I won’t lie. I am anxious to get to work actually writing. We’ve probably done as much story forming as we can for now. If something pops up during the story encoding phase, we can always fix it then.
So, how do you want to handle the encoding phase?
Just throwing out another aside here. Sherlock Holmes actually uses something like Inductive or Abductive reasoning. It’s pretty much just a form of educated guessing. I’m wondering if that tends to be his Unique Ability at work (Analysis or whatever Variation would contain Induction for his throughline). No idea if he’s more Holistic or Linear. Probably depends on the portrayal. I’m probably going to have to watch the first two season of Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch now.
What you do in encoding really depends on your writing process, which differs for everyone. Plus, most people are still learning Dramatica and how to apply it to their writing, so no one’s got it totally figured out.
First, definitely use that Bob Raskoph tool from the other thread to create single-page HTML of the one or two storyforms you like best. They make awesome references. Pretty soon you’ll have all the major points memorized.
Next, I’d actually recommend to stop adding anything into the Dramatica application. Now that you have the storyform, I think the rest is best done in a word processing tool. (NOTE: you could skip encoding altogether and just start writing your story now, if you want! Just referencing the storyform when you get stuck or need ideas.)
For storyencoding, start with a very quick pass, where you just write one or two brief phrases for each story point. You can export the Story Engine Settings report, save it to a word processor, and start marking it up like this:
MAIN CHARACTER
(Caitlin Finch)
THROUGHLINE: Being the magic-born girl
CONCERN: Having a bleak future
ISSUE: Being prejudged for her devil’s blood vs. Openness
PROBLEM: Being a free spirit; Being abandoned by her family
SOLUTION: Allowing oneself to be tamed/controlled [Following the old man’s guidance]
SYMPTOM: Making things difficult for oneself; Being chained by rules
RESPONSE: Aiding others (esp. healing)
UNIQUE ABILITY: Accessing the time-slowed dimension / Taking time to calm down and think
CRITICAL FLAW: Outmaneuvering authority
BENCHMARK: Being focused on one’s immediate needs (e.g. hunger, tests, escaping execution, avoiding pursuit)
SIGNPOST 1: Being ready (presentable) for the Lord’s return home. Also: not being aware of current affairs (recently enacted laws regarding magic-born).
(etc.)
You’ll note I erased the original Dramtica terms as I went, to make it feel more creative than those sterile terms. Up to you if you want to leave them in.
If you’re not sure on something, leave it blank or throw in a bunch of question marks beside your ideas.
(continued…)
Once you’re done all the throughlines, get a feel for how well you “grok” each throughline. It’s fine if some signposts are left blank (you don’t need to know everything ahead of time) but you should have a good sense of the main conflict points – Domain, Concern, Issue, Problem. If any of the throughlines seem weak or you don’t quite get them, then you can focus in on those by brainstorming and writing more – a paragraph for each story point. This is where people on this forum might be able to help if you have questions.
Note sometimes it helps to do Domain & Concern, and Symptom & Response, together. That idea comes from Narrative First – and if you REALLY want to get a strong sense of your throughlines, you can try the Narrative First playground exercises. They can be a lot of work, but can help you grasp the throughline really well.
I’m not sure if a detailed outline is part of your writing process, but if it is, another thing you can do is try to identify the act turn Story Drivers. This can be tricky, but can be really valuable to understanding your story. (But if you only do a vague plot outline or none at all, you can’t really do this.)
Sherlock Holmes is using inference or probabilistic thinking, but he’s doing it for a lot of A’s and B’s concurrently. Its the same kind of thing used in email spam filters, facial recognition software, voice-to-text software, etc.
If that’s not “holistic,” then I have no idea what “holism” is. I do not believe that holism is random. Its conclusions are not arbitrary. But, if it isn’t probability based and drawn from a large number of as and bs concurrently, if it isn’t inference, then I have no idea what it is.
To the holistic thinker, what matters is not the As and Bs, but the balance of forces between them.
Here’s an example I use. 72 F is the room temperature we usually keep the house at in the winter. We’re all pretty comfortable there. Say we get home from being out and the thermostat was down to save energy, so the house is say 67. I’ll turn it up to 72. (or sometimes 70 or 71 – if no one notices, we’ll save more energy!)
But if my wife (holistic) gets home and sees it at 67, she’s like “Brrr!” and will turn it up to 73. If it’s even colder, say 65, she’ll turn it up to 74. Even though she knows that doesn’t make it heat up any faster, and even though she knows she’s most comfortable at 72. That high number on the thermostat is her attempt to “balance” things – at least there’s now one force in the house that represents heat (the high number). Also, holistically across time, if the house ends up warmer in the future, that sort of balances out its being colder earlier.
NOTE: I believe it’s actually more accurate to use the original terms Male and Female Mental Sex, but some might find that offensive, so we use Linear and Holistic.
That’s what inductive logic is though.
Inductive logic is about probabilities instead of certainties (deductive)… It doesn’t have much to do with “balance of forces” as far as I know.
What do you think probabilities are? If I have 100 marbles 50 black and 50 white, then the probability of drawing a white marble is 50%, but “50 black and 50 white” describes a “balance of forces” between white and black marbles. In fact, we can generalize thilss to say that we have 100 marbles with n marbles of one color and m of another color. We have m% chance to draw an m marble, but “n marbles of one color and m of another color” describes a balance of forces between the two colors.
To simplify, “balance of forces” is just another way to describe a probability.
I’m pretty sure everything you just said is a linear way of looking at it. The Holistic thinker would include the colour of the marble bag and whether it happens to be day or night when considering the balance between light and dark (white and black).
At least, that’s my understanding, but I generally only think holistically when I’m running. Maybe we should get a real holistic thinker like @Audz involved here to help out… 
Maybe we should move this to another thread and get back to Ragnaroking out Loki’s story! Sorry for the pun…
…no I’m not
Calling holism a “balance of forces” creates a problem and that problem is unpacking what exactly “balance” means in this description. Taking it literally, it would mean counting marbles. That is certainly a linear thing.
My previous post was saying that “balance of forces” is just an alternative way of saying “probability.” HOWEVER, it is not to imply that I agree with calling “balance of forces” holism. “But, wait,” I hear you say, “didn’t you say that inductive logic is holism and that inductive logic deals with probabilities? So, when you say that ‘balance of forces’ is an alternative way to say ‘probability’ and that ‘balance of forces’ is not holism, then you’re contradicting yourself, right?”
No. What I said is that inductive logic is holism and that inductive logic deals with probabilities. Probabilities in and of themselves are not holism. However, if you connect a bunch of probabilities, for example as done in a Bayes net, then you can get emergent properties. Inductive logic deals with probabilities in the same way that biochemistry deals with atoms, but atoms are not life. Life emerges from the interaction of those atoms. Inductive logic emerges from the interaction of those probabilities.
You’re right. I enjoy debating. But, it is a distraction and I still want to get this novel done while I’m waiting for my foot to heal.
I dunno, I’m just a data scientist.
Your description works with rather strange definition of “balance” and “forces”.
I think the conversation about Holistic problem solving and induction would probably be better suited if it were looking at a specific problem. Kinda hard to tell what’s going on (at least for me) without knowing what the problem is.
As a data scientist, I’d love to hear your description of holistic thinking. But, Gretgolas is right that this thread should get back to focusing on the story.
Riffing off of Greg’s enthusiasm, I just want to congratulate you on two things @YellowSuspenders …
First, really, really awesome story. There’s a lot of depth to it, in the storytelling as well as the conflicts and characters. And it seems like what you worked out before coming into storyforming really did jive nicely with a proper structure – a coherent narrative.
Second, it’s pretty sweet that you got as far as you did in finding a storyform you’re happy with. We can debate about story drivers and male vs. female mental sex all we want, but even with those not set it’s narrowed down to two or four out of 32,768 possible storyforms. That’s not easy for a number of reasons (e.g. the barriers that internet communication presents), and it’s harder when the writer is new to Dramatica. Kudos to you both for the storyforming achievement, and for picking up Dramatica as well as you have so far. Keep writing, keep learning!
[quote=“mlucas, post:117, topic:1487”] picking up Dramatica as well as you have so far. Keep writing, keep learning!
[/quote]
Well, I committed a week of time to doing this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PycZtfns_U Now, Sensei, I believe it is time you showed me this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg21M2zwG9Q
I’ve learned how to describe my story in Dramatica’s rather esoteric language. What now?
What did I gain from that week of hard work? What does it give me in a practical (that is, not abstract, not theoretical) sense to get my story written?
Show me the magic.
I do it a little different every time, but I like to start with illustrating the sign posts. I usually end up changing it up as I go, but having the sign posts illustrated gives you anywhere from 16 sentences to 16 paragraphs to use as a guidebook. It lets you see you if your story looks like it’s going to work from a fairly broad level. And if things aren’t quite working, it doesn’t take much to fix. Then I go in and try to add thematic stuff and cater problem and symptom elements to what’s going on in the sign posts.
I like to try to write it like I’m writing a kids book. “Luke was in the counsellors office. He was getting therapy because he felt guilty about the death of his brother. The counsellor told him it was time to let his brother go, but he didn’t want to.” Then you have a simple rundown of the story and you can change things pretty easily. Just keep adding theme and problem and benchmarks until you’ve got what you need to understand your story. Once you have all the important stuff, you can start writing with that as a guide to keep you on track. The one thing I would suggest avoiding is going into much detail about the ending before you get to the actual writing. For me, getting the ending down kind of kills my enthusiasm for finishing a project. It’s not a perfect process, but it’s pretty much what I’ve been doing.
For quick fun, look at the “Four Throughlines Themes” report. It can be accurate in a creepy way, like Dramatica’s reading your mind! And it may give you some good ideas.
The most important thing is that now you know where the conflict comes from in your story. Domain, Concern, Issue, Problem – these are all sources of conflict so powerful that if you took any of them away, you wouldn’t have a story in that throughline. You want to make sure these are present in your story as drives, motivations and causing difficulties.
If you’re not sure how useful this can be, it might help to watch a movie where you know the storyform. The Matrix is a good one with an obvious Change character and really obvious Problem -> Solution in both OS and MC, and as a bonus it has a female mental sex (holistic) MC!
There is also an “argument” to your storyform, but it’s up to you how much you want to worry about that right now. Here is a great article on finding the unique meaning in your story that goes beyond the storyform:
But note that there is no “magic sauce” to the hard work of writing. Dramatica does not tell you exactly what to write, it just guides your thinking, helps you realize what fits in your story and what doesn’t. The “magic” will come when you start to understand your story completely, in how all the story points work together to form a balanced, coherent narrative. e.g. how do Boone’s difficulties and influence around temptation drive Luke to adopt his point of view, and thus to go from too much or too little reconsidering, to consideration?