What if the author himself is crazy?

questions
#1

Hello everyone,

this is my first post. I am a german author and my question in relation to “The Theory” is kind of systemic. Or would that go into “Meta”? Well, I have been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, so it’s totally possible I see a problem where there isn’t one. Just checking.

After a while of working with Dramatica I suddenly start learning stuff about myself. Those character patches took me all week to set up. It’s like quantum physics. It had me think a lot about relationships. I have always had a hard time understanding people, see? One of the characters I constantly tried to kick off because I simply don’t like him. But he just kept sneaking back in on those patches. Apparently, he is a necessary evil and I’m going to have to give him more space than I’d prefer. Another character, the only remaining archetype of all players (Guardian), got her feathers ruffled quite bit. But I came to think she wants it so. It feels like my characters sum up to all aspects of myself.

Now I wonder if that’s just the normal “flow of operation” when learning how to write a novel, or if this might actually be a personal problem. I guess I wonder if a mental condition the author has might inevitably blind him to certain aspects of the characters, with them ending up all lopsides.

All the best,
Amino

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#2

You will definitely learn alot about yourself working with the theory.

And yes, Dramatica presents a complete argument, the argument you think you’re telling yourself inside your head. The only way it “makes sense” inside of your head is because you’re blind to a certain aspect of it.

Dramatica (like an Influence Character) shines a light on that missing piece/black hole.

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#3

So, no problem then.

Much obliged!

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#4

The upside is that honesty in writing, writing what’s fun for you, will be recognized and enjoyed by some of the reading audience. There are others out there like “us”, whatever that may be. The one delightful thing about the world is variety.

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#5

Well, fun isn’t exactly all of it. It’s about morality, justifying lying and manipulating someone to save his life. But being betrayed is about the last thing I can stand…

So far the process has been quite liberating though. Fun too. Questions like: Can two characters with lots of dynamic pairs still be friends? Does someone ever get to learn from somebody he doesn’t like?

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#6

I’m only a hobbyest, but does the writer ever stop writing? I wrote a short story for a class once, and the teacher said it was the ugliest story she had ever read. I had thought it was kind of cool tinkering with fantasy reincarnation, etc… (I didn’t know she was about to go into a major operation, ooops moment) There was nothing explicit or profane or even illegal activities going on. That was about 22 years ago and I might tinker with it in the future. However, when I had put it in the packet I gave Sandy Stone to go over for learning about the theory and how I wrote, he pointed out that that particular finished story was not a complete storyform. Interesting.

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