Ignore the Archetypal Characters?

writing
#1

I literally stopped breathing when I read this. I thought, “Now what am I going to do?”

Wouldn’t it be fair to start with the archetype and then swap things out to make it just right for the story? A Reason character who has a Disbelief motivation and goes with Hunches sometimes instead of pure logic.

In my stories (trilogy) the MC is the enemy of the state trying to shift society around. So I don’t see her as a Protagonist in book one. I’m looking into my future storyforms and deciding if she is “ever” the Protagonist. I don’t think so, because she is just one of the players.

But if we ignore archetypes, do we ignore even Protagonist?

And isn’t the Protagonist supposed to solve the story goal at the end of the story? If so, is the MC the MC?

#2

What Jim meant there was that the Archetypes can steer you wrong because you think the most skeptical character is going to be the Skeptic, the most sidekick-y is the Sidekick, etc. Whether you use Archetypes or complex characters, the Elements have to be in relation to the Story Goal.

Protagonist is one of the few terms in Dramatica we don’t always use precisely – technically it means they have both the Pursuit and Consider elements, the Protagonist Archetype. But we often use it to mean “the character most strongly going after the Story Goal”. Which works even when Pursuit and Consider are in different players.

Protagonist is a role, and can be shared or handed off, too. (my favourite example – Neo takes on Protagonist role in The Matrix once Morpheus gets captured)

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#3

So what would a end-of-story actions look like for a MC who is not Protagonist/a Protagonist who is not the MC?

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#4

@mlucas In The Princess Bride isn’t Buttercup the MC and Westley the IC/Protagonist?

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#5

Yes, definitely.

Your end of story actions can be anything you want! The things I’d look to in the theory are:

####Leap of Faith / Moment of Truth
Not every story has this, but it can make for a compelling scene. Quoting from Dramatica definition of Change Resolve:

Often this moment of truth is made more compelling by tying it to the Overall Story (e.g. Luke trusting in the force just in time to blow up the Death Star).

MC Unique Ability

The MC has a unique ability which in a Success story is used to help bring about Success (achieve the Goal, or achieve an important Requirement toward the Goal). In a Failure story the MC’s Critical Flaw stymies the Unique Ability. So, you probably want to bring about the UA/CF toward the end of the story and show how they affect the Outcome.

Important: we are talking about the MC here, who may or may not be the Protagonist.

Signpost 4s / PSR

You may find some nice inspiration for what should happen at the end of your story by looking at each throughline’s Signpost 4 and the corresponding Plot Sequence Report items.

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#6

So funny you asked this.

I’ve been working all week on a new series of articles about Protagonist/Antagonist/Archetypal/Complex Characters. It started out as one article, and has now grown to four - I’ll post a link once I start posting it.

In short, I would always think in terms of Protagonist and Antagonist - the other guys aren’t all that important to get.

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#7

While I know everyone’s different, it seems to me that the archetype characters imply internal consistency.

In a story when someone represents this aspect faithfully it represents how individuals solve problems better than complex characters. What I mean is when I’m deciding on how to solve a problem, let’s say with my kids, my heart says one thing and my mind says another. I have to weigh those against each other. Sure, my heart may be influenced by my reasoning, and logic will always be restrained by that-which-is-kind.

But if the archetype represents the GENERAL approach it represents life better. For example Guardian. A guardian, which in Dramatica carries morality, is the heart+mind+truth character. (Conscience, evaluation, equity). But a complex emotion character might even confuse people. We look for patterns in life. It makes us feel balanced. It gives us confidence when we make a decision.

The reader, in looking at a grand story argument, can sense the tension between mind and heart, or between the guardian and mind, or between antagonist’s avoid/reconsider and the same thing the guardian does in his own way.

It seems to me that the archetypes used right, and flavoring the characteristics rather than completely changing them, makes for a stronger argument and more consistency with life.

I found this after I wrote this reply, which confirms my spinning thoughts about archetype character:

#8

If I can get my recommendations in, would you please give specific examples of how to transfer the characteristics pane or the Player Characteristics Report into scenes and conflicts.

In particular, do we start with characteristics to create the scene, or do we take the scene and tweak it with characteristics?

It seems to me that if the

MC Throughline Crisis is Protection/Inaction (Symptom-Response)
RS Issue is Need/Expediency
and characteristics of the IC is Evaluation Test; Purpose Desire,

that the SCENE that will change the MC (or prove steadfast) would be a conflict
with the IC toward the end of the story,
just before the OS crisis,
with the IC pushing desire/test ending
with the MC and inaction over the expediency of it.

Am I reading this right? Is that how it works?

But the harder question is, must each of the secondary character characteristics be in the story at some spefic place or another conflicting or complementing the other character characteristics? And is the sequential location of those scenes open or are they sequentially tied to the quadrant?

Like: Motivation characteristics-beginning of story; Purpose & Methodology-middle; Evaluation-end or something to that effect.

#9

We’ll see what his new articles say, but channeling @jhull I suspect his answer will be don’t worry about it – it’s not the most critical part of Dramatica writing process and an area where you’re better off trusting your intuition. Create the scenes based on the Signposts and PSR and put the different players in where necessary to meet the needs of the story.

However, if that’s not satisfying to you :slight_smile: Armando has a whole Section on how to do this (Section III) in Dramatica for Screenwriters. (Section III is about how to create character events; Chapter 20 includes a step-by-step process that includes putting character interactions into scenes).

The question I think we writers all have to work out with respect to Dramatica is at what point this is all overkill. It’s tempting to use every single tool and approach but there’s also a huge risk of getting lost in details the might or might not be crucial to telling your story.

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#10

Thanks for mentioning this. Just found it’s on Kindle Unlimited. Woo hoo!

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