Storyform: Starting over from the beginning

writing
#1

Just when I think I might understand Dramatica (at least in part) I go back and look at my story and realize I don’t understand anything. In fact, there’s actually a chance I understand less now than before. :slight_smile:

Because my story is a pseudo-love triangle, I’m not sure who is the antagonist and who the IC is, which makes figuring out throughlines impossible. This is further complicated by giving the protagonist multiple interdependent objectives. I’ve tried to simplify and abstract the essence of the story below. Can anyone who better understands Dramatica suggest a story pattern and domain/elements for this story or, at least, point me in the right direction?

The situation:
Characters A & B (and most of the other characters) want to achieve #1.
To do #1, A must do #2.
To do #2, A must do #3.
B opposes #3 which threatens #1
C requires #3 to allow #2 (#1 requires #2)
(Only A and C know about #2 and #3 and A desperately wants to keep it that way, especially from B)

The conclusion:
A does #4 which helps lead to #3 and accomplishes #2 but ultimately chooses not to follow through with #1 but pursues #5 instead.

#5=establishing a new relationship
#4=investigating and revealing the past and how it has led to a certain attitude.
#3=changing someone’s opinions and feelings
#2=saving someone’s life
#1=preserving a relationship

I can’t begin to figure out the throughlines until I know who is who, but this is what I have of the structure so far.

Act 1=establishing #1, #2 and #3
Act 2=attempting and failing at #3 and discovering #4 all while struggling with #1
Act 3=pursuing #4 to get closer to #3 while trying with increasing difficulty to hold onto #1
Act 4=accomplishing #3 and #2 then, at the climax, rejecting #1 and taking drastic measures to accomplish #5.

Most of the story is about A & C trying to change each other’s minds while A & B try to preserve their relationship in mutually-exclusive ways, so A is really in conflict with both. A is obviously the protagonist but who is the antagonist and who is the IC?

At this point I’m thinking that if A’s solution is to sacrifice his relationship with B and establish a relationship with C that would make B the antagonist, but it doesn’t feel right since so much of the major conflict is between A & C. I suspect I am not really grasping the essential story problem of my own story so I’m probably not picking the right domains.

I hope this makes sense and I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Thanks. :slight_smile:

#2

You’ll need to distinguish the conflict that concerns everyone from the conflicts that concern the subjective characters.

Star Wars example: Everyone is concerned about the fight between the Rebels and the Empire, but only Luke is worried about being stuck on a desert planet, and only Luke and Obi-wan together are concerned about being Jedi.

It can be easy to conflate your Main Character / Influence Character’s personal issues with their participation in the overall story. @jhull has a great exercise – imagine your MC is plopped into a different story. What issues would be the same? These define the MC’s personal conflict. The MC brings them to the table regardless of the OS.

You say the cast wants to achieve the preservation of a relationship, including “B.” This means B is not the antagonist. The antagonist would want the relationship to end. Right now B sounds more like a contagonist – knowingly or unknowingly hindering the requirements to preserve the relationship.

Whatever the Overall Goal is, the antagonist is the principal character who wants to avoid or prevent it from happening.

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#3

The most frustrating thing about this is that I keep poking at this story from different angles and keep getting different answers. I am confident Dramatica can help me come to a deeper understanding of this story, but while I can express it in other paradigms, I can’t seem to find the right approach to employ Dramatica’s method of analysis.

As you pointed out, I am having difficulty even determining the OS. The story almost seems to be a private argument between two people in which the other characters are mostly just obstacles. (At least until the 3rd act where the logic and the emotion characters separately urge the MC to recognize that his desire for #1 had begun to change to #5.)

Since they are largely unaware of the conflict between A (the MC) and C the secondary characters are only (knowingly) involved in the relationship between A&B. This would seem to make #1 the overall story concern and C the antagonist except that C isn’t really concerned about #1 directly. C is concerned about #3 which just happens to impact on #1 and #2. (Can C be both the Antagonist as well as the IC?)

Looking at the end and trying to work backward, A sees achieving #3 (and thus #2 and #1) as taking care of the “problem” he’s been working toward through the story, but he’s only really happy when he achieves #5. In fact, at the climax, he is forced to choose between #1 and #5. Would that make #1 the response and #5 the solution? Perhaps you can see why I’m so confused. :slight_smile:

If I were to use K.M. Weiland’s terms, #1 would be The Lie, or the thing the MC thinks he wants to be happy, while #5 would be The Truth, or the thing he truly needs to be happy. But that just tells me the MC’s internal struggle, It doesn’t seem to address the OS.

#4

JAPartridge, I’m wondering if you might benefit from going through a bunch of the on-line Dramatica analyses, especially looking at the “titles” that the creators (and subsequently, the Users Group) have given to the wide variety of Overall Stories that they have analyzed.

If you’ve already got a few Story Engine selections that you’re fairly sure of (like maybe Outcome, Limit, Resolve, etc., you can also select those on using the on-line filtering tool (http://dramatica.com/analysis/filter).

Then, go to several of those analyses that have the most in common with your “fairly-sure” selections, and see what the Overall Story in each of them is titled.

For example, if I go to that Filter page and select MC Resolve: Steadfast, Story Limit: Optionlock, Story Outcome: Success, Story Judgment: Bad, the page pulls up examples like:

The Social Network, Network, The Dark Knight, Y Tu Mamá También, The Usual Suspects, Election, The Terminator, Planet of the Apes, Body Heat, Witness, Unforgiven, Lawrence of Arabia, and The Godfather.

Now, if I click on each movie’s icon and go into its Analysis, I’ll very quickly see the “title” that the analyzers gave to the Overall Story throughline of the larger Grand Argument Story. For example, from two large-cast stories:

The Social Network: “Getting Credit for Founding Facebook” (Psychology Domain).
Planet of the Apes: “Apes and Men Don’t Mix” (Universe Domain).

And, for example, from a couple of more-intimate stories:

Y Tu Mamá También: “Road Trip to Boca de Cielo” (Physics Domain).
Election: “Controlling the High School” (Physics Domain).

Now here are just four examples of Overall Story titles (with all these Overall Stories being in either the Physics, Psychology or Situation Domain). But see how each encapsulates an internal or external pursuit in which ALL of the Overall Story’s principal characters are involved?

So, until you have arrived at such a cast-focusing pursuit as your Overall Story (whether it’s as “small” as taking a “simple” road trip or as “large” as gaining credit for a global social-networking site), you don’t really have an Overall Story that somehow forces your principal characters to keep interacting with each other.

And without that, all your “love triangle” elements will probably seem unanchored and of little consequence. Because a cast-focusing Overall Story is what makes your story feel “movie-worthy,” rather than something that could as easily have been captured in a novella or longish short story.

I’m not explaining this well… but I hope you’ll get some clarity from comparing and contrasting a number of those Overall Story “titles,” and whatever you might title the OS you’re working with.

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