Sunday, August 14, 2016

Ruining some magic...

So after listening to Narrativefirst's 12th Podcast Episode (starting at 6.5 minutes in) I did exactly what was advised not to do. I tried to figure out what lead to this specific situation described.
What kind of choices would lead to all story points (down to the progression) being determined, except for the Judgment? And after some testing, I figured it out.

Before I get into that, I want to explain why I even tried to figure this out. I like Interactive Fiction. And I've been trying to figure out how to use Dramatica to tell stories interactively. There's been a discussion on discuss.dramatica,com about it, but I wasn't satisfied with the idea of starting new storyforms with every outlying choice and such. But what if we could use one story form that makes one argument, and only leaves the personal judgment open? The thing about the current Theory is that it doesn't tell you how the relationship ends. Whether it's happy, sad, angry... Whether the relationship is already in place at the beginning or not... whether the relationship is over at the end or not... This means that it leaves all of that open to the author. In addition it doesn't tell you how the other characters feel about each other either. Using this and a story form with an open-to-interpretation judgment... what can you do with that?

A simple example: Imagine a romantic IF where you play a student (our MC). The objective story goal is to have a great school festival. While that is going on, our MC may or may not form relationships with other students. Using our prepared story form, the different paths to however-many endings could all make the same argument for how to succeed/fail in making that great school festival, while leaving the happiness of our MC and the relationships they make dependent on the player's choices.

With that out of the way, I will now tell you what choices will determine everything but the Judgment. If you don't want the magic ruined, do not read any further.

Saturday, August 13, 2016

Separating Main Character and Objective Story

It can be rather difficult sometimes to separate the Main Character Throughline from the Objective Story Throughline, especially when:

  • the issues the Main Character deal with start with the rest of the story
  • the issues the Main Character deal with are intrinsically linked with he rest of the story
  • part of the Main Character should be personal, but isn't
  • the Main Character doesn't have 'obvious' personal issues
For example, in "The Fugitive," the Dramatica Analysis makes Kimble's Throughline about him tracking down his wife's murderer(s) and the Objective Throughline "A murder in Chicago has taken place.  An innocent man has been accused, tried, and convicted for the crime."

In "Tangled," Rapunzel has that long magical hair, but is that what she's about? Not according to the consensus of the User Group meeting. "Our princess is not in the castle."

In "The Last Unicorn" is her being the last her objective function or her personal problem? It wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the story, and you could argue that the objective story goal is to get the other unicorns 'unstuck,' but is that really the case here? I don't think that this story is a Grand Argument Story, but if it was I would probably argue for an Objective Story Domain of Physics and Concern of Obtaining, because problems exist because of people trying to capture one thing or another. The last unicorn's status as the last has an objective function, but it also brings her personal pain, especially when she is transformed into a woman, and later into a unicorn again, now being the only unicorn who knows regret. (The closest thing to a working story form I found was: Change, Stop, Do-er, Holistic, Action, Optionlock, Success, Good, Physics, Obtaining, Self Interest, Control; but again, I don't think this film is a GAS; I haven't read the book).

When writing your own story, maybe try to make sure that your Main Character is dealing with personal stuff outside of the story, that would be troublesome even in another story or even without anything going on.

Same Story Form, different Story Telling

It's great when the monthly user group meeting comes up with a unique story form that you can't find in the analysis pages of dramatica.com or narrativefirst.com. But I'm always interested in seeing a story forms that has occured before and comparing the stories that use it.

As of right now, the following stories share the same storyforms respectively, according to dramatica.com and narrativefirst.com (the number is what you get in "Spin-the-Model" of Dramatica Pro 4.0):

  • 16454: smoke signals, the thirteenth floor. Native American Comedy-Drama versus Science-Fiction Crime Thriller.
  • 16456: singin in the rain, the station agent
  • 16471: birdman, star wars. Theatre acting versus Civil War IN SPACE.
  • 16485: looper, wrath of khan. A rather common storyform.
  • 17067: pride and prejudice, bridget jones' diary. Not that interesting; the latter is a retelling of the former.
  • 17132: dogma, matrix. The Matrix can easily be read as a religious allegory, so this isn't too surprising.
  • 17762: bringing up baby, whats up doc, zombieland. "[What's Up Doc] was intended to pay homage to comedy films of the 1930s, especially Bringing Up Baby" (ref: Wikipedia)
  • 17768: collateral, finding nemo. Just imagine Tom Cruise playing Dory and/or Nemo. Shows that a children/family film can have the same story form as a thriller.
  • 17976: marty, the queen
  • 18278: casablanca, sicko. Opression by the Nazi regime vs Health Care.
  • 19813: terminator, unforgiven. Revenge and Chase movies?
  • 20499: beast of no nation, the constant gardener. Both are set in Africa... anything else?
  • 20581: el mariachi, the limey
  • 20762: dead poets society, midnight cowboy. "Teacher inspires students to love poetry" versus "Male prostitute and friend try to survive the streets"
  • 21274: annie hall, harold and maude. Strange Comedies.
  • 24596: almost famous, life is beautiful, creed. Music Journalism, Holocaust and Boxing.
  • 24603: eastern promises, eddie the eagle. Inspirational Sports Biopic versus Demotivational Thriller.
  • 24622: erin brockovich, kung fu panda. A rather common storyform. Legal Arts versus Martial Arts
  • 24623: back to the future, shrek. A rather common storyform; interesting in that Marty is supposed to be likable from the beginning, while Shrek has a more obvious 'growth' that could easily be construed as a change.
  • 25650: in the heat of the night, nightcrawler. Mystery Drama in a racist small town versus Media Satire/Thriller.

I think it's pretty clear that one story form still leaves a lot of room for different storytelling. The authors bring in their own beliefs and experiences, so even if they're making the same argument, they will make it differently.

Friday, August 12, 2016

Fairy Tales

This is just something I noticed about the usual configuration of throughlines, meaning Change, Stop, Do-er, Linear, Action, Optionlock, Success, Good, Physics and so on.

I randomly spun the model and looked into the plot sequence report. A lot of these stories have the variations Permission, Need and Deficiency in the first Signpost (Understanding) of the Objective Story and Commitment and Responsibility in the last Signpost (Obtaining) of the Objective Story.

So what?

If you're unfamiliar with fairy tale research, let me show you some of Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Tale. The second 'function' of his structure is the Interdiction and the third the Violation thereof. Slightly later, we have the function of Lacking. The last functions are Punishment and Wedding.

Do you see?

Here are some forms where this applies: Obtaining, Self Interest, Uncontrolled/Avoidance; Obtaining, Approach, Feeling/Reconsider; Doing, Skill, Test/Cause; Doing, Wisdom, Unproven/Hunch; Understanding, Instinct, Desire/Thought; Understanding, Senses, Self Aware/Perception; Learning, Prerequisites, Possibility/Potentiality; Learning, Strategy, Protection/Reaction.

Uncontrolled, Avoidance, Feeling, Reconsider.
Test, Cause, Unproven, Hunch.
Desire, Thought, Self Aware, Perception.
Possibility, Potentiality, Protection, Reaction.

Fairy tales are simply stories that a culture kept telling. What cultures would consistently show the above things as problems that have to stop?

Needless to say, this all just me seeing patterns where they might not be any. Don't take this too seriously. I just found it neat, is all.

Finding the Inequity inside the MC Problem

After listening to Narrative First's Podcast Episode "Supercharging the Conflict in your Story" (the supercharging part starts at about 20 minutes in), I wondered if I could use anything specific to create these inequities he is talking about, specifically when it comes to the Main Character Problem.

After setting a blank story form's Main Character Problem to Pursuit, like his first example, I looked into the other story points and tried to find anything that resembled the second, incompatible truth of the Mary character. In fact, if you look to the Influence Character Problem, you find these options:
  • Consider
  • Logic
  • Help
  • Support
"You either not care or you can not pursue, but you can't pursue and want to help at the same time."
Jim Hull, Narrative First Podcast 10: Supercharging the Conflict in your Story (Emphasis mine)
I don't know if this was obvious from the beginning and I just didn't notice it, but this makes so much sense to me. This could be why the Influence Character has an effect on the Main Character in the first place. On the other hand, this is only the case if Help is truly the Influence Character's Problem, which doesn't have to be the case. Still, these four options seem like good brainstorming tools for finding that illusive inequity, even if you're not thinking of the Influence Character quite yet.

Let's use his other example, with a Main Character Problem of Certainty.
  • Proaction
  • Inaction
  • Deduction
  • Reduction
"He's always looking for an angle and no one can really trust him to not find fault with them, and then he only ends up matching with other people that are like-minded like him and he never actually mentally connects with somebody."
Jim Hull, Narrative First Podcast 10: Supercharging the Conflict in your Story
While not as obvious as the first example, it does sound a bit like Reduction or Deduction, doesn't it?

I looked into this a bit more, and found which Main Character Problems lead to which Influence Character problems.
If your Main Character Problem is in the left column, then the Influence Character Problem is one of the elements in the right column in the same row. If your Main Character Problem is in the right column, then the Influence Character Problem is one of the elements in the left column in the same row.

Using an Example of, say, Temptation (third-to-last row, right):

  • You can't take the easy way out if you don't want people complaining about it.
  • You can't take the easy way out if someone stands in your way.
  • You can't carelessly indulge if you feel terrible afterward.
  • You can't give in to your temptations if you care about hurting other people's feelings.
  • You can't carelessly indulge if you don't want people to rethink having you around.

Maybe Test (fourth row, right):

  • You can't test the limits if you acknowledge that there are no limits.
  • You can't test everything if testing everything takes too long for you.
  • You can't keep testing something if you also want to have it run smoothly
  • You can't rely on tried and tested methods and also want to act on mere intuition
  • You can't test something that is unfalsifiable.

Now these examples may or may not be good, but I think you get the idea. You have to make sure that the MC Problem is actually the problem and not the IC Problem. The MC keeps doing the MC Problem, but the other thing is also there, standing in the way.

Now you might wonder why I don't simply use the Main Character Focus/Symptom for this exercise. That's because the Focus/Symptom is, as the name implies, the symptom of that inequity and not part of the inequity itself. (Some of the potential IC Problems are potential MC Symptoms as well, I know). And the obvious part of integrating the IC Point of View is there as well.

In the end, all this is, is a tool to make your Main Character Problem more concrete in your head.