Still waxing and waning on Action/Decision

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Seems I’m still putting the cart before the horse, or perhaps the opposite, except that the cart is facing the wrong direction. Either way, I still get tripped up when trying to determine the best Driver for my story.

When I deliberate “Action or Decision” I eventually lose perspective and can’t see which is correct for any given story I’m working on. I’ll think about Actions driving Decisions… but then I’ll think, certainly if an Action drives a certain Decision, didn’t some previous Decision also drive that “initial” action?

So I suppose what I’m asking: is there some way for me to more reliably choose the Driver for my story, without getting whisked away into “Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” territory?

Right now, I’m working on a story where my MC has determined (made a decision) that a certain action is necessary. It definitely feels like a “Decisions drive Actions” story. Similarly, at the end of the story, he determines that yet another specific action is necessary to resolve his problems. Ultimately, though, it is the actions of others that drive him to these decisions, or so it seems. Beyond a certain point, perhaps I’m just nitpicking too much. I just want to be sure that my choice of Driver is where it needs to be, to tell the story I want to tell.

The decisions my MC makes are all internal. He doesn’t necessarily talk about them to anyone or discuss what he’s trying to decide. His decision is only revealed to others once he takes the action that is the result of his decision. And he’s not even fully committed to that decision until he performs a “no going back” type of action. At any point before acting (or not acting), he could change his mind. Once the action is taken, however, there’s no taking it back.

Sorry for meandering. I feel silly at times when I’m trying to understand these things. I’ll start thinking the answer should be obvious, and I’ll ask myself why I’m not getting it. I used to have a similar problem with MC Growth.

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If you listen to the last decade of the User Group podcasts you’ll notice I often stay quiet when Chris asks for the Story Driver. I only managed to get a hold of it after trying to teach it for four years at CalArts. It eventually clicked one night and I’ve had it ever since.

But it took 14 years to get there!

This is the best way:

If X hadn’t happened, is it likely Y would have occurred?

  • If the answer is NO, then X may be the Driver.
  • If the answer is YES, then X is not a Driver.

You can also check out my article The True Nature of the Inciting Incident for a more detailed explanation.

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Thanks, Jim. This is very helpful!

A question, though… For my story, the answer to “If X hadn’t happened, is it likely Y would have occurred?” the answer is “Yes, Y would still have happened, but there may have been a long stretch of time before it did.” In this case, Y represents the actions that precede my MC’s decision. Even without those actions pressuring him, my MC would still make the decision that a certain action is necessary, but wouldn’t feel so pressured to make that decision right away. He’d have more time to mull things over and perhaps look for a different way of going about things.

Either way, it is still his decision (to take an action) that drives the story forward. The story is such that if he doesn’t make this decision, there really is no story to tell in the first place. His decision is to perform a very specific scientific experiment. The outcome of the experiment results in “the rest of the story.” No experiment, and the story is essentially over.

It feels like this is a decision story, but I still have some doubts, since it seems like a decision expressed through an action.

Just before the Inciting Incident, he’s still trying to decide whether to take a high risk action (perform an experiment that could put his life in jeopardy), or just give up. He’d still make that decision eventually, even without the pressure of others’ actions, but he’d have more time to think about things. He wants to improve the world through a scientific discovery. But doing so requires a certain experiment to prove its efficacy.

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X is not a Driver then. There has to be cause and effect, regardless of time in-between.

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What ends your story and what happens right in the middle?

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Still working out what needs to go in the middle. But my story ends with my MC making a similar decision (and subsequent action) to that of the Inciting Incident. This resolves the MC’s problems as well as bringing the other throughlines to an end. I’m not trying to be cryptic. I am just paranoid about being too descriptive of my ideas online. Essentially, the MC’s final decision and action are another experiment that puts the “scientific discovery” completely under his control, to the exclusion of all others. I have the OS Goal as Obtaining, and I’m wavering between a Change & Steadfast MC.

Edit: I guess I should also mention that I have an Outcome of Failure and a Judgment of Good, Optionlock, Logical Do-er MC.

My MC’s “goal” is to help the world with his discovery (OS Goal of Obtaining, essentially “giving” his discovery to the world), but by the end of the story, he concludes that the world just isn’t ready, that his discovery could easily be abused or misused, so he destroys all his notes and research, and the actual “results” of the Inciting Incident experiment.

I sort of waver on this issue as well. Could it still be a success story since he technically still “helped” the world by at least not harming it? This isn’t so important, really, but it does come to my mind.

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Hi @Rod (awesome I can use your handle and call you by real name at the same time!), I wonder if you might be overthinking things? Everything you are saying screams Decision driver to me.

What is making you hesitate at choosing Decision as the Story Driver? Is it the importance of the actions that the decisions are about (important to the MC, and to the story as a whole)? I don’t think importance matters – which drives which is what matters (cause vs. effect).

Of course the really hard thing to do is to parse out which causes which. That’s where Jim’s algorithm comes in.

I was wondering if another thing you could try is to imagine your story glossing over the important decisions, or having them “off camera”. I don’t really think that would work with your story, like suddenly he’s just destroying his research but we don’t know why he chose to do so, we didn’t get to see or experience the decision… seems like a let-down. But if you glossed over the action – like we never actually see him destroying the research, we just know he will because he vowed to, or whatever – that could still work. Or, similarly, if you glossed over some other action that helped precipitate his decision, that could still work if we see (during his deliberation) how it affected him.

Plus, I tried to imagine an action that precipitated his decision to destroy his research. Like say a murder or an assault. It doesn’t seem to work unless the action is related to his research/experiment somehow, in which case (by Jim’s formula) the action wouldn’t have happened without the initial Driver - the decision to do the experiment. Here are two example imaginings:

  • If not used carefully, his research gives people violent tendencies; this leads to an assault on A (where A is some character important to the MC). This is totally cool, it works as an action that helps precipitate his decision, but it’s still only possible because of earlier decision(s).
  • Some random assault on A (same character important to MC) occurs. It makes the MC feel terrible about the world and suddenly he decides to destroy his research. This seems lame.

Jim will probably call me on mixing Audience perspective in all the above, which you’re not supposed to do when storyforming, but I can’t seem to help it. Regardless, my money is on Decision. :slight_smile:

P.S. Your story sounds awesome!

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@mlucas - First, good call on the overthinking, lol. When it comes to Dramatica, I do often seem to overthink things. I’ll be considering two items in a dynamic pair, and as I go back and forth in considering each one, sometimes the line between them starts to blur (as in this case with Action/Decision). I suppose this holistic thing that seems to happen can be a good thing, but can cause me some confusion at other times.

As to why I’m hesitant to choose Decision as my story’s driver… It’s that I want to be sure I’m making the right choice for my story. I want to understand the dynamics of my story correctly so that I can be sure I’m actually writing the story I wanted to write, and that the theme/message received by the audience will be what I intended.

Sometimes I like to write a story freeform, without planning things ahead of time. Other times, as in this case, I really want to work out the framework first and then dress the storyform with the actual story once I’ve worked out all the particulars. This method is a lot of fun for me, but it does require that I be sure about many of the elements of my story, or I could end up with a story that is different from what I really wanted.

The Dramatica theory is such a beautiful thing to me, which is why I’m striving to understand it as fully and deeply as possible. Years ago I was a member of a Dramatica mailing list, of which @jhull was also a member. We all discussed Dramatica through email over quite a few years. After a good while, life got in the way and I had less time to spend in “Dramaticaland,” and the mailing list eventually went defunct a few years ago.

Now that I once again have more time, I’ve decided that I want to dive really deep into the theory and get a firm grasp on it that I wasn’t able to achieve in the past.

After reading the theory book several times, working in the software, etc., I’ve just fallen in love with Dramatica all over again. I’ve had several epiphanies along the way, where I suddenly “get” a certain aspect of the theory that I previously misunderstood… a little light bulb goes off, and things begin making sense. I want to continue having those little “aha” moments until I feel I’ve reached a point of clarity.

I really appreciate your suggestions. And you’re right. Further thought leads me to realize it is most likely a Decision story. I sort of knew that all along, but I suppose I wanted to understand why I felt that way. Jim’s formula and your suggestions have helped quite a bit, and I’m grateful to you both.

Dramatica is so beautiful… the more I learn, the more I love it. I desire to know it well enough that I can understand why any particular storyform is the way it is.

Ok, if I say how I feel about Dram one more time, this is going to get a lot cheesier than it already is. So I’ll close for now.

Thanks for your help and suggestions!

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I think we are kindred spirits Rod! Dramatica is awesome. And I certainly understand you wanting to get your Story Driver right.

My biggest concern right now is figuring out how to work Dramatica into the writing process. Like knowing when to go back to the storyform for guidance, or when to tweak a particular illustration based on new ideas I’ve come up with – versus putting the Dram stuff on the back shelf and just writing intuitively (knowing I can go back to check against the storyform later). I’m sure I’ll figure it out as I go along.

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Mike, indeed, perhaps we are kindred spirits…

My desire with Dramatica is to understand each choice I’m making. If I choose Decision as the Driver, for instance, I want to know “why” that choice is better than Action for my particular story. The same goes with all the other choices. That’s why I try to dig deep and really understand each Appreciation, so that I know with a good deal of certainty that I’m making the right choice.

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Everyone takes a break from Dramatica…but really, you’re not taking a break–you’re working on figuring out all the stuff you learned way back in the recesses of your mind. That’s why, when you come back, it suddenly makes sense. (At least parts of it).

I suspect you already know this (and I remember the maillist too, that’s where I started!), but there is no real “right” choice for Story Driver. It is all up to you and could go either way. We could help you kind of sort of figure it out, but in the end it really just is about what story you want to tell.

I know that probably doesn’t help much, but thought I would throw it out there.