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Social dynamics change

Posted: Aug 13, 2012 11:57 am
by zeitenflug
Hi there, I've been contracted to write a book about five teenagers whose social dynamics change rapidly when a new teenager comes to town and is included in the gang. Now for the fun part - how would I approach this in Dramatica? How would I "social dynamics within a group change" translate into Dramatica terms? Does the characteristic quads come into play? Is this a throughline thing? There are about a thousand stories I can tell that satisfy the premise, so I am happy to hear your ideas as to how Dramatica can make this even more fun...

Re: Social dynamics change

Posted: Aug 16, 2012 9:33 am
by Chris Huntley
By social dynamics I interpret that as relationship dynamics between the teenagers. This would probably be best suited to explore the Overall Story in terms of the Manipulation (Psychology) Domain, probably with a Changing One's Nature Concern. That gives you a thematic exploration in the OS in terms of Responsibility, Commitment, Obligation, and Rationalization.

This means your Main Character would either be defined by his or her "status" (Situation domain), or by bias, prejudice, preconceptions, or fixations about or by him/her (Fixed Attitude domain). It also means that the relationship between your main character and Influence Character would center around difficulty caused by an activity in which their relationship gets them involved (Activity domain) with a concern about gaining or losing something.

The characteristic quads come into play when you build your characters for the Overall Story throughline.

Re: Social dynamics change

Posted: Aug 17, 2012 11:16 pm
by zeitenflug
Thanks, this helps a lot. The Responsibility, Commitment, Obligation, and Rationalization stuff works very well with what I had in mind.