Story Goal and OS Concern

questions
#1

Hi.

I was trying to develop a story using directly the story engine.

My overall story is about an entrepreneur selling a product, so the first thing I did was I searched for a GIST and selected Story Goal > Doing > Selling Something (GIST).

And then I noticed that among the items that were automatically selected in the story engine, the OS concern is the same as the story goal. (In this case, Doing).

Question 1: Should the GISTs for Story Goal and OS Concern be the same? I was wondering if it should, for consistency. Or is it possible to have:

Story Goal > Doing > Selling Something
OS Concern > Doing > Eating Broccoli (I deliberately picked what could be an absurd choice, who knows).

Question 2: When I’m story encoding, should I consider different, separate events to encode the Story Goal and the OS Concern? (Like selling something and eating broccoli) My instinct tells me they should be the same, for consistency (selling the product). Or should I think of any difference when encoding the Story Goal and the OS Concern? Would it help or hinder if they are different? An example would be appreciated.

I think what I’m trying to find out is the difference between Story Goal and OS Concern because they are automatically determined to be of the same kind by the Story Engine.

Thanks.

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#2

Just wanted to say this is a great question, and I don’t know the answer, so hopefully someone else will chime in.

When I first started with Dramatica I originally thought it was better to encode items of the same type similarly, across Throughlines etc. – I thought this commonality would make the story “tighter” by having everything connect like that. For example, my storyform has Problem = Oppose for 3 of the 4 Throughlines, and I was originally thinking, great that’s easy, I’ll encode them all as Opposition to Legal Reforms.

Now I realize from reading articles like Jim’s recent NarrativeFirst stuff about using Gists for creativity, and also this tip from Armando Saldaña Mora, that it’s much better to be more creative and have different encodings for each point. You want each throughline to have its own story – the “tightness” of the story comes from Dramatica itself, from the storyform keeping you on the proper themes, not from having the same encodings. This will be a bit tough for someone in my situation, already knowing a lot of the story before using Dramatica, but I think at least trying to encode each Oppose somewhat differently (even if they’re all still related) will inject a lot of cool creativity into my story. In fact I’m already finding this to be the case.

However as you mention, OS Concern and Story Goal may be an exception to this, because they’re so tied together.

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#3

Let me field this, or try to. When is doing something a problem? That’s what this concern is about…so When is selling something a problem and or when is getting someone (say your child) to eat broccoli a problem and how would you solve each of those problems?

You need to convince the person that this is something they want to do, something they need to do, something that will help them. Your arguments and tactics would be different (Maybe?) because the characters you are trying to get on board are different and their relationships are different (potential client vs. Child (Although as a total sidenote, I’m not sure those are actually different))

Some of the things a character might try in one could be a clue as to how to deal with and solve the other. So for example, the character could melt cheese on the broccoli to get his kid to eat it. And that could give him the idea to offer an extra soft blanket for cuddling while watching his new big screen TV (if it’s winter)… or whatever you brilliantly come up with. That’s the brilliance of dramatica, the underlying problems and ways of addressing those are universal and you just need to illustrate your particular variation.

I hope if I’ve got this wrong one of the big dogs will come and tell me so.

D.

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#4

They absolutely shouldn’t be the same. The OS Goal is the thing that has to happen (or be made impossible to happen) that wraps up the story. It has a totally different function than the concerns people have.

Plus, consider that there are many people in your story. Are they all concerned with selling something? Let’s say we have a husband who is concerned about selling vacuums. Why should this be what his wife is worried about? Maybe she’s got to run the household. Maybe her concern is more tied to the vacuums, but her concern is managing the budget. Their kids want to play with the other kids in their neighborhood… what do they care about their dad selling vacuums?

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#5

Hi Mike (@MWollaeger) … that totally makes sense … but is it okay for the OS Goal and the OS Concern to be along the same lines or basically the same “gist”?

For example, I just looked at my current story’s illustrations and I have a Story Goal of “Bringing the Conspirators to Justice” and an OS Concern of “bringing enemies to justice, and/or escaping justice” (both Obtaining). The Goal is a specific instance of the Concern, which involves many characters on both sides of the conflict who are pursuing and escaping, sometimes both at the same time.

I’m not sure what the Goal is in your vacuum example, is it related to selling or vacuums or not? Or maybe it was meant as a counter-example?

#6

I think I found the answer here to my above question here: Story Goal vs. Signposts, it talks about Story Goal, OS Concern, and OS Signposts. Here’s a very relevant quote:

For example, your story might have a Story Goal of OBTAINING, such as Finding the Lost Treasure. It will also have an Overall Story Concern of OBTAINING, which is a more generalized concern that might include finding a map, winning the lottery, losing an election, losing a job, etc. The various Overall Story Characters, some concerned with one thing while the others concerned with the other things, explore these ingeneral.

So it looks like you would show multiple ways of various OS characters expressing the Concern. Sort of like multiple encodings of the OS Concern; or perhaps another way to put it is that OS Concern is encoded in a broad way.
Sorry if my confusion muddied the waters of this thread.

#7

The Story Goal is frequently conflated with the OS Concern because we tend to think of the OS in terms of the Protagonist and the Antagonist. So, yes, broadening it out to include other characters results in, like you said, a broad encoding or multiple encodings.

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#8

Thanks for your reply, @MWollaeger. @mlucas comments also helped a lot to clarify the issue.

So, if I’m getting this right the Story Goal is related to the Protagonist and therefore the Outcome (Success/Failure). (But the Protagonist may not always be the Main Character)

And the OS Concern is related to all characters, their own personal concern, which is not necessarily the Story Goal. But could be.

#9

Sounds about right. (Post must be at least 20 characters.)