Nothing to add except those are some FANTASTIC questions. Very thought provoking and exactly what the Overall Story Concern is looking for…
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Those are all boffo directions! I definitely don’t mind the help. I guess a question I still have is, taking Jim’s article into account, how does this reflect the Big (Biggest, Big, Medium, Small) level of problem? These all seem pretty focused rather than broad. Whether they get used in the story or not, wouldn’t these represent a very close approach to the problem? Either that or I don’t still quite understand how the remaining problem levels (Issue, Problem) could get more direct/focused/higher-microscope-powered. Then again, that would be for someone else to decide… If this is sidetracking things, let me know and we can start a new thread somewhere else.
Another thing to add to jassnip’s fine “freestyling” on an OS Concern: Fundamental to Dramatica Theory is the idea than either “too much” or “too little” of an appreciation can be what causes an escalation in the story’s problems (which some of jassnip’s examples kind of hint at).
So, while some of the OS characters might be concerned too much with “having an intuitive understanding of oneself,” you can also include OS characters who care too little about this trait.
That is, they refuse to have (or negate the value of having) any kind of “intuitive understanding of” themselves. They justify this using rationales such as “it’s hard times, honey; we got no room for that kind of useless emotional jabberwockying!”
So, at least in the Overall Story throughline, your several objective characters can be at various places on the spectrum from too much to too little of “having an intuitive understanding of oneself.”
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So, the $64,000 question is how do you take all that, distill it down, and create something to fill in the appreciation?
Well, consider the spectrum that ranges between jassnip’s suggestions and mine, and perhaps consider the following (now in the storyform) description of a fairly broad-spectrum appreciation like the OS PROBLEM of Being Chaotic: “A chaos-causing Depression forces everyone to either go crazy or try to make a living at things they’ve never tried before.”
So, with an OS CONCERN of Having an Intuitive Understanding of Oneself, maybe it’s something like:
Everyone is torn between their compassionate intuitive understandings (“we’re all in this Depression together, so why should I steal someone else’s opportunity?”) and a refusal to acknowledge those understandings (“because if ever there was a time to be looking out for number one, this is it!”).
And obviously, that’s just one suggestion… plus I have no idea if you or our moderator will see any value in it. But it is fairly short, and does suggest a spectrum (from too much to too little) regarding that “intuitive understanding.”
Does that help you invent one that’s personally meaningful to you?
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Maybe it would help not to think about the levels, but think about the characters. What do you see happening to them? What would be fun for you?
Considering this is a rom-com, and even though we’re dealing with a serious topic (the value of women in the workforce), I’d like to see the humorous aspects of this, how we could laugh at the antics of these people, like the head of the company who, on the one hand says that he has the greatest respect for women, yet we see how his choices twist both the women who work for him as well as the women who are in his immediate family. Like his daughter who sees more about what is going on than does her father and who makes his life a living hell at home by rebelling against what she sees as his “out-dated, fuddy-duddy ideas.” Maybe this is the germ that will eventually grow into the women who take over the work when the men all go to war in the next 20 years.
I think you’re on the right track here, Writegeist… except since you’ve picked the Overall Story throughline, you need to make your 50-words-or-less description be about the majority of the Overall, Objective Story characters, not just about the boss and the women in his family (who aren’t even in our character list).
Find a quick way to lump various groups of “objective-story” characters — like Fleischer executives, male animators and staff, female wanna-be animators, and out-of-work job-seekers and protesters who banter with the women going in and out of the Empire State Building — and describe how their Intuitive Understandings of Themselves (or refusals to Understand Themselves) worry them and cause them Overall Story problems.
And don’t worry about the “comedy” aspects now; most great rom-com writers will tell you they had to get the story “bones” right first, then they made the surfaces funny in the story-telling.
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Yeah, I figgered someone would respond like this… Sigh 50 words or less, huh? I probably picked the graduate-level appreciation, huh? And I thought it would be so easy! Damn you, fiction-writing gods!
Well, if nothing else, I keep banging my head against the wall…
OVERALL STORY CONCERN: Having an Intuitive Understanding of Oneself
Objective characters deal with the concept of allowing women a greater creative stake in the business. Executives see the possibility of losing money if word gets out that they are using women as artists and writers coming in conflict with perceptions of the women’s talent. The male animators feel threatened by the influx of new talent and threaten management with revolt and possibly starting their own studio. Women see this as a way to pursue their own interests, that their dreams can be true, thus threatening the stability of their households. Activists and journalist see this as a way to further their own agendas, further threatening the business, pushing the executives to consider firing the women who do have positions on the staff.
None of this has anything to do with “Having an Intuitive Understanding of Oneself”…
…however the fact that you keep using the phrase “see this” insinuates the Issue of Interpretation and perhaps “Being Interpreted”. The problems you describe are problems of interpretation or “seeing” something there. Would it be OK to use this as encoding for the Overall Story Issue instead or would you like to keep trying to write the Overall Story Concern?
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Jhull and I both thought jassnip had some great questions on this topic (see above). So maybe we could distill those down into something more concise for this Overall Story CONCERN of Having an Intuitive Understanding of Oneself? And again, because it’s “Overall,” this Concern should blanket all the principal characters, as well as most of the secondaries, a la:
Most everyone during this horrible Depression struggles between their all-American conditioning toward “we’re all supposed to be equal here” and their natural instincts toward self-preservation/selfishness. They understand the former is “a nice idea,” but maybe “balance” and “equality” are too subject to interpretation. If the whole world is actually falling apart, perhaps we should follow our senses and make sure “our side is a bit more equal!”
Just some thoughts, from looking deeper into the storyform?
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If we are talking deeper, how about Maslow’s pyramid, with enough food to eat at the base?
Yup, staying fed is certainly one of those “self-preservation” instincts that we all experience deeply (with a few rare exceptions).
I think I’ve banged my head against this one enough. I should probably let someone else take a whack at it. So, yes, Jim, feel free to move it. Maybe I’ll figure it out once someone else comes up with an answer.
This could be a book by the time we’re done! Maybe we’re the characters! That’s pretty meta, huh?
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[quote="Writegeist, post:240, topic:66, full:true”] (or might have said…)
OVERALL STORY ISSUE: being interpreted
Objective characters deal with the concept of allowing women a greater creative stake in the business. Executives see the possibility of losing money if word gets out that they are using women as artists and writers coming in conflict with perceptions of the women’s talent. The male animators feel threatened by the influx of new talent and threaten management with revolt and possibly starting their own studio. Women see this as a way to pursue their own interests, that their dreams can be true, thus threatening the stability of their households. Activists and journalist see this as a way to further their own agendas, further threatening the business, pushing the executives to consider firing the women who do have positions on the staff.
[/quote]
Is this what you meant? @Writegeist and @jhull
I’d like to say I know, but I don’t know the answer to that question 
Ok, put @Writegeist’s encoding down as the Overall Story Issue NOT the Overall Story Concern.
Sorry for the dealy – had to write an entire screenplay last week 
My contribution will simply be to take my ideas from Post #224 and turn it into the Overall Story Concern of Having an Intuitive Understanding of Onseself:
The group of female employees at the studio have an intuitive understanding of themselves and can’t help but let everyone know about it–a huge concern for those in charge. This understanding creates interpersonal conflicts between the women and the male artists there who for the most part–don’t know themselves artistically. Still, there are some male artists who leave for home early because they intuit that they’re sick–unfortunately leaving their remaning co-workers (and the women in the office) to clean up the pieces. The head writer’s intuitive understanding of himself leads him to force his own life story into every cartoon–not a good approach. And the elevator operator’s intuitive understanding of himself inspires him to pitch a new series idea every single morning regardless of who wants to hear it (and most don’t!).
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@jhull et al. I’ve chosen IC Concern: Studying Atlantis
Sebastian has been studying the downfall of Atlantis. He is convinced that current circumstances (the depression) mirror the destruction of the fabled continent. And that the answer to solving the world’s problems can be found in the scant tidbits he is able to dig up.
Does this work?
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