Inside the Clockwork: Quote of the Day

theory
#1

As my mind boggles at these, I’ll post some.

This is from the chapter on the Z-pattern.

“So, my feeling would be that when working the with Signposts in the Theme Browser you should ignore all other story points and just focus on the Signposts themselves*. When working on the other story points in the Theme Browser, ignore the Signposts.** And to get a feel for the way Types and Variations come into conjunction as the story unfolds, use the Plot Sequence Report and keep the Theme Browser far from your mind.***”

My notes

    • Sequences are temporal and concerned with location of points next to each other as process happens
  • ** Structure is the endpoint of the story, at the end of the story after it’s told
  • *** PSR shows the model ‘wound up’ by the story points, what elements are next to which variations in the wound up state at THAT POINT in the unwinding.

https://www.amazon.com/Dramatica-Clockwork-Melanie-Anne-Phillips-ebook/dp/B00CP5O24S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1525115777&sr=8-1&keywords=Dramatica+inside+the+clockwork&dpID=51TgVJarkRL&preST=SY445_QL70&dpSrc=srch

if you’re on the Kindle Unlimited program like I am, the ebook is free.

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#2

My understanding of this, right now, is that it’s best to think of the Dramatica app as a set of tools, but the point isn’t to somehow ‘make all the tools cohere’ at the time you are story forming. The tools are separate. You use each one differently and each one makes different things. You use one tool, put it down, pick up another tool . Don’t let the fact that the tools sit next to each other in one software application fool you. If you try to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of the tools, you will fail.

The tools are there to give you visibility into a complex dynamic process at different points in its process. Each tool gives you visibility at a different point in the temporal and spatial existence of the dynamic model. That. Model. Is. In. Motion. and you HAVE to get that.

Instead, use the tools to produce ‘parts’. Use the structure to make some parts. Use the signposts to make some parts. use the psr to make some parts.

and you put those parts together in the story weaving. THAT’s the point where you take the work-products and make them ‘sing’ in your story.

I think. That’s where I am now.

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#3

I tried to come up with a visualization for this. At least it gives the flavor.

2018-04-30 at 4.08 PM.png776×579 207 KB

This is supposed to represent ‘where you are’ in the model when using one of the tools.

Pink signposts - these show that they actually exist along an unfolding dynamic spiral model and have different weight as story progresses

Story points - seed the model and wind it up

Type and PSR - glimpses into the model in motion --at a certain point THIS type and THESE variations line up, although they are not related vertically by quad, they are collocated and in opposition

Structure - the story at rest AFTER it has been told and the model is no longer dynamic.

@jhull

#4

What this does for me visually is make it clear that it makes no sense to try to reconcile the views of the model as articulated in the tool. They’re views of different things. They’re not useful when glommed together because that’s incoherent information.

#5

enhanced version

2018-04-30 at 4.33 PM.jpg999×738 128 KB

1 when you seed your model, a process and filtering happens and that produces your structural model after the story is over. That’s what you see in the Story Engine and in the Theme Browser.
2. the PSR takes ‘snapshots’ of the process along the way and gives you collocations of types and variations as they occur at different stages in the process. The process is the model of the story mind actually DOING it’s analysis and perceiving and appreciating. It’s the model of the process of the story mind that your story is another articulation of. in a funny sense after you press the button, it’s already in the past ;-/
3. The signposts show you the snapshots of the Types as they move through time and both blend and cause/effect each other through time in the story.

NOTE the story engine tool is funny because it does 3 things
1 give you the place to enter the seed value story points
2 executes the story mind dynamic process (instantly)
3 shows you the story state at the end

and story engine is confusing because it gloms all of it onto one page and doesn’t express that different groups of the screen values occur at different ends of a dynamic process, PLUS there’s an invisible process :slight_smile:

#6

One more improvement showing the provenance of the PSR comparison

2018-04-30 at 5.09 PM.jpg987×798 149 KB

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#7

Are you kidding me with this?!?!

I would love it if Melanie or @chuntley would comment on this.

what an explosion of story goodness today.

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#8

the matrix is descriptive but misleading–Melanie comes right out and says HEY THIS ONLY HALF OF THE THE STORY MIND but it’s really hard to understand that without a representation of the other half. Thanks for the confirmation I’m on the right track, but it’s all her’s and Chris’s work. It’s just my job to explain things to people, so I’ve had a lot of practice. I also got it ALL WRONG when I started out, so this is like the umpteenth try.

#9

You know in a strange way looking at that, I feel like I’m actually seeing Dramatica for the first time. It’s moving and alive. it feels like a stranger and completely familiar.

Hello, sweetie. There you are.

I’m thinking about how to expand this ‘pure’ diagram to a pedagogical one, that says, use this tool to make this. do this in this order. that kind of thing.

#10

Personally, I think the illustration is upside down and missing a hidden aspect of the process.

image.png776×579 204 KB

The illustration works for what we see, where everything seems separate and split apart, but over time everything ties together to a resolution. The part that is not illustrated are the TWO wind-ups that happen PRIOR to the beginning of the story. These are the result of the storyforming choices, which creates the diverse setup at the top of the image.

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#11

SCool, thanks Chris. I’ll modify this. Can you give me some more detail on the two windups? Are you referring to Character Dynamics and Plot Dynamics?

Thus the name “dynamics”?

Something else that occurred to me is…shouldn’t there really be four spirals, in some way, representing the four towers? Correct me if I’m wrong, but the four towers don’t impact each other, except in the Observer appreciations, once the model is wound up?

that might be a little too literal, or might just be wrong.

Another question – how do the static story points fit into the notion of ‘the wind up?’ For that matter, how do the throughline story points fit into the windup?

I think I just realize your point – that MC dynamics and story dynamics are alorithmic seed values that do not appear in the matrix – they are not classes, types, variations or elements. Everything else on the story engine page is.

So perhaps the two wind ups are: one, adding the dynamic seeds, both story and MC, and two, selecting the types and variations for the through lines.

@hull

#12

I have to chill on theory for a bit, it’s yanking my head out of book. I feel like I achieved the understanding of the dynamic nature of this thing, the part that was escaping me before.

There’s an old saying with economists, anyone who doesn’t want to understand theory is just declaring himself to be the subject of an older theory.

#13

@jhull I think I have it.

My version of the illustration is attempting to show the funneling down from a class to the 64 element matrix, and to show which tools match up with which state of the story mind process. The spread out bottom gives the effect of the spread out matrix. So my illustratiion is by necessity hybrid.

Posit: there is the functioning of the software

  1. you define some story points.
  2. those are fed to algorithms and matched with data defining arrangements of predefined elements, variations etc.
  3. Several important items are generated:
  4. a temporal progression
  5. a ‘processing’ PSR report
  6. a static structure indicating story end point

2018-05-01 at 1.47 AM.png1017×721 49.2 KB

so my illustration about is best thought of as a hybrid view of the working of the software and a gesture at the presence of the dynamic story mind, so we can show process and which software tools to use on which parts.

but when I thought about Chris’s point this is a highly artificial and paideutic construction. It’s useful for teaching about the tools and giving a flavor of the dynamic, but the MATRIX ITSELF has to be understood correctly as the impression left on the audience mind after it has experienced the whole story. THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE which is why it’s presented as a flat set in equlibrium and at rest, it has ‘settled’ into the mind of the audience.

The Matrix elements, character interactions, in truth are sent through the Story Mind, compared and appreciated, temporally, so that big 3d matrix we see in the books buries the temporal nature of those elements, or to put it another way, requires the Observer to move through them when presented in that fashion.

Chris’s model above is closer, I get what he’s saying, the hero’s choices are constricted and the elements that appear in the matrix in fact also flow down that spiral in time as character interaction illustrations and also have collocation forces working on them.

If I understand this correctly.

Let me think about that. Hmm.

  • I missed adding the character quads as a product of the algorithmic run, I’ll have to fix that.

and the matrix is 3d although perhaps having a 4th ‘positional/temporal/ordinal/’ dimension in the arrays of the software program