I just discovered that I’d forgotten to push the post button on this yesterday. I’ll add the summary later when I can sit down and look at my story form again.
I did a lot of thinking on litmus test type stuff and I think I’ve got something:
If the OS characters weren’t afraid of suffering, they wouldn’t struggle over wanting too much control over outcomes and they wouldn’t have a problem. I think fears are more the problem than the ways of thinking-- ex. Although “Being Delusional” is a Manipulation gist, a delusion of pixies living under the sink isn’t a problem in my story, but believing that the other characters are out to sabotage you and lashing out at them is.
I interpret this as Fixed Attitude > Innermost Desires (their desire is to minimize suffering) or Impulsive Responses (I’d say that an aversion to suffering is an instinct “that cannot be altered but merely compensated for”)
OS - The characters have issues with a fear of suffering and trying to exercise too much control in order to avoid it rather than building the courage to face inevitable unpleasantness. Trying to sway opinions of others (that’s not so much a problem as an attempt to solve them) and issues of confidence, mental illness, stubbornness, self-worth, and envy/jealousy show up.
MC: “Better safe than sorry.” Rather than risk potentially harming others by failing (and thus being tormented by anxiety), he prefers to avoid or prevent potential trouble. A lack of confidence is part of the problem.
IC: “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Believes in facing fears instead of letting fear control him.
Limit: Optionlock - there are only so many ways they can try to solve their problems
Outcome/Judgement: definitely Good, with preference for Failure, but that depends on Story Goal. I prefer that MC rejects a potential quick fix after gaining some self-confidence. Other characters fail to achieve or sacrifice certain futures they desired, but it’s for the best.
Story Goal: Innermost Desires?
Foremost I want to be able to call OS Manipulation or Fixed Attitude and stop waffling on it, which should help with MC and IC. Gists in both cover OS problems. I keep thinking of other questions like why is “Being Down On One’s Self” a Manipulation gist when that sounds like a bias against one’s self? Am I misunderstanding something important? What makes the litmus test confusing is stuff like how the relative with dementia has a Manipulation problem of dementia and delusion, and this delusion is a Fixed Attitude belief that her caretaker is out to sabotage her. If I imagine taking out delusional thinking from the equation, do I have to imagine that she still believes that the caretaker is against her despite the cause being removed? Incidentally, getting rid of the Fixed Attitude still leaves the problem of dementia and it’s side-effect of delusion, but then again, if I took out the Fixed Attitude of disliking fear from all characters, then they wouldn’t care enough for it to be a problem.
Is a steadfast IC exempt from the OS Problem or is he as much a victim? Is the problem more of a motivator to him (since he’s on the right track… as far as pushing for facing fears) and a regular problem to others? Does the same hold true for IC throughline or could he be victim of OS Problem but motivated by IC Problem? I’m concerned about him being potentially hypocritical about handling his grudge in an indirect way.
Being down on something isn’t a specific bias or hatred. The language of that gist was chosen specifically to evoke the way people can act or be thinking badly about something, without a specific bias. Can you feel the difference between the guy who has his back up with an “I hate my job, no ifs ands or buts about it” attitude, and the guy who’s like, “I’ve just been down on my job lately”? The former is a specific thing, the latter is more fluid and harder to pin down.
I actually have trouble seeing “being biased against one’s self” as a real thing. You could be biased to have X opinion about yourself, “I’m bad at math”, “I’m no good with women”, etc. – those are all Fixed Attitudes. But to be biased against everything about yourself sounds more like Psychology to me.
No, if the belief stems from the delusion, then if you take the delusional thinking away, the belief is gone too. That’s the beauty of the litmus test, it helps you figure out what the source of the problems is. Remove the source, you remove everything that was caused by it.
In this example, I wouldn’t even call the belief stemming from the delusion a “Fixed Attitude belief”; it’s more of a transient thing that stems from a problematic Way of Thinking. (though I get you might have just put that term in there to help communicate one way of seeing it)
That’s the thing, just because you can call something “disliking fear” doesn’t mean it is a Fixed Attitude. Maybe the disliking fear is just part of a problematic way of thinking (Psychology).
Think of The Matrix, Agent Smith definitely has some psychological issues and problematic ways of thinking: “I can taste your stink. And every time I do I feel I have somehow been infected by it. It’s repulsive, isn’t it?”. And his attempts to manipulate Morpheus into giving up the location of Zion could be seen as manipulation. But I can’t make myself capitalize those terms because they’re not the OS’s throughline domain; the problematic Activities of making humans into batteries are the root causes of problems in The Matrix; remove those and Agent Smith’s psychological issues don’t matter a whit. (EDIT: it’s likely that scene with Agent Smith’s speech of hate is actually showing the Story Cost of Innermost Desires - his hatred of humanity is a cost that both he and Morpheus must bear).
Regarding your summaries, I’ll have to think about those more. I’m having trouble separating them, it almost seems like all three of them are about the same thing, facing vs. avoiding fear / suffering.
EDIT: I wonder if you are thinking of things more at a theme level, the level at which there is commonality between everything in the story, and your summaries reflect that? I mean, you could have an story about facing fears with the OS in any domain. (Sort of like Star Wars is about learning to trust; most people may not realize that, but it’s common across the whole story.)
I was thinking along the lines of “I’m a loser,” which I could see as developing and becoming ingrained as the result of a problematic Way of Thinking (ex. a character keeps attributing their competency as the sole cause of a project’s outcome or confusing their emotions for accurate indicators with which to evaluate someone or something… but those sound like problematic beliefs being used to evaluate things, so maybe I got it wrong again). Maybe I took that description of what one thinks vs how one thinks too much at face value? I started imagining the “how” as being something abstract like considering a chain of causation to arrive at a conclusion of what went wrong, evaluating decisions based on the tally of the results of a pros and cons list, judging the cause of a fear as the last stimulus that occurred before goosebumps popped up, or making predictions by examining the outcomes of past events.
Would changing it to something like a belief that things which cause pain (like fear) are best avoided make it more Fixed Attitude? That would apply to everyone but IC… unless he’s a hypocrite. Maybe aversion to suffering (Impulsive Responses? Innermost Desires?) would work. Hypothetically, if suffering stopped existing in this story’s world, no more problems, but that sounds too broad to be useful and part of the point is that that’s impossible. If they could fight the instinct/desire to stop/flee suffering as fast as possible and cope with the unpleasant feelings, they’ll ironically end up suffering less overall. I’m not sure that their fears matter as much as what they do based on them.
I thought that you wanted me to write the MC and IC’s conflicting world views (the story’s central argument) rather than the stuff that happens, or were you looking for additional world views like “MC thinks of himself as a screwup who must prove his usefulness to be worthy of love” or “IC hates seeing people or things get unnecessarily tossed out”?
Attempted a Story Form. I really tried OS Manipulation without a Concern of Becoming (actually, that might work if IC can be concerned with MC Becoming), but I couldn’t get further than Developing a Plan before I ran into a quad of Issues that didn’t work.
OS:
Fixed Attitude (“Fearing Pain”-- if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be motivated to cause trouble and their ways of thinking wouldn’t matter)
Innermost Desires. The Goal would be something like attaining their desires for a sense of certainty or security. They could start off in a shaky situation and then try to restore order so they can feel secure. Or maybe the goal is to avoid certain fears. If those fears come to pass, then the story ends with Failure-- I’m not sure what Success would look like other than a lifetime of continued avoidance. Are we allowed to do that? That would still be an Optionlock of running out of ways to prevent.
I got hung up on Issue. I can see Closure (wanting to stop something inevitable is a problem. On that note, I tried Dream, but I didn’t like the Elements that followed. Definition says, “Negatively, Closure tries to bring everything to a conclusion, even if it is a continuously growing process that is completely open-ended. The attempt to stop such an evolution would be either fruitless or disastrous.”)
Another option is Denial (“Refusing to Let Something Go”)-- they need to change their attitude to fix their fear problem, and one of the Context examples is “a living person who refuses to feel discomfort or pain of any kind.” I don’t think my characters are that stubborn, but they prefer to avoid that stuff.
Issue of Closure lets me select Problem of Avoidance. Denial lets me pick Temptation. Both are pretty good.
The other throughlines fall into the familiar pattern of MC: Manipulation, Becoming; IC: Activity, Obtaining; RS: Situation, The Future.
Sorry SharkCat, my bad! You’re right that’s what I asked. The additional stuff you provided is great though, since I was thinking more along the lines of the MC’s worldview / perspective related to his personal issues, etc.
I like the storyform you’ve got so far. I also like how you haven’t taken it too far yet … it’s good to be sort of tentative with stuff you’re not sure about, until it gets verified later. I would keep both your OS Issues of Closure & Denial and OS Problems of Avoidance and Temptation multi-selected and poke at the other throughlines. (Although I must admit, Avoidance as OS & MC Problem fits really well.)
Wow, putting in your values gives only 16 storyforms left, 8 if you pick Linear/Logical PS Style, and only 4 if you pick Failure Outcome!
You say the MC thinks he needs to prove his usefulness to be worthy; can you see him wanting or needing (either knowingly or unknowingly) to change his nature, to transform himself or have an awakening? If so, I really like Becoming for him.
For the IC, it sounds like he might be engaged in problematic activities, maybe related to rescuing old stuff, or preventing stuff from being unnecessarily lost or trashed. Does that sound close at all? Obtaining definitely fits that! Note for the IC, the “problematic” part can be troublesome for him but doesn’t absolutely have to be – the most important thing is that it impacts (causes conflict for) others, and that impact is the part you focus on. (When I do my IC Playground Exercises I actually write a reminder at the top of every one: Remember: Impact, impact, impact!)
Oh, for this part:
Sorry I wasn’t clear, I just meant that “disliking fear” doesn’t HAVE to be a Fixed Attitude just because it shows up in the story, it might have a root cause of some other domain. But it certainly can fit Fixed Attitude, and yeah the way you re-phrased definitely works. Also, keep in mind that the same Fixed Attitude doesn’t have to apply to all your characters, some or all can have different Fixed Attitudes (which might clash to provide additional conflict), so it’s cool if the IC is different.
So, would you say that Fixed Attitude or Manipulation is more correct? If Becoming can include IC being concerned over MC’s Becoming instead of wanting to change or avoid changing himself, then I can do something with OS: Manipulation, Becoming, Responsibility, Temptation or Control.
I lean towards Fixed Attitude, especially since the other throughlines look more… comfortable to work with that way, but I’m no expert and feelings can be misleading-- another lesson MC oughta learn. On further research and deliberation, scenes I’ve written with MC have a lot of thinking going on, so we get a sense of what it’s like to be inundated with all that “noise”. He makes observations, argues with himself from a few perspectives, insults and defends himself, and imagines potential outcomes and what to do about them.
Very much so, and a few different gists fit. He also hopes that a transformation can fix him so he won’t have to risk failure and prolong his suffering by facing fears the proper way. His anxiety is fixated on Responsibility too, although he needs to exercise some more Commitment, so that’s not out of the question if other things need to be shuffled.
I’ve really wanted to get IC doing things with that, but haven’t been sure how to make it matter, other than ideas like maybe he sells things and business isn’t very good so he wants to do something about it or this idea that didn’t work out about figuring out a historical mystery that causes conflict with other characters. I wonder if stakes even matter for this throughline in Dramatica theory. Maybe just going about his daily activities is enough if it affects MC (ex. A potential client comes when IC is fixing some old uncleaned item and MC sees them shake hands, then internally debates whether he should act like a normal person and keep quiet or risk making IC look careless in order to satisfy his urge to warn the client about potentially fatal diseases that germs can cause-- I may need to start a new thread to ask about PS-style when the bigger issues are settled), or there could be a goal of earning money to fix something or help out other characters and IC drags MC along to help. IC trying to get fame is also covered by Obtaining and involves making MC things he’s not comfortable with at even higher stakes. Attracting public attention could cause problems for other characters too.
If OS is Manipulation, Obtaining would go under RS and I don’t know if I can just plop that stuff I just said there instead and have it be a proper RS. Would need to think about it more if it becomes necessary.
Hey SharkCat, just FYI I am out of town for a bit, I still might have time to chime in but more sporadically. But I haven’t forgotten about this thread!
Hi SharkCat, based on everything you’ve said I would lean towards OS Fixed Attitude. I think you’re at the point now where you could use logic to rethink things over and over and convince yourself one way or another. At this point your feelings are probably more accurate than anything! Especially if OS Fixed Attitude helps all the throughlines feel more comfortable, as you said. That’s a really good sign.
The only other thing that could help is to maybe watch some films with OS Concerns of Innermost Desires vs. Becoming to try and get a better sense of how those feel.
Regarding your IC, maybe watch the video analysis and read the Narrative First article for Ex Machina because that film has some great examples of how the IC story points are really about how the IC is impacting the MC, rather than specifically coming from or being about the IC. Quoting from Jim’s article:
But it’s not her Past, or her Predictions, or her Desires that these story points reflect. To think so would be to inaccurately use Dramatica’s story points for storytelling. Instead, they identify why she has influence over Caleb. In fact, for most of these story points these points of narrative find themselves attached to her, not coming from her.
I think it’s usually pretty common for the Influence Character Throughline to have the conflict affecting the Influence Character himself too, and coming from him – but the point of the influence character is the impact they have on others (especially, but not necessarily limited to, the MC). So you could have an IC with all sorts of massive personal conflict coming from Activities or Obtaining or Self Interest or whatever, and if those things were just causing conflict for the IC and no one else, they wouldn’t fit Dramatica’s definition of an Influence Character. But if they impact others in the areas of Obtaining & Self Interest or whatever the storyform needs, that’s a perfectly valid IC.
So all that to say, perhaps the ideas you have for your IC fit this “Ava” flavour of Influence Character in some of the story points. That could explain why you’ve had trouble fitting your IC into the throughline that Dramatica wants.
