Completing the Square

A bit of a pause

I've been busy lately so I haven't been able to progress this as much as I had hoped.  In the last post, I introduced the Dramatica concept of Evaluation, which is the way a character perceived progress in a task and arrival at a goal. Like I did with the other three, I'm going to apply these sixteen elements to my Fiend story.  So to recap, here are the sixteen elements in summary:

Proven	Needs full supporting evidence.
Theory	Constructs model of cause and effect.
Effect	Concentrates on outcomes not reasons.
Trust	Belief without verifying things.
Hunch	Going on intuition or guesswork.
Unproven	Acting as if evidence is shaky.
Test	Always checks things work first.
Cause	Concentrates on the why, not the what.
Accurate	Goes with the best performing theory, even if imperfect.
Expectation	Extrapolates into the future outcomes.
Result	Focussed on the outcome of the future action.
Ending	Assumes everything must end.
Determination	Calculating the causing facts and predicting the future.
Non-accurate	Concentrates on the flaws of a plan.
Unending	Believes nothing will ever end.
Process	Concerned with the link of facts and methods not outcomes.

Again, this is a matter of juggling the ideas and trying them against the characters, rearranging them and swapping them until a satisfying arrangement is made.


How this affects Jake and Fiend

Jake, because he's continually second-guessing his actions for fear of losing control, believes that nothing is set in stone.  He doesn't have a philosophy in life that works in all circumstances, he muddles along.  He is a follower of the Non-Accurate school of thought.  He lives in fear of the small amount of stability he has managed to muster coming to an end, so he is always fearing the Ending.

Fiend is more of a seat-of-the-pants kind of guy.  While he does have a plan, he plays it more off the cuff.  He goes on his intuition a lot, so he uses Hunch.  He also makes the best of any situation so works with a philosophy that what he is doing can be made to work, it's good enough.  This falls under the Accurate evaluation.

Let's put them on the graph.

Proven	Theory	Effect	Trust
Hunch Fiend	Unproven	Test	Cause
Accurate Fiend	Expectation	Result	Ending Jake
Determination	Non-accurate Jake	Unending	Process

Guardian and Contagonist

Katie is the brains of the operation.  Where she excels is in the creation of hypotheses, so she falls under the Theory evaluation.  But she's careful as well as clever.  She loks at what has gone on and plots her way through to possible future outcomes, this is under Determination.

Elaine is the opposite of Katie in some of the other dimensions, and here it is true also.  She sees what is happening with Fiend and William and likes the success.  Although sceptical, she is more concerned with the Effects or what is going on and not the ethics of it.   She looks at what is available and has an Expectation of what could be coming their way in future.

Let's put them on the graph.

Proven	Theory Katie	Effect Elaine	Trust
Hunch Fiend	Unproven	Test	Cause
Accurate Fiend	Expectation Elaine	Result	Ending Jake
Determination Katie	Non-accurate Jake	Unending	Process

Reason and Emotion

William is the slightly naïve brother.  When he gets in with Fiend and his increasing circle of violence and chaos, he Trusts him, he needs no other indication of success.  he also has a childlike inability to see that the path he is on must come to an end, he follows the Unending philosophy.

Thomas is the methodical one.  He has a long experience of what works and what doesn't.  He's gained this knowledge by trial and error, so is always prone to Test a theory before trusting it.  He wants to make sure a method is tried and tested, and Proven before using it.

Let's put them on the graph.

Proven Thomas	Theory Katie	Effect Elaine	Trust William
Hunch Fiend	Unproven	Test Thomas	Cause
Accurate Fiend	Expectation Elaine	Result	Ending Jake
Determination Katie	Non-accurate Jake	Unending William	Process

Skeptic and Sidekick

Bobby is the naysayer, the one person with actual knowledge of the previous encounter with Fiend. He knows that the current method is Unproven.  He has seen the previous Result of action, and so is concerned this time it won't work.

Peter is a networker, he knows his limitations. His job as he sees it, is as enabler, he is the person who understands Process and how to keep things running smoothly.  He is more concerned with what Causes things than how to deal with it.

Let's complete the graph.

Proven Thomas	Theory Katie	Effect Elaine	Trust William
Hunch Fiend	Unproven Bobby	Test Thomas	Cause Peter
Accurate Fiend	Expectation Elaine	Result Bobby	Ending Jake
Determination Katie	Non-accurate Jake	Unending William	Process Peter

Conclusion

Already this suggests some great opposition scenes, such as where Elaine and Katie square off over realism versus expectation, or where brothers Jake and William are opposed on the ideas behind Ending and Unending situations.  We'll go into these more later.

That's us done all four dimensions and in the next post I'll look at what all this (hard!) work has gotten us.

That'll do for this post.