I'm a little confused...Clarification of Throughlines please

writing
#1

I’m just getting started with educating myself on this way of tackling/thinking about story structure and I’ve gone back to try and find my answer in the online book, but I can’t seem to find one.

My question is: When you have multiple characters acting as Influence Characters, can you assign the same Throughlines to them? What about your Overall and MC throughlines can they be the same? Such as Situation?

For instance, if I have a Guardian Archetype as an Influence Character but also there is an Antagonistic Character who would be an Influence Character…and they are both acting as manipulating forces . . . who gets the Manipulation?

Basically, I have, right now, five areas I need Throughlines for: 1. Overall Story, 2. MC, 3.Influence Character (Mother), 4. Influence Character (Husband), 5. Relationship

How do you handle only four Throughlines with multiple characters? Can you assign the same Throughline to different Influence characters?

(I mean, if you have your Antagonist and Guardian characters both have Fixed Attitude? What about your side kicks, and other supporting characters? Can they share similar Throughlines?)

Thank you so much - I am understanding so much of this, and yet I got myself a little stuck.

#2

Your MC and OS Throughlines cannot have the same Domain, it would be redundant. Moreover, a Throughline is a perspective: your MC will not have/see the inequity the same way the objective characters do. He will have a personal problem of his own. These personal issues (his personal baggages challenged through the story) is what makes it the MC Throughline.

There are only four throughlines, you can’t have two IC throughlines for example. Each are unique. So if you got two IC, they will represent the same story points (the same throughline) but as a player might have different motivations. For the RS, both IC will experience the same problem with the MC: the relationships will both suffer from ways of thinking.

By the way, not all objective characters will be the MC/IC, they just might be objective characters.

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#3

Thank you so much. I’m really just getting started with these new concepts and have a lot to learn!

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#4

You’re welcome! At the beginning it isn’t so obvious, but you will get the hang of it. This Narrative First article might help you: https://narrativefirst.com/articles/identifying-the-influence-character-of-a-complete-story

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#5

In addition, your archetypes belong only in the OS throughline. Mixing them into the other throughlines will only confuse matters because they don’t play those roles in them, only in the OS. It’s why it’s best to think of the throughlines simply as POVs rather than character(s), particularly with the notion the IC doesn’t even have to be present in the story nor a character. In other realms of writing, we’re told to think of characters not as characters, but as functions in a story (thinking in terms of what they represent), which may be useful way of looking at it.

#6

Just wanted to say welcome :pray:t3:

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#7

You could have a hand-off between two impact characters, meaning one impact character expresses something thematically impacting on the main character… then becomes inactive as an IC when another IC steps in to serve that same purpose. As long as there is an IC expressing an alternative attitude or philosophy — and any replacement IC matches the same alternative — your story throughline would be satisfied.

#8

You’re not alone. Everyone’s here to help and get help.

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#9

This is really helpful. I think I was continuing to think in terms of characters as characters and not as POVs within the Storymind.

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#10

Sounds like you’ve got it! By definition, there can only be four POVs: they, I, we, you.

Okay, having declared that with such dramatic certainty, I’m wondering: is that a limitation of English? Could those POVs be inflected by case? (Subjective, Possessive, Objective?) Could those generate more throughlines?

I am getting waaaay ahead of myself here. But maybe grayer heads (at least in the ways of Dramatica) …

http://web.ku.edu/~edit/pronouns.html

http://www.phrasebase.com/archive2/all-languages/pronouns-of-all-languages.html

Also made me think of Martin Buber and “I and Thou”. However we feel about this issue personally, Thou is something some human’s feel, and there’s a reason it’s separated out from You. Also noted in those links: “It”, which isn’t the same as You. What’s the POV of a boulder?

Believe it or not, this is the subject of much philosophical debate over the last ten years or so. Google up Ian Bogost, for example.