Basically, I think a lot of people have trouble with seeing the “more interesting” conflicts in a story as the Domain and Concern level, when they really exist at the Issue quad and Problem quad levels.
So you might have a superhero movie where there are all these really great, meaningful arguments about superheroes’ responsibilities for the efforts they undertake, and whether they should be controlled, and whose side of that you’re on and why (Civil War). Without spoilers, Black Panther has similar stuff about Wakanda and the world. To me, all these conflicts fit perfectly with things like Attitude vs. Approach, Self Interest vs. Morality; and maybe Oppose/Support, Control/Uncontrolled, Help/Hinder…
But if you’re not careful, conflicts over Self Interest (my way or the highway), Control, Oppose, etc. can often look like conflicts over fixed attitudes (Mind).
How do you advise people look at the different “zoom levels” and figure out which conflicts in the story belong where?
I’ll give my answer, but still hoping experts like Jim will chime in.
Honestly for me what helps is to remember that Domains and Concerns are the real high level, almost simple stuff. Genres. The really cool stuff that might come up in an English lit class is usually at a lower level in Dramatica. (With some exceptions of course – something like Preconscious in Zootopia is different and deals with modern issues, so gets well-deserved attention. Or a different treatment, like how The Past & Memories are used in such a neat way Arrival.)
Also you can usually see the lower level conflicts (Issue & Problem) as existing within the higher level (Domain & Concern). Like why does it matter whose side of Civil War’s superhero-control debate you’re on when the superheroes’ activities aren’t causing any trouble? It doesn’t. It only matters within the scope of those activities.
Such a great visual representation. As you move down in the model, that’s where you get greater and greater “variation” in the kinds of narrative structures.
Domains are simple because there are only 4 of them - only so many different ways to set them up. Whereas, once you get down to the Variation and Element level, you’re opening up a whole wealth of narrative possibilities.
I think for me, the biggest problem wasn’t necessarily ZOOM (though I had that one too), but FOCUS. When I would just look for Problems, everything in the scene would blend together and the storyform I’d look at wouldn’t look anything like any of the analyses of others. ‘Everyone disagrees on whether to sign the accords and fights about it is the problem. Must be stubborn mindsets.’ Or ‘Miguel’s great great grandfather left the family causing them to hate music. Must be a problem of the Past.’
Now I’ve gotten to where I don’t look for Problems, but the source of the problem and what makes it problematic. ‘Everyone disagrees on signing the accords and fights about it is how something is problematic. Being forced to sign the accords is the source of all that conflict.’ Or ‘Miguel is presently not allowed to play music, which is how something is a problem. But his family’s present hatred of music is the source of that conflict.’
For me it’s mostly felt. But recently been meaning to ask. The whole KTAD arrangement has been helpful. But movies with OS: Universe are still a bit hard for me.
Common things like being Stuck somewhere. Having a disease and so on are easy to understand but having to ask from a KTAD perspective,how is Universe tied to knowledge per se? Or does the KTAD work better down the throughline ?
I appreciate this insight, as it strongly correlates with the problem I have with Dramatica as an analytical framework: the deeper, most vital conflicts either appear at the “issue” or “problem” level, or they don’t appear at all.
“Choosing a side” is at the core of almost every moment within Captain America: Civil War. But when you run the story through Dramatica you end up with a super-hero punch-up with very little nuance.
Similarly, I’ve read through Jim’s analyses of Raiders of the Lost Arc, and while I don’t want to waste anyone’s time getting into a dust-up over whether or not the storyforms are correct (or whether you actually need two storyforms at all), I will simply say that you end up with a storyform in which Marion is non-existent and the relationship which I think most audience members would say is “the heart of the story” is absent.
So what I can never see is how that analysis serves a writer trying to create a new screenplay or novel. It doesn’t help me see or describe or think about the essential emotional and dramatic magic inside that film.
But you started the title of this post with the word “Objectivity”, and while I think this has kind of been beaten to death, for the sake of posterity I’ll put my two cents in once again: an objective phenomenon isn’t one in which ten people debate until they eventually agree what it was they observed. An objective phenomenon is one that can be independently measured. When people speak of a “scientific consensus” they aren’t simply talking about a group of people debating and then coming to agreement. They’re talking about people repeating the same experiments, figuring out if they get the same or different measurements, and then debating what those now-consistent measurements mean.
What’s absent in these discussions about Dramatica analyses is testing the instrument. Every device or conceptual tool we use to measure something has a level of precision. Think of those rulers you used to get in school. They’d have inches and then half-inch marks and quarter-inch marks…etc. Give everybody in class the same ruler and ask them to measure the same rock and they’d probably all say it’s “a little over 4 inches” ask them to be more precise and probably the majority would get to “A little less than 4 and a quarter inches”. Once you get down to a sixteenth of an inch, you’ll get tons of variability because the ruler’s just not that good an instrument when getting down to that scale. My problem with Dramatica analyses is that if you look at any given discussion thread, mostly everyone’s starting out unsure whether the rock is 2 inches wide or 9 inches wide. Then Jim or Chris come in and inform everyone the rock is actually 5 inches wide and so the debate shifts down to the concerns (or half-inch marks.) That’s not an objective measurement of anything – it’s an authority figure informing you of the new parameters of your discussion.
I don’t claim that my measurement is any better. In fact, I’m fine with the idea that it’s vastly worse. What I’m not okay with is saying that the process is objective when, in fact, there’s no evidence whatsoever of ten trained users independently using the same tool and arriving at the same result. So when I say I don’t buy that there’s an objective storyform, it’s because the storyforms are never arrived at by parallel independent analysis. They’re arrived at by getting into a debate and then people backing down until the end result reflects the interpretation of those with the greatest authority.
I’d love to be proven wrong about this, by the way!*
*And no, telling me Jim or Chris sometimes revise their analyses isn’t proving that essential point wrong. The issue is whether people can independently arrive at the same storyform down to any reasonable level.
Is it backing down? Or is it a reflection of greater understanding?
I never consider changing an analysis backing down. I see it as gaining the ability to remove myself from my own misconceptions.
No one said the process is objective—the storyform is an objective look at the narrative structure. You tend to describe conflict from within the story—from the character’s point-of-view. I would submit this as a strength and reflection of your natural talent as a writer.
Nevertheless—its a subjective, from within the story, viewpoint of conflict–not outside or removed from the conflict. That’s what we mean by the difference between an objective and subjective view of story.
Dramatica is a model of a single human mind trying to solve a problem. The problem—or inequity—is chiefly framed by two opposing points of view in how best to approach a problem. These are reflected in the Main Character and Influence Character Throughlines.
Please tell me how Marion’s point-of-view on how to solve problems consistently challenges Indiana’s point-of-view. Beyond eye candy and maybe the scene where she is pointing out his scars, she’s useless—in terms of arguing the best way to resolve an inequity.
I fully appreciate this, and had similar concerns initially. (I have a science background – Physics undergrad – so I understand the importance of independent results.)
I’ve sort of proven it to myself with several independent tests (coming up with same storyform as experts/DUG/Jim for several different stories with no prior knowledge). But I agree it would be very worthwhile to do these experiments as more rigorous, not just n=1 (i.e. just me), and publish them.
The tricky thing is you need highly qualified, trained people. You can’t just ask people off the street to duplicate the results of say, measuring the speed of light in a lab. So you’d need an experiment where maybe independent groups of Dramatica Story Experts are involved, with no prior knowledge of each others’ opinions. And you’d need to allow them to state a confidence for each analysis, since even experts should be allowed to say “I’m not so sure on this part”.
I think you are missing the dramatic awesomeness of stuff like Self Interest vs. Morality, and the crossover of a Problem of Control between throughlines. I mean, that stuff is totally what the “choosing a side” in that film is about, and it comes across so well because it’s not just storytelling – the structure backs it up. Isn’t that cool?
It puts Civil War into similar territory as Wrath of Khan, and doesn’t everyone remember Spock’s dying words with his hand on the glass?
I think this is where the big challenge is. (I’m speaking generally here, not directing this at @decastell. I might be wrong, but it’s certainly where the challenge was, and usually still is, for me). Choosing a side isn’t at the core of the movie, it’s at the surface. It’s a reaction to the source of the problem of heroes being destructive. Heroes being destructive is a problem because it creates conflict between regular people and heroes in the form of the accords and between heroes and heroes in the form of choosing sides. Taking the problem I saw at the core of a movie and changing my perspective so I look at it as being at the surface usually helps me get to the same place as others who are more advanced. Another example of this might be in the Coco thread. There people were seeing the past and the memories as the core of the problem, but those things are at the surface. The Present and Contemplations are what’s actually at the core. focusing on the past and memories were following as more of a reaction to the core.
This right here points to the most important aspect of our disagreement: if the process is subjective (defined as “based on our influenced by personal feelings, tastes or opinions”) then it cannot arrive at a single, objective result.
So you can either say it’s a subjective process and therefore produces a subjective result – which means that there’s more than one possible outcome – or that it’s an objective process which then is subject to empirical testing.
You’re presuming that I’m saying Marion has to be the IC. I’m not – I’m saying she’s integral to key aspects of what makes Raiders of the Lost Arc a memorable story and that if she’s not represented in the model, then something important to me as a writer (and an audience member) is lost.
Here are some of the reasons why I think she’s vital to the story:
She shows the dark, callous side of Indy’s character. When she tells us “I was a child! I was in love! It was wrong and you knew it!” she’s talking about the fact that he entered into a sexual relationship with her when she was 15 and he was 25 (the specific ages are left out of the movie but the age difference is strongly implied. The ages are specifically mentioned in the novelization of the film.) Indy’s response, “You knew what you were doing” shows his attempt to appear truly callous, but which we see is something of an act of self-deception later on.
She forces him to change his plans by demanding to be his partner “until I get the money for my bar” that was burned down by the Nazis.
When Indy thinks she’s dead, the movie makes a big deal of showing that he’s broken emotionally.
When he finds she’s alive, we see how much she means to him, but we also see that intrinsic “Indy-ness” when he leaves her there so as not to reveal his presence.
When he has the rocket launcher aimed at the arc, he says, “all I want is the girl.” He’s willing to let the Nazis get the arc if it’ll save Marion. This is a pretty big risk to take for her, and happens just minutes before the end of the movie.
Again, let me repeat: I’m not disputing your Dramatica analysis because doing so sends us down the rabbit hole of terminology and debate. I’m only saying that if you’re right, then a big part of what makes that story meaningful disappears. Instead things that to an audience feel largely insignificant get elevated as the most vital.
I agree. Determining objective validity takes real work, but that’s the cost of wanting to assert that there’s a single, objectively observable storyform for a movie or book.
I’ve watched the film four times. I still don’t see “Self Interest vs. Morality” except in the way that one can easily stretch a term like “self interest” to mean almost anything. My self interest is in stealing things I want. My self interest is in feeling like I’m a good person. My self interest is in never feeling like I make others do something they don’t want to do. My self interest is in making people think I’m the kind of person who never makes others do what they don’t want to do.
So is Civil War about “Self Interest vs. Morality”? Maybe, but I don’t see how it’s that anymore than a half dozen other dynamic pairs within Dramatica. Of course, it doesn’t matter if I see it that way – it matters if trained but independent observers using the model come up with the same answer.
You can say that if you want, but my only response is that I don’t really care about “heroes being destructive” – which produces only the most shallow emotional and dramatic response in an audience. What produces the deeper response is being forced by the film to ask yourself the question over and over again: which side would I choose? Iron Man or Cap’s? Tony’s answer technically keeps us safer but at the cost of putting heroes under the government’s thumb. Steve’s answer means heroes don’t have to wait for permission to save a life, but could result in more collateral damage. What should we as a society value more: security or freedom?
Superheroes can be destructive is a premise. It’s fine. It could as easily be a hundred other things. But having to choose between two different kinds of superheroism? That’s what certainly feels like is at the core of Civil War. If you look at superhero movies and say, “Well, they’re all just punch-up action films so they’re in physics and the punching is at the core” then you’ll come to the conclusion that superheroes being destructive is the central conflict. But I think the movie presents a single mind trying to resolve a much more nuanced and interesting problem.
Greg, I see it the same way as Sebastien – the more nuanced and interesting conflicts (Issue and Problem level) are more the “core” while the Domain is the “surface”. The core is deeper because it’s contained within the outer shell. (However, if it works better for you to think of it the other way, definitely feel free – this is all just analogies.)
Sebastien, if you take the more accessible definition of Self Interest that Jim keeps reminding us of – doing things my way over yours – does that help you see how much it applies to Civil War? Remember Self Interest and Morality as dynamic pairs are actually really close and not mutually exclusive, so in stories like Civil War and The Last Jedi you see over and over again people trying to push their own way of doing what’s best for others.
I mean, you totally nailed all those elements in your own words. I’ll just tag it for you:
which side would I choose? Iron Man or Cap’s? Tony’s “my way or the highway” answer technically keeps us safer (best for others) but at the cost of putting heroes under the government’s controlling thumb. Steve’s my way or the highway answer means heroes don’t have to wait for controlling permission to save others’ lives, but could result in more uncontrolled collateral damage. What should we as a society value more: controlled security or freedom?
That’s what’s great about Civil War – it doesn’t pit Self Interest against Morality, it pits Self Interest about Morality against Self Interest about Morality, with plenty of Attitude and Approach thrown in, along with the exact right flavours of Control.
by Objective I mean a point of view of conflict removed from the character’s subjective concerns
by Subjective I mean a point of view of conflict from within the character’s subjective viewpoint
The two have absolutely nothing to do with the process or experience of doing an analysis. It’s where the analysis is positioned.
I assumed by your assertion that Marion is “the heart of the story” that you were thinking of her as part of the Relationship Story Throughline and therefore Influence Character.
Dramatica is not about what makes a story “memorable”. The level to which a film or story is memorable is a completely subjective opinion and lies within the category of STORYTELLING not STORYFORMING.
As a writer, you’re absolutely right in searching for situations and circumstances that are “memorable” or “exciting” or “magical”.
Dramatica does not care about these things at all.
Not one of your examples give evidence of a conflicting point-of-view that goes up against Indy’s way of doing things. Brody, Sallah, and the Ark do - don’t do anything is their message – and eventually it gets through to him.
This is your OPINION.
Dramatica is not at all interested in your opinion. It’s interested in the ingredients that create a narrative. The level to which you mix and match those ingredients determine the “memorability” or “specialness” or “meaningfulness” that you describe.
By saying Marion is important because you FEEL she is vital or meaningfully important is tantamount to creating your own narrative theory. You haven’t established any givens, you haven’t given a basis for what it means to be “vital” - you’re going strictly on instinct and opinion. You’re totally open to do that - but it’s not Dramatica.
Dramatica has one given — that a complete story is an analogy to a single human mind trying to solve a problem. Its value is in describing that process and creating a basis for understanding how and why a narrative works–based on that one and important given.
If you don’t accept that given, or have your own givens, then you are creating your own theory, and will likely never see the difference between conflict from the character’s point of view and conflict from the story or Author’s point of view.
I don’t have a problem with your way of describing Civil War. I’m just not sure that a half-dozen other interpretations of Dramatica pairs wouldn’t also sound equally like variations on “my way versus your way”.
I have no issue with your definitions of Objective and Subjective as it relates to a perspective within Dramatica. My disagreement is over the question of whether there’s a single definitive storyform at the exclusion of all others that can be identified by independent observers.
It’s pretty simple: if there’s a single “correct” storyform then there has to be a way for people trained in Dramatica to independently identify it.
You’ve often used the phrase “heart of the story” as a way to identify the RS. Inevitably, the “heart” of anything involves locating what “feels” like the emotional centre. I’m not saying Indy + Marion is the RS of the story because that would involve debating the issue at length. I’m only pointing out that if one watches the movie and is asked, “what relationship was at the heart of the story” you’re going to get most people answering “Indy and Marion”.
Okay, but making stories memorable is pretty much my entire job. A coherent story that produces no emotional reaction is irrelevant to most works of fiction.
I also kind of disagree that Dramatica isn’t about what makes a story memorable. I think exploring all aspects of a central conflict deeply does help make a story memorable. Otherwise I’d never use Dramatica at all. What I like about it is that it provides a kind of glue that holds individual scenes together – giving them a sense of weight and importance.
It seemed to me as if Brody and Sallah represent the Emotion character archetypes, pushing Indy to feel his way to the right answer. This doesn’t mean they can’t be the IC, but I just want to point out that they can have a strong influence on him even without being the IC. In Star Wars: A New Hope, Han Solo pushes Luke to ignore all the “force” nonsense, but he’s not the IC. Every character pushes the main character in one way or another (or else they end up feeling kind of irrelevant). I certainly agree that the person who pushes Luke the most is Obi Wan, but it’s not always so clearly one character who has the most influence.
No, what I’m saying is that if the majority of the audience feels Marion is vital to the story then it doesn’t matter one bit what the author intended. More importantly, my main point is that if the analysis fails to capture the elements that the majority of the audience finds meaningful then the analysis fails to have significant utility to a writer.
So just to clarify and maybe put a button on this, these are the two places I think we disagree:
Whether or not there exists a single storyform that can encapsulate a movie or novel at the exclusion of all others and that can be identified by independent observers.
The degree to which there’s a usefulness for writers in an analysis of a movie or novel that fails to encapsulate those things that produce an emotional reaction in the audience.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that if you look only at the underlying structural conflicts you and I have regarding Dramatica, you’d think we’d never get anywhere on the subject of stories as we’ve never been able to really change the other’s approach. And yet, every one of our phone conversations has been productive and positive (for me, anyway!)
In all honesty, I used to feel the same way @decastell feels. In some ways, I still do. But what I’ve come to appreciate is that there are varying degrees of experience with the theory. I’m much more experienced now but my knowledge isn’t absolute. It’s all a process for us all. Jim included. He’s near saturation point though. So I’ll need to work more to get to his level. That said, some stories resonate more with certain people. For example, Jim’s story about one of his students at CalArts showing him he was wrong in a certain analysis, despite ALL that experience he’s gathered. I see analysis like bull riding. You can’t treat each animal as the same. Each has a different temperament, constitution and so on, BUT there is a certain mindset you need to bring to the table when you embark on a ride / Analysis. It’s alien and uncomfortable at first but the more you ready yourself, the more you settle into that Zen-like state, and thus see how to approach things as is needed. Just my experience so far…
A Dramatica Storyform doesn’t address what you care about. It addresses the source of inequity.
A storyform produces the most dramatic path to solve a problem. Storytelling is what makes the audience cry or cheer. What creates a deeper emotional response in you? A beautiful specimen of your favorite animal with flesh and fur, or a display of that animals skeleton? Dramatica leaves the flesh and fur to storytelling.
Value judgments are found at the Variance/Theme level. If this is the theme of CA:CW, it comes under the genre umbrella of heroes being destructive. If this isn’t the theme, then we the audience ask ourselves this because of the storytelling brought up by the characters. Structurally, if the theme is Self Interest vs Morality, the question is ‘do we solve this problem the way we like, or should we forego that and do what they like?’
Dramatica doesn’t do this. That’s why The Incredibles isn’t an OS Physics story despite having heroes punching and being destructive. In CA:CW, punching is at the core (of the OS Domain Problem, not the entire movie) because it creates conflict through the accords and choosing sides. In the Incredibles, punching causes conflict mostly between Bob and his wife. There’s some punching that causes conflict outside of that, but it’s to set up the OS story suppressing the superheroes, making sure their secret identity is their only identity. That is not a Physics domain.
Storyform can be told as nuanced or black and white. That’s storytelling.
I’ll clarify. Heroes being destructive is at the core of the OS Domain problem, not the movie as a whole. Just as Obtaining things might be at the core of the plot level problem. Guess I’m still pushing for focus over zoom. If I’m going to discuss zoom, I’d say that heroes being destructive is the filter that shades the entire OS story. Obtaining is the filter placed under that, and so on.
I’m not sure what the word “dramatic” means to you, but I’ve never seen it used as a concept divorced from emotional response.
Look, you can re-state a hundred times how Dramatica is looking at the underlying conflicts, and then tell me over and over that what I think are underlying conflicts aren’t so, but it’s not really going to get us anywhere.
I’m starting from the stipulation that you’re 100% correct about the storyform for whichever movie you want to use as an example. Tony Stark is the main character of “Captain America: Civil War”? Fine. Two characters most people can’t name and the “arc” are the influence character of “Raiders of the Lost Arc”? Okay. “The Maltese Falcon” is a broken story? Great.
All I’m saying is that those determinations make the analyses involved lose any utility for me as a writer. My job is creating the feeling of drama. If an analysis is devoid of the things that create those feelings then the analysis doesn’t do any good for me.
Contrast that with Dramatica as a generative tool for story – prompting the writer to seek out the separation of throughlines as well as the underlying problems that unify them. That is a direct pursuit of the sense of meaning that’s emotionally vital to a story.
So it’s always kind of odd to see the sterile (and yet without any evidence of objectivity) fashion in which the analysis is created when the generative aspects of Dramatica are so emotionally potent.
Pretty sure Im getting that wording from a Dramatica book or website, and I’d say it’s referring to the conflict within the story. This is unrelated to how an audience feels about the story. I might get emotional at things like Lord of the Rings and Wreck-it Ralph while my wife gets emotional at Outlander. We do not get emotional at the same stories. It’s not because we are seeing different story forms, it’s because we’re interested in different storytelling. There’s not a story form that makes an audience cheer and another that makes them cry. One form could be applied to two different movies and each get a different response based on how the story is told. The storyform just helps to make sure the message presented to the audience makes sense. It makes sure you’re not arguing politics one minute and economics the next.
And the job of a storyform is to make sure that drama is all coming from the same place so that you as the author are giving your audience a solid message.
Isn’t Heroes being destructive vital to the emotional argument you mentioned about freedom vs security? If we don’t fear being hurt or killed or otherwise impositioned by superheroes then why do we care if they destroy things?
I guess what I’d respond is that the notion of drama as separate from emotional response isn’t an idea that’s very useful to a writer. I think what you’re aiming at is more along the lines of . . .
Which I can agree with.
You’ve hit the nail on the head in terms of finding the place where we disagree: “heroes being destructive” isn’t at all integral to the constant source of conflict in Captain America: Civil War.
Consider instead if the first scene was of the Avengers saving a group of miners trapped in a pit only to discover that while they were doing that, somewhere else a group of terrorists killed a thousand people in a chemical weapons attack. So the government steps in and says, “for the good of all, you have to work for us and we’ll tell you who to save and who to leave to die.”
So now you have a completely different inciting incident or first driver or whatever else we might want to call it, but the constant conflict for the movie will be the same: heroes being forced to choose sides when neither side is clearly the right one.
Look at it another way: if at any moment in Captain America: Civil War all the heroes chose the same side (either Tony’s or Steve’s) the conflict would be over. They all sign the accords? The conflict’s over. They all refuse to sign the accords? The U.N. might be pissed but they wouldn’t be able to do much about it. You could have a subsequent film that’s all about the government hunting down heroes, but that’s not this movie.
So the constant conflict in Civil War isn’t “heroes being destructive” – that’s just this thing that set off the underlying question of the movie: who should decide what a hero does.
J[quote=“decastell, post:16, topic:1601”]
All I’m saying is that those determinations make the analyses involved lose any utility for me as a writer. My job is creating the feeling of drama. If an analysis is devoid of the things that create those feelings then the analysis doesn’t do any good for me.
[/quote]
The feeling of drama is a completely subjective appreciation and will differ from audience member to audience member. This is not a Dramatica storyform. What you describe is covered under Audience Reception and is the furthest thing removed from the storyform, the furthest distance from writer to audience (closest to audience). So you have:
As a writer you’re primarily interested in StoryReception. That is your strength and probably 90%-95% the reason for the favorable reactions from your audience. You care about their experience and you adjust your story to make this as wonderful an experience as possible.
This is your process or experience of writing a story with Dramatica.
Your personal experience of creating a story with Dramatica generates all kinds of emotional attachments that are not found in the storyform itself. You’re projecting the emotional vitality you’re seeking onto the storyform. It’s like seeing the Virgin Mary in a potato chip or on a tree trunk–your mind is warping what you see to give you what you want.
Over here, on this side of the keyboard, we can’t guess as to what you consider most favorable or most important when it comes to the meaning of the story. We can come up with our own interpretations, our own ideas of what makes a story work, and then put them out for others to witness–
–but then we’re just returning to the Tower of Babel that existed before Dramatica.
The “sterility” of the analysis you point to is another indication of your opinion and personal feelings. These feelings are not shared by everyone. There are those of us who get quite excited about the prospect of Raiders having two storyforms – it explains the bittersweet ending and persistent idea that there are five or six Acts in the film. Same with Empire - another film almost impossible for people to quantify–until now.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both films were written by the same person.
The sterility is needed to remove one’s subjective emotional response from the film in order to better understand the underlying narrative dynamics. If we relied on what we feel is important, we never would have been able to make that same connection between those two films.
In regards to this blind taste test idea–many of us who participate in the Users Group meeting come up with the storyform before we even arrive at the meeting. If you listen to them over the last year, you’ll note that we arrive at a storyform far earlier than we ever had before.
I used to have something I would call the 8:30 wall. I even have a picture of it I drew somewhere. The analysis always starts at 7pm. We identify Throughlines, Character Dynamics and Plot Dynamics. Things would always be swimming along until that clock struck 8:30–and then, all of a sudden, someone would run up against some preconception they had about narrative structure–something they couldn’t resonate with their personal experience of writing and listening to a story.
We would then spend upwards of 30-45 minutes helping that person unravel their personal justifications.
That 8:30 wall doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, by 8:30 we usually have the entire storyform all figured out.
This is the result of years and years of study and experience with the “sterile” process of finding the narrative DNA of story.
The blind taste test, while something I’m willing to do if it will somehow create greater understanding, is non-productive in the long run.
At the last meeting, both @crayzbrian and I had the same storyform for The Accountant. We didn’t do it together, but as the meeting was going on I looked over his shoulder to see what answers he got (just like in high school!).
We had the same exact storyform except for the Story Limit.
Does that mean the storyforming process is not objective? What’s the margin of error allowed?
While we differed on that, we both completely missed the idea of two storyforms within that overly complex and convoluted film. If you watch the film, it’s basically one long explanation as to why everything happened. This convoluted nature is the result of two storyforms pressed into a 2-hour time period. Kasdan had the talent and skills to know what to leave out and what not, the writers behind The Accountant not so much.
Realizing that we missed something–that’s a valuable educational experience. It opened up this idea to me of always looking for the emotional argument and change of perspective first before looking at Throughlines. It also generated a spark of inspiration regarding the Crucial Element (as this is tied into the previous concept) and its importance in defining a storyform (The Narrative Argument feature in the Atomizer).
As far as blind taste tests go, I’m willing to do it. I just need to know what would be enough of a sample set to put this challenge to bed.
And if you asked whether or not Luke Skywalker Changed or Remained Steadfast in Return of the Jedi, the majority of people would say that he changed. Or if you asked who was the Protagonist of Casablanca, the majority of people would say Rick.
Dramatica uses familiar words in order to get as closest as it can to what it is really trying to describe. There is no easy “get” for the emotional argument tied up in the Relationship Story Throughline found in the English language–the closest we can come up with is the “heart of the story”.
So yes, many would say the relationship between Indy and Marion is the heart of the story, the same way they would say Indy is the Protagonist (even though he is for only ONE of the storyforms).
Defining the Relationship Story Throughline as the “heart of the story” doesn’t really mean anything when it comes to defining the underlying dynamics of a narrative. It’s a close approximation–but I think this is a great example of where feelings and opinion break down in the final analysis.
Marion does not offer an alternative approach to solving problems. This is the defining aspect of the Influence Character Throughline perspective. My feelings and subjective experience of a film tell me that she is important–but when I really step back and think about it–and really look to what is being argued through the narrative–she has no place.
That’s what is meant by gaining objectivity through the Dramatica storyform.
True, no one wants to read or experience a Dramatica storyform. That’s why we have writers–to bring that argument to life. It’s the same reason we need chefs. The ingredients aren’t interesting–we need the craft and ability of the chef to put them together into something memorable and long-lasting. We need someone to make us a meal–
–in the same way we need a writer to make us a story.
There’s likely a difference between what you consider meaningful and meaning. To bring this full circle: Meaningful is the meal and is under StoryReception–how the story “tastes”. Meaning is the ingredients and is under StoryForming–what the story is about.
Dramatica is concerned with meaning. The writer is concerned with the meal.
Me too - you think I do this for fun?! This is all going in my book, Letters to Sebastien, or How the Marvel Comic Book Movies Drove Me to a Complete Nervous Breakdown.
This isn’t entirely true. A successful narrative is one in which a large enough audience shares an appreciation of the film or book. Most people who love Raiders of the Lost Arc likely share the enjoyment of it being a thrilling adventure, of it having moments of humour and moments of spiritual questioning.
Stories are, among other things, a means for human beings to share a common sensation. They’re not exclusively a means to explore a problem.
I can happily go along with this. Dramatica is (for me) a tool to help an author develop the most meaningful version of the story they want to tell. The emotional resonances – whether present or not for anyone but the user – are how you can tell if the process is working.
That’s coming from your interest in deconstructing stories – an interest I share. However it’s not what the audience cares about, which is what I’m trying to focus on here.
If that’s so, then why not just do a blind taste test? Have ten people submit the storyform each time and then see how they match up statistically. That would enable you to easily verify the degree to which there’s an independently observable single accurate storyform as well has over several movies get to see which types of films garner universal independent measurements versus those that begin vastly more disparate in the observations.
And again, my position isn’t that Marion has to be the IC, but rather that she is important to the film, and a model that doesn’t account for her fails to encapsulate what’s important to the audience.
It’s the same with a movie like “The Maltese Falcon” or “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”. I have no problem seeing the complete structure of both of those films – in fact, I sent you what I think is the structure for Maltese Falcon a while ago. You can tell me I’m wrong and that the Dramatica Users Group has deemed them broken tales, but that just means the model fails to account for some stories that audiences find both satisfying and meaningful.
So either the storyforms aren’t correctly identified or Dramatica is an incomplete way of looking at what makes a story work. What I tend to see in the forum are things like, “This throughline looks weak, so I guess the movie isn’t that good”. But that’s like saying “My telescope can’t see Saturn, so I guess that planet doesn’t exist.”
Saturn is real, my friend. All too real as we’ll soon discover when the Saturnians come and take over earth.
