Doesn’t this pretty much sum up the job of a storyform? To hold scenes together, to hold individual through lines together, and to hold all four throughlines together as a story?
OS stuff isn’t about pushing the MC to change, though. Structurally, isn’t it about pushing everyone to pursue or to reconsider or to control as it regards the Story Goal. And wouldn’t Marion fit into the OS in this way? (I’m assuming she offers some form of Hinder or Help or Feeling or something to the story).
Exactly. The given that CA:CW wants you to accept is that superheroes are dangerous. The example you give creates a similar argument, but has a different given and potentially a different storyform. Now the physics of blowing up innocent people isnt the source of conflict. Being forced to comply with a government mandate is the source of conflict. But that’s not this movie.
This has been an interesting debate to read. Jumping off what @Gregolas is saying–the one thing that I’ve found helpful about Dramatica is that the storyform does seem to account for all the characters who are not the MC or IC, as they all have roles in the OS and can represent different motivations/methodologies/evaluations/purposes in regards to the story goal, or even have their own relationship with the MC, separate from the MC/IC relationship. If I’m understanding @jhull correctly, Marion or Han are vital to their stories, it’s just that they aren’t vital to changing the MC’s worldview (or causing them to remain steadfast). They could be offering support or help or tempting the MC off the path.
And that’s where I think you’re wrong. If they stopped punching things, the conflict would still be there. Even if they spent the rest of the movie just shouting at reach other across a table, that’s still conflict. If they all chose the same side at any point in the movie, the conflict would be over. That’s why I’m saying the underlying conflict in Civil War is superheroes being forced to choose sides against each other.
I can agree with this. My point is only that I can’t see how one gets much value out of the storyform analysis when it privileges an entirely intellectual issue above an emotional one. The bottom line for me is this: there is an important narrative thread throughout Raiders that is about Indy and Marion’s relationship. If that’s not in the storyform, then something important is missing.
I agree with you. I think analyses offer very little utility for a writer. That’s why I have avoided it. A person could be amazing at finding Storyforms and have zero ability in creating stories. And vice versa.
A great writing teacher could be a terrible writer. An amazing movie critic could have no business in the director’s chair. And vice versa.
Deconstruction and construction of a story are two very different things. And I don’t think ability in one leads to or translates to ability in the other.
That’s not saying anything bad about Dramatica. I wish there were more resources like Dramatica for Screenwriters. That’s very different from analysis.
Funny. In regard to constructing (creating) a Story, I feel like this is the strength of Dramatica. As long as you can reasonably twist, shove, and contort your concepts into the Storyform then I feel like it will work. In fact, a writer’s ability to present an old story in a reimagined and clever way often creates a better story.
On the deconstruction side, I feel that many times more than one interpretation of a domain could be reasonable, but maybe fewer (or only one) will fit all four domains.
Also, when people start talking about perfect Storyforms, I’m a bit dubious. Because there are no perfect directors, authors, screenwriters, etc. So I have a hard time believing that a person who was completely aware of Dramatica could represent a perfect Storyform in a completed consumable story – let alone a person who has no idea what Dramatica is.
The perfection of form is never realized. Ever. I think you have a different idea of what a perfect Story is @decastell. Me too. For me, Dramatica seems really good at clearing the road for the craft. Maybe it allows for the suspension of disbelief. In some ways, it takes the mind out of the equation.
Possibly, but not necessarily. Cap can sign the accords and still be conflicted about giving up his freedom to help. Then the argument would change from ‘heroes being destructive causes conflict as they pick sides’ to ‘heroes being destructive causes conflict because heroes are brought under control of the govt.
I will (try) to give you last word on that and move on because I think this is becoming more about CA than about objective storyforms.
What we’re saying is that Marion probably is in the storyform. I don’t know how. Maybe she’s a reason archetype, maybe she represents production. I have no idea. But she probably has some kind of OS relationship with Indy even if not an RS relationship.
I mentioned this earlier and deleted it, but I’m going to go ahead and reply with it here. Dramatica isn’t a storycreating tool. It’s a description of the problem solving process used as a tool to help tell stories. Dramatica tells you how to solve a problem and let’s you tell your characters how to go about that. If you’re looking for Dramatica to write the story, or to make your audience laugh or cry, the storyform probably isn’t the place to look. If you want a means to make sure you are telling a consistent story throughout, a storyform is the way to go.
You’re right – this is the underlying conflict, and it’s fully supported by the storyform at the Issue & Problem levels.
Your example about the government mandate may or may not have changed the storyform – it’s hard to tell from that one example. It certainly sounds like people are driven by problematic Control, for example. In any case, it didn’t change the OS Domain because it was still about what superheroes do (saving people over here vs. over there is still an external process).
If you want to change the Domains & Concerns, start the story with something like: a government mandate that black superheroes and white superheroes cannot operate on the same team, nor can male and female superheroes. And make it clear that the reason behind the mandate is that a large majority feels that such separation is better for everyone. Some of the Avengers actually agree with this because, you know, working alongside women has always been tough – they’re distracting with their tight cat-suits and you always feel like they can’t pull their weight even when they’re levitating tanks. (i.e. everyone in the story is suffering from issues of Mind/Fixed Attitudes, maybe Preconscious.) Even the Avengers who disagree realize they have trouble curbing their own biases. So you still have people choosing sides about whether to follow the mandate or not, but it’s a very different story. Can you see how that conflict is entirely different from Civil War’s?
I wrote my first novel before I knew anything about Dramatica. Thinking back on it, I was at first petty sure the main character’s love interest was the IC – after all, she represents the passionate, emotional focus of the novel and is the motivating drive for almost everything the main character does in the book.
But upon reflection, I realized she’s not the IC; the main character’s cousin/romantic rival, who challenges his perspective, is. This hit me like a ton of bricks when I remembered I’d actually written a “you and I are both alike” scene between them! This realization totally validated Dramatica analysis for me.
What it didn’t do was tell me how to get from here to there, (i.e. from encoded storyform to passionate story), which maybe is what you’re saying.
Me, too. That’s why I’m waiting on Jim to release his upcoming bestseller, “Letters To Sebastien” – which he must use as the title now.
I find this more stressful than helpful in some ways. What I like about Dramatica is that it kind of posits “Oh, since you’re interested in dealing with X here, then why don’t you explore Y there.” It’s the generative aspect – the questions it poses – that I find most helpful.
Yes, at which point you’d have a success/bad ending, which is pretty much where Civil War ends up. Cap’s rebels are arrested or go into hiding, Tony’s pro-Accord side has won, and Cap’s in a lousy place (he literally gives up his shield – the very symbol of his fight for freedom since WWII).
Again, we could argue about this all day, and eventually someone will just sort of clamp down and that’s that. So there’s probably no point as I’m not sure how much more Civil War talk @jhull can take before he writes a computer virus to delete all known copies of the movie from existence.
Is that what everyone’s saying? 'Cause I didn’t get that from the discussion.
Well, Dramatica Story Expert is a story creating tool. Go check out the ad copy for it and find the part where they say it’s not meant for creating stories.
Before we get into a thing about the model being different from the software, I just want to point out that the only interest the majority of writers are going to have in either is the degree to which it helps them create stories.
There’s this undercurrent in the discussions sometimes that seems to be about Dramatica making one smarter or more aware or astute about stories. Honestly, I couldn’t care less about being a more astute literary or film critic. Astute as a virtue only matters if it helps me write better – that’s the day-to-day struggle I work with. The “I feels so insightful now” aspect of it always reminds me of the Hero’s Journey – this sort of pedantic drive to prove that all stories are somehow linked to this grand mythology. It can be a fascinating diversion sometimes – a way to stretch the mind and enjoy thinking about how you’d group stories like sliding the same colour of Smarties (M&M’s to you American types) on the table and enjoying the abstract visual that creates. But it’s still a diversion, not the thing that governs a storyteller’s life: creating stories.
(Sorry about the rant – just had to get that out of my system)
Okay, but it’s just you and me in this corner 'cause going through the thread I don’t think anyone else would agree.
Yes, but I don’t get your point. I’m not saying that “all stories in which people are conflicted over being forced to choose a side” have the same storyform. I’m saying that the constant source of conflict in Captain America: Civil War is heroes being forced to choose a side. I’ve got no investment in proving one storyform fits all of a particular type of story – I’m just saying that what drives Civil War is not “heroes are destructive” but rather “heroes being forced to choose a side against each other”
AAH! Okay, I thought you didn’t agree with the OS being in Physics because of that. I thought you were saying that “heroes being forced to choose a side against each other” meant it had to be in Mind or maybe Psychology. That if the OS Domain was Physics, it meant Civil War was the same as all other superhero flicks.
So to kind of summarize, “superheroes being forced to choose sides against each other” fits really well in Physics/Obtaining/Self Interest/Control, and I don’t think anyone on this thread would disagree with that. The storyform supports it perfectly at the Issue & Problem levels, with the Domain & Concern giving that conflict the context it needs. That’s why it comes across so well. @jhull or others, please let us know if you disagree?
I don’t think Dramatica says any story point is “more important” than any other, some are just broader and others more specific. If you feel the conflict at the Issue & Problem levels is the true meat of the story, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with seeing it that way. (You just may want to consider that tendency when you’re doing analysis – the “good” stuff to you is probably further down in the model.)
This is the whole reason I started this thread and I think it’s happening with Radiers too. Jim hasn’t said, but I bet all those scenes you mentioned with Marian incorporate stuff like OS Focus/Direction or MC Focus/Direction or OS Issue/Counterpoint (“I just want the girl” = Morality), or whatever. Perhaps even all of the above.
‘We’ meant me and @mike.d, who seemed to agree with me. Sorry if I spoke for Mike.d out of turn.
My Dramatica software is problem solving software geared toward writing stories, however it’s marketed. Because it mimics problem solving processes of humans who, theory says, solve problems through narrative, they may be the same thing. But Dramatica is not a story creation tool in that, if you want to write a story about superheroes choosing side, it’s not going to tell you what they are choosing sides over. But it is going to tell you that if you want to write a story about why heroes being destructive and choosing sides is a problem, that your plot is going to need to be about heroes Obtaining, Learning, Doing, and Understanding as they work through the problem.
The degree to which it helps create stories is its ability to tell an author where to take the story as they explore the next part of the problem.
That’s certainly possible. That might explain why the domains always end up feeling either conflicting or superfluous to me. Still can’t get behind the storyform for Civil War with the OS being “taking revenge on the Avengers” since that seems like such a miniscule part of the movie and happens through Zemo’s manipulations in comparison to what we’re seeing the bulk of the time.
I can agree with this, at least in part. The interesting thing about Dramatica over other tools is simply that once you’ve put a couple of stakes in the ground about what you’re determined to write about, it then prompts you to consider other avenues.
Agreed.
But Dramatica EXCLUSIVELY deals with the part about a means to explore a problem.
The parts you refer to are extraneous to the Dramatica Storyforming process. That’s why you won’t find them in a Dramatica Analysis. You will find them on other sites and in other paradigms of story, but not Dramatica.
The level to which an Audience member finds Raiders thrilling is not measurable by the Dramatica storyform. Not to say it’s not important, but it’s not part of a Dramatica Analysis.
Then you’re focusing on a portion of storytelling that Dramatica doesn’t cover. That’s likely why you have trouble identifying Domains—the audience doesn’t care about Domains. Only the author should—if he wants to keep the arguments within his or her story consistent.
I will get to work on the blind taste test—unfortunately there are only six people who can do this at a certain level of expertise. Hopefully that’s enough.
Dramatica is not concerned with what is most important to the Audience—it’s concerned with the specific argument presented by the story. Marion does not fulfill a significant role in the presentation of an argument. Take her out and you would be left with the same argument—stop being so sure of everything, and you can unlock a true mystery.
You would have to concoct different scenarios for why Indy gets into different situations—but the message would stay the same.
Yes, the feeling might be different—but the argument would be the same. Look to the potential of things and you will survive.
Dramatica evaluates the message, not the level of thrills or feels.
No. What it means is that those stories failed to present consistent arguments. It doesn’t mean they were bad, or somehow deficient—just that their arguments were deficient.
There is a correlation between the effectiveness or integrity of the argument and high critical acclaim. Obviously, there will be outliers—many other things factor in to an audience’s favorable response: acting, genre, beloved children’s series—all kinds of things that determine the final result.
The storyform—as seen by Dramatica—plays a part in that, but it is not the be-all, end-all.
Yes, Dramatica is an incomplete way of looking at what makes a story work. The part it does cover—the argument presented by the Author—it covers expertly and in a way unparalleled by anything else.
It’s not that my telescope can’t see Saturn—it’s that it can’t see the majesty that is Saturn. That’s what you’re looking for in Dramatica, and what you will never find.
The chemical makeup and gravitational forces of Saturn’s rings are such that eventually they will dissipate and disappear. We know this because of our telescopes—both earthbound and in satellite form. We can measure the integrity of Saturn’s rings with these instruments, deem them lacking and deficient, and can make accurate predictions as to their ultimate demise.
We can enjoy their majesty now, but there isn’t enough strength in their composition to keep them lasting. Eventually, Saturn will just be another gas giant.
Same thing with stories with faulty or deficient narrative structures. We lose the composition of their message. We may remember their majesty, but we forget their message.
Thankfully, we now have a telescope like Dramatica that can help us identify the molecular composition of a narrative. We can identify weak spots, shore up faulty bonds, and ensure an integrity of narrative elements so that we can enjoy both message and majesty for all time.
If this happens, I would love to know what movie you use in advance of the results being posted so I can try to play along at home without being too tempted to look at what the experts came up with first! I bet there’s at least a couple others who would like to play the home version as well.
Ditto! I’d like to do this, too.
First off, just want to say thanks to everyone putting in their thoughts and especially to @jhull for this particular response as it really brings into focus what aspects of a story Dramatica does and doesn’t address.
It’s a fascinating distinction to me because as an author my focus tends to be on theme, which in many ways is the intersection between problem and feeling. Theme tends to look at a question like “does love conquer all” and then explore it through the ways in which the characters feel about that question (even more so than what they might think about it.)
So it’s probably natural that a Dramatica analysis will always be troublesome for me because it disentangles problem from emotion, but as a novelist I have to see the problem through the lens of emotion.
I get asked at fantasy conventions all the time about my writing process and my most frequent response is, “I go for a run while listening to music and think of every way a scene could unfold and look for the one that makes me start to cry.”
Okay, but I’m still convinced that Maltese Falcio has a complete storyform.
Where I somewhat disagree with your statement, though, is that when I read the analyses of these “broken stories” it often seems presented as if the film doesn’t really work. I think the one for Maltese Falcon even says it doesn’t stand the test of time – that to me sounds like a statement about the appreciation of the film.
The challenge here is that with a film like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was deemed a broken storyform (not that I agree with that analysis), you’re banking on people only ‘remembering the majesty’ but forgetting the message. I don’t think that’s true of that film any more than it would be of, say, The Prestige (which I bet almost no one remembers the message from).
In case you’re wondering what I think the message of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is, it’s something along the lines of “Friendship and sacrifice are needed to overcome great evil.” That first movie is all about Harry becoming friends with Ron and Hermione, begging the sorting hat to put him in the same house as them, standing together against Draco and the bullies, having to allow Ron to sacrifice himself (getting hurt on the giant chessboard), but also Neville standing up to his own friends – risking sacrificing that relationship – to try and keep them from breaking the rules (which is why they win the house cup at the end.)
I may have phrased the meaning inartfully here, but seventeen years after the release of that movie, I think audiences still find a strong message there – and probably more so than any number of films that appear to have a complete storyform.
See? For all your talk of structure, at your core you’re just chock full of poetry.
Wasn’t that written by Lawrence Kasdan? Maybe if we go back we’ll find it has two storyforms! (Sorry, couldn’t resist @jhull)
I’m not too far outside of agreeing with this. I will say that from an audience reception viewpoint, this is probably what the film looks like to a bunch of people. From a Storyform viewpoint, I was strictly addressing the Domain level, so I probably should have separated that from the idea of choosing sides.
At the Domain level, the underlying conflict is super people fighting. That’s the umbrella over the plot and theme level. But looking to the theme level from a storyform viewpoint, the underlying conflict isn’t quite about heroes choosing sides. It’s about everyone advocating their own ideas or opinions, including the non super heroes, and this looks like an argument about choosing sides because of how it’s told. It starts with the U.N. or whoever drafting the accords and demanding they be signed because that’s in their best interest (‘their’ referring to a collective non super population). The heroes all take turns sharing why everyone should do what that hero wants. Everyone’s argument is based on what’s best for ‘me’ or what’s best for ‘us’. It’s best for us to be held in check, it’s best for us to decide who to help.
Anyway, I know I said I was going to give you the last word and move on, but I didn’t want to act entirely as @decastells skeptic or contagonist or whatever I’ve been being, and this felt a bit more on topic again.