Letters To Dramatica

Questions or comments about the Dramatica theory or software?
Email Melanie@storymind.com

A Writer Asks...

I'm confused that three of acts are explored in terms of the four Variations in the different Type, the Type which the act doesn't deal with, and only act four is explored in terms of the Variations in the same Type.

The same kind of result is shown about THE OBSTACLE CHARACTER THROUGHLINE, too, so I do not think this is a technical mistake. But I cannot really grasp how this works for the story.

It would be lovely if you could explain this, or tell me the part of either the theory book or the software or the on-line log I can have the explanation, which I might have missed.

The explanation you are looking for is actually not published anywhere. It is part of the dramatic algorithm from which the story engine itself is built. Although I can't divulge the specifics of the mechanism, as they are part of our pending patent, I can give you an overview of conceptually how it all works.

Have you ever wondered exactly how and why things are mixed up as they are by Dramatica's story engine? Although some of the connections between Appreciations (such as "goal" and "concern") are easy to see, others are more obscure, and still others seem to defy any attempt at discovery of the forces at work behind them. Of this later class, the progressive Appreciations of the plot (such as Type act order and thematic connections to each Type/act) are, in fact, impossible to understand by linear logic alone.

To get a feel for what is really happening, picture in your mind the "3-D" projection of the Dramatica Structural Chart of Dramatic Elements (the one with four "towers", each representing a Class and below it the Types, Variations, and Elements).

Now, think of this 3-D chart as a cross between a Rubik's Cube and a periodic table of story elements. In it's original neutral state, the Types that fall beneath each Class represent the four essential aspects of that Class. The Variations of each Type, represent the four essential aspects of that Type, and so on.

This chart actually represents a single human mind without an inequity. In other words, all considerations are equally balanced and weighted, putting the mind at rest.

Now, the moment our minds (or the Story Mind) takes a point of view on an issue, it throws things out of kilter, much like mixing up the Rubik's Cube so that the pieces are rearranged.

Hold that concept for a moment while we add another important concept to the mix which we will need to pull the whole thing together.

Again picture the 3-D chart in your mind. This time, look at the Elements as the "first level of problem solving". Suppose something in our lives irritates us. In other words, we are not compatible in our environment. Suppose this irritation has to do with the element "temptation". If "temptation" gets irritated enough, we pull it back, just like a snail pulls back it's antennae when touched. When we pull back "temptation" it actually "rotates" in it's quad, moving "temptation" away from the irritation and moving "conscience" (it's dynamic or diagonal pair) to the front - the point of irritation. This is like a blister forming over a wound in the mind.

The moment this happens because of the dynamic movement of temptation rotating back and conscience coming to the forefront, it has the structural impact of temptation and conscience exchanging places.

If the irritation persists, it makes no sense for temptation to come back to the front. The only option left for the Story Mind is to take more drastic action to protect itself at a larger scale. Rather than Elements changing places, the Variation above the irritated Elements AND that Variations dynamic pair change places. This moves temptation AND conscience even FARTHER away from the irritating conflict between mind and environment.

Ultimately, the mind continues this process until the irritation is relieved or it runs out of levels by exchanging Classes. When Classes are exchanged, however, it moves internal considerations outside and external considerations inside, which is called in psychological terms, "projection". When this happens, although the mind is still irritated, it no longer sees itself as the cause of the problem if it did before, or conversely, now sees itself as the cause of the problem when it didn't before. Either way, the apparent cause of the problem has shifted between the internal and external source.

The result of this is that the mind sees the problem as unsolvable, and therefore accepts the apparent cause as a given. It is this build up of millions of givens that determines a person's personality - all of the opinions, motivations, attractions and repulsions that describe how the see the world and how they react to it.

In stories, it is not that complex. Rather than millions of givens, a story's argument deals with just one. So, by the time problem solving reaches the "fourth level" of the Class, we have established a mind with an inequity that is based on a given and locked in place.

Now, stories are not just about one point of view on a problem, but about FOUR. They are the Main Character (I), Obstacle Character (You), Subjective story (We) and Objective Story (They).

In Western culture, the (I) and (They) perspectives are used as our yardsticks, as they represent the personal view as compared to Objective reality. Therefore, it is important to see which one of those views is the more accurate (or, in our society, which is right and which is wrong). This is what the story's argument is really all about in Western culture.

It should be noted that other combinations of points of view serve as yardsticks in cultures other than Western, but all of them use two as the yardsticks, and two as the primary "battlegrounds" in which the argument is made.

Now, that is why you see that although the Variations and Types in the Main Character and Objective Story throughlines will always be from the same Class, though mixed up within that class.

If that is all that the mind did, that would be the end of it and all four points of view would have Variations that matched the class of the Types. But, the mind has something else going on beyond Problem Solving, and it is called "Justification".

Justification is what happens when the mind not only sees a problem as unsolvable, but learns to become unaware that the problem even exists. Why? Because the pain of the problem is too great. Just seeing it as hopeless still hurts. But if the mind can numb itself to the pain, it will suffer no longer.

Have you ever sat in a room and suddenly realized there is a loud ticking clock or an air conditioner, but you hadn't been hearing it at all? Have you ever suddenly become aware of your own breathing, or found yourself daydreaming? This is all exemplary of the same kind of mental process that tunes out a hurtful problem.

In our earlier example, we began at the Element level and rotated quad by quad and level by level until we had all four levels up to the Classes changed in position. But, this other kind of process called "justification" changes the position of quads not bottom to top, but side to side.

In justification, each quad can rotate like a turntable. So, instead of rotating from front to back, they rotate around. That is the ultimate form of "projection" because it adds to the first kind another manner of twist that leaves the mind unaware a problem even exists.

This is how people can become prejudiced or driven. It is the source of our blind spots and the source of our motivation. It is neither good nor bad until placed in context - the context of life or the context of a story.

Now, without going into further complexities, suffice it to say that the dynamic questions you answer in Dramatica regarding change/steadfast, timelock or optionlock, even mental sex male or female, determines which direction the rotations occur, whether they drag along the the items under them (such as Variations dragging along their Elements or not when the Variations rotate), and even the relationships between directions of rotation in different points of view. All in all, a rather sophisticated algorithm.

The end result is that because Western culture sees the Main Character and Objective story as the yardsticks, they must be true to class. Since only one culture perspective can be maintained at a time, the first one we created in Dramatica software was the Western perspective which is where our initial market resides.

Future versions of Dramatica will allow for different combinations of cultural perspectives, and in these you will see other combinations of points of view that are true to Class with the Main and Objective Domains sometimes being the fragmented ones.

I know this is more than you asked for and probably more than you wanted, but I felt a full explanation was in order so as not to sound like an arbitrary force was at work.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to write.

Melanie