Dramatica Personal Tragedy (Success / Bad)

Hi.

I’m writing a story and after a lot of thought I chose to have an outcome of Success with a Judgment of Bad. I want a similar feeling to The Social Network, A History of Violence, The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather. A goal achieved but the MC doesn’t leave happy.

I was reading the “Building a Better Dinosaur” article and I was wondering how do you handle a couple of things when you have a Personal Tragedy (Success/Bad) or a Tragedy (Failure/Bad). For this discussion I’ll just say Tragedy, but I’m referring to both.

A Story is an argument that there is only one right way to solve a problem.

For tragedies would the story be an argument that this is one wrong way to solve a problem?

To gain an audience’s acceptance, an argument (Story) must appeal to both logic and feeling. To make the logical part of this argument, all the inappropriate ways a problem might be approached need to be addressed and shown to fail. Each one must be given its due and shown not to work except the one touted by the author.

Would this change for a tragedy? Should I show the appropriate ways to a problem but show them to be rejected by my MC/protagonist?

Is there any difference between the way you handle a Crucial Element in a Tragedy? Would my MC intersect with the Problem element instead of the Solution? Especially with a Steadfast character.

Thanks!

Hi Alejandro,
I might be way off base here, but I think when using Dramatica to write stories, you’re better off not worrying about the whole “showing appopriate / inappropriate ways to solve a problem” angle. The fact that a complete story is a model of a mind solving a problem is awesome for understanding the theory, but for writing a story I think you’re best to focus on the Story Points (a.k.a. appreciations) which are the things that you can actually recognize and use as a writer.

It’s kind of like a race car driver – you don’t teach someone how to race cars by going through all the physics involved. They’re much better off using their instincts to feel what’s right and wrong, and develop those further through experience. However, an engineer might say to a driver “with this car, when you hear X sound from the engine, that’s a sign that Y needs adjusting, so get to the pit stop ASAP”. That’s kind of like a Dramatica story point where the theory can communicate something useful to the writer – “when the source of your main character’s personal problems has to do with Helping, his solution will be in the realm of Hindering”. This is how the storyform can be so useful in helping the 99.9% of us writers who have blind spots when it comes to narrative.

That said, it’s a very interesting question from a theory perspective, and I’d be interested to see what the answer is!

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@mlucas is spot-on with everything.

In regards to the Crucial Element in a Tragedy…in a Steadfast character the Crucial Elements will be the Symptom and Response since the focus of the argument is on the Work instead of the Dilemma.

The quote from the book is referring to the various objective characters and how they’re individual character elements help form the argument for what is the most appropriate way to solve a problem. Does the guy on Faith and Support seem to fare better than the girl on Temptation and Hinder? Does the dog motivated by Protection and Trust do better than the cat motivated by Self-Aware and Expectation?

Add it all up over the course of the narrative and you get the answer.

But personally I wouldn’t think about that too much while writing, like Lucas says. Just let it come out naturally as you’re writing and refer to the storyform when you get lost or stuck.

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@mlucas, @jhull, thank you for your answer.