An Old Friend

In the last post

So we've gone from the top level of Theme, down to the Classes of Theme, then the Types of Classes, and Finally the Variations of Type.  This produces sixty-four types of theme onto which we can project our four Story Throughlines.


So that's it?

You might expect that either that's it, or else Dramatica verges on the ridiculous and further subdivides the Variations again.  But no, it does something unexpected, and splits the Variations again to give a parallel sixty-four grid of squares to further classify the theme. 

Let's have a look at it.

Consider Logic Pursuit Control Feeling Reconsider Uncontrolled Avoid Faith Conscience Support Help Temptation Disbelief Hinder Oppose	Knowledge Ability Actuality Aware Desire Thought Self Aware Perception Order Equity Inertia Projection Inequity Chaos Speculation Change
Certainty Probability Proaction Inaction Possibility Potentiality Protection Reaction Deduction Reduction Acceptance Evaluation Production Induction Reevaluation Nonacceptance	Proven Theory Effect Trust Hunch Unproven Test Cause Accurate Expectation Result Ending Determination Non-accurate Unending Process

Look familiar?  It should, this is the final grid of the Character chessboard.  By a quirk of coincidence or design, when you drill down into Theme far enough, it touches the concepts of Character.  This makes sense, all strong themes are about people at the root.  Where your throughlines end up is as much to do with the characters in them than any plot device.


So let us finalise the Fiend

So if we take it that the sixteen Types map onto this character chessboard in the same relative pattern, we can further classify our Throughlines on this new character grid.

Overall Throughline - Physics - Obtaining - Self-Interest
If we map the type Obtaining into the appropriate square of the character chessboard, we come up with the Order-Equity-Inequity-Chaos quad.  So here we have a society and a story where everyone is trying to succeed, they are only in it for themselves.  Some want criminal success, some want personal success, Jake wants to break his mental block.  All these competing desires lead to exactly what Fiend wants - chaos.  So I think the character variation for the overall story is Chaos.

Main Throughline - Psychology - Becoming - Obligation
If we map the type Being onto the appropriate square of the character chessboard, we come up with the Deduction-Reduction-Production-Induction.  This is very exciting, because Jake exists in this quad already, under Production (which is 'Choose a path of action by eliminating impossible ones'). This is the way Jake thinks of a problem, he discards potential solutions because he doesn't think they will work.  So the Main Throughline should also have a category of Production.

Impact Throughline - Mind - Subconscious - Hope
If we map the type Subconscious onto the appropriate square of the character chessboard, we come up with the Accurate-Expectation-Determination-Non-accurate quad.  This is also exciting, because Fiend fell into the Accurate category when we were delving into his character, so it seems appropriate that his Throughline should also fall into this category.

Subjective Throughline - Universe - Future - Choice
If we map the type Future onto the appropriate square of the character chessboard, we come up with the Faith-Conscience-Temptation-Disbelief quad.  Since this is about Jake and Fiend and their relationship, we would expect them to be opposed in the corresponding character quad... but...


Uh Oh

Disappointingly, neither Jake nor Fiend are in this character quad.  This is a potentially fatal blow to the storyline.  Dramatica has thrown up the glaring error that in the Throughline which is supposed to be all about the differences and conflict between the two characters, neither of them actually exist in the corresponding character set.

This would mean that the major conflict in the relationship story is over a concept which neither of the players have an interest.  I might not have noticed this if I was doing this all on the hoof - at least until it was well into a draft and too late. Thankfully Dramatica has highlighted this major hole.


So what caused this lapse?

Although I'm immensely grateful to Dramatica for highlighting this at an early stage, it's still annoying, and I'm interested in the reason why it happened, and thinking about it I think I can work it out.

1. Doing the characterisation first.
Almost the very first thing in the Dramatica method is to create the character chessboard of sixty-four squares.  But because we haven't really gone into the thematic conflict of the story at that point, a lot of the character placement was thumb in the air, just box filling.  Although I tried hard to make Jake and Fiend oppose each other as much as possible, making them universally oppose each other in every quad would be boring.  This variety meant I left holes in the grid where Jake and Fiend had no interest or opposed different characters.  Unfortunately we've fallen into one of these.

2. Dramatica's insistence that the four Theme Classes go evenly onto the four Throughlines
I can see the reason for this - that to fully explain a theme you have to use all four aspects of the theme, and it makes sense to explore them in different threads of the story.  Unfortunately when you have a fledgling story idea, some of the classes will click nicely into some of the Throughlines, but you'll always be left with the ugly one which doesn't really fit into the last one.  For us, Universe was foisted onto the Subjective throughline simply because it was the only one left.

3. The idea that you should choose the same Type position
I can also see the reason for this, if you choose the same Type position you will get a literary resonance between the four story threads - they will all be about sort of the same thing, an equivalent struggle, and this will lend a depth to the story.  Unfortunately it also restricts your choice a little.  When I chose the position (bottom left) I chose it because two of them - Future and Becoming - were already there.  I moved the other two to match them.  Now it turns out Future was probably incorrect, so my original choice of position might have been wrong.


So what do we do about it?

We have two options.

1. Go right back to the beginning and change the original character quads to provide a conflict between Jake and Fiend within the Future Type.  This means rewriting the character sketches to reflect this.

2. Change the change the Subjective Throughline Type to another one where we do have conflict between the characters.  This means moving all four Types, because they all have to maintain the same relative position.

I'm loathe do to the second one, because I was very happy with some of the other correlations which came up with the other three Classes.  I could so some work to quickly see if I could move them and make up some equally good correlations, but as horrible as it sounds, I think the only sensible way to repair this is to go back to the original character quads and tweak.


Let's get on with it then

So lets look at the character quads which correspond to the Universe section of the Theme chessboard.

Consider Jacob	Logic Bobby	Pursuit Jacob	Control Thomas
Feeling Thomas	Reconsider Fiend	Uncontrolled William	Avoid Fiend
Faith Peter	Conscience Elaine	Support Peter	Help Katie
Temptation Katie	Disbelief William	Hinder Elaine	Oppose Bobby

Remember, where we are at the moment is that Future maps to the bottom left quadrant in this chart.  As we can see, neither Jake nor Fiend exist in this quad.  We're sort of stuck with the lower left quad, because if we move it to another position, we have to move the other three Types as well to maintain position.

Let's look at what the lower left Quad is, and what damage we would do if we moved characters out of it.  At the moment, Peter (trusty sidekick and people person) is in the Faith position, because he is the Sidekick archetype, he believes everything Jake does will work out.  Katie (the ex) is the temptation, obviously both sexual and intellectual.  Elaine (the current girlfriend) has to oppose her on this one.  Can we actually move these people anywhere else and lose those characteristics?

I don't think we can.  We're going to have to move all the Types.


A dissatisfying place to stop.

It's all gone pear-shaped.  Some of the seeds we've sown as part of doing the work have sprouted ugly weeds.  We're going to have to backtrack halfway back through the theme work and re-do it, so that can wait until the next post.