

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#15

I always feel like the character level should be easy, and yet, in the quad of Genre, Plot, Theme, and Character, Character seems to be the one that’s from out of left field for me. Kinda like the RS in the quad of OS, MC, IC, RS.

Agreed. Knowing the general area of problematic processes is sometimes more helpful than using a specific Gist because a gist makes me feel locked in to one thing when it might be better to have several different types of Physics or whatever.

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#16

I didn’t mean to ignore the conflict completely, but when I look at a movie, often there’s an “essence”.
Like the old movie Hatari, everybody’s hunting/capturing animals and relationships, so the OS should be Activity. John Wayne/MC is in a Situation - trying to bring in the animals down by a man, photographer sprung on him, etc. Dallas has the Fixed Attitude that with enough confidence she can get what she wants. Which leaves the Relationship as Manipulation/Way of Thinking. To me, ignoring specific conflicts, that becomes obvious.

However, next step below that… seems like the goal is Obtaining, the OS Concern is Obtaining. But figuring out the Symptom/Response and Problem/Solution? That’s the head-scratcher.

Which is compounded when I’m reading a partial story someone posted, and trying to figure that one out with even lesser material to work with.

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#17

It can be VERY difficult, sometimes impossible, to analyse a partial story. Since the storyform is a holistic thing, you need to get the whole story to grasp it. Example: a revelation at the end of the story might change what you thought the Domains were, shifting everything into its proper place in that “oh!” moment.

It might help to watch some movies where this is more obvious. Star Trek (2009) is a good one – for the IC throughline, I’m pretty sure Spock is blabbing about his quad of elements the whole time.

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#18

Don’t forget the Issue/Element level. I think it helps to go top to bottom.

BTW the biggest leap forward in my understanding of Dramatica has come from the group analyses we’ve done on this board (in my case Cars and Beauty and the Beast – thanks to @Gregolas, @mlucas and others). Specifically I remember the “click” feeling I had when I realized that the problem/solution of Cars was Hinder/Help.

The trick here is to find a movie that actually has a complete story and that hasn’t been analyzed before, which is easier said than done. Kids movies are also great because the storyform is usually simple (if there’s a complete story). Even better would be to go to a few Dramatica user’s group meetings if you live in that part of the world (I don’t).

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