Types of Classes

Recap

In the last post, I introduced the ideas that the Theme of the story is actually comprised of four Classes of theme, each of which should be assigned to one of the four Story Throughlines.  A couple of these felt natural - Main and Impact, but the other two less so.  But let's roll with it and see where Dramatica takes us.  Now we'll further classify the Classes into Types


Types

Dramatica loves its grids, so if we take the four quad of the Classes and further subdivide it, we get the next level down, the Types.

Past Progress Future Present	Understanding Doing Obtaining Learning
Conceptualizing Being Becoming Conceiving	Memory Preconscious Subconscious Conscious

This is another piece of Dramatica cleverness.  Positions in each of the four quads which make up this are analogous - which means that it's a good idea, but not compulsory, to pick a position in the four for each Throughline.  I'm not going to go through each of the meanings, because these are fairly self-explanatory.   If a throughline is in a Universe (situation) then the theme will either be about the Past, Progress, Future, or the Present.  Same with the other classes of theme.


So where does the Throughlines of Fiend go?

In the last post, I tentatively placed the four story throughlines on the grid of Classes, so now let's take each of those decisions and see if we can filter them down to four particular Types.

Overall Throughline - Physics
So let's look at the top right grid and see which of the four the Types the overall story might be.  The main overall story is about the rise of a charismatic figure in the small-time criminal world, an escalation of violence, and the putting down of the Fiend.  Let's tentatively put it as Doing.

Main Throughline - Psychology
So Jake's Throughline lives in the bottom left grid.  His story is about something that happened in the past which makes him stop himself reacting emotionally to things and this stifling his life in other ways.  At some point he has to let it go.  For him his problem is about Becoming.

Impact Throughline - Mind
Fiend's Throughline is the bottom right grid.  He starts off in a position almost of hibernation, and when released transforms into his true self.  His downfall is his lack of memory, and he doesn't act on his subconscious or preconscious.  This leaves only Conscious for him.

Subjective Throughline - Universe
The relationship Throughline is concerned with the world they live in.  For Fake, the Past is what affects him most of all and also impacts his perception of his Future.  For Fiend also, the Past has not been kind to him, but he thinks the Future will be different. They are both concerned with Future.

So let's put them on the graph and see where we're at

Past   Progress   Future Subjective Present	Understanding   Doing Overall Obtaining   Learning
Conceptualizing   Being   Becoming Main Conceiving	Memory   Preconscious   Subconscious   Conscious Impact

Now we seem to have inadvertently ignored the rule about the four throughlines being in the same relative square.  Main and Subjective seem to be in agreement, but the other two are not.  Should this be considered a flaw? What happened if we move the other two to the same relative positions, does it produce a better theme correlation?

Move Impact to Subconscious
The Conscious type means that the way this character thinks is to look subjectively at all the facts and weigh them up and come to a decision, even if this sometimes means a less good outcome.   This person is a plotter and schemer.  Subconscious desires are under the surface, the character may not even know they are there or be able to articulate them.  This actually sounds better for Fiend - although I didn't originally think he would be driven by the subconscious, this turns out to be a much more satisfying theme.  His subconscious wants Jake for companionship, he knows intellectually he doesn't need him, but he wants it - and this makes his act in ways which will lead to his downfall. 

Move Overall to Obtaining
The Doing type simply means that everyone in the overall story is engaged in a task.  The Obtaining type means everyone is engaged in a quest to attain something.  This could be the same thing or a different thing.  Jake wants to beat his hang-up and be successful.  William wants criminal success.  The two women want relationship success.  Fiend wants to be successful at doing whatever it is he's doing.  Everyone seems to want a measure of success.  It makes sense to move this.

So we have made two small changes to the thematic quality of the work, and I think these are actually improvements.  Let's look at the grid now.

Past   Progress   Future Subjective Present	Understanding   Doing   Obtaining Overall Learning
Conceptualizing   Being   Becoming Main Conceiving	Memory   Preconscious   Subconscious  Impact Conscious

This looks much neater, and should (hopefully) provide us with a greater correlation between the throughlines than would be possible just by chance invention.


What's next?

Well, as is usual for Dramatica, there is a further division of the grid.  From Classes to Types of Class, we will next look at one further layer called Variations of Types and how this affects Fiend.