Using Purpose to Expand on Character

Catch Up

Last time I introduced a second dimension which Dramatica uses when characterising the players in your fiction.  This was the Purpose Set of sixteen purposes which your characters might have. Let's have a bit of fun now and allocate the Fiend characters some Purposes.


The Purposes of Jacob and Fiend

Let's start with the main character, Jacob, what does he want?  Well he wants two things, mainly he wants to overcome the block he has on his actions due to his traumatic history.  And he wants to defeat Fiend in the end.  Ultimately both these purposes promise to lead to him having a more fulfilled and ordered life.  This is typical of the Desire purpose.  He wants things to change, and this leads him to Fiend in the early stages of the story, but realises the changes are harmful.  So he really wants Equity as well, the feeling that things are on a more even keel.  Let's put that on the graph.

Knowledge	Ability	Actuality	Aware
Desire Jake	Thought	Self Aware	Perception
Order	Equity Jake	Inertia	Projection
Inequity	Chaos	Speculation	Change

Now it makes sense that the main opponent of Jake would want the exact opposite.  Fiend seeks disorder and relishes change and turmoil.  But does he want something else?  Up until now, Fiend has been a little bit of a one-dimensional character. Due to him originally being a vampire, I didn't have to explain his purpose: I've said he's evil and likes chaos, but I've not worked out why he does.  In the past, it was fine just to state a monster was a monster, but modern fiction isn't so forgiving.

So what is it that Fiend actually wants?  What does he get from the evil, what is his ultimate aim? This is probably one of the main reasons I left off writing  the original draft of this, because I didn't understand what motivates Fiend.  As we have seen, everything flows from what a character feels and wants.  So now I have to do some work.

One way of coming at this is what does Fiend partially achieve before he is defeated?  In the story he escapes, rather hesitantly, from his makeshift prison, recovers his health, ingratiates himself with the gang and eventually takes it over.  So he is a bit of an expansionist.  Is he megalomaniacal?  Does he ant to keep going until he's taken over everything?  It seems so, but it's not order he's imposing.  In some ways he's Projecting into the future a plan for the world.  So Projection is one.

But that's not all that has come out of the imagining. He also wants Jake to join him.  He thinks that Jake needs to give himself up to the inner demon.  So he is also seeking a form of Self-Awareness, not for himself, but from Jake.  He intends to do this via temptation and manipulation of his brother.  That sounds good.  So another of his goals is to make Jake Self-Aware.

Let's put them on the graph.

Knowledge	Ability	Actuality	Aware
Desire Jake	Thought	Self Aware Fiend	Perception
Order	Equity Jake	Inertia	Projection Fiend
Inequity	Chaos	Speculation	Change

The Guardian and the Contagonist

Now remember that I've swapped some of the characteristics of both girlfriend Elaine, and ex Katie, so they aren't actually in the pure archetypal roles of Guardian and Contagonist any more, but they are close enough to still refer to then that way. Before working out their purposes, let's have a recap at where they were in terms of the Motivation Set after we'd made some changes.

Katie Ward	Action	Helps Jake think through his problems and supports him.
	Decision	Is the temptation to leave Fiend alone and forget about it.
Elaine Cullum	Action	Hinders Jake by trying to stop him following the right path.
	Decision	Is the conscience of the story, points to Fiend's inherent evil.

It seems from this that Katie still loves Jake, even though she is with his brother.  With her motivations, her relationship with William must be suffering through the story as he gets more and more involved with Fiend.  Unless she's fallen out of love with William, her reasons for healing Jake must be to help William as well. She doesn't believe in the good life that Fiend promises, it's an illusion. She is more concerned with Actuality.  She has Thought about the situation a lot.

Elaine is the brake on Jacob's changes. She doesn't want him to bring Fiend into the house, she doesn't want Jacob to get involved in the gang, and she doesn't want him to go up against Fiend in the end.  Her relationship with Jacob is based on him not being what she really wants, and lives with the Inequity of that. At the same time she prefers to stay in a holding pattern through Inertia.

Let's put them on the graph.

Knowledge	Ability	Actuality Katie	Aware
Desire Jake	Thought Katie	Self Aware Fiend	Perception
Order	Equity Jake	Inertia Elaine	Projection Fiend
Inequity Elaine	Chaos	Speculation	Change

Reason and Emotion

Again I've changed these characters around a bit, but we'll still refer to them that way.  Let's have a recap of where Thomas and William were after the changes.

Thomas Bower	Action	Calm and controlled whenever violent conflict is happening.
	Decision	Led by his feelings of pleasure when following Fiend.
William Fraser	Action	Uncontrolled or frenzied when tempted by Fiend's ways.
	Decision	He disbelieves it can be accomplished, by Jake or anyone.

Thomas is the older gang member, he never had ambitions to be the leader, prefers to be a right-hand-man.  He is calm and collected.  When he turns against Fiend he is doing so because he prefers Order to chaos.  He is a careful plotter, is his idea to try to defeat Fiend by finding out how he was trapped the previous time.  He is a user of Knowledge.

William is the brother, leader of the gang at the start, but something of a failure, though lack of Ability.  So this is what Fiend and the prospect of criminal success give him - Ability.  He is also something of a dreamer, and sees himself at the head of a massive enterprise, so he is a victim on Speculation about his possible future, ironic because he is killed partway through the story.

Let's put those on the graph.

Knowledge Thomas	Ability William	Actuality Katie	Aware
Desire Jake	Thought Katie	Self Aware Fiend	Perception
Order Thomas	Equity Jake	Inertia Elaine	Projection Fiend
Inequity Elaine	Chaos	Speculation William	Change

The Skeptic and the Sidekick

Again, we have messed around  with the archetypes a little, but let's recap where we were up to with Bobby and Peter, after the changes we made.

Bobby Liddell	Action	He opposes attempting to defeat the Fiend, argues against it.
	Decision	Uses logic and not emotion to help defeat Fiend.
Peter Law	Action	Always supports Jake in whatever action he takes.
	Decision	Has immense faith in Jake's abilities, more than Jake.

It seems Bobby was the answer sitting in plain sight all the time.  Although he didn't admit it in the earlier part of the story, he was there during the capture of Fiend the first time, and was traumatised by it.  He remembers the Chaos an it's only his fear of it happening again that spurs him into action.  He knows things are different this time, and it's the Change in situation that scares him the most, and makes him believe that defeating fiend is not possible this time.

Peter is the ever-ready henchman and all round fixer.  He is well-liked by everyone, knows everyone.  When anything needs done, Peter is the man to go to.  It is him know finds out Bobby knows how to defeat the Fiend. Peter is very Aware of the network of people, and buys into a Perception of the environment which is optimistic and pleasant, despite the crime surroundings.

Let's put these final ones on the graph.

Knowledge Thomas	Ability William	Actuality Katie	Aware Peter
Desire Jake	Thought Katie	Self Aware Fiend	Perception Peter
Order Thomas	Equity Jake	Inertia Elaine	Projection Fiend
Inequity Elaine	Chaos Bobby	Speculation William	Change Bobby

So what have we been doing here?

It might seem a bit contrived to fill up these squares in this way.  For some of them we've had to force them a little.  It's very possible we may decide to flip some of them around as we progress.  An important thing to notice is that diagonal pairs are in opposition, like we had with the Motivation set.  This raises a few ideas for possible scenes and conflicts that I would never have thought of before:

• William and Jake are opposite on Ability and Desire.
• Elaine and Jake are opposite on Equity and Inequity.
• William and Fiend are opposite on Speculation and Projection.
• Katie and Peter are opposite on Actuality and Perception.

One of the most striking things that I see from the grid is that Fiend and Jake do not actually oppose each other on any Purpose.  Is this a fatal flaw in the story telling?  It's a little disconcerting, but I suppose some of the best stories have people who come into conflict whilst trying to attain their own purposes- they don't always have to be struggling over the same purpose.

Quite a bit of progress, that is enough for this post, I think.