Assume you have a story in which two characters are trapped together on a small island or share a jail cell or are trapped in a cabin during a bad snow fall or similar.
One of these characters is your MC and the other one is your IC. It seems to me that, after awhile, everything the MC does and decides has been influenced by the IC.
How do you separate the MC Throughline from the IC Throughline in that case? How do you tell which events belong in which through line?
2 Likes
A single event can âbelongâ in many throughlines, which is why belong isnât really the best word. A more accurate way to think of it is that each throughline is a different perspective â so that same event looks differently from each throughlineâs perspective.
I agree sometimes it is very hard to separate the throughlines. But your MC in the cabin would still have a personal perspective on their own issues that they started the story with (maybe âIâm a bad motherâ). While the IC would represent a different perspective that challenges the MC to rethink her perspective. And the OS is something different which involves an objective Goal, like âsurviving in this blizzardâ or whatever.
Obviously, some things may not be relevant to all perspectives. Like maybe running out of gas for the generator is really only part of the OS. But maybe it also reminds our poor MC mother of the time she ignored the carâs gas light and ran out of gas on the way to pick up her kid from soccer. So that would make it part of the MC throughline too.
MC Throughline â a perspective based on personal issues
IC Throughline â a perspective that impacts others and influences the MC to rethink their perspective
OS Throughline â an objective perspective on an inequity that involves all the objective characters
RS Throughline â a relationship perspective on relationship issues
3 Likes
I love locked room mysteries, like Banacek 
âHow did all those paintings just disappear from the trailer of a closed and guarded truck?!â
Hell is other people. That kinda thing.
That is great and clarifying. Had an âah haâ moment. Thank you.
For example. one of the 4 events is Situation, and, of course, two characters are in the same situation in a scene, but one may see it as a safe place where they are in control, and the other may see it as a house of terror.
Iâm in a room with you, and there is limited food and air.
I want to break out, but that will hasten the end of the food and air (because of energy use).
You want to chill and wait for help to arrive.
Everytime I try to crack the window with my brute force attack, I do have to confront your philosophy, because you interfere. But this just makes me think to myself, âOkay, I canât fight my way out of this. But if I can embody the builder of this place, then maybe I can deduce where the weaknesses are.â In the end, I can find a way to break out because you have influenced me to approach the problem differently. MC Change! And it leads to success (in the OS)!
Meanwhile, you strike me as passive and willing to roll over, and I start to get ticked off by you. Even though youâre affecting how I approach the problem, I resent you because youâre making me think of my childhood where my mother rolled over all the and my dad pushed her around. That is the RS falling apart.
So, the IC influences the MC. The RS travels its own course.
This is still IC.
I donât know where the actual relationship is defined in this thread. Are they friends? Brother and sister? Married?
RS should read: an objective perspective on relationship issues
Relationship perspective suggests itâs what the characters think about their relationship. In Dramatica, itâs about what the Author wants to say about the conflict inherent in the relationship.
2 Likes
This is why I love and hate the Two People GAS Thought Experiment.
I see why you are saying this is the IC. These changes, youâd put them in the Critical Flaw/Unique Ability arena maybe?
My problem with this game is always separating the RS from the OS, and I think thatâs the trap Iâm slipping into. Because their relationship is âtwo screwed dudesâ but thatâs also the OS.
Nevertheless, I see the breakdown in being able to function as a pair as RS. I can feel them pulling apart in my mental version of this story. But I could also put that breakdown into many other places.
Totally.
Itâs the same problem when anyone asks about a specific Storypoint without taking into consideration the entire storyform/model of the mind. It doesnât mean anything until you establish the entire thing at once.
2 Likes
I meant to write a relationship 's perspective (i.e. the âweâ perspective), would that have been more accurate?
I recognize that everything in Dramatica is objective, from the Authorâs point of view. Even the Focus (Symptom) is where the Author says the characters focus their attention (objective), along with being where the characters often see the problem (subjective).
But that doesnât take away from the utility of calling the MC throughline the âIâ perspective and RS throughline the âweâ perspective, does it?
That is really helpful and cleared up a confusion I had about it. Itâs called the subjective line, but the perspective is objective. Yunnerstand my confoosun. Yiminy. That just makes total sense now.
I wonder what âsubjectiveâ means in this context?
The IC perspective is from the POV of the MC, the âYouâ perspectiveâdo I have that right? The MC is looking at the IC, seeing what he does, getting all impacted and stuff.
I like to think of the relationship as an entity with itâs own personal problems. But, this entity is defined by the intersection of the MC and the IC trying to solve their problems.
3 Likes
No, I meant the IC throughline. Sorry for lack of clarity about that.
The MC is influenced by the IC. This can happen without contact between them.
My favorite example is that Clint Eastwood, Kevin Costner movieâŚA Perfect World.
Pulp Fiction has a rather interesting story structure in which many of the ICs donât contact the MCs and, over time, any IC can become the MC (and vice versa).
2 Likes
Yeah.
My favorite thing in Pulp Fiction is the illustration of presentation vs. plot. Q creates a Resurrection story by killing Vega and then bringing him back to life a few scenes later, just by shuffling the chronology, and itâs done in the presentation in storytelling, not in the plot.