I’m posting this here both to confirm whether I managed to spawn a correct idea, and to allow for other future writers new to Dramatica to see what I got right or wrong.
Jim posted an interesting answer to a basic question in the thread “A Double Rainbow of Understading”. Here’s a link: A Double Rainbow of Understanding
For the most part, I understood intellectually that Dramatica means to approach a story’s problems from the writer’s point of view, while at the highest level, effectively ignoring what the characters think the source of the problem is. After reading that answer, I think something finally clicked. It doesn’t matter so much what the character’s would tell you if you asked, but what someone distant from the story would say. In many cases, this is referred to as the Author’s POV.
Whether this is right or not, and I really hope it is, directing my view in this way helped me finally get a grasp on the OS, and helped me rewrite the beginning for my novel into something FAR better than I ever thought possible. Loads of subtext that I wanted to include for both this one book and the series.
A small sample of the outline from before and after this view. For some context, my story form has The Present as the Story Goal with the OS Signpost #1 of The Past.
Before
From their desire to revive the ancient traditions, the two separated worlds make contact. Unfortunately, those who actually want to bring about the methods from history are a small group, and most others believe things should remain as they are. Thus, the claim that a certain myth is an actual happening is ignored in entirety.
After
Of the sages, there is one strictly and single-mindedly working to bring about the balance sought by all, but this particular spiritual sage is willing to use the ancient magic to contact the humans. Others claim such movement as folly, reciting an older philosophy that believes humans have rejected the spirits, or else would have maintained their company. Moreover, from what the caretakers gather, humans view spirits as nothing more than myth, now, and have lost any sense of a past with them.