Initial inequity of a multi-book series

theory
#1

With all of @jhull’s talk of the initial inequity of a story, it got me thinking…
For a series, would it make sense to have one initial inequity for the entire series (and the corresponding Goal that resolves the series at the end of X number of books/seasons) and one initial inequity for each book or season of that series (with each book having its own Goal that resolves)? Or does that get confusing to have two “initial” inequities in one story (say, for the first book in the series).

And this leads me to wondering if there should be one storyform for the whole series, and separate ones for each book/season, which I know @jhull has touched on in the past. How does one go about weaving in the series storyform into, say, book 1 or 2 of a series?

@decastell, have you used Dramatica in your overall series, or more for the individual books. Curious to hear from a fellow novelist how you go about using the storyform in your work. Thanks!

#2

A single storyform aligns four different perspectives on a single inequity. If you work seeks to communicate several different storyforms, then those separate storyforms will maintain their own set of perspectives on their own single inequity.

That inequity can be the same exact one - or it can be completely different. The important part is that the perspectives stay consistent for the storyform in question.

For the television series I have worked on (similar to book series), the event that created the inequity of the overarching series-wide storyform was the same as the event that created the storyform for the first season. I explain it in greater detail here - Outlining a Television Series with Dramatica - but in short, I used the Signposts for the overarching storyform to set the Concerns of the individual Seasons.

The first Signpost of the Series was Understanding. The Overall Story Concern of the first season was Understanding. This relationship exists throughout all four seasons (and hopefully will remain so!).

You don’t have to do it this way, but it was interesting using the Signposts as Concerns as it gave a distinct different feel to each Season.

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#3

Thanks @jhull . That all makes a lot of sense. I tend to end up writing “Obtaining” stories, so I’m trying to mix it up a bit.

Wondering about the MC’s resolve in the series – say the series storyform has a MC with a Resolve of Change. Would the MC potentially also be Change in each book/season? And if so, are you picking different personal issues for the MC in each instance?

Alternately, could the MC be Change in the series, but Steadfast in each book/season?

Take Luke Skywalker for example. He’s Change in Star Wars, (possibly Change in Empire?), but definitely Steadfast in Jedi (where I believe Vader is Change). But in a hypothetical storyform for the Star Wars trilogy, Luke would also be Change? Any wisdom you could offering in this department?

Thanks!

#4

I think Star Wars trilogy has one Series storyform, and obviously the first one (Episode IV: A New Hope) has its own storyform, and that may be it. I thought a long time about Empire’s narrative since it’s one of my favourite films, but I think its strength came from the fact it was serving the Series storyform, a small part of a bigger whole. (there might be a lower resolution sub-story with Han and Leia as MC and IC, not sure) And I think Jedi just concludes that overarching storyform.

So as you say, Luke is Change in the first one, then Steadfast in the trilogy (with Vader being Change IC in the trilogy) and that’s basically it. Empire and Jedi just serve the trilogy.

As far as MC Resolve in a series, you want a separate MC Throughline (so separate personal issues, and a separate Resolve, Change or Steadfast) for each separate storyform. However, a sequel’s MC throughline issues could be based on evolution of previous resolved issues. For Luke it was like, first he had “wannabe Jedi” issues, and he worked through those and learned to trust in and use the Force. Great! But then he found that being a Jedi was harder than he thought, he had to worry about training and taking the safe path vs. confronting Vader, and the danger of the dark side.

#5

This seems like a common confusion about the Dramatica terms. The MC traits–Resolve, Growth, Approach, Problem-solving Style–aren’t inherent to the character, just to the character’s role within the story. Just like how you stay Steadfast sometimes and Change other times, Main Characters have different Resolves depending on the given problem. I’d argue they even have different favored Approaches and Problem-Solving Styles for each story environment. Haven’t you ever met, say, a doctor who can fit together the smallest clues to make a diagnosis, but who gets flummoxed by basic instructions about their computer? “What do you mean, ‘Plug it in?’ If the monitor’s not working, I need an IT guy down here right now!”

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#6

It’s actually a deeper question than it might first appear. When you’re given a book contract in genre fiction it’s generally for a series of books; in my case either four (Greatcoats) or six (Spellslinger). As part of that process you’re asked to sketch out what each book in the series will look like: what the major characters and story events will be, what the series-long arcs are . . . etc. So all of that aligns with the idea of planning it out using a series storyform as Jim has designed.

Once it’s time to work on that book, however, pretty much everything has to go out the window except one question: how do I make this the best book I’ve ever written? It sounds grandiose, but approaching it with anything less and you risk writing a novel that only exists to service the novels on either side of it, allowing “big picture” concerns to get in the way of finding the most dramatic story to tell in the best way possible. I often use the phrase “leave it all out on the field”, in this case meaning, don’t save anything for book 2 or 3 or 4 – give it all to this book and then face the problems you’ve created for the next book when it’s time to write it. That can be exceedingly stressful when you get to that book, but that’s the price you pay for being a novelist.

Note here that I’m not talking about the phenomenon we sometimes see in blockbuster movies where they’ll feel like they have to throw every possible explosion and fight scene into the movie. I mean in terms of drama – of the stuff David Mamet talks about when he starts swearing at people via inter-office memoranda.

So where Dramatica fits into the equation for me is actually to go back to the previous books in the series, try to identify the storyform of the book I wrote (as opposed to the one I planned to write) and then see if I can make the storyform for the next book look sufficiently different that I don’t risk writing the same story twice. So if the OS concern in book 1 was obtaining, I try to see if I can aim for an OS concern of either Gathering Information, Doing, or Understanding in the next one. That can be tricky, because once you have the genre, characters, world, and relationships all defined in a series, that tends to create a drive towards a sameness in the approach, and there’s a risk that changing it all around will make it “feel” off for the reader.

So, long story short, I try to follow Jim’s process up to a point, then force myself to do whatever is needed to make the book feel like it could be the best one I’ve written, and then as I’m doing the final draft, look back over the series plan and ask if there are things I should change or address to set up the next book without compromising this one.

Not sure how helpful that is, but that’s how I approach it.

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#7

Very helpful @decastell, thanks!

I’m finishing up a middle grade fantasy trilogy (Rebel Genius) and trying to apply Dramatica after the fact (having come to it after already completing two of the books). It’s helped me a lot with figuring out the last book, but I’m more looking ahead now to whatever I do next and how best to apply Dramatic during the development process. [quote=“decastell, post:6, topic:1168”]
I often use the phrase “leave it all out on the field”, in this case meaning, don’t save anything for book 2 or 3 or 4 – give it all to this book and then face the problems you’ve created for the next book when it’s time to write it. That can be exceedingly stressful when you get to that book, but that’s the price you pay for being a novelist.
[/quote]

Totally agree! I definitely learned this with my second book. [quote=“decastell, post:6, topic:1168”]
So if the OS concern in book 1 was obtaining, I try to see if I can aim for an OS concern of either Gathering Information, Doing, or Understanding in the next one. That can be tricky, because once you have the genre, characters, world, and relationships all defined in a series, that tends to create a drive towards a sameness in the approach, and there’s a risk that changing it all around will make it “feel” off for the reader.
[/quote]

This is my goal with whatever I do next – I gravitate toward action/Activity stories, but I’d like to vary the Concerns for sure.

I’m curious to know – does your MC “Change” with each book or is he/she sometimes Steadfast depending on the context/story of that specific book. And do you end up having different ICs for each book or one for the whole series that carries through?
I look forward to checking out your novels. Thanks.

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#8

A good question, but one that opens a big can of worms because of the differences between novels and screenplays. Most typical debut novel hovers around 100K words. That puts it at somewhere around 5 times the length of most screenplays. That doesn’t mean it has 5 times more story, but there definitely is more story there. You can see this from all the things that have to be dropped when a novel is adapted to a movie. This is where things get complicated.

Dramatica can actually delve into much more minute detail than most screenplays go into as evidenced from things like the plot sequence report when it breaks a signpost down into four variations. So a novel could have a single storyform but then explore each throughline in more depth than a screenplay would have time to do. In that case you’ve got a single MC throughline which means you’re deciding on change or steadfast.

A novel could also, however, have more than one storyform, and in that case you may have two different MC’s or it’s even possible to have the same MC in two separate storyforms. In that situation, you might have the MC be change in one and steadfast in the other (assuming, of course, that the inequity described is different in each storyform and that the nature of the MC’s approach is different in each one.)

None of that’s probably all that helpful and frankly I’m not at all an expert in how this all works. What I have noticed is that in a 100K novel, the distinction between changed and steadfast feels much more nuanced to me. An audience member watching a movie can, I think, much more easily discern whether the MC has changed or remained steadfast. Ask someone who’s just read a novel and they may struggle more – not because novels are intentionally ambiguous, but because the way we expose change in a character often has so much more context that it doesn’t feel so binary. You know something has happened to the character, but to say whether they’re truly changed or truly steadfast requires a lot more explanation.

That said, I think a Dramatica-savvy reader would say that in the first 3 Greatcoats books, Falcio (the MC) is steadfast, and that in the final book he’s changed. I’ve noticed with my second series, Spellslinger, that Kellen (the MC) is changed in both the first two books and likely the third as well. There seems to be some consistency there: that we’re either with a character who is changing their approach in each book because it’s being forced to change that makes them interesting (think Game of Thrones characters), or we’re with a character who’s steadfast in each book because that very “steadfastness” is what makes us follow them. Think Jack Reacher – steadfast as can be.

Hope some of that helps.

#9

All super helpful. I think a lot of what I’m learning is how best to apply Dramatica to the novel world. [quote=“decastell, post:8, topic:1168”]
A novel could also, however, have more than one storyform, and in that case you may have two different MC’s or it’s even possible to have the same MC in two separate storyforms. In that situation, you might have the MC be change in one and steadfast in the other (assuming, of course, that the inequity described is different in each storyform and that the nature of the MC’s approach is different in each one.)
[/quote]

This is what I’ve been struggling with for sure, especially when you are able to get into the heads of more than one character. Are they each the MC of a different storyform? I’ve found myself wondering. To make things more manageable, I’ve focused on one MC who has different ICs for each book. I think what I’ve ended up with are story forms for book 1 & 2 and a series storyform that is really book 3, with some stuff sprinkled throughout the first two books.

#10

They are!

One exercise which I’ve found useful is to reframe your story with each major character as the MC - in other words. What are they doing? What are their issues and goals? Who’s stopping them from reaching those goals? Very helpful for multi-faction stories (like I like to write).

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