In this second article in the Dynamic Model series, I’m going to explore really intriguing problem – how particles can be transmuted into waves and vice versa.
Why this important to writers and even more important to psychologists and social scientists may not be immediately apparent, so first I’ll outline its potential usefulness and also how it is essential to the expansion of the Dramatica theory into a whole new realm.
Stories might end in success or failure of the effort to achieve the goal. But how big a success, or how great a failure. Now you are talking a matter of degree. What’s more, is it a permanent success/failure or a temporary one? And if temporary, does it always remain at the same level or does it vary, getting bigger, smaller, or oscillating in a symmetrical cyclic or complex manner?
Now, apply this to a character’s motivation. It may be motivated by one particular kind of thing, but is that motivation increasing or decreasing? It is accelerating or decelerating? Is it cyclic or complex, is it transmuting from one nature of motivation to another? And for that matter, how does a character actually change from one nature to another in a leap of faith? Up the magnification and ask, “can I see the exact moment a character’s mind changes from one way of looking at the world to another?”
When is that magic moment at which Scrooge changes? How long does it last? Can we find the spot at which he is one way now and another way a moment later? Is the change a process or an immediate timeless shift from one state to another? What exactly is the mechanism – not the mechanism that leads him to the point of change, but the exact time at which that change occurs?
When can we say that a light switch is off versus being on? Is it how many electrons are crossing the gap, is it the position of the switch at a visual resolution? Is it the light getting brighter? How bright? How fast? How about a mercury light that fades on and off at 60 Hz? When it is on the nadir of the down cycle is it off? And therefore, does the exact moment of a character’s change depend upon momentum? Inertia? Zeno’s paradox?
If writers could follow the rise and fall, the ebb and flow of dramatic potentials, resistances, currents, and powers discreetly for every element, every particle in a story’s structure, one could predict the cognitive and affective impact on the readers or audience as a constantly changing bundle of waveforms, each one thread or throughline in the undulating unbroken progression of experience.
Now project this into psychology, societal concerns, stock market analysis, weather prediction – such a dynamic model would enable incredibly accurate projections as well as far more detailed and complete snap analyses.
BUT
In order for these applications to be realized, we need not only a dynamic model, but also the means of connecting it to the structural model. In other words, we need to develop a particle/wave continuum in which particles can become waves can become particles in an endless flow of cascading shifts and transmutations.
So how does this interface work? What stands between particle and wave that alters one to another?
In the next installment of the Dynamic Model series, I’ll offer some conjectures.
This is the first in a series of articles I’ll be writing about a whole different way of looking at the Dramatica theory – in terms of dynamics, rather than structure. In fact, the dynamic model is a counterpart, not an alternative, to the existing structural model with which you may be familiar.
As an illustration of the difference between the two, if you think of the structural model as being made of particles, the dynamic model is made of waves. If the structural model is seen as digital, the dynamic model is analog. If the structural model describes a neural network, the dynamic model describes the biochemistry, If the structural defines the elements of a story (or psychology) and how they relate, the dynamic model defines how the elements transmute or decay into other elements and how relationships among elements are changing.
In usage, the structural model can tell you, for example, that a main character is driven by logic; the dynamic model can tell you how strongly they are driven and how the intensity of that drive changes over time. The structural model can predict if a story will end in success or failure; the dynamic model can tell you the degree of success or failure.
In a nutshell, the structural model documents the fixed logic of a story’s structure, the dynamic model charts the ebb and flow of its passions. Cognitive and Affective, Yin and Yang, Space and Time. Head and heart.
If you are familiar with deep Dramatica theory, you know that all the output of the Story Engine is not made available in the Dramatica software. In fact, the Story Engine generate quite a bit more information about a story’s structure than it makes available to a user. What information, and why suppress it? I’ll answer the second question first.
We suppressed information that was so detailed and dramatically “tiny” that it was beyond the scope or magnification in which authors work. And, even if someone wanted to work with structure to that microscopic micromanaged level, that information had such little impact that it would almost certainly be lost in the background noise of the storytelling. In other words, the granularity of that suppressed information was smaller than the resolution of an audience’s understanding. In short – it would be lost in the translation from structure to finished story. So, to keep from overcomplicating the story structuring process and having the author do work that would never have a practical impact, we decided this kind of material should not be provided by the Story Engine.
Still, just because authors can’t really apply this suppressed information in a useful manner doesn’t mean the information isn’t accurate, especially when using the Story Engine for psychological analysis rather than just for fictional constructs. So, here’s a brief description of this information, shared here for the purpose of illustrating the limits of the current structural model at its farthest edges, and then being able to further describe what the developing dynamic model can bring to the table.
What is suppressed: PRCO and 1234. What the hell does that mean? PRCO stands for Potential, Resistance, Current and Outcome (or Power). 1234 is the sequential order in which the four items in a quad will come into play. You see this last part in the sequence of the Signposts and Journeys for each of the four throughlines in Dramatica, but the engine only shows you the output for the “type” level or plot level of a story’s structure – the equivalent of the topics each act will cover in each of the four throughlines. It is suppressed for all the other levels and all the other quads. (Though some additional sequential information is also available in the Plot Sequence Report in Dramatica.)
In truth, EVERY quad in the structure appears in every story structure, but some, like the Signposts, are the focus of the story. And yet, if you watch a story unfold, you’ll see that EVERY SINGLE QUAD in a completely structured story will unfold in a predictable sequential manner. As a side note, the manner in which we discovered this is an intriguing story I may write about someday, but for the purposes of this article, suffice it to say that every quad in a structure at every level will have a 1234 sequence attached to it, and those sequences will differ from one storyform to another.
But what about the PRCO? Well, consider ever quad as a little dramatic circuit – not a static thing except in the sense that an electronic circuit is static – a battery, a resistor, a light bulb and some wire – but the electrons flow through it and the bulb generates light. Similarly, in a dramatic circuit – a quad – the four items will act as Potential, Resistance, Current and Outcome (Power) and form a flow that moves one moment into the next and generates energy that sparks the next scene or sequence or act.
Now I could go into great detail about how all this works (it is built into the Story Engine after all) – BUT, that’s not the point All you need to know for this article is that in the process of “winding up” the dramatic potential of the story at large, the model is (conceptually) twisted and turned like a Rubik’s cube so that quads are misaligned in a way that creates the tension that drives the story forward. Or, in terms of psychology, it describes the conflicting forces that are at work in the mind.
And so, every item in every quad will be assigned a 1234 and also a PRCO. This means that sometimes a scene will begin with a Potential and other scenes will open with a Resistance or Current or Power. In other words, 1234 and PRCO are independently assigned because they are not tied together psychologically, nor in terms of fiction.
Back to the dynamic model. The structural model can only tell you if something is a potential or resistance and the order in which it will come into play. But, only a dynamic model could tell you how MUCH potential or resistance was present and how long its span of time in the sequence will last: its duration. Plus, the dynamic model could tell you how the intensity of that potential might be changing and how fast it is changing and whether that speed of change is accelerating.
Stepping back then, it is pretty easy to see the usefulness of this both in charting the collective dramatic intensity of an unfolding story upon an audience’s head and heart, and also the manner in which motivations and decisions, effort and activities reach a flash point or recede in real world individual and group psychology.
Here is an early article about a new aspect of narrative science I was developing. It is based on a previous concept from our Dramatica theory of narrative structure called the Storymind.
The Story Mind asserts that every story has a mind of its own, as if it were some sort of mega character with its own psychology and its own personality. Psychology is the deep structure, just as it is with real people, whereas personality are all the traits and attributes that stand on that foundation and give the story identity, again as with real people.
In the Story Mind theory, characters have two aspects. First, each represents a facet of the overall mind. That is their dramatic function, and it is from this function that we derive the archetypes, such as the Protagonist, Antagonist, Reason, and Emotion.
But characters also have their own personal stories as well in which they are complete human beings, each with his or her own psychology. And so, when we look at an individual character, we can see that the same attributes they use for problem solving within their own minds are fractally represented in the overall Story Mind, each by a different character.
This led to the notion of Fractal Psychology in which when people come together in a group toward a common purpose, they quickly self-organize so that one character becomes the protagonist in the group, another the antagonist, one emerges as the voice of reason and another as the passionate emotion archetype.
Yet beyond that, groups might come together to form larger organizations in which each group becomes an archetype within the larger organization, like departments in a major corporation, each with an identifiable story of its own.
Over the years, this initial concept has continued to evolve in detail and substance. But the seeds were first planted some five years ago as of this posting, and one of the first articles I wrote about how that theory was evolving is reprinted here:
Fractal Psychology in the Real World
What characters represent in the Story Mind is not their own psychology but rather just the small fragment of that overall entity. Essentially, in the story at large characters are nothing more than automatons – going about their functions as “intelligent agents” controlled from above (by the structure of the story as a whole).
The reason we do not easily see this is because we endow our characters with human qualities so that we might identify with them. In a sense, we must give each character at least a rudimentary psychology of its own in order for the reader or audience to empathize or sympathize with it.
But, that psychology does not drive what the character does in the story – it merely defines its personality. Personality is like subject matter or storytelling; it is not structure and does not give the character any psychology at all when it comes to its objective function in the overall story.
Another reason we do not easily see characters as objective is because of something I call “fractal psychology” (see my video on my Storymind YouTube channel). The concept is that when we gather in groups, we form a larger Story Mind as the underlying organization of that group and each adopt roles in the group that correspond to the objective characters. For example, one of us will take the role of the voice of Reason and another will be the Skeptic.
Just as characters can be subdivided into their component elements, so too, in larger groups, its members will refine their functions and specialize until all the elemental positions are taken. Then, if the group grows larger, something really intriguing happens. Individuals will form smaller story mind groups within the overall group. So, there will be one “click” or “faction” within the group that collectively act as the voice of Reason and another that functions as the Skeptical voice. Within each sub-group (sub-story) are similarly-minded individuals who all share the same basic attitude. BUT – within each sub-group, the individuals will take on other objective roles so that, for example, someone will become the Skeptic within the group that stands for Reason – essentially he or she will function as the Skeptical voice of Reason.
And finally, as the original large overall group encounters other similarly sized groups, each group will take on a function and collectively all the groups will form an even larger mind.
This is Fractal Psychology – a pet theory of mine. It explains why we are all in a constant complex web of interrelationships with our peers, our superiors and our subordinates, sometimes being driven by our own psychologies, but socially always acting as objective characters.
And so, we expect every character to have a psychology when, in fact, stories are not complex enough for that. Stories are about dealing with a single central issue with a single Story Mind and the agents that make it up. In this level of magnitude, the objective characters have no real psychology, and yet the reader or audience will expect it, for they see the story as a slice of real life in which everyone they know, themselves included, has a psychology. We, as storytellers, then humanize our automatons so that we fool the audience, sugar coat the functions to make it appear as if they are fully developed people when they truly are not.
There are, of course, two exceptions to this – the Main Character and the Influence Character. They are special because in addition to their objective functions, they also represent our sense of self and that small “devil’s advocate” voice within us with whom we argue about whether we should stick with the tried and true, even if it appears to be failing, or adopt the new and promising, even though it has never been tested.
So these two exceptional characters need to be fully developed with their own true internal thought processes. But that, alas, is another story……
American student released from DPRK (North Korea) – What’s the narrative?
Salient narrative facts:
1. The student is in a coma since March due to botulism, according to DPRK sources.
2. The DPRK has launched 16 missiles in the last few weeks, garnering international concerns.
3. The DPRK recently threatened a first strike nuclear attack against the United States to “protect itself.”
4. The student has been in custody for 17 months and his condition was not known.
Narrative assessment:
The release of the American student, especially in a coma from a cause that creates suspicion of foul play or at least lack of expected protections, is not an olive branch but a further provocation designed to additionally fan the flames of American sentiment against the DPRK.
Clearly, the DPRK is trying to provoke some sort of preemptive action on the part of the United States beyond merely tightening sanctions.
Narrative question:
What is the motivation of the DRPK in attempting to provoke preemptive action against it by the United States, and what are their likely reactions to alternative potential actions?
In previous work we have done for the CIA, NSA, NRO and Joint Chiefs of Staff, this would be the starting point for full-scale narrative analysis of potential scenarios including the creation of a motivation map of the DRPK and specifically of KIm Jong-un, as well as a narrative projection of future behavior , leading to a recommendation of the most effective action plans for United States policy officials.
Most of our analyses, ranging from our presence in Afghanistan to psychological deterrents against Chinese cyber incursions, are largely based on open source material, which holds a wealth of narrative data, hidden within the subject matter, invisible to those untrained in the science and methods of narrative analysis and narrative creation.
Contact us for information about narrative analysis and creation services at narrative@storymind.com
In an earlier post I described how the term “narrative space” refers to the breadth and depth of the subject matter from which you will develop a story. Like a cloud, the subject matter is just the raw material – a nebulous realm in which many story structures might be found. Think of a story structure as a construct of tinker-toys about the size of a basketball. And think of a narrative space as your bathtub. With a tub full of subject matter, you can drop your tinker ball anywhere in it and encircle a different batch of water. Without changing the structure at all, you can move it just an inch and still change the nature of the particular subject matter you’ll use in making your point.
Now look at it another way. You have this tub full of subject matter than intrigues you. You’d love to cram it all into the same story. But, your ball just isn’t that big. In other words, you’d need a book the size of an encyclopedia to cover it all, or perhaps a movie 8 days long. Could it be done, of course! But should it? Not if you expect anybody to read it or go see it.
So, you assess your tub. You’d really like the rubber duck in your story so you put the ball around that. But, you’d also like that particular lump of suds – it just intrigues you. You gently push that little bubbly heap into your ball as well. In fact, you go all over your basin and pull all the water and floating things you’d specifically like into your ball. Eventually, you can’t get anything new into the ball without pushing something else out. That is the story equivalent of the speed of light constant. I call it the size of mind constant, because it describes the maximum size a story can be and still be held at one time in the mind of your reader or audience.
Of course you can always plop another ball into the same tub to gather in a different collection of subject matter. Thus, by writing a series of books, penning a television series, or hammering out a bunch of movie sequels, you might be able to get almost all the subject matter that interests you covered in one story or another – just not all in the same story!
(Naturally, you could create an over-arcing story structure in which each of the smaller stories becomes just an element in a bigger structure, but then the read or audience won’t be able to see the subject matter detail in the smaller stories at the same time that they appreciate the subject matter in the over-arcing story – just too many degrees of separation or magnitude from the biggest to the smallest to capture in a single glimpse.)
Some of your tinker balls might actually overlap in the tub, like galaxies colliding, in which they each share some elements of story structure. Others may carve out sections that are completely separated. And, some may nudge up against each other just close enough to have a topical point of connection. In the end, though, you need to decide for any given story what subject matter you will include and what you will exclude. Or, put inversely, you need to determine where in the tub to drop your ball.
Finally, to the point of this particular posting – narrative space in the real world. By this I do not mean the practical application of story structure in fiction, but the projection of story structure concepts into the actual, physical world of living, breathing people. Quite a departure, I know. But recall that Dramatica is a theory of the story mind. It holds that every story structure is a model of the mind’s problem-solving processes. Even more, it goes so far as to contend that story structure represents the underlying structure and dynamics of our own minds upon which our unique experiences fashion our singular personalities.
Hey – too talky… Let me try that a little more conversationally… What works in story structure works in understanding everyday life as well. The story mind is the same as our own minds. It is a fully functional model of how we think – how we organize things in our own heads. So it should not come as much of a surprise that the way we organize our stories is all the way we organize our lives.
Everything we do in life is represented in stories, at a structural level. I’m not talking about whether you like red or blue or whether you play football or go bowling – that’s all just subject matter. (And when I say “just” subject matter, yes I know that is where the passion lies. We only care intellectually about structure. In short, our heads are into structure but our hearts are into the subject matter. Still, we’re talking about the relationship between structure and subject matter here, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter much anyhow.)
Now one person will organize his life in many story structures. Your life is your tube and you’ll have lots of balls in it – some bigger (up to the size of mind constant, at times) but mostly smaller structures of various sizes. You’ll have a structure for your parents and one for your kids. You’ll have a structure for your job and, within that, one for your boss. You’ll have a structure for your future, one for each hobby, and one for the concept of hobbies in which each smaller structure is an element in the overall concept.
We don’t think about structure, we think in topics and organize in structure.
So, one person will have many nested and isolated structures all bouncing around in his or her head all the time, shifting around the the subject matter of our lives, driven by the passions of our personalities. But underneath it all, logistically, organizationally, there is sense in the midst of the chaos when you recognize the structures of your life and don’t try to create a “life story” but more like a “life pageant” of the ongoing progression, collision and evolution of all the little stories that make up your pitiful existence. Oops… got a little carried away there with the rhetoric….
Point is, one person has many stories. And within themselves, they can see all the characters you find in stories – the Reason character who represents our intellect, the Emotional archetype who stands for our passion, the Protagonist who is our initiative, the Antagonist (our reticence), the Sidekick (our confidence) the Skeptic (doubt), the Guardian (conscience), and the Contagonist (temptation).
But here’s the fun part – when we get together in groups, us humans take on the role of characters in the group story. In short, we organize ourselves as part of a a larger group-story because story structure is how we organize. Sounds recursive, but when you consider that the whole point of stories is to show us how to deal with situations that reflect (at some tiny or grandiose level) our own lives, add to that the notion that story structure evolved because it represents the way we think, and add to that the fact that of course we try to organize our world they way our heads are organized – well then maybe it isn’t so much recursive as it is fractal. In fact, when I first thought of this concept, I called it “fractal psychology” – that’s my name for it and I’m sticking to it! (Check out my videos on fractal psychology on YouTube.)
Every time you join a club, participate in a class, get involved in a political party or show up to work, you are taking a role in a bigger story than yourself, but completely like the way your own mind is organized. So, one of us will be the voice of Reason, another the Emotional (passionate) perspective. By each taking a role, we cover all the ways we can possibly think about the issues the group faces, we create a “big giant head” a la the old television show Mork and Mindy and populate its roles.
Now if you join an already existing organization, there might not be the position open to which you are best suited. And, because of seniority (or lack thereof) you have to take a role that isn’t all that natural to you. But if you don’t, you won’t have a place at the table. So, you cram yourself into that position as best you can in the hopes that if somebody else leaves or dies or gets kicked out or whatever, when the musical chairs of reorganization occurs you may be able to snag yourself a better seat.
Though these things are always to some degree in flux (like molecules, heated, agitating and vibrating to one extent or another), there is a general inertia to each story system that holds the group together. In time, like a person, a group may grow old and die, lose its vibrancy, or simply go to pieces. And then, the pieces will gather together or be sopped up by other groups (again like solar systems forming from the remnants of a super nova) and the process will begin all over.
Now the last notion I’ll lay upon you (hallelujah!) is that even groups gather together in groups. Cities become States become Nations. Factions become Movements become Parties. All of humanity is arranged as nested or separated groups, vibrating and evolving and overlapping as they pass through one another in the great subject matter tub of life. Seems largely like a mess (if you watch the evening news or try to find a job) but beneath it all, very sound, stable, predictable and consistent patterns are a work, all fractally related to that little bitty brain stuffed into each of our puny heads. A world within and a world without.
Finally, just to poke the bear one more time, go ahead and write your fictions, shoot your movies, and tell your tales. But wouldn’t it be interesting to try and apply these same Dramatica principals not only to the realms of your creation but to all creation? What’s the story with your spouse? Your job? Your future? Which of those countries is the Skeptic in this particular international melee? How does what happens in my town fit in with what happens in my county, and how does it mesh with the next burg over?
You want to think about it. You know you do. (That’s just me falling into the role of Contagonist….)
In the early 1990s we developed a new theory of narrative called Dramatica. Since it touched on the psychology of story structure, we believed that it might also be applied to the psychologies of real people as well as fictional ones.
As background for this hypothesis, Dramatica theory holds that every story has a mind of its own. This Story Mind is made up of a personality created by the storytelling style and an underlying psychology represented by the story’s structure.
This one concept alone, if projected onto real people might help us understand an individual, be it a friend, stranger, or perhaps ourselves. But Dramatica also contends that fictional characters are not only personalities in their own rights, but also must play a second role as a facet or aspect of the overall Story Mind. In essence, each character is a complete mental system, but collectively they join together to form a larger mental system that is not unlike a fractal of the dynamics of each individual character.
From this notion, we developed the concept of fractal storyforms, meaning that not only would characters create a Story Mind when they came together, but a group of story structures coming together would create an even larger Story Mind in which each individual story functioned as a character.
In the real world, we hypothesized, when people come together in groups, they automatically slip into roles that represent different attributes we all possess. For example, one person might become the voice of reason in a group, assuming the role of the group’s intellect, just as there is a Reason Archetype in a fictional story. Another character might adopt the position of the group’s passion, speaking up whenever human feelings are the issue, essentially fulfilling the same character function as the Emotion Archetype.
What’s more, if a number of groups band together in a larger organization, automatically they will begin to adopt roles within the larger organization as if they were characters in a mind, thereby extending the phenomenon up one more fractal dimension. In the real world we call this “fractal psychology.”
Naturally it follows that if Story Minds exist in the real world as well as the fictional world, then might we not best understand their elements and mechanisms by applying the same Dramatica model that has proven itself in the analysis of fictional stories?
Recently, an opportunity has emerged for us to explore the application of our methods for analysis of storyforms to actual situations and organizations. At first, the task seemed simple – just analyze the situations as if they were stories. But it quickly became evident that there are substantial differences in the two endeavors.
Most notably, while the narrative space of a story is a closed system, i.e. a book, a movie or a stage play, in the real world the narrative space is open, limitless. So unlike analyses of fiction, in the real world one must first find the storyform before one can analyze it.
Alas, this brings forth another difficulty. There is usually only one story in a fiction narrative space. Sometimes there can be a sub-story hinged to the main story that is almost wholly independent, yet touches at one point, such as a character who appears in both stories.
In such a case, the character is driven most strongly by its own story, yet still plays a function in the larger story. An example is the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV) in which Han Solo’s debt story with Jabba is hinged (but not part of) the main story about the empire and the rebels.
In this example, Han’s character would never allow him to march into the detention area to rescue the princess EXCEPT that his need for money for his sub-story provides enough sideways motivation for him to act out of character and do something that puts him at more risk. A useful tool for writers, but a complication for analysts of real-world situations.
Further, some fiction narrative spaces can contain more than one complete story, like raisins in rice pudding. For example, in Woody Alan’s movie, “Crimes and Misdemeanors” there is a crime story and a misdemeanor story, each with complete and different structures and different characters that do not affect or interact with the other story. The movie is designed to force the audience to compare the two stories side by side and arrive at a more conundrum.
In the real world, this means that any number of independent stories may co-exist in the same narrative space. One may even conjecture that some real world stories may be sub-sets of others, or perhaps even overlap each other containing some unique and some shared story points.
In short, single storyforms in fiction are idealizations in which there is a single central problem. The unfolding of the story is an argument about the best way to try and solve such a problem. But in real minds and real situations, many problems are constantly emerging, playing themselves out, and passing through each other, like stars in galaxies in collision. Add to this the fractal nature of nested storyforms and you end up with a veritable mess.
And so, the task of identifying and separating a single storyform in the real world, much less the one best suited to answer the questions at hand becomes a daunting proposition.
Decades ago, when we were first trying to model Dramatica’s conceptual structure in some tangible form, we experimented with several physical constructs to represent the elements and their attendant dynamics.
Nowadays, we are all familiar with the recognizable four-tower model representing the four Classes of stories and looking like an odd blending of a three-dimensional chess set and a Rubik’s cube. But how many are actually aware of why Dramatica ended up being presented in this form?
The real story, as it were is that in the very beginning, we began with lists of elements that we observed in story. Then we realized some were higher-level appreciations and others lower-level, like members of a family that all share the same higher-level family name as well as their own. Or, like families of chemical elements in which Fluorine and Chlorine are different elements but have properties similar enough to be in the same chemical family.
But how to build a model of that which satisfied all of the mechanisms that “chemically” connected the elements?
One of the first attempts I made was to get a toroid (a doughnut-shaped piece of Styrofoam about a foot across) and then to wrap a thin metallic foil tape around it in a helix. The foil wrapped around the circumference four times by the time it passed through all four quadrants and returned to the point of origin. This represented one of the four classes.
Three more foil tapes of different colors were added, spaced so that they also wrapped around the toroid in a four-loop spiral without overlapping the others. Each was slightly staggered, so that the beginning of the next color was at the ending of the last color, creating a continuously wrapping “quad-helix” around the toroid until the end of thye very last of the four colored foils connected back to the beginning of the very first, creating, essentially and endless loop.
This was useful because you could see the relationships among elements of different classes when written equally spaced along each of the four colors. But, it was hardly practical to ship a Dramatica Steering Wheel with each software box, it who could use the thing anyway? Besides, this was just an approximation. In fact, to be wholly correct, the toroid would have had to have been wrapped by a mobius strip to include the progressive shift of dynamics in a structure which we came to refer to (in verbal shorthand) as an “inverse with a twist.” Hence, the need for a mobius doughnut.
After that, we shifted to a much more doable visualization of the very same elements and mechanics as a pyramid for each Class of story (for each of the four towers you see today).
To illustrate that each pyramid represented a point of view that the peak that fanned out into a perspective of the “Truth” at the base, we decided to put two pyramids together at the base so they formed a crystal – real new age visualization, that!
This worked much better, but we came to realize that because both points of view were looking not at different sides of the same coin but at the same side from different places, then we ran into problems because the common base that was the interface between them couldn’t be itself and also its mirror image at the same time. And besides, there were four classes, so how could they all share the same interface in a three dimensional model?
We were pretty frustrated. So, we took a clue from Crick and Watson when they were trying to be the first to discover the molecular structure of DNA. At first, they were using X-ray micrographs of DNA to try and see the structure. From that method, DNA appears to be a crystal, just as our model could. And, as we all now know, DNA is a double-helix, while our temporal component is a quad-helix.
We figured with that kind of correlation we were probably on the right track. But, since all that was still too complex for writers, we ended up simply making four towers, sub-divided into smaller and smaller components to illustrate all the familial relationships among the story points. And when we flattened it down to a two-dimensional grid, we presented this alternative view as the Dramatica Table of Story Elements that tens of thousands of writers use today.
And here we were now, twenty years later, looking at an open-system narrative space in the real world, once more trying to visualize a storyform. But not the same as in the closed system of fiction – an inverse version of that. But worse. Because the in fiction, analysis is a closed set and creation is an open set, but in the real world analysis AND creation are BOTH open sets. So, it wasn’t just an inverse, but an inverse with a twist AGAIN! Durn concept keeps coming ‘round to haunt us.
Okay, let’s take that toroid again and stick it in the middle of the real-world narrative space. We have to make it a mobius doughnut in our minds because this doughnut is a very special doughnut because to see the storyform inside, you have to turn the doughnut inside out.
And here, then, is the real problem. You can see the data inside until you turn it inside out, but you can’t turn it inside out because it is genus one with no opening on the surface. You see, if you take an inner tube and take off the valve, you can actually (or at least theoretically) pull the entire inner tube through the valve hole until the inside is on the outside and vice versa. But without a hole, in a true doughnut, there’s no loose thread, no handle, no place to get a grip or begin the process of inversion.
The mobius strip aspect indicates that it would only lay flat upon the toroid if we had one more dimension than three in which to build such a visualization. But, we don’t – not for practical purposes.
And so, we bashed our heads against the wall for some time until after many days of conjecture, we realized that the key was not in finding the best storyform in the real-world narrative space by objective standards, but the best storyform by subjective standards.
In a world of infinite overlapping structures, none is more important than any other until you impose importance upon it. Essentially, as the singer/composer Don MacLean said, “The more you pay, the more its worth.”
As an analog, consider the story creation process in fiction. It is an open system for the subject matter of interest to the author has no limits. Theoretically, this makes it impossible to pick the best story structure because it cannot be objectively determined.
But in practice, who the hell is objective? Rather, authors come to the story creation process because of their subjective interest in the subject matter. Many years ago I used to teach authors that we all get excited by the subject matter, but in truth, all of those bits of information can’t possibly live together in peaceful coexistence in the same story structure. The job of the structuring author is to pick the most important subject matter first, boil it down to story points in the structure and then continuing picking until you hit the point where something you want won’t fit into the structure. This is when the Dramatica Story Engine in the software is doing its job by telling the author, “if you include that extra piece, you’re weakening your own structure – working against yourself.”
So, when Dramatica doesn’t match what you want to do at the lower levels, its not broken. In fact, that what it was designed to do – save you from yourself (save your subjective self from making a big objective mistake!)
Now if we apply that same principal to the open-system real world narrative space, then (using the inverse with a twist) analysis should work the same way. And durned if it doesn’t.
You can’t find a story form in the real world, you have to impose one, just like an author does in creating a fiction. Essentially, what is it you want to know? What question do you want to answer, what process do you want to explore?
In practice, you simply look at the narrative space and decide what you want to know first. Then you turn a data point into a story point that will explore that for you. Then you pick the next piece and the next. You continue picking pieces until you’ve fully populated a storyform.
Of course, in the real world, you’ll never get to a complete storyform before you run out of visible data points. But thanks to the Story Engine, by the time you’ve run out of data that belongs in your subjectively defined story structure, Dramatica will suggest the kinds of data that “should” be out there in the gaps.
If you are writing a fictional story about real events, these gaps will be filled by your own creation. But in an analysis of real world data, these gaps are already filled – you just haven’t observed that data yet, but its out there somewhere, hiding for now.
Therefore, Dramatica is able to tell you more about the real world than you can see for yourself.
In summary then, in both fiction and the real world, no storyform is better than any other until you have a preference for one. In either case, you need to look to the subject matter and build a storyform that best represents the subject matter you’d like to explore.
In short, when building storyforms in the real world, forget all the pyramids and towers and mobius doughnuts – all you have to do is make the one you want.
And in conclusion, it took us weeks of work and took me six pages to describe find and describe logically something every writer worth his or her salt knows intuitively:
Build the story you want to tell.
And Dramatica? It just keeps you honest when your own preference for the subject matter gets the better of making sense.
Here’s a little essay on how narrative can determine whether a group, culture, or society will hang together or fall apart…
When you see a society as a group mind, you can see that it must have an identity, just as we do: “I think therefore I am.” In stories, this identity is the main character – the sense of self of the story mind. Think of “corporate identity” of being a fan of a television show who goes to a convention about the show and connects with all the other fans. As individuals, we get a sense of belonging to something bigger than ourselves, that reflects a part of who we are and binds us all together.
When we say we are Democrats or Republicans, we are not saying that is all we are, or that the group identity for our part is the totality of our being, but rather that a portion of ourselves as individuals is represented by that group identity and, in that regard “we are all alike” and at the same time, we are NOT like members of the other party.
Every tribe, every sports team, needs a corporate identity or there is no glue to hold it together as it is just a collection of individuals (This IS the United States used to be These ARE the United States). Of late, we are struggling with our common identity as Americans because the gap between the two party’s agendas has become so wide that we no longer feel like Americans when the other party is in power, or perhaps better put: we feel they are not Americans and we are foreigners in our own country (“Dude, Where’s my Country?”)
Often what helps focus a grow a group identity is a figure head – an avatar for the sense of self of the group mind, such as Steve Jobs with Apple or a religious or ethnic martyr like William Wallace (“Braveheart”) or Jesus Christ himself. In the case of Apple, the corporation chose to end the avatar of Jobs when he died and tried to have Apple itself become its own main character, with little success. In contrast, Kentucky Friend Chicken maintains the avatar of Colonel Sanders, just as Disney did for may years, and still to a small extent today.
We took on a narrative consulting job for a sports team once that had all the most expensive and best players in terms of stats, but couldn’t win in the clutch. We analyzed the narrative and discovered the problem was so simple it is hard to see: The players were asking “What can I do for my team?” rather than asking “What can WE do AS a team?” As long as they saw themselves as individuals contributing to the greater good, no team identity could form. So our narrative prescription was to instill a sense of all being contributors, rather than each contributing his best ability. This would lead individual members to accept being benched or put in a less important order of play for the good of the group, and they would then begin to click as a team and to win.
So, for a society – ANY society – to become cohesive and to stand strong, it must develop a group identity, and that “brand” must be personified by a personality, real or fictitious.
Here’s a little “white paper” I tooled together for the government when we were working for the CIA, NSA, NRO and the Joint Chiefs of Staff a few years ago, using narrative modeling to map the motivations of terrorists and terror organizations and to project their likely future behavior. Enjoy.
Application of Dramatica Narrative Theory and Technology to
Analysis of Multi-Source Intelligence Data
& Prediction of Target Group Activities
Based on theories developed by
Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley
Introduction to Dramatica Narrative Theory and Applications
The Dramatica Theory of Story is a model of the mind’s problem solving processes which has been successfully employed for seventeen years in the analysis and construction of fictional stories ranging from major Hollywood productions to novels, stage plays, and television programs.
Software based on the Dramatica Theory is built around an interactive Story Engine which implements the problem-solving model as a method of determining the meaning and impact of data sets and of predicting motivations and actions based on potentials inherent in the data.
This is achieved by creating a Storyform – essentially, a schematic of the problem solving processes at work, their interactions, their outcomes, and the future course they will take.
The Dramatica system and its problem-solving algorithms can be applied with equal success to the analysis of real-world situations as well, specifically in determining the motivations behind the actions of a target group and in the prediction of their future actions and potentials for action.
Scalability and the Story Mind
To illustrate this methodology let us consider a generic target group. This might be a clique, club, movement, political faction, tribe, or nation. This highlights an important benefit of the system: Dramatica is scalable. It works equally well on individuals or groups of any size.
This kind of scalability is described by a Dramatica concept referred to as the Story Mind. In fiction, characters are not only individuals but[M1] also interact in stories as if they are aspects of a larger, overall mind set belonging to the structure of the story itself.
If, for example, one character may emerge in group actions and discussions as the voice of reason while another character, driven primarily by passion, becomes defined as the heart of the group.
Stories reflect the way people react and behave in the real world, and when individuals band together as a larger unit, they fall into roles where the unit itself takes on an identity with its own personality and its own psychology, almost as if it were an individual itself, in essence, a Story Mind.
Fractal Storyforms in the Real World
Similarly, if several groups become bound, as when factions join as members of a larger movement, the movement begins to take on an identity and the factions fall into roles representing aspects of individual problem solving processes.
Dramatica can move up and down the scale of magnitude from the individual to the national and even international level, while retaining an equally effective ability to analyze and predict based on its underlying model. This phenomenon is referred to the Fractal Storyform.
In actual practice, many groups of interest are ill defined, have blurry edges and indistinct leadership. Still, the core motivations of the target group can be determined, and from this the edges of the group can be refined sufficiently to create a storyform of the appropriate magnitude to suit the task at hand.
Memes and StoryPoints
Dramatica makes a key distinction between the underlying structure of a story and the subject matter that is explored by that structure. For example, every story has a goal but the specific nature of the goal is different from story to story. Elements such as a goal which are common to every story and, hence, every problem solving process, are referred to as Story Points.
Similarly a culture, ethnic group, religion, political movement, or faction will employ the same underlying story points but will clothe them in unique subject matter in order to define the organization as being distinct and to provide a sense of identity to its members.
Once a story point has been generally accepted in a specific subject matter form it becomes a cultural meme. Efforts to analyze and predict a culture based on memes alone have largely been unsuccessful.
Dramatica’s system of analysis is able to strip away the subject matter from cultural memes to reveal the underlying story points and thereby determine the specific storyform that describes that group’s story mind.
Essentially, Dramatica is able to distill critical story points from raw data and assemble them into a map of the target group’s motivations and intentions.
Passive Participation and Active Participation
One of Dramatica’s greatest strengths is that it works equally well in constructing stories as in analyzing them. We refer to analysis as PassiveParticipation and construction as Active Participation.
When dealing with a target group of interest, these two approaches translate into the ability to passively understand the target group and anticipate its behavior, and also to actively create courses of action by which to intervene in and/or influence the group’s future activities and attitudes.
To understand, we determine motivations and purposes.
To anticipate, we project actions and intent.
To intervene, we define leverage points for targeted action.
To influence, we determine nexus points for focused pressure.
Analysis
The passive approach is comprised of Analysis and Prediction. Analysis is achieved by first identifying independent story points and then determining which ones belong together in a single storyform.
Identifying StoryPoints
In addition to cultural memes, story points can also be derived from the target group’s public and private communications, in news publications and vehicles of propaganda, in works of art (both authorized and spontaneous), in popular music and entertainment, in the allocation of resources, and in the movements and gatherings of individuals. In short, any data can directly or indirectly provide valid story points.
Identifying a Storyform
Once a collection of story points has been assembled, it must be determined which ones belong together in the same storyform. Each storyform represents a different state of mind, but there may be many states of mind in a single target group. These are not different mind sets of individuals, but different mind sets of the group itself:. And just as stories often have subplots or multiple stories in the same novel, target groups may have a number of different agendas, each with its own personality traits and outlook.
This can be illustrated with an example from everyday life: a single individual may respond as a banker at his job, a father and husband at home, a teammate in a league and a son when he visits his own parents. Similarly, a target group may have one storyform that best describes its relationship to its allies and another that describes its relationship to its enemies.
It is crucial to determine which storyform is to be analyzed so that an appropriate subset can be selected from all derived story points.
Results from Limited Data
The Story Engine at the heart of the Dramatica software cross-references the impact and influence of different kinds of story points as they interact with one another, both [M2] for individual story pointsand for groups[M3] of story points.
Once the scope of the storyform is outlined, the software can actually determine additional story points within that closed system that had not been directly observed as part of the original data set. This creates a more detailed and complete picture of the situation under study than is evident from the limited data.
Spatial Data vs. Temporal Data
Unique to Dramatica’s software, the Story Engine is able to determine the kinds of events that must transpire and the order in which they will likely occur, based on the static picture of the situation provided by the complete storyform.
In stories, the order in which events occur determines their meaning. For example, a slap followed by a scream would have a different meaning that a scream followed by a slap. Similarly, if one understands the potentials at work in a storyform derived from story points pertaining to the target group, the Story Engine is capable of predicting what kinds of events will likely follow and in what order they will likely occur.
Conversely, if the originally observed data set includes sequential information, such as a timeline of a person’s travels or of the evolution of a sponsored program, the Story Engine can convert that temporal data into a fixed storyform that will indicate the motivations and purposes of the group that led them to engage in that sequence of events.
Prediction
The Dramatica theory and Story Engine (when properly used by experts) is able to translate the spatial layout of a situation into a temporal prediction of how things will unfold from that point forward.
Signposts and Journeys
The Dramatica storyform breaks events into Signposts and Journeys. These concepts are similar to the way one might look at a road and consider both the milestones and the progress being made along the path.
In stories, this data is described by Acts, Sequences, and Scenes, concepts which represent different magnitudes of time. Acts are the largest segments of a story, sequences one magnitude smaller, and scenes are even smaller dramatic movements.
Wheels within Wheels
It is commonplace to think of story events as simply being driven by cause and effect. A more accurate model may be roughly visualized as wheels within wheels, where a character sometimes may act in ways against its own best interest. For example, larger forces may have been brought to bear and might carry greater weight.
The outside pressures that are brought to bear on the target group build up these potentials as if one were winding a clock. In stories, this creates potentials that make each wheel (such as an act of a scene) operate as if it were a dramatic circuit.
Each story point within a given dramatic circuit is assigned a function as a Potential, Resistance, Current, or Power. Determining which of these functions is associated with each story point is essential to accurately predicting the nature and order of a target group’s future activities based on an understanding of the different magnitudes of motivation at work.
Closed Systems and Chaos
Storyforms are closed systems. They are snapshots of a moment in time in the mindset of a target group. But just as an individual or a character in a story is constantly influenced by outside events, new information, and the impact of others, so too is the target group. To the ordered world of a storyform, such outside influence is seen as chaotic interference.
The accuracy of a storyform analysis and its predictions has a short shelf life. The more volatile the environment in which the target group operates, the more quickly the accuracy of the storyform degrades.
Fortunately, storyforms can quickly incorporate new data to be updated in real time to give a constantly refreshed accuracy to the analysis.
In addition, just because a target group’s motivations and agenda is continually being altered by outside events does not mean the effects upon it are completely chaotic.
Some influences, such as an earthquake, an unexpected death, or a surprise attack are truly chaotic, while other influences only appear to be chaotic because they are not part of the closed storyform. Rather, they are part of a larger story.
Applying the concept of the fractal storyform, it is possible to create additional storyforms of both larger and smaller magnitudes to surround the target group so that it is seen not only by itself, but also as a player in a larger story or in terms of individual players within it. In this manner many events which previously appeared chaotic can be predicted and the accuracy of the target group storyform is enhanced.
Movie Frames
Another method for minimizing inaccuracy in prediction is to create a series of storyforms for the target group over a given period. These are then assembled in sequence, like frames in a movie, to determine the arc of change over time.
Truly chaotic events will largely cancel out, but ongoing influence from larger and smaller storyforms with their own individual agendas will create a predictable curve to the manner in which the target group’s storyform is changing, thereby allowing us to anticipate not only what the target group might do on its own, but what it is likely to do as the situation in which it operates continues to evolve.
Direct Intervention
In contrast to Passive methods, with Active methods we consider altering the actions and attitudes of a target group by either direct intervention or indirect influence.
Identifying a Problem
Once a storyform has been created and analysis and prediction have been employed, an assessment must be made to determine if the target group is currently of a mindset contrary to our interests and/or if it will be in the future.
Before a response can be developed, the specific nature of the problem must be fully defined. Again, the storyform and its component story points offer an accurate mechanism for determining the specific nature of the problem: the story point or story point arrangements that are in conflict with our interests.
Identifying a Solution
Some solutions simply require the alteration of a single story point to a different orientation within the storyform (corresponding to a slight shift in attitude, motivation, or actions by the target group). Often, once the specific nature of the problem is understood, a direct surgical impact on that story point may alter the direction of the story. Modifications to the storyform must be approached with caution, because a single small ill-advised move can sometimes do far more damage than the original problem. More complex problems may require replacing the current storyform with a completely different one.
“What If” Scenarios
Fortunately, Dramatica’s Story Engine allows for altering one or more story points to see the nature of the new storyform that will be created as a result. A large number of alternatives exist by simply altering a few story points, resulting in the ability to game out “what if” scenarios in real time to determine a wide variety of alternatives that would accomplish the same end.
Risk Analysis
By comparing the effectiveness, ramifications, and projected timelines of each alternative storyform solution, it is possible to create an effective risk analysis of each available option to ensure maximum impact with minimum risk.
These alternative storyforms can indicate the kinds of risks involved in each potential response to the problem, as well as the magnitude and likelihood of each risk.
Indirect Influence
Direct intervention may be inadvisable for any number of reasons. Also, if the problem with the target group is its overall attitude, the strength of its motivation, or its unity of purpose, any overt action might prove ineffective or even counter-productive, resulting in a response opposite to that intended.
In such cases, it may be more prudent to exert a gradual influence or series of influences over an extended time. Here again, Dramatica is able to provide tools to know when and for how long to apply specific kinds of visible and/or invisible influence to ultimately obtain the desired changes in the target group’s mindset.
Identifying Problem Qualities and Directions
At times, there may currently be no problem, but the storyform may reveal that, if left unaltered, the course of events will lead the target group into an undesired orientation. This allows for the allocation of our own resources in advance so that we might prevent the Target group from taking that particular course and opting instead for one more consistent with our interests.
Again, the first step is to create a storyform from available data and then determine the qualities of the target group’s story mind that are contrary to desired attributes.
Determining Desired Qualities and Directions
Once the problem qualities and/or directions have been defined, alternative storyforms can be created using “what if” scenarios and risk analysis to determine the best choice for a new storyform we would like to see in place.
This storyform may represent a new state of mind for the target group as a unit, or a different path that will take it through an alternative series of actions than it would otherwise instigate.
Context and the Larger Story
One method of manipulating a target group into a new outlook or attitude is through the subtle placement of the psychological equivalent of shaped charges. Rather that the direct impact of intervention, a number of small, seemingly unconnected exposures to information or manipulated environments can combine to create a single and powerful influence that will provide an immediate course correction to the undesired qualities and directions of the target group.
To effect such a subtle and undetectable influence is possible due to the depth and detail of the Story Engine’s ability to calculate the collective influence of many small magnitude story points on the overall storyform.
Movie Frames
Returning to the “movie frame” concept in a proactive, rather than analytical manner, it is possible to create a series of storyforms, each of which is slightly different that the previous one. As with individuals, the mind of a target group is more open to accepting small changes and establishing a new normal than to larger immediate changes which raise resistance.
Over time, subtle influences can follow a planned arc of change that leads the target to a new mindset, perhaps even diametrically opposed to its original viewpoint.
It is important to recognize that any long-term arc must be constantly updated and adjusted so that new influences are brought to bear to limit or leverage the impact of chaotic influence on the chosen alternative course.
Potential Future Implementations
Currently, the story engine requires manual operators versed in the Dramatica theory for processing and creating storyforms for purposes of Analysis, Prediction, Intervention, and Influence.
In the future, natural language processing can be coupled with the story engine’s operations to bring a degree of automation to the identification of story points using hub theory to locate them in large quantities of raw data.
Influence networks can be employed to determine which story points are likely to belong to the same storyform and to assemble them into alternative storyforms which may co-exist in the same raw data.
Employing a real-time version of Dramatica’s Story Engine could allow for real time analysis of ongoing data flow and indicate new storyforms as soon as they manifest in the mindsets of target groups, alerting operators when existing storyforms have dissolved or altered due to ongoing influences.
Natural language output can provide continuously updated options in time-crucial situations with a series of live “what if” scenario suggestions.
In Summary
The Dramatica Theory of Story and the software that implements the theory in an interactive story engine has, for the last seventeen years, successfully enabled accurate analysis and creation of story structures in motion pictures, novels, stage plays, and all forms of narrative communication.
By identifying the crucial story points in the mindsets of target groups of any size, the Story Engine is equally effective in analyzing and altering a target group’s current and future attitudes and behavior in the real world.
Narrative is not an artificial construct imposed upon fiction, but a model of the way we organize information in our efforts to extract meaning and project likely scenarios.
More and more corporations organizations, and government entities are employing narrative to analyze the motivations of individuals and groups and to determine their future behavior.
Of the models available for such analysis, the Dramatica model of narrative structure has proven to be most accurate and most specific.
Introduction to Dramatica Theory and Applications
The Dramatica Theory of Story is a model of the mind’s problem solving processes which has been successfully employed for seventeen years in the analysis and construction of fictional stories ranging from major Hollywood productions to novels, stage plays and television programs.
Software based on the Dramatica Theory is built around an interactive Story Engine which implements the problem-solving model as a method of determining the meaning and impact of data sets and of predicting motivations and actions based on potentials inherent in the data.
This is achieved by creating a Storyform – essentially, a schematic of the problem solving processes at work, their interactions, their outcomes, and the future course they will take.
The Dramatica system and its problem-solving algorithms can be applied with equal success to the analysis of real-world situations as well, specifically in determining the motivations behind the actions of a target group and in the prediction of their future actions and potentials for action.
Scalability and the Story Mind
To illustrate this methodology we let us consider a generic target group. This might be a clique, club, movement, political faction, tribe or nation. Which brings us to the first benefit of this system: Dramatica is scalable. That is to say that it works equally well on individuals or groups of any size.
This kind of scalability is described by a Dramatica concept referred to as the Story Mind. In fiction, characters are not only individuals but come to interact in stories as if they are aspects of a larger, overall mind set belonging to the structure of the story itself.
So, for example, one character may emerge in group actions and discussions as the voice of reason while another becomes defined as the heart of the group and is driven primarily by passion.
Stories reflect the way people react and behave in the real world, and so we find that when individuals band together as a larger unit, they fall into roles so that the unit itself takes on an identity with its own personality and its own psychology, almost as if it were an individual itself, in essence, a Story Mind.
Fractal Storyforms in the Real World
Similarly, if several groups become bound as when a number of factions join as members of a larger movement, the movement begins to take on an identity and the factions fall into roles representing aspects of our own problem solving processes.
Like nested dolls, Dramatica can move up and down the scale of magnitude from the individual to the national or even international level and its ability to analyze and predict based on its underlying model is equally effective. This phenomenon is referred to the Fractal Storyform.
In actual practice, many groups of interest are ill-defined, have blurry edges and indistinct leadership. Still, the core motivations of the target group can be determined, and from this the edges of the group can be refined sufficiently to create a storyform of the appropriate magnitude to the task at hand.
Memes and StoryPoints
Dramatica makes a key distinction between the underlying structure of a story and the subject matter that is explored by that structure. For example, every story has a goal but the specific nature of the goal is different from story to story. Elements such as a goal which are common to every story and, hence, every problem solving process, are referred to as Story Points.
Similarly any culture, ethnic group, religion, political movement, or faction will employ the same underlying story points but will clothe them in unique subject matter in order to define the organization as being distinct and to provide a sense of identity to its members.
Once a story point has been generally accepted in a specific subject matter form it becomes a cultural meme. Efforts to analyze and predict a culture based on memes alone have largely been unsuccessful.
Dramatica’s system of analysis is able to strip away the subject matter from cultural memes to reveal the underlying story points and thereby determine the specific storyform that describes that group’s story mind.
Essentially, Dramatica is able to distill critical story points from raw data and assemble them into map of the target group’s motivations and intentions.
Passive and Active Modes
One of Dramatica’s greatest strengths is that it works equally well in constructing stories as in analyzing them. We refer to analysis as the Passive mode and construction as the Active mode.
When dealing with a target group of interest, this translates into the ability to not only passively understand and anticipate the group, but also to actively create courses of action by which to intervene in and/or influence the group’s future activities and attitudes.
To understand, we determine motivations and purposes.
To anticipate, we project actions and intent.
To intervene, we define leverage points for targeted action.
To influence, we determine nexus points for focused pressure.
Let us look more deeply into the methods employed in the Passive mode, then return to do the same for the Active mode.
Analysis
The passive mode is comprised of Analysis and Prediction. Analysis is achieved by first identifying independent story points and then determining which ones belong together in a single storyform.
Identifying StoryPoints
As described earlier, story points can be derived from cultural memes, but are also evident in the target group’s communications (both for internal and external consumption), in new publications and vehicles of propaganda, in works of art (both authorized and spontaneous), in popular music and entertainment, in the allocation of resources, in the movements and gatherings of individuals – in short, any data can directly or indirectly provide valid story points.
Identifying a Storyform
Once a collection of story points has been assembled, it must be determined which ones belong together in the same storyform. Each storyform represents a different state of mind, but there may be many states of mind in a single target group. These are not different mind sets of individuals, but different mind sets of the group itself or, put in a different way, just as stories often have subplots or multiple stories in the same novel, for example, target groups may have a number of different agendas, each with its own personality traits and outlook.
This can be illustrated with an example from everyday life where a single individual may respond as a banker at his job, a father and husband at home, a teammate in a league and a son when he visits his own parents. So too, a target group may have one storyform that best describes its relationship to its allies and another that describes its relationship to its enemies.
Crucial to this aspect of the process is to determine which storyform is to be analyzed so that the proper story points can be selected as a subset of all those that were derived.
Results from Limited Data
The Story Engine at the heart of the Dramatica software cross references the impact and influence of different kinds of story points upon one another, both individually and in groups.
As a result, once the scope of the storyform is outlined, the software can actually determine additional story points within that closed system that had not been directly observed as part of the original data set. Some story points are more influential than others, but the bottom line is that Dramatica is able to create a far more detailed and complete picture of the situation under study than is evident from sparse data by itself.
Spatial Data vs. Temporal Data
Unique to Dramatica’s software, the Story Engine is able to determine the kinds of events that must transpire and the order in which they will likely occur, based on the static picture of the situation provided by the complete storyform.
In stories, the order in which events occur determines their meaning. For example, a slap followed by a scream would have a different meaning that a scream followed by a slap. Similarly, if one understands the potentials at work in a storyform derived from story points pertaining to the target group, the Story Engine is capable of predicting what kinds of events will likely follow and in what order they will likely occur.
Conversely, if the originally observed data set includes sequential information, such as a timeline of a person’s travels or of the evolution of a sponsored program, the Story Engine can convert that temporal data into a fixed storyform that will indicate the motivations and purposes of the group that led them to engage in that sequence of events.
Prediction
As described, the Dramatica theory and Story Engine (when properly used by experts) is able to translate the spatial layout of a situation into a temporal prediction of how things will unfold from that point forward.
Signposts and Journeys
In Dramatica storyforms, events are broken into Signposts and Journeys, just as one might look at a road and consider both the milestones and the progress being made along the path.
In stories, this data is represented in Acts, Sequences, and Scenes. Each of these is a different magnitude of time. Acts are the largest segments of a story, sequences one magnitude smaller, and scenes are even smaller dramatic movements.
Wheels within Wheels
As a loose visualization, one might think of story events as not being driven by simple cause and effect, but rather being wheels within wheels, in which sometimes a character may act in ways against it’s own best interest (for example) because of larger forces that have been brought to bear and carry greater weight.
In fact, it is the outside pressures that are brought to bear on the target group that build up these potentials as if one were winding a clock. In stories, this creates potentials that make each wheel (such as an act of a scene) operate as if it were a dramatic circuit.
In fact, each story point within a given dramatic circuit is assigned a function as a Potential, Resistence, Current, or Power. Determining which of these functions is associated with each story point is essential to accurately predicting the nature and order of a target group’s future activities based on an understanding of the different magnitudes of motivation at work.
Closed Systems and Chaos
Storyforms are closed systems. As such, they are flash photographs of a moment in time – a snap shot of the mindset of a target group. But every group, just as an individual or a character in a story, is constantly influenced by outside events, new information, and the impact of others. To the ordered world of a storyform, such outside interference is chaotic.
The accuracy of a storyform analysis and its predictions, therefore, has a short shelf-life. The more volatile the environment in which the target group operates, the more quickly the accuracy of the storyform degrades.
Fortunately, storyforms can quickly incorporate new data and changes in older data and update literally in real time to give a constantly refreshed accuracy to the analysis.
In addition, just because a target group’s motivations and agenda is continually being altered by outside events does not mean the effects upon it are completely chaotic.
While some influences, such as an earthquake or an unexpected death or a surprise attack are truly chaotic, other influences only appear to be chaotic because they are not part of the closed storyform. Rather, they are part of a larger story.
Applying the concept of the fractal storyform, it is possible to create additional storyforms of both larger and smaller magnitudes to surround the target group so that it is seen not only in and of itself, but as a player in a larger story and also in terms of individual players within it. In this manner many events which previously appeared chaotic can be predicted and the accuracy of the target group storyform is enhanced.
Movie Frames
Another method for minimizing inaccuracy in prediction is to create a series of storyforms of the target group over a given period. These are then assembled in sequence like frames in a movie to determine the arc of change over time.
Truly chaotic events will largely cancel out, but ongoing influence from larger and smaller storyforms with their own individual agendas will create a predictable curve to the manner in which the target group’s storyform is changing, thereby allowing us to anticipate not only what the target group might do on its own, but what it is likely to do as the situation in which it operates continues to evolve.
Again, this method allows for real-time updates so that the most accurate prediction of the likely motivations and actions of the target group can be both anticipated and acted upon.
Direct Intervention
Turning our attention from Passive methods to Active methods, we consider altering the actions and attitudes of a target group by either direct intervention or indirect influence.
Identifying a Problem
Once a storyform has been created and analysis and prediction have been employed, an assessment must be made to determine if the target group is currently of a mindset contrary to our interests and/or if it will be in the future.
Before a response can be developed, the specific nature of the problem must be fully defined. Again, the storyform and its component story points offer an accurate mechanism for determining the specific nature of the problem – the story point or story point arrangements that are in conflict with our interests.
Identifying a Solution
Some solutions simply require the alteration of a single story point to a different orientation within the storyform (corresponding to a slight shift in attitude, motivation, or actions by the target group). Often, once the specific nature of the problem is understood, a direct surgical impact on that point may alter it by direct force alone.
Still, this is not certain and (especially in more complex problems that require replacing the current storyform with a completely different one) a single small ill-advised move can do far more damage that the original problem and perhaps in ways not anticipated.
“What If” Scenarios
Fortunately, Dramatica’s Story Engine allows for altering one or more story points in a storyform to see what kind of new storyform will be created as a result. In fact, a large number of alternatives exist by simply altering a few story points. This results in the ability to game out “what if” scenarios in real time to determine a wide variety of alternatives that would accomplish the same end.
Risk Analysis
By comparing the effectiveness, ramifications, and altered projected timelines of each alternative storyform solution, it is possible to create an effective risk analysis of each available option to ensure maximum impact at minimum risk.
In fact, alternative storyforms can indicate not only the kinds of risks involved in each potential response to the problem, but also their extent, their magnitude, and their likelihoods.
Indirect Influence
Often, direction intervention is inadvisable for any number of reasons. Further, if the problem with the target group is its overall attitude, the strength of its motivation, or its unity of purpose, any overt action might prove ineffective or even counter-productive, resulting in a response opposite to that intended.
In such cases, it may be more prudent to exert a gradual influence or series of influences all at once or, alternatively, put into play over and extended time for a less obviously directly influence. Here again, Dramatica is able to provide tools to know when, and for how long to apply specific kinds of visible and/or unobserved influence to ultimately obtain the desired changes in the target group’s mind set.
Identifying Problem Qualities and Directions
Again, the first step is to create a storyform from available data and then determine the qualities of the target group’s story mind that are contrary to desired attributes.
At times, there may currently be no problem, but the storyform may reveal that, if left unaltered, the course of events will lead the target group into an undesired orientation. This allows for the allocation of our own resources in advance so that we might prevent the Target group from taking that particular course and opting instead for one more consistent with our interests.
Determining Desired Qualities and Directions
Once the problem qualities and/or directions have been defined, alternative storyforms can be created using “what if” scenarios and risk analysis to determine the best choice for a new storyform we would like to see in place.
This may simply be a new state of mind for the target group as a unit and/or a different path that will take it through an alternative series of actions than it would otherwise instigated.
Context and the Larger Story
One method of manipulating a target group into a new outlook or attitude is through the subtle placement of the psychological equivalent of shaped charges. Rather that the direct impact of intervention, a number of small, seemingly unconnected exposures to information or manipulated environments can combine to create a single and powerful influence that will provide an immediate course correction to the undesired qualities and directions of the target group.
To affect such a subtle and undetectable influence is possible due to the depth and detail of the Story Engine’s ability to calculate the collective influence of many small magnitude story points on the overall storyform.
Movie Frames
Returning to the “movie frame” concept in a proactive, rather than analytical manner, it is possible to create a series of storyforms, each of which is slightly different that the previous one. As with individuals, the mind of a target group is more open to accepting small changes and establishing a new normal that to larger immediate changes which raise resistance.
Over time, subtle influences can follow a planned arc of change that leads the target to a new mindset, perhaps even diametrically opposed to its original viewpoint, that would be impossible to achieve immediately, even with the most powerful influences brought to bear.
It is important to recognize that due to the effects of chaotic influences (as described earlier) any long-term arc must be constantly updated and adjusted so that new influences are brought to bear to limit or leverage the impact of chaos on the chosen alternative course toward a more desirable storyform for the target group.
Implementation
Currently, the story engine requires manual operators versed in the Dramatica theory for processing and creating storyforms for purposes of Analysis, Prediction, Intervention, and Influence.
In the future, natural language processing can be coupled with the story engine’s operations to bring a degree of automation to the identification of story points using hub theory to locate them in large quantities of raw data.
Influence networks can be employed to determine which story points are likely to belong to the same storyform and to assemble them into alternative storyforms which may co-exist in the same raw data.
Employing Dramatica’s real-time Story Engine (in operation since 1991, but not included in the commercially available version of the software) can allow for real time analysis of ongoing data flow and indicate new storyforms as soon as they manifest in the mindsets of target groups and alert operators when existing storyforms have dissolved or altered due to ongoing influences.
Natural language output can provide continuously updated options in time-crucial situations with a series of live “what if” scenario suggestions.
In Summary
The Dramatica Theory of Story and the software that implements the theory in an interactive story engine has, for the last seventeen years, successfully enabled accurate analysis and creation of story structures in motion pictures, novels, stage plays, and all forms of narrative communication.
By identifying the crucial story points in the mind sets of target groups of any size, the story engine is equally effective in analyzing and altering the target groups’ current and future attitudes and behavior in the real world.
We think in narrative, but think about topics. Narrative is the operating system of our own minds, and we seek to impose that upon every topic we encounter. For if we can, then we have the most touch-points with our own awareness, and see the most we can of what we are exploring, as well as the forces that operate in that system and hold things together.
That which does not match the schematic of our minds appears to be chaos. But even chaos can be topically related.
The problem for the creative mind is that it wants to have topic and narrative come together in a perfect fit. It is like putting a pencil on a table, and balancing a ruler across it. Topic is on one side and narrative is on the other. If you push the topic side down to the table, like a seesaw, the narrative side will go up, and vice versa.
So, the truth of the matter is, that topic and narrative can never both be fully explored in the same work.
And so, some writers seek a perfect structure at the expense of the passion of their topic. And others seek to completely explore their topic, though it makes a shambles of narrative.
But if you can accept that structure should not be perfect and that topic will never be expressed, then you can find the balance between the two that optimizes the effect or personal satisfaction you are shooting for.
When creating, the Muse abhors structure. She wishes to romp free in the fields of experience. You must never try to bridle the Muse or she will run away from you never to return.
So, in any first draft, forget about structure. Let the story flow of its own topical organic nature.
At this time, you create a Story World – the universe of experience in which your story will take place. It is not your story, but is the realm in which your story’s journey will occur. But it should have no structure, because it is not even a narrative yet – just the narrative space in which the narrative will eventually form.
Next, after creating a story world, you create a storyline. This can be one or more journeys across your story world, with a point of departure, a destination, and meandering around and lingering at as manny different concepts as you like within your story world. Again, structure should not be specifically applied at this time, since your own mind is already automatically laying the embryonic foundations of structure in the background while your Muse creates.
Finally, in the third stage, you look at your finished storyline journeys and, regardless if there is just one story/journey or many, you go to the list of Story Points in Dramatica and make sure each journey has them all, as completely as is reasonable.
So, you ensure there is a goal, a protagonist, a main character, an influence character unique ability, and so on. BUT do NOT create a storyform yet! We aren’t interested at this stage what kind of goal it is, just to identify what the topical subject matter of the goal is – that each journey HAS a goal.
Finally, once you have revised your storylines to include as many of the story points as you reasonably can, THEN and ONLY then do you create a storyform. This storyform will provide a template to which you can aspire, but like the pencil and the ruler, you can never really achieve without short changing your topic and your passion.
So, in seeing what KIND of goal your story SHOULD have, for example, you can then consider if your goal is actually like that, similar to that, or worlds away from that. And, if it doesn’t match exactly, you can determine if you think that will hurt your story, or if it is close enough, or the story point minor enough, that you can just leave it as it is, in the most passionate and organic form, and ignore structure at that point.
No one ever read a book or saw a movie to experience a magnificent structure. The readers and audience are there to ignite their passions about a topic of interest to them. THAT is the bottom line and it is also King. Never let structure get in the way of that.
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