MC Symptom of Pursuit and he is not the Protagonist

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edhgarza

MC Symptom of Pursuit and he is not the Protagonist

Postby edhgarza » Oct 05, 2011 6:45 am

Hi there,

I'm new to the forum and I come here for some advice.

I'm working on my first story with the dramatica theory in mind. I'm building complex characters and I have a MC who is not the Protagonist and he has a problem of Support and a Symtom of Pursuit.

The Protagonist of the story pursues the story goal and the MC drives/distracts the Protagonist to failure (also the MC is not the Antagonist).

As a steadfast character the MC has the Crucial on Pursuit. But if I'm not mistaken this is a motivation in the quad for the protagonist right? What should be my point of view on this or how should I approach this?


Thanks in advance and greetings from Spain!
Ed

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phillybudd
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Re: MC Symptom of Pursuit and he is not the Protagonist

Postby phillybudd » Oct 06, 2011 6:53 am

Hi Ed,

Dramatica allows for standing elements and characteristics on their head -- that is, inverting them.

So, your main character has a symptom of Pursuit, which means he sees Pursuit as the problem, which fits well, it seems, with him wanting to thwart the Protagonist (the one who is pursuing the goal). So, if you give the MC a motivation of Pursuit, you can interpret that in this case as a motivation to STOP Pursuit. Nice, huh? :)

As an example of how this has been an issue for me in the past, I posted a question here about how my MC's critical flaw was "falsehood". This one really threw me, because I certainly didn't see my MC as a liar. But it then occurred to me that he perhaps had information he THOUGHT was correct that in fact wasn't.That is a kind of FALSEHOOD, right?

When I asked Chris about this here, he said: "He can be the source of the falsehood, the object of the falsehoods (someone telling lies about him), unable to identify falsehoods, etc." So there you see that FALSEHOOD is a very high-level issue. It doesn't mean your character is a liar, simply that the thing that is holding him back is falsehood of some kind or other.

To elaborate: whichever character you assign the Pursuit characteristic has PURSUIT as a motivational focus. He may be motivated to PURSUE something, or motivated to STOP pursuit of something. Now, keep in mind that inverting one characteristic in this way may mean you want to invert others elsewhere as well. But structurally, in Dramatica, they are all equivalent.

Chris has downplayed the importance of the Crucial Element (I think if you search the forum for it you will find quite a few posts on this issue), so you are also safe in giving the Pursuit characteristic instead to your Protagonist, if you wish. But perhaps what I said above will give you another way of thinking about it.

Remember as well that the MC is simply the character from whose Point of View the story is told. He can be any of the 8 characters in the grid.

Jeff

edhgarza

Re: MC Symptom of Pursuit and he is not the Protagonist

Postby edhgarza » Oct 07, 2011 1:47 am

Thanks a lot Jeff.

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phillybudd
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Re: MC Symptom of Pursuit and he is not the Protagonist

Postby phillybudd » Nov 02, 2011 2:29 pm

Ed,

you may also want to check out these Dramatica forums, which are a lot more active than this one:

http://convore.com/dramatica/

http://dramaticaquery.com/


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