The Reason For Certain Progressions Of Plot

The Dramatica theory of story is the only paradigm of story where the order of events carries with it as much meaning as the events themselves.

Every story paradigm, it would seem, comes with a collection of caveats and footnotes: a select set of sequences may only work within a certain context, while a journey works for every context as long as you're willing to forgo consistent meaning. With the Dramatica theory of story, all that nonsense goes away.

Take for instance, this notion of Plot Progression in Dramatica:

I have two questions regarding placement of Problem Types on a grid and, especially, in the Transit-Journey sequence. In the Dramatica Users Manual, the first appearance of Problem TYPES in the ACTIVITY Class are listed (clockwise): Understanding, Doing, Learning, Obtaining. After that, in every example I’ve seen--particularly with respect to Transits--they are listed: Learning, Understanding, Doing, Obtaining or L-U-D-O. When establishing Transits in the Activity class, will they always progress L-U-D-O? If so, will the Transits in the Universe Class or Attitude Class progress in the same pattern (Present-Past-Progress-Future in Universe, Conscious-Memory-Preconscious-Subconscious in Attitude)?

Some stories progress from Learning to Understanding to Doing to Obtaining--but not all stories. Some start with the Understanding and then move to Learning, before finishing with Doing and Obtaining. And even then, some stories start with the Doing and Obtaining, before moving on to the Understanding and Learning.

It all depends on the narrative.

The All Important Dynamic Choices

This pattern you recognize is not arbitrary--it contains meaning. What you perceive is the differential between the Dramatica Table of Story Elements at rest and the Table of Story Elements after the application of the story's dynamics.

Those eight Essential Questions that adorn the top of Dramatica.com and connected with your writer's intuition when you first heard about the theory? The answers to those questions determine how the model of the human mind winds up within a story.

Think of the Table of Story Elements like a giant, super amazing Rubik's cube with rubber bands wrapped around it. Tough to turn at first--and if you did--the cube would whip back into its normal state as soon as you let go. The answer to questions like the Main Character Resolve: Changed or Steadfast? and the Main Character's Problem-Solving Style: Male or Holistic? Regulate which way to shift those cubes and how to rotate it in your hands.

A story begins with the Rubik's cube of story fully would up, ready to go. As the story unfolds, Act by Act, the cube begins to unravel until it returns back to its at rest state.

Independent Interdependence

The pattern mentioned above communicates only one-fourth of the Author's message to an audience. A story "cube" flows through four different complete Throughlines as it unravels.

Will one position in a Class always respond to another Class, in kind, with the same position? If the MC signpost is Past (top-left position on the grid) , will the IC always respond with Memory (also top-left position on the grid)?

Not always. Each of the Throughlines--Main Character, Obstacle Character, Relationship Story, and Objective Story--run through their own independent plot progression. Sometimes this will present an Obstacle Character dealing with Memories at the same time the Main Character deals with the Past, and sometimes it won't. Though seemingly arbitrary at times, the exact progression of events in each Throughline works together to provide a holistically cohesive message to the Audience.

Every complete story functions the same way--it's the order of those functions that changes from story to story.

Thankfully you don’t need to know how to do all this by yourself--Dramatica exists to service this exact issue. You supply the answers to those questions and the application winds the model up for you. From there, you simply travel the bands down back to a state of rest.