Though the timer on a bomb may go off at a particular time, that does NOT make it Story Limit. If it IS the story limit, you’ll need to connect it to the Story Drivers and the inequity at the heart of the story.
The story limit is a part of the storyform that lets the AUTHOR indicate to the AUDIENCE when the story will be over. The other characters awareness of the detonation time on the bomb is not strictly necessary, though it is difficult to build and maintain tension WITHIN the story if they aren’t aware of it, particularly if it is tied to the story limit.
So why can an Optionlock wait until the end before telling the audience that the story has come to a close, but a Timelock can’t?
If a story says it will climax at sundown (or that it can’t climax until sundown) and doesn’t tell you how many hours until sundown, the audience can still see that when the sun is down it’s time for the story to climax. Is this in any way different from the timed bomb example? I’m assuming that the specific lack of numbers means this can’t be a Timelock.
If you can wait until the end of a story to see that there were X number of options, does that force every story without a timer into an Optionlock? Or is it possible for a storyform to be broken because of a lack of a limit on both Time and Options?
Like all story points, the limit should appear at least once a signpost/act, so I do not recommend withholding illustrating the limit over the course of the story. The question is how much attention you draw the audiences attention to it.
I hope you don’t mind me chiming in Greg. Just regarding the sundown question, I think sundown could work for a Timelock because it is a fixed moment in time that can’t be changed. It would certainly make it easier to communicate to the audience if you mentioned the number of hours/minutes remaining, but you could still communicate the Limit running out without numbers (we have “loads” of time until sundown; we have “some” time; uh oh it’s getting close).
Still, sundown is a weird one because the sun is traveling through the space of the sky, while also making a decent clock. I think you’d have to frame it to be about the time, not the space. This would come in when you tie it to the inequity and story drivers, I think, but I admit it’s confusing.
One thing I just realized is that you could tie ANY event in a story to the Timelock’s exhaustion, even stuff that seems malleable like “the moment of Havelock’s death” or “the moment that Ms. Peters spreads jam on her cracker”. The way to do this would be to use an omniscient narrator who clearly states that the event will happen at a particular time (Ms Peters will have her cracker on Wednesday at 12:17 pm), and make it clear that this cannot be changed. Then show the time counting down toward that – and of course tie it to the initial inequity and story drivers. There’s got to be a reason that jam cracker is important.
A way you could do it without an omniscient narrator is time travel – someone comes back from the future knowing at what time the President will be shot, for example. Then you work against this time, making it clear the story’s not about delaying or altering the time of the shooting – they have to stop the shooting before (or at) that time.
Back to the Future is kind of like this, using time travel to predict the important event that brings on the climax.
Can’t the question of Optionlock or Timelock be answered by asking:
what drives the action for the story towards the climax?
what creates the tension?
why did the consequence occur or why did we believe the consequence would have occurred?
Off the top of my head, I can think of limits that would push a story forward when coupled with consequences (aka stakes):
a limited amount of time that prevents the application of all options
a limited amount of time that eliminates certain options
a limited set of viable options due to imagination
a limited set of viable options due to intelligence
a limited set of viable options due to congruency (you can’t have your cake and…)
a limited set of viable options due to ability
a limited set of viable options due to opportunity cost
a limited set of viable options due to consequences
a limited set of viable options due to practicality
I think that another part of the puzzle that needs to be looked at is consequences or stakes. They are going to arrive if the character doesn’t solve the problem even if there isn’t a set time.
Did they arrive because there wasn’t enough time; because there were no viable options left; because a previous decision caused a limitation in future options; etc.?
It does seem that Optionlock has the most flexibility, whereas Timelock is a one trick pony. Working outside the constraints of Dramatica language, I think a person could call it Optionlimits and come up with a large list of things that limit options including time.
I am not criticizing the language of Dramanta just as I would not criticize Spanish for not having possessives. Different ways of thinking and methodologies bring us to the same destination. Having a specific category for Timelocks is reasonable because it is a common way of driving the action and creating tension or urgency.
As for the original question, are Timelocks always fixed? I think they must be or be perceived to be without the illusion being broken.
For example, if a character tells your protagonist that he will blow up the world in 24 hours unless the protagonist pays a ransom – either the ransom must be paid because the protagonist perceived the consequence to be real or the consequence must occur. If neither of those happen, then it was just an Optionlock in disguise as a Timelock.
I wonder too, if all Timelocks start out as an Optionlock because we have two options always. To believe the Timelock or not to believe the Timelock.
Of course not. I love it, and I’ve certainly made myself comfortable with chiming in on every one else’s conversations. Heck, this isn’t even my thread!
Anyway, I’m ready to move on from this topic, but for those keeping count, here’s the things I still don’t get and am ready to accept that, at least for now, I’m just not going to get.
Timelocks have to give a specific amount of time up front, but option locks don’t (while optionlocks need to mention the options at least once per act, it’s acceptable for, say, Star Wars, to say “first we have to find Obi-Wan, now we need to save the princess, now we need to destroy the Death Star” as it progresses rather than saying it all up front). What causes this difference? Why is it “hiding information” when you do it with Time, but not with Space?
Characters messing with a bomb and inadvertently changing the clock looks like a confusing Otionlock despite not immediately forcing the climax which only comes an hour later after a clock has run down. Yes, this changes the amount of time that was initially given to the audience, but this story climax still seems very much tied to the passing of time.
In the bomb example, characters cut the wrong wire or whatever and the timer jumps from 12 hours to 1 hour. They start working on another option but the timer goes off before they can do anything else. Without additional information, the space in that Optionlock seems to be the space between 1 hour and 0 on the clock. I can see that as space, but can’t see why it wouldn’t just be called time since that’s what the space is measuring. I have no idea if that would be where anyone else would say the space is in that example.
With the sundown thing, I probably shouldn’t have even brought up another example. But here’s the thing. I can see that being a time or option lock depending on how the story plays out. But it seems like it would be very awkward to make that about the options or the space. Sure, just like I said in 3 the space between the sun and the horizon is an amount of space, but the shrinking distance between them, assuming the story must take place in one spot and not with the characters boarding a jet and flying around the planet, is a measurement of time. But, presumably, ignoring the numbers on the clock forces this into an optionlock where the amount of space between sun and horizon represents the options. Looking at the naturally occurring shrinking of this space, even if I don’t know how long it will take, just looks to me like the story is tied to time. I guess I’m not being particularly imaginative, but I’m not sure how neglecting to say there are X hours until sundown causes a story to be about the spatial measurement between the sun and horizon which is still shrinking regardless of what other options are being explored.
It’s been said that the absence of one story point does not mean the presence of another. But if you don’t have to state a specific number of options up front and can instead look from the end of the story to see that there were X number of options available, this does seem to force any story without a timer into an Optionlock by default.
The first question is answered by the Story Driver.
The second question is answered by posing the potential against the outcome, which can be expressed ANYWHERE (or everywhere) in the story argument.
The consequence is the Story Consequence, which is not the same thing as the Story Limit.
I think it best to look at story points for what they are and not try to make them fit every box. When you begin to combine them is when they create narrative harmonics that create tension and imply meaning for the audience.
Sundown is not a timelock unless you assign a TIME to it, such as “The sun sets at 5:53 PM today.” Otherwise, you’re using the sun as a spatial indicator, not a temporal indicator.
Thanks for the response. I wonder if my first question would have been better if I had said, what forces the story towards the climax?
And, I guess my last question of whether all Timelocks start out as Optionlocks until belief or disbelief is selected as an option is a bit silly because belief and disbelief are not within the world of authorial intent when talking about Timelocks and Optionlocks.
Perhaps, in the case of these two options, they should be viewed as writing tools rather than literary devices?
Maybe I should have said plot devices? And maybe I should refer to them as whether they serve the author, story, or reader? Do they serve all three in different ways?
I am not sure what I mean anymore. I first wanted to describe Dramatica as a language. Maybe a computer language or code would be more apt. It seems that even the smallest imprecision gets an error code.
But would that mean it’s impossible to have a Timelock story of less than a day’s duration set in ancient times? (when they didn’t use such time markers other then the sun/moon/stars)
I was thinking it was okay as long as the Author assigned a time to it, and communicated the durations in whatever vague units the characters understood – “a while”, “soon”, “really soon” etc.
Can I offer this question? Which of these are Timelocks?
The villain is building a doomsday weapon. He loudly states, “In four days, the weapon will be complete!” After four days are done, the weapon is complete, exactly on schedule.
As before, but the villain says, “Each day my weapon comes closer to completion!” The weapon is composed of four segments, and he completes one segment a day, so the viewer can calculate in their head that the weapon will take four days to complete.
As before, but the segments aren’t as clear cut. We see the progress of the weapon at the end of the day, so we can tell that by day 1, it’s mostly unfinished; by day 2, it’s about half-done; by day 3, it’s mostly finished; and as day 4 closes, the heroes are racing to stop it before it fires.
As before, but we don’t see the progress at regular intervals. Each time we cut back to the progress of the weapon, it’s a little more complete, but not necessarily in an obvious, “50%” way. It’s only when we’re right at the end that it’s clear the weapon is primed and ready to fire.
The obvious answer to me is that all of them are Timelocks, even though only the first has a clear timeline attached to it. The second requires a basic conversion: (Total segments) divided by (Segments per day) = Days. But if 2 is permissible, then 3 works as well, using “growth per day” to approximate the number of days necessary. And if 3 works as well, then 4 is fine, since “growth per scene” approximates “growth per day.”
If the conversion in 2 is unacceptable… frankly, I’m a little shocked. People say all the time, “I live 15 minutes away from you,” approximating distance with time, as well as the reverse: “I’m 5 miles away from you” to suggest that I will arrive in approx. 10 minutes. If a road trip in a story covers 2000 miles, then even though the characters never convert that to time, I know highway speed is 60 mph, meaning it’ll take them approx. 35 hours, give or take bathroom breaks. Because their rate of change of distance is approximately constant, we feel the same urgency in the car covering 30 miles as we would the clock ticking by 30 minutes, because those are the same thing.
I’d also like to have this difference explained.
The character has 24 hours to complete a task. He sleeps from 9 PM to 9 AM, meaning he really only has 12 waking hours to complete it.
The character has 8 hours to study for a test. However, he accidentally falls asleep while studying, and wakes up with only 1 hour left to cram.
A character has 2 days to study for a test. However, he thinks he has it in the bag, so he offers to take it today–then realizes there’s a topic he doesn’t actually know, meaning he only has 1 hour to cram that last topic.
A character has 1 hour to study for a test. He works like crazy, then gets to the proctoring room–to realize he’s 7 hours early. Now thoroughly harrowed, he decides to use the extra time much more carefully to study–and it’s still gonna be tough to get all the studying done in that time.
The character has 3 days to save the world from being destroyed. He plays a magic song which slows down the flow of time. He still has 3 objective days, but subjectively, it feels like 6.
1 feels like a normal Timelock–we readily ignore sleep when talking about Timelocks anyway, so we understand that sometimes characters sleep to jump forward on the timeline. But if 1 is okay, then 2 is okay as well–the character’s still sleeping, it was just inadvertent. 3 is the same as 2, only the character did it intentionally. 4 is the same as 2, only in reverse: inadvertently adding time instead of subtracting it. And 5 is the same as 4, only intentional instead of inadvertent. I would be really surprised to learn that some or all of them are not Timelocks.
You appear to keep using a subjective sense to determine the limit. It SEEMS like this, or that. That is NOT how you determine the limit. The question is which one CANNOT BE CHANGED without changing the meaning of the story. Think of the limit as that which brings the STORY to a climax, not the MC or any particular character in the OS. All four throughlines work toward the climax, not just one or another.
IF you say you have nine hours as the limit and you take less or more, then it was not a limit. For example, the movie SPEED has a deadline of 11:30AM (or something like that). Then, there is an additional condition added that the bus cannot drop below a certain speed without blowing up. As it happens, the bus does drop below that speed and blows up but that is not the end of the story. The deadline comes and goes and the story is still not over. So even though they were established, both were broken and the story just sort of turns into “It’ll be over when either the protagonist or the antagonist wins,” e.g. no Story Limit.
By contrast, the film, “High Noon” was shot without any storytelling indicating the story limit (noon). Word has it that when they screened the movie the audience was bored and had no idea with the story would be over. They decided to cut in images of the clock with the hands showing times closer and closer to noon, and at noon, the train (with the bad guys) whistles and you know time is up – the climax has arrived. The audience response went from ho-hum to wow.
Timelocks are simple: Either a deadline or a fixed amount of time. PERIOD. When the time is up, it’s time for the characters/story to s**t or get off the pot.
So I thought I was done on this topic, but just can’t seem to help myself. Anyway, I would have been done except I think I figured out a small part of what I was doing wrong and it helps me get a good bit closer to answering my own questions as well as coming to the correct conclusions as to whether something is a timelock or not.
First, what I was doing wrong. I was looking at the timeline of a story as being fixed, or locked in place. On this view, the author knows that his twelve hour timelock is actually going to go off in eleven hours and the climax of the story is locked to that eleven hour mark. So every story tied to the passage of time ends up being a timelock. While looking at the story this way is, I think, a valid way to look at a story, it is, of course, not accurate for looking at Dramatica Timelocks.
Next, how I closed the gap (or at least figured out a way to kind of hop across it) between my view and the Dramatica view. It was clear that there was a fundamental difference in the way Dramatica and I were viewing…something. But I didn’t know what. If I looked at how I might define time vs how Dramatica looked at it, it might solve one issue, but not another. If I looked at the issue that remained unsolved, i might could work out how to solve that, but it messed up the first issue again. I eventually decided that I had to try to change my definition of time and just see what happened. Instead of thinking of time as being the passage of moments, or the passing from one moment to the next, I needed to look at time as being unrelated to moments passing and instead see it as being strictly related to numbers. That didn’t quite work because optionlocks can be about the numbers as well. So i added that time was a specific number of moments being passed through, rather than just the simple passing of moments. Thinking of time like this seemed to let me get to the same answers the experts were giving (for the most part).
The reason it worked, I think, is because it forced the Lock part of a Timelock into my definition. Remember, I was still looking at timelocks as being about moments locked in a timeline at this point. So forcing the lock into my definition of time sort of helped me bridge the gap over to how I think Dramatica is looking at it without my really realizing it for a bit. Only as I’m typing this out do I feel like I’m actually getting much of that (and it seems so dad-gummed obvious in hind sight).
Anyway, here’s where I’m at now. A specifically given number of moments is a Timelock. Anything that doesn’t have a specific number of moments gets defaulted to the optionlock pile until later. Here’s how I apply this view to the examples in this thread:
Possibly there’s not enough to say. But I’m thinking what this is going for is that it’s always a three day timelock. The characters aren’t handed the information, they have to figure it out and get it wrong the first time. It’s a reassessed timelock. But it’s also a potentially broken timelock depending on how it’s handled.
a. specific number of moments=timelock b. a specific number of moments is given, but not held to = broken timelock. The audience is presumably still expecting the narrative to cover eleven more hours.
c. a specific number of moments is given for defusing the bomb, but not for bringing about a climax to the story=not a timelock
d. specific number of moments given and not held to. However, the author appears to be more focused on options=either a broken timelock, or an attempt at an optionlock (made confusing because of the way the timelocks are tied to time)
e. specific number of moments given but not held to = not a timelock because of a possible optionlock
f. another reassessed timelock and/or potential for optionlock
g. assuming a count down that hasn’t changed in rate of speed or skipped any numbers, specific number of moments given = timelock with possible optionlock overlay. Is there a storyform that remains otherwise unchanged when flipped between timelock and optionlock?
apparently irrelevant as long as the options are stated at least once per act and the climax doesn’t come between the time when they say they have to blow up the Death Star and the time when they actually do it, and as after they say “all we gotta do is blow up the DS” and then blow it up the story doesn’t just keep going.
if it’s treated as a Timelock, it will be a broken timelock. may be some potential for it to be treated as an optionlock left.
no specific number of moments given = not a timelock
The limited options seem to be something like “if dad is still alive, we still have the option to make memories”. It’s hard to think of how this might relate to space, but i don’t suppose that’s necessary. [quote=“Gregolas, post:46, topic:1450”]
Characters messing with a bomb and inadvertently changing the clock looks like a confusing Otionlock despite not immediately forcing the climax which only comes an hour later after a clock has run down. Yes, this changes the amount of time that was initially given to the audience, but this story climax still seems very much tied to the passing of time.
[/quote]
Yes, it’s tied to the passing of time, but not locked by it.
it’s not a timelock because there is not a specific number of moments given. it is possibly, but not definitely part of an optionlock
it’s tied to time, but there’s no specific number of moments passing given. it gets tossed into the optionlock pile to see if the space between the sun and horizon are somehow locking the story.[quote=“actingpower, post:53, topic:1450”]
The villain is building a doomsday weapon. He loudly states, “In four days, the weapon will be complete!” After four days are done, the weapon is complete, exactly on schedule.
As before, but the villain says, “Each day my weapon comes closer to completion!” The weapon is composed of four segments, and he completes one segment a day, so the viewer can calculate in their head that the weapon will take four days to complete.
As before, but the segments aren’t as clear cut. We see the progress of the weapon at the end of the day, so we can tell that by day 1, it’s mostly unfinished; by day 2, it’s about half-done; by day 3, it’s mostly finished; and as day 4 closes, the heroes are racing to stop it before it fires.
As before, but we don’t see the progress at regular intervals. Each time we cut back to the progress of the weapon, it’s a little more complete, but not necessarily in an obvious, “50%” way. It’s only when we’re right at the end that it’s clear the weapon is primed and ready to fire.
[/quote]
Specific number of moments given and adhered to = timelock
2-4. no specific number of moments given = not a timelock, probably an optionlock based on the number of parts
1 and 2. specific number of moments given = timelock
3. climax occurs prior to specific number of moments given = broken timelock
4. specific number of moments given but not held to = broken timelock
5. specific number of moments given and held to, and the character finds a way to explore more options during that period = reassessed timelock.
This concept of “given number of moments” is important enough that there are several ways of saying it in English: duration, elapsed time, length of time. I’ve noticed Chris calls it “amount of time”. Most people take it for granted that time can be expressed as a measurable quantity, but maybe that was one of your blindspots? Good on you for working through it.
I’d actually recommend you change your wording because “moment” is perhaps too vague – one moment might be 5 seconds while another might be a minute. (But I can see how that wording led to your understanding, so it was temporarily useful.)
Also, rather than “is a Timelock” you should say “can be used to make a Timelock” but I think you took that shortcut intentionally.
Finally, recall that Chris has emphasized a Timelock can be illustrated by either an amount of time OR a deadline (or both, I assume). So you could have an amount (“we’ve got 4 hours people!”) without ever stating that 4 hours will be up at 5:53pm. Or you could have a precise deadline (5:53pm) without stating the exact amount of time until then, though you’d likely have to illustrate the amount at least vaguely (ten minutes would look a lot different than ten hours).
One thing to keep in mind with your new understanding is that Timelocks don’t require any specific precision. One might be down to the second, while another is just to the day (wedding date). Another might only be to the month – “the baby will come in June” – so that the climax comes with the approach of June.
Sorry to nitpick, but a given number of most ANYTHING tied to the Story Limit is an optionlock (unless they are fixed units of time associated with a specific quantity of those units, e.g. six weeks or twenty-four hours).
A timelock involves a fixed end point in time – a deadline – or a fixed unit of time that, once reached, triggers or heralds the climax.
An optionlock involves a fixed amount of space – an limited area – or a limited number of options that, once exhausted, triggers or heralds the climax.
Lest I be too pedantic (loud gasps of mock shock ), I suggest thinking of the Story Limits in simple terms. If you have a hard time explaining it, you’re audience will have a hard time understanding it.
Does the story have a limited supply of time or space (options)?
And if so, how much of it does the story have before the final conflict occurs?
It’s that simple.
NOTE: In Dramatica, Timelocks and Optionlocks ONLY exist as they indicate the Story Limit. Though your story may involve other deadlines or limited options (think of the countdown at the end of Star Wars), only the ones tied to the Limit matter, structurally-speaking.
So conversion from something else to time is unacceptable? As I said, I’m shocked. So, like, in Dunkirk, when Tom Hardy’s pilot character is running low on fuel, that’s an Optionlock? He does a time conversion early into the movie, but it’s mostly forgotten, because, as I said in my last post, if the rate of change of fuel is approximately constant, then loss of fuel equals loss of time. That urgency you feel when someone yells out, “We’re running out of time!” is exactly the same feeling you get when someone yells, “We’re running out of fuel!” Or in the Bible story where a widow is running out of oil to make bread, and she says, “I have enough oil for three days, and after that, I will have to eat sticks and die,” the consumption of oil doesn’t scan to the passage of time? And we couldn’t just show the oil running out instead of the sun setting and rising?
I’m tired, and I want to go to bed, but I want to propose my heresy and see what people think. A Timelock is defined by the fact that the increase in tension and decrease in opportunity is constant, whereas in an Optionlock, the increase in tension and decrease in opportunity is discrete. In a Timelock story, the passage of time, or any communicable analogue for time, occurs regularly, and therefore if the characters stand around for thirty seconds, the problem has gotten 30 seconds (or 30 miles or 30 milliliters of gasoline) more dire. Whereas in an Optionlock, the characters can sit around all they like, but the minute they exhaust an Option, it’s gone, and the tension immediately cranks up that much more. So a character uses up one of their three wishes or proves the innocence of a suspect or collects one of the seven Needles of the World Beast, and now there’s one less wish or suspect or Needle left.
The “time” in Timelock doesn’t matter, nor does the “option” in “Optionlock.” What matters is that time flows at a constant one second per second, whereas options exist in discrete quanta. That’s how I’m understanding these concepts; that’s the background behind my previous post.
Thanks @chuntley. Pretty sure I’ve got it now. I think the biggest thing holding me back was when people said that Timelocks were fixed in time. That’s accurate but it misled me because, as I said in WAY too many words yesterday, it had me looking at events that were fixed in time. What helped me to see it the way it seems I’m supposed to is to switch from thinking of Timelocks as fixed in time to thinking of them as time fixed to a number. Sunsets can indicate time and are fixed in time, but do not indicate a specific number of moments. (to reply to @mlucas, i was using “moments” to refer to any time measurement from a minute to a millenium and beyond). So, anyway, anybody else having trouble with Timelocks being “fixed in time” try instead to think of them as fixed TO time, or fixed to a number.
The fuel-gauge-as-clock is iffy, because depending on how you operate your engine, you could increase or decrease time until empty. A pilot could coast all the way back to base, or do some crazy high-RPM stunt and never make it back, i.e. Expanding / Contracting Space.
Maybe if the story communicates clearly that the fuel consumption is constant, and doesn’t get sidetracked with “well we can do one of these or two of that on the remaining fuel,” it might be a Timelock…but it still feels very spatial to me – how much volume in the tank.
Because their rate of change of distance is approximately constant, we feel the same urgency in the car covering 30 miles as we would the clock ticking by 30 minutes, because those are the same thing.