I’ve put all my sign posts and journeys in the order I think they should roughly appear. As is, I have both the first OS sign post and journey being explored well before the IC makes her first appearance. This causes her to be left out of the first OS act. So to make sure she feels like she has a role within that part of the OS, do I need to show her being concerned with part of the OS first act when she appears? Or is it okay for her to jump into the OS Act 2?
First, don’t refer to the throughlines as roles in the OS; since it’s the objective of view of the story, they should be viewed as such so stick with protagonist, antagonist or any other of the archetypes.
Secondly, your IC doesn’t ever need to be present in the story - it’s their influence that matters. Someone who is dead and never appears may have a ghost-like presence that influences others, or it could be someone from halfway around the world that the main character never meets. A good example is The Wizard of Oz, where The Wizard - front and center of the title - is hardly present in the story, but has such a huge influence with the events.
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Just to add to what @JBarker said, you can also refer to them by their objective role like “farm boy” or “crazy sniper”, if you don’t know their archetype (they may be complex characters). And it’s fine if the OS character that is the same player as the Influence Character isn’t part of the first OS Act. I don’t think Dramatica “cares” about that – you’re free to introduce OS characters in later Acts.
So just do whatever feels better for your story. If having her just jump into OS Act 2 feels better, there might even be an IC throughline reason for that (maybe it helps set up some IC story points that will impact your MC later). Your subconscious can often grok the throughlines blended together, even when consciously you need to separate them to figure them out better.
Does your IC Signpost 1 come before OS Signpost 2?
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I get that there’s no IC in the OS, but rather a character that plays the IC character as well as another role in the OS. And it totally helps to think that way while encoding, but it seems to make it more confusing while asking others questions. But I realize how important the concept is, so i’ll try to word it that way going forward.
I suppose the important part is that the character within the OS that also plays the IC is concerned with the same type of OS goal as everyone else once she shows up in the story. It doesn’t matter that we miss out on seeing how that particular player deals with the Act 1 concern? In my story, everyone in the OS shares the same goal, but in a story where each of the OS characters have a different goal (of the same type) it seems like having a player miss out on the first act would have us missing out on how that player deals with those types of events with their specific goal/problem. But I guess then, since this all acts as a metaphor for solving problems, that should be okay as we’re still seeing other characters metaphorically dealing with the same type of events.
And yes, @mlucas, I have all my Act 1 SPs and Js together, and all the Act 2 SPs and Js together etc. Although I do feel like, in the writing of the story itself, there may end up being a little overlap where I start setting up for, say, OS SP3 before completely wrapping up IC J2. But when that happens, I’m thinking that it should be something that shows the IC being moved from J2 to SP3 and should be okay.
@JBarker, been a while since I’ve seen The Wizard of OZ. Prior to the introduction of the Wizard himself, but after he begins to have an influence on Dorothy, would you say he has any role within the OS? Does his influence have any role within the OS, if that even makes sense?
Exactly! Well said.
I think my story may have the same thing. I think with the Journeys you can be more lenient because they’re sort of vague – who’s to say when the Journey really starts or ends? And sometimes the Act Turn Drivers don’t affect all the throughlines the same way or at the same time. At least that’s my understanding. Just wondering though, is your OS SP2 -> 3 a bump or a slide? How about IC SP2 -> 3?
It sure seems like you have a lot worked out! Do you know all the five main Story Drivers (including the concluding event or whatever it’s called)? You are in good shape with your story if you do!
The Wizard of Oz probably isn’t the easiest one to work through as an example because there are bookends and multiple characters in the same player which can make it confusing.
If we’re talking prior to the intro of the wizard as one of many roles within a single player, he shows up as Professor Marvel. Chris made a good point in the DUG that Marvel, the Wizard and the man behind the curtain are really all the same player and it’s what I’d call the “authentic part” where the influence comes with trying to help Dorothy. The other “characters” are façades which fit the IC’s throughline of manipulation perfectly. Just keep in mind that the throughlines are singular perspectives unto themselves which can be represented by multiple roles though at some point “The Wizard” ultimately becomes the denominator of choice.
Good question. There’s a couple places I’m thinking it might end up happening. One place would be a bump and a slide and the other (OS SP2=>3 and IC SP2=>3) would both be slides.
I do, but those are something I know more from analyzing things after I’ve made my notes rather than from building them purposefully into the story. In making my notes I thought more about problems and symptoms and solutions and benchmarks than the drivers themselves. Wish I’d put a little more thought into them just so I could’ve played them up a bit more. It’s not really too late, I guess, as I still haven’t written the thing. But I’ve worked on this one so long that I don’t care to go back to that stage at this point.
I don’t think the stuff you put in purposefully is necessarily better than what happened naturally – often the reverse is true! But if you think your Drivers need work, they may not be hard to tweak – often it’s a matter of making sure the thing(s) the driver forces are really forced. Like making the decision(s) forced by an Action be something they would never have chosen without the Action, that sort of thing. (You could start a new thread to discuss that more.)
Believe it or not, characters can exist solely in the MC or IC domain, and have no bearing on the OS. It’s not that common, but it does happen. I only bring it up to say that, no, we don’t really miss out on anything if it happens that way.
There are frequently characters – minor characters – who pass through stories without really having a Concern of any type at all.
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You’re right about the accidental stuff sometimes being better. In fact I count on the accidents being better. It’s the only way I come up with anything good. But I’d’ve liked to have focused on them for the practice with Dramatica as well. This story is one I really wanted to get out of my system, but I also really want to practice everything in Dramatica all at once. But there’s plenty besides the drivers I overlooked on the current story form. I didn’t even bother with assigning elements to characters or anything. Just sort of let them fall where they may.
Like the red shirts, or whatever they’re called in Star Trek? Or the characters that pop up momentarily just to be killed by the monster a few minutes later or whatever?
Any example of an IC or MC player not also in the OS? Always thought the idea is that the MC and IC are supposed to be in there too.
Yeah. But I think if you watch “The Devil Wears Prada” you will see that Andy’s friends are (mostly) confined to her thread, so it’s not just throw away characters. Andy’s throughline is something like, “young and getting first job” and that defines her friends to a tee. They work to reflect her problems, but don’t have an OS function as far as I can tell.
I’m sure there is a story where the IC is an old journal, too, or a stack of letters – hard for that to be concerned about much in the OS.
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Gotcha. Makes sense. I’ve seen parts of The Devil Wears Prada but not enough to analyze from memory. I’ll suggest a rewatch to the wife. She’ll love it…and probably wonder what’s wrong with me as well. Ha.