Recently, I stumbled upon maybe the biggest irony in my almost seven years of using Dramatica. For months, I had been writing a sci-fi script of mine with a strong single Storyform based on a quite substantial hunch that Potentiality was my Change Main Character’s problem; it worked for the MC and everyone else in the OS. With this choice, the OS Elements looked good, the OC Issue seemed to make a lot of sense, and the plot down to every single Sequence couldn’t have been more perfect. So I didn’t wanna mess with this perfection and kept Potentiality.
One justification for this (retrospectively) hasty choice was that any other choice as the MC Problem either screwed up the plot’s perfection, or pushed the Main Character in Analysis with these terrifyingly nebulous words “Production” and “Reduction” under it (I know: a terrible way to approach narrative analysis). No matter how much I tried to wrap my mind around the definitions, these two Elements didn’t speak to me at all; so I decided, no way would I ever end up touching them – Potentiality it is.
But this decision didn’t come without its problems: there was no good reason for Prerequisites to be the MC Issue; Probability and Possibility as MC Focus and Response were just “bleh…”; the Elements of the SS Throughline felt wrong; etc. But, adamantly, I kept on thinking this was my Storyform, and I just had to figure out how; Potentiality as my Change Main Character’s core problem was just too strong.
A few days ago, after weeks of beating my head against the brick wall of story inconsistencies, it occurred to me: what if Potentiality was the OS Response rather than the Problem. No harm in trying out, right? Now that I thought about it, it seemed to make much more sense and my previous conviction unfounded: in my story, everyone were definitely more aware of Potentiality rather than it being in the bckground; while Deduction… “Hey! Deduction is clearly a better candidate as the shared Problem in MC and OS Throughlines!”
I checked what was different in the new Storyform. The Main Character Issue had changed to Analysis like before – way better for my story than Prerequisites. And the past week, I had rewritten the first scene with the Main Character almost literally letting out of his mouth: “Production is the way to go!” Suddenly, the defenitions of Production and Reduction made sense to me. But scared for the fate of my perfect plot, I prepared to see the damage like an earthquake first responder: each act was in its original place, with all the Sequences just like before.
All the story problems I had were gone, with Dramatica keeping everything that was right.
So, equipped with this realization, it occurred to me: “I’ve been obsessing with this storyform, analyzing it from every possible angle. Now, with finding a (simple) solution to something that seemed so nebulous, Dramatica tells me my Change MC Issue is Analysis; and that’s what he definitley has at the core of his issues. I think I know this guy way more intimately than I thought. Time to put that Change into action, buddy.”
