Need help developing a quad

writing
#1

So, I was trying, as I always am, to develop another conflict tool (one can never have enough tools), and I’ve come up with 3 of 4 quad pieces and a 4th (that maybe correct because it doesn’t seem to match/fit).

But then I thought, well heck, I have this great hive mind I can ask and then I’m not stuck with my personal blindspots.

So you can have too much, too little, or the wrong thing…what would you put in the 4th spot of a quad?

An example is
Too much doing,
Not enough doing
Doing the wrong thing
Then what would go here?

Example #2
Too much work
too little work
the wrong work
??

Example #3
Too much faith
Too little faith
Faith in the wrong thing
??

Example #4
Too much rationalization
Too little rationalization
Rationalizing the wrong thing
??

What’ch’all got? Help a girl out.

So if you are wondering what potential (doesn’t feel right to me) it’s time/timing

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#2

Why wouldn’t it be “the right thing”?

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#3

That’s what I was going to say too. Think how much conflict can be caused by “faith in the right thing” for example!

#4

examples, pretty please?

#5

Just brainstorming…

I’m imagining someone in a difficult work environment – a job that involves a lot of cheating, or cutting corners – who insists nevertheless on doing the right thing, even if it costs her the job and relationships with coworkers.

For Rationalization, there’s “Arguing Extenuating Circumstances” as a gist – imagine a crime in which the lawyer posits that his client did actually kill someone. This person should not get off completely; the question is to what degree is he less culpable for his crime?

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#6

Off the top of my head, as the husband watches “Laurel Canyon” … again. Is this what you’re looking for?

An example is
Too much doing,
Not enough doing
Doing the wrong thing
Then what would go here? Giving advice

Example #2
Too much work
too little work
the wrong work
?? employment agency time or becoming a stockholder

Example #3
Too much faith
Too little faith
Faith in the wrong thing
?? Starting a museum

Example #4
Too much rationalization
Too little rationalization
Rationalizing the wrong thing
?? Looking through a shelf of books at a Public Library

Is the time/timing making it a timelimit story? Explain, please.

I’ll re-edit this when I figure out what you want.

#7

Okay, so first of all, I was taking that judgment of too much, too little, the wrong thing, the right thing to be from the Author’s point of view. Since it’s a judgment, there has to be some perspective involved.

Now to take an example from the draft I finished last year, a girl has lost her dog and everyone in her family thinks it’s gone for good (dog has been lost for weeks in wintertime) but she clings to this belief that the dog is out there and she has to keep looking. For me as the author this was definitely “faith in the right thing” (the dog was still alive) yet it caused massive amounts of conflict for the poor girl as she did all these crazy things trying to find her dog, got in trouble from her mom, ended up in a different world, etc.

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#8

What are you trying to do with the quad? Why “wrong” instead of something like “non-accurate”?

#9

Shouldn’t quads have three concepts that perfectly fit together? And one that is wonky? I think your hesitance to put:

Too much
Too little
Right
Wrong

In the same quad is because you have two halves of two quads (albeit related) squashed together?

How about:

Overabundance
Scarcity
Goldilocks (just the right amount)
Just wrong

I don’t know if I am smart enough to give a good example, but the fourth requires a shift via association. Isn’t that correct?

There is no shift in your quad. To me, it looks like a chasm. Maybe if you said:

Doing too much
Doing too little
Doing just the right amount
Doing it wrong

Am I way off base? I always kind of saw Dramatica Quads using Greimas Squares:

Too much
Too little
Not too much
Not too little

And combining the last two:

Too much
Too little
Not too much + not too little = just the right amount
Just wrong

And then adding a fourth that stretches the concept and takes it in a new direction. I think that is why your mind is rejecting what appears to be an easy answer.

I don’t know if the creators of Dramatica had a methodology for creating quads, but it would be interesting to know if they followed something similar to what I’m suggesting.

#10

It could be the 4th member of the quad, it was also my first thought, but I tabled it because I was thinking about how test is opposite of trust when in my mind betrayal is the opposite of trust. So I was just trying to consider that there might be something else that could go there.

It took me sometime to think of instances of when doing the right thing has consequences…but then that’s what typically part of what defines “right” action. Not everybody agrees as to what that is.

I was thinking in terms of inconvenient timing; the end of Murphy’s Law says “… at the most inopportune time.”
It’s kinda like the “classic/possibly overdone” scene where a love interests declares “She means nothing to me.” unaware that she just walked into the room behind him.

Tools for conflict creation. It just occurred to me that they might come in a quad.

As to why wrong…well, thinking on it, for a couple of reasons; first, non-accurate doesn’t work for me and never has. The pedantic in me insists that non-accurate isn’t a word, the word is inaccurate…but that’s really a side issue.

Wrong works better for me because I can attach it to anything in the table and I can see how to get conflict out of the concept. Plus, wrong has more latitude in definition than non-inaccurate (which my own association attaches primarily to information). Whereas, wrong can be action or information.

Yes, this expresses my angst.

#11

Yes, I see that now. Thank you.

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#12

The truth is that all three of too much, too little, and wrong could fit Non-Accurate.

#13

However, “wrong” is a judgment to the common man and reader, imho. Inaccurate keeps emotional judgment out of it, for the sake of analysis, I believe. Maybe, you want judgement as a dynamic?

#14

I supposed technically, but I find that less than useful for my purposes.

Oh well, back to my cave.

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#15

How do you use this quad to create conflict? How does adding wrong to something create conflict?

If you go with too much and too little, I’d want to use something like Presence and Absence as the rest of the quad.

And then maybe Right, Wrong, Acceptable, Non-Acceptable (:wink:). But both of those are off-the-top-of-my-head meaningless responses because I’m still not sure what exactly what you’re going for.

#16

They’re all based off of Knowledge, Thought, Ability, Desire or Mass, Energy, Space, Time. Personally, I like to think of them as Particle, Wave, Particle-Wave, and Wave-Particle. Or you could also think of them as State or Structure, Process or Dynamic, Division or Boundary, Multiplication or (for lack of better words) Field/Environment. Whatever word you use, a quad should pretty much always describe the nature of a thing, a changing force, an area where those two play off each other or that creates a separation, and an evolution or combining force.

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#17

But does he mean it? It’s fun when he’s just saying it out of frustration. Frustration might be a way to go. Frustration creates hasty clumsiness, which creates struggle and sincere clarification.

#18

Reading over this thread loosely, what I’m seeing is the mistake of making distinctions like black/white instead of “grey/rainbow”

Too much and too little are both “quantity”: I feel like they should be in the same corner of the quad.

Quantity <–> Quality
Accuracy <–> Relevancy

That is my starting point for these quads.

Are you doing too much or too little?
Are you doing a good job or a crap job? (and you can do too much of a good job… hiring a brain surgeon as a school nurse)
Are you looking in the right place?
Are you even doing the right kind of work?

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