How you define the Story Driver if it has already happened

[Gernot]

@mlucas

Action to eat, a hungry dragon swoops down to attack me, and I just manage to duck into a cave to avoid it. …have to decide whether to venture out and risk the dragon, or stay in the cave and risk the ghouls.

Decision to eat, I decide to give up my hunger strike, so my fellow hunger strikers are forced to lock me in my room without food, to keep me from breaking the strike.

@mlucas, great example

In my current story the driver is Action … assuming … as I there are a lot of action scenes which keep changing the plot.

However it’s difficult for me proving it, especially the first story driver.

My thinking for it goes like, ah…

1. A boys parent decide (Decision) to separate and this cause all the circumstances he lives in today
2. No wait, the boy beats his classmate (action) because he is so angry about his fathers betrayal
3. No wait, the school finds this letter with an amok warning and decides (decision) it was him
   …

Everything starts with the separation, but this happens much earlier and is not part of my story. The story itself (what you see) starts with #2

In that case, how is the story driver defined: Based on

• when my first story event/driver really happened (#1)
• when my story starts (#2)

[mlucas]

Hi @Gernot,

To figure out your First Driver, you have to picture your story world in either a state of equity (“everything’s fine”) or a balanced inequity (think The Matrix: rebels running amok and Agents trying to catch them, neither really gaining ground until Morpheus’s decision that Neo is The One).

Then you try to figure out what event knocks down the house of cards and sets everything in motion.

In your example:

@Gernot

1. A boys parent decide (Decision) to separate and this cause all the circumstances he lives in today
2. No wait, the boy beats his classmate (action) because he is so angry about his fathers betrayal
3. No wait, the school finds this letter with an amok warning and decides (decision) it was him

#1 sounds like backstory, too much balance has happened between then and now. (Unless the decision to separate was recent, but your wording about circumstance makes it sound like no.)
#2 definitely sounds like a possible First Driver.
#3 sounds like an action driver – the school finds the letter (Action), forcing their decision

For drivers, you want cause and effect. Decision to separate --> boy beats his classmate the next day would definitely work as a Decision driver. But old decision to separate --> sad circumstances --> boy beats his classmate, to me that sounds like a possible Action driver.

Does beating the classmate force any decisions? Like father “oh crap my boy is violent, I better put him in a special school to nip this in the bud”?

Note I wrote a blog post a wile back that touches on this subject a little bit:

Action Or Decision: Determining Your Story's Driver

[mlucas]

Oh, a couple other good tests that @jhull has pointed out.

One, you should find that in some way the inequity or imbalance created by the First Driver, sets up the need for the Story Goal within the Storymind, as a way of resolving that imbalance. For example, a boy acting violent might set up a Goal of “figuring out how to be a better family” (Conceptualizing), just as a one example.

Two, I don’t know that it’s completely required by the theory, but it does seem to work best when you can see the the OS Problem at play in the Driver – helping to set it off, or impacting things immediately after, or both.

[Gernot]

Thanks @mlucas for your feedback. This is really helpful.

Unless the decision to separate was recent, but your wording about circumstance makes it sound like no

So it means a decision which is way back might not be a good driver even though it still has a huge impact. Noted.

sounds like an action driver – the school finds the letter (Action), forcing their decision

Ah, this makes sense, I need to look for what is forcing their decision (finding letter)

Does beating the classmate force any decisions? Like

Yes, the school tells boy he must attend a special training to avoid being thrown out from school

First Driver, sets up the need for the Story Goal … Goal of “figuring out how to be a better family” (Conceptualizing),

Great, the Goal is Conceptualizing “find a place in the world / fit in with the rest of the world”

work best when you can see the OS Problem at play in the Driver

This make sense, but I am not sure with this:

(Setup) After the divorce a boy is forced to live with his mother in a prominent problem area.

He quickly learns to “look inside for inner strength” (Problem Self-aware) without “being sensitive to his peers” (Solution Aware)

(Driver) The boy beats his classmate (action) because he called is mother a bitch … this action forces the school to make a decision what to do with him (after many similar Actions)

My argument is: You can find your place in life when you give up thinking so little of yourself

I am not sure with the Self-Aware part. Does Self-Aware explain his inner anger?

[mlucas]

@Gernot

I am not sure with the Self-Aware part. Does Self-Aware explain his inner anger?

It sounds perfect to me … self-consciousness about his mother and the poor area they live in could definitely play into him striking out. And the special training they want to send him on probably wants to make him more self-aware of his own anger etc.

@Gernot

So it means a decision which is way back might not be a good driver even though it still has a huge impact.

Note that it’s not so much about the time that passes (story time is malleable) but about when the shift happens that creates that imbalance that sets things into motion.

[MWollaeger]

@Gernot

In my current story the driver is Action … assuming … as I there are a lot of action scenes which keep changing the plot.

Actions changing the plot are not Drivers.

Quick proof: I accidentally kill someone with my car. Their father decides to kill me. He kills me! The city council decides to ban cars. I am forced to walk to work.

Didn’t each of those steps change the “plot”?

Drivers force a perspective change. A topic being explored by Obtaining is now being explored by Doing…