Understanding Dramatica's Terminology (Domain, Concern, Issue, Problem)

theory
#1

Continuing the discussion from Story Assembly – Putting it all to work:

Trying to incorporate your article into my thought processes and looking at the Biggest, Big, Medium and Small problems idea. So here’s my thought process as I was trying to apply that idea. Mind you I wasn’t trying to be creative with the problems just trying to see if this is how it works.

Say you have a gymnast with a sprained ankle (Domain, situation (small problem)).
My next question for myself was Why is that a concern for her? As opposed to it being an “Oh well.” shrug guess I’m out until it heals (which attitude would make it a non-problem).
Why is that a concern for her? Because it means she won’t be able to compete in XYZ regional meet, which is where the college coaches will be, making her miss her chance for a scholarship (Concern, future (medium problem)).
Why is that an issue for her? Her family believes that she is their way out of poverty, they have her life mapped out for her and it involves a prestigious college and a run in the olympics and this injury is putting all their plans into jeopardy. She can’t stand the thought of letting them all down. (Issue, Preconceptions (Big problem)
And finally Why is this a problem? This one ties into her self concept. She identifies herself as the one person who has it together enough to actually be able to help her family get to a better place. If she can’t help, then what use is she? Everything she’s done will be for nothing. (Problem, Help, Biggest problem) This in short story context could also be the solution…yes?

Am I even close?

#2

Whether or not that’s what Jim intended, I think this makes a lot of sense.

The only thing I want to point out is that sometimes moving from one level to another is not just refining the problem. (Which you didn’t do, at any rate.)

It could also be that she is in a Situation (sprained ankle), be concerned about global warming (future), have an issue of preconception (she judges people by the clothes they wear) and a Problem of Help: she constantly needs other people to help her with her homework.

I don’t know what that story would be, but I wanted to demonstrate that it doesn’t all have to tie to the ankle sprain.

#3

Both point-of-views are correct – you can have it tie together from top to bottom or you can have it all over the place like @MWollaeger suggests – Dramatica will keep everything tied together thematically. My article was more about understanding the scope of each level more than it was about focusing on specific instance. Both work, but just know that how each level focuses on the next is up the the Author.