Modeling Alternate Realities in Narrative Applications

The relationship between the Failure and Consequence of a complete story

One of the most confounding aspects of the Dramatica theory of story is the relationship between the Consequence of a story and the Concern of the Relationship Story Throughline.

They're always the same thing (thematically).

The question is, or has been for me for quite a while, why is that?

And now there's an answer.

The Goal and Requirement

A Dramatica Storyform offers two key Static Plot Points: The Story Goal and the Story Requirements. They work together in a complete story such that one could say, "The Requirements lead to the Goal." Typically, the Requirements play out in the traditional 2nd Act, while the Goal usually ends somewhere in the 3rd Act.

A Subtxt Storyform offers the same but turns the dial-up with its unique interpretation of the same Storypoints, but through a lens of Female Mental Sex.

Goal and Requirements become Intention and Habituation.

And while this insight allows for a temporary structuring of Female Mental Sex or relationship-based Concerns, they can be misinterpreted as more of the same:

In a holistic story, the Goal and req are read holistically (ie., "realizing your intention to experience transformation depends on mimicking" in a becoming-being case). In a linear story you'd read it linearly (ie., "in order to become something you must mimic")

The above email attempts to delineate the difference between the two using an issue of Becoming for the Goal and Being for the Requirement.

NOTE: while the feedback refers to "holistic" and "linear" stories, know that in Subtxt (and Dramatica theory), this is not the same thing as the difference between a Female Mental Sex story and a Male Mental Sex story. Much of the misinterpretation is a result of reducing Female Mental Sex to simply "holistic."

Clarifying Intention and Habituation

"Realizing your intention to experience transformation depends on mimicking" is still a linear cause-and-effect statement (realizing a goal (effect) depends on mimicking (effect). Suppose you wanted to think about relationships and an authentic Female Mental Sex experience. In that case, you might say something like, "I meet the ebb and flow of my quickening transformation with the higher vibration of my being like others."

Do you feel the difference?

There is no goal, only a relationship.

That's Female Mental Sex.

In a follow-up email, the Revision to the Relationship Story Throughline is described as:

a moment in which the storymind actually manifests the necessary qualities that satisfy the Requirement itself (since the Requirement is based on qualities rather than quantities).

The statement "manifests the qualities that satisfy the requirement" is a continuation of a linear misinterpretation. Satisfaction is the realm of the Male Mental Sex mind, whereas the Female Mental Sex embraces Fulfillment. Even the differentiation between "qualities" and "quantities" is a spatial and binary appreciation (also linear).

What does this have to do with Failure, Consequence, and the Relationship Story Throughline?

Answering these challenging emails gave me insight into why all three Storypoints are the same.

The Innate Ability to Overlook Relationships

The recent release of Pixar's Turning Red offered an opportunity to explain why a particular demographic found the film too specific and "not for them."

In short, the Male Mental Sex mind—at a base level—is blind to anything other than problem and solution.

They don't see relationships on an intuitive level.

And that blindness is their failure.

The relationship between the Relationship Story Throughline and the Consequence of a story has more to do with the Storymind (the mind that is the story) recognizing something other than the problem/solution as the definition of conflict. The Failure is the failure of the Male Mental Sex mind to see the relationships between things and see these relationships as accelerating or decelerating through change.

When this occurs, the mind blends the Relationship Story Throughline with the Objective Story Throughline.

But more so than a simple blend, the experience is a dropout altogether.

The similarity of the same Element appearing as the Condition of the Relationship Story Throughline and the "Problem" in the Objective Story Throughline signifies a level of cognitive dissonance within the Male Mental Sex mind.

And that's why the Consequence of that is seen as a Failure.

Until quantum computing kicks in, the current narrative model of Subtxt weighs heavily on Male Mental Sex. While we can make accommodations through the transfusion of Conditions and Intentions, the result is only a guess at what can only be described as a world of difference.