Writing Charcters of the Opposite Sex

Perhaps the most fundamental error made by authors, whether novice or experienced, is that all their characters, male and female, tend to reflect the gender of the author. This is hardly surprising, since recent research finally proves that men and women use their brains in different ways. So how can an author overcome this gap to write characters of the opposite sex that are both accurate and believable to their own gender?

In this Dramatica Tip, we’ll explore the nature of male and female minds and provide techniques for crafting characters that are true to their gender.

At first, it might seem that being male or female is an easily definable thing, and therefore easy to convey in one’s writing. But as we all know, the differences between the sexes have historically been a mysterious quality, easily felt, but in fact quite hard to define. This is because what makes a mind male or female is not just one thing, but also several.

First, let’s consider that gender has four principal components:

Anatomical Sex

Sexual Preference

Gender Identity

Mental Sex

Anatomical sex describes the physicality of a character – male or female. Now, we all know that people actually fall in a range – more or less hairy, wider or narrower hips, deeper or higher voice, and so on. So although there is a fairly clear dividing line between male and female anatomically, secondary sexual characteristics actually create a range of physicality between the two. Intentionally choosing these attributes for your characters can make them far less stereotypical as men and women.

Sexual Preferences may be for the same sex, the opposite sex, both, or neither (or self). Although people usually define themselves as being straight, gay, bi, or celibate, this is also not a fixed quality. Statistics shows, for example, that 1/3 of all men have a homosexual encounter at least once in their lives.

Although it often stirs up controversy to say so, in truth most people have passing attractions to the same sex, be it a very pretty boy or a “butch” woman.

Consider the sexual preference of your characters not as a fixed choice of one thing or another, but as a fluid quality that may shift over time or in a particular exceptional context.

Gender Identity describes where one falls on the scale between masculine and feminine. This, of course, is also context dependent. For example, when one is in the woods, at home with one’s family, or being chewed out by the boss.

Gender Identity is not just how one feels or things of oneself, but also how one act’s, how one uses one’s voice, and how one wishes to be treated. Often, a male character may have gentle feelings but cover them up by overly masculine mannerisms. Or, a female character may be “all-business” in the workplace out of necessity, but wishes someone would treat her with softness and kindness.

Actually, Gender Identity is made up of how one acts or wishes to act, and how one is treated or wishes to be treated. How many times have we seen a character who is forced by others to play a role that is in conflict with his or her internal gender self-image? Gender Identity is where one can explore the greatest nuance in creating non-stereotypical characters.

Finally, Mental Sex describes where one falls on the scale from practical, binary, linear, logistic, goal-oriented thinking to passionate, flexible, emotional, process-oriented thinking. In fact, every human being engages in ALL of these approaches to life, just at different times and in different ways.

Now, in creating characters, consider that each of the four categories we just explored is not a simple choice between one thing or another, but a sliding scale (like Anatomical Sex) or a conglomerate of individual traits (like Gender Identity). Then, visualize that wherever a character falls in any one of those four categories places absolutely no limits on where he or she may fall in the other categories.

For example, you might have a character extremely toward male anatomical sex, bi-sexual (but leaning toward a straight relationship at the moment), whose gender identity is rough and tumble (but yearns to be accepted for his secret sensitivity toward impressionistic paintings) who is practical all the time (except when it comes to sports cars).

Any combination goes. But when it comes to Mental Sex itself, there are four sub-categories within that area alone which tend to define the different personality types we encounter:Memory relies on our training to organize our considerations in a give situation toward components or processes. And every character always has a Conscious choice to focus on the components or processes at any given moment. In other words, in a given situation, at each level of Mental Sex does a character center on the way things are or the way things are going? At each level is the character more interested in getting his or her ducks in a row or in a pond?

Subconscious

Memory

Conscious

Preconscious

In brief, each of these “levels” or “attributes” of the mind can lean toward seeing the world in definable or experiential terms. Pre-conscious is a tendency to perceive the world in components or as processes that is determined before birth. It is the foundation of leaning toward the tradition “male” or “female” personality traits. Subconscious determines the tendencies we have to be attracted or repelled from component or process rewards.

Finally, beyond all of these considerations is the cultural indoctrination we all receive that leads us to respond within social expectations appropriately to the role associated with our anatomical sex. These roles are fairly rigid and include what is proper to wear, who speaks first, who opens the door or order the wine, who has to pretend to be inept where and skilled where else (regardless of real ability or lack there of in that area), the form of grammar one uses in constructing sentences, the words one is expected to use (“I’ll take a hamburger,” vs. “I’d like a salad”), and the demeanor allowable in social interaction with the same and the opposite sex, among many other qualities.

In the end, writing characters of the opposite sex requires a commitment to understand the difference between those qualities, which are inherent and those, which are learned, and to accept that we are all made of the same clay, and merely sculpt it in different ways.

—Melanie Anne Phillips

Want to know more?

Consider our four-hour audio program on Characters & Gender:

Definitive Scientific Article on Dramatica Theory

Here is a link to the definitive explanation of the Dramatica theory (in PDF) from 1993, that explains all of the key concepts in text and graphics, including descriptions of non-story uses of the psychological model and the functioning of the model in terms of the dramatic circuit created by Potential, Resistance, Current, and Power (Outcome) and its relationship to the prediction of temporal story progression in terms of a quad-based 1 2 3 4 sequence.

http://storymind.com/free-downloads/sa_article.pdf

God and Dramatica

Now here’s a touchy subject.  Still, over the years, many have taken a philosophical, even spiritual view of Dramatica.  There are even some who have drawn a comparison between Dramatica’s 64 elements and the 64 trigrams of the I Ching.   In fact, two of them wrote articles on that topic.  Here are the links:

Noa’s Archetypes
by noted ballet coach,
Anthony Noa

The One and the Many
by C.J. Lofting

Some find this comparrison odd, and at first so did we, since neither Chris nor myself had studied the I Ching before creating Dramatica and only after having this brought to our attention did we explore the similarities.  Ultimately, for me, it is just another indicator that we are all looking for the same answers to the same universal questions.  Dramatica is just another lens through which to focus on our own existence.

A new Dramatica user recently sent to me the following:

I’m probably stating the obvious, but have you thought about the Story Mind in terms of God, and human beings in terms of representing different aspects of God?
 
Well, as you might expect, I do in fact have a few thoughts on that matter.  But before I pen them, a caveat:
 
In the early days of our development of Dramatica, some twenty years ago, Chris and I encountered legions of fans who were so enraptured with the potential of the theory as a model of the mind that they started applying it to all kinds of areas outside of the realm of the creation of fiction.
 
For example, one lawyer was using it to help structure his closing arguments in criminal trials.  A student in one of my UCLA classes began exploring how Dramatica might be applied to the patterns he encountered in sub-nuclear physics.  And another student in a Deep Theory class I taught was having her pyschiatrist apply it to help her integrate her multiple personalities.
 
Due to the comments by users and students and our own awareness of some of the philosophical implications of Dramatica, Chris and I began to worry about the potential abuse of Dramatica as the basis for some new religion.  After all, Dramatica (in its original form) dealt with four Classes – Universe, Mind, Physics, and Psychology – which were already a keystone in Dianetics (something neither of us knew until long after the theory was complete).  Of course, we use the terms differently as meaning the four posible realms of exploration in a story – External or Internal States or Processes.  Every story problem can be identified as being either an External or Internal State or Process.  Universe is an External State, Physics is an External Problem, Mind is an Internal State, Pyschology is an Internal Process.  And so, for us, this was just a story issue.  But, quite naturally, stories are about the way we think and feel and we realized that people would probably try to resolve problems in their own lives by identifying them in the same way, with the same terms.
 
So, we have always been pretty wary and on guard against any “cult-like” movements that might crop up around the ol’ theory, lest the power of Dramatica from an organizational and self-illuminating aspect might be subverted to lure in and control innocent seekers of truth.
 
(After all, in my pre-Dramatica days I had written and edited a feature length documentary on Jim Jones and the People’s Temple and the Guyana suicide.  I spent a year on that project, and it has made me ever-watchful for any charismatic leader who isolates his or her flock and professes to be the sole source of God’s Truth.  Again, the Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao.  In fact, I went on to write a song about what I learned in that year – including interviewing one-on-one a survivor from the massacre.  Here’s a link to a rendition of that song, if you are interested: on mp3 at Guyana Dreamin’ or on video at Guyana Dreamin’)
 
And so, knowing that the last thing I want to do is encourance any kind of following of my personal philosophies, please take this as just a little sharing of some of my speculations with that new user who asked:
 
I’m probably stating the obvious, but have you thought about the Story Mind in terms of God, and human beings in terms of representing different aspects of God?
 
Here’s my reply:

If God is within us and we within God, then the concept of characters within a Story Mind might be a useful perspective in our attempt to better understand our relationship with the Divine.

Consider – suppose that we experience our linear lives like scanning lines on a television. Suppose our souls do not perish at death, but simply reset to the next scanning line, so that we either have been or will at some time be and live the life of every thinking creature that has existed, currently exists, or will exist. In other words, be good to your neighbor and every bug on your wall, for it is you.

Time is irrelevant to God, for it is our one continuous life as a single soul that scans the experience of reality from a Main Character view – I think, therefore I am. But God sees all the scanning lines not as individual linear experiences, but as comprising a bigger picture – the fully scanned image, in motion, as the universal collection of thinking creatures is constantly altering as new hosts are born and old hosts die, frame by frame.

Together, we play out across God’s mind, informing God’s thoughts and, in a sense, continuously creating God as God puts us (who are really one) into play.

God is both author and audience to his own creation in a way no player on the field can ever fully appreciate, for ours is not to watch the movie but to live the role.

I call this concept “co-creation.”

Just idle speculation.  Make of it what you will.

Melanie

Changing Dramatica’s Suggested Act Order

A Dramatica user recently asked:

Hello:  would appreciate your help on this.  Am using the Dramatica software.  Level III.    Impact Character is MIND and that’s OK.  However, the software keeps telling me that Signpost #1 is Memories and Signpost #2 is Preconscious/Impulsive Responses.  I want them reversed, i.e. Signpost #1 to be Impulsive Responses and Signpost #2 to be Memories.  I have gone back into the impact character descriptors  prior to the PLOT PROGRESSIONS  viz. to the Impact Character  Development and written in Impulsive responses.   Nothing changes .    I  realize I can just “call” them something other than what the software says, i.e. call Signpost #2,  #1  but would prefer to have the software place them in the order I want.   Can you suggest how I can do that?  Thanks for your help.

Bill

My reply:

Hi, Bill

Here’s the problem (and a solution):

First, the reason Dramatica chooses that order is that is the sequence that will support your overall story argument or message.

Here’s why – the order of things changes their meaning. For example, a slap followed by a scream has a different meaning than a screen followed by a slap. Similarly, the order in which perspectives are explored in a story is what ultimately makes the argument, over time.

So, Dramatica is telling you the order necessary to fully make and support your message. In fact, if you pick all the sequence orders, the Story Engine in Dramatica will be able to determine the message and fill in many of the structural items based on sequence alone!

Now, here’s a solution for what really isn’t a problem, but more of a frustration:

Every culture looks at time and space in a story to make the argument. But, every culture favors one of the other as being the primary argument and other as being the supporting argument.

A culture will accept inaccuracies in the secondary argument, but not in the primary argument. In Japanese culture, the Timeline argument is most important. But in Western culture, the Spatial argument is most important.

So, while it will slightly weaken your argument to change the order of the signposts (and therefore the nature of the journeys) in Western culture, your audiences will see that a a minor violation that doesn’t negate the primary argument.

The one caveat is to make absolutely sure you keep all the spatial (structual) items exactly on target because if you interject inaccuracies in there as well, with the slight weakness of your timeline already at work, the entire structure might fall.

Hope this helps.

Melanie

Bill’s reponse:

Hi:  Thank you so much for taking the trouble to reply in detail.  Much appreciated.   In the meantime, I rethought everything, thinking “just what if Dramatica knows something I don’t . . . however impossible that might be!”  And I figured that the Dramatica order was indeed better.  So that’s what I’m using.  And again many thanks.  Cordially,  Bill

Questions About Dramatica’s Features

A teacher of writers recently asked:

  • Does Dramatica include a database structure for building character files? Too me it seems this would be an important story building concept that a computer could offer with great advantage; the ability to collect character names, traits, histories, personalities etc.
  • Are there other database structures for collections of titles, dialog, story starters, first line hooks, etc? 
  •  Is there an outline structure regarding acts or scenes and the order of events?
  •  From my experience in writing classes two important difficulties always seem to come to light. Point of view and order of events (plotting the story with Beginning, Middle, & End). Does Dramatica help with these trouble areas?

My reply:

In answer to your questions, though Dramatica is all about the Story Engine, it does have a data base of character names and information and a few pre-built stereotypes to start from.

While it doesn’t have story starters per se, it ships with about 70 example files of notable movies, books, teleplays and stage plays.  Each can be used for ideas, and there’s even a feature that lets you strip out all the identifiable storytelling and subject matter leaving nothing but the bare bones structure.  You can then use that to build your own story since structure is just the blueprint and the storytelling makes it your own.

There are also built-in scene by scene and chapter by chapter templates for a novel or a screenplay to give you some timeline guidance if you wish.

As for the “trouble points” you list, point of view and timeline issues are the center and purpose of Dramatica.  Each story point is defined not just by what the subject matter is, but how you want to position your readers or audience in relation to each issue.  And characters are all defined by their points of view as well.  Plus, Dramatica can actually predict what should happen in act two, based on other information you’ve provided about your story’s underlying message argument.

More Questions from Alice

A response and further questions from the Dramatica user who was answered in my last post: Can Two Characters Share the Same Traits?

Hi Melanie

Okay, that is understood, and makes sense, and I like the logic, but this makes the software somewhat limiting in my view. I think there should be a facility to show the character in conflict with themselves, so for instance, they have a trait, and then a conflicting trait, so they have inner conflict.

My question is though, how do I build a character with more than one trait, even where that trait is contradictory and not a neat amplifier, as in – But if you want to fully explore the individual traits and get down to that level of human qualities, then you build each character one element at a time –

How do I do that using the actual software, I mean do I have to create a character with one trait and then build that same character again, (name, cartoon image etc) and give them another single trait?

If I want to build up more complexity within that character? How does the software cope with that? What do I need to do in actual step by step terms with the actual software?

Or is the software based on the assumption that most characters will be hosts to one individual trait or another, so that the storymind works as a whole? I understand this, and it’s a great concept, really, but it still falls short when you want to examine a character’s psychological nuances. My novel is a character based, it’s a novel about psychological journey to inner integrity, so conflicting elements are vital to the whole concept.

Sorry to be awkward, but I do think if the software could be near perfect. At the moment I feel rather hampered by the character build aspect.

All the best

Alice

My response:

Hi, Alice

Okay, if I were to condense your message down to two points:

1. How do you assign more than one element to a character?

2. Dramatica seems to lack psychological depth for characters.

In response to question one, go to the Build Characters area that has the grid of character elements. Then, when you create a character (and its character icon), simply click and drag the icon to the first element you wish that character to have. Then, click and drag the character icon again to the next element you wish it to have. The character’s icon will appear on the grid in the square representing each of the elements you drag it to. In this way you can add as many elements as you wish to each character. What’s more, as you drag other characters (icons) to the grid, the position in the gird of one character relative to another predicts the kind of relationship they will have. Diagonal positions are most contentious because diagonal elements are most opposite. Horizontal relationships are Companion because they go hand in hand, sometimes for good (a positive Companion relationship) or for bad (a negative Companion relationship). Vertical relationships are dependencies, including co-dependencies, which can also be positive or negative in nature. So, as you see, you can use the kind of relationship you want between characters to determine which elements they will have, or choose the elements you want them to have and let that determine their relationships. Clearly, relationships are determined by the traits of each character. And further, since complex characters may have many traits and come into conjunction with other characters in many squares in different ways, very complex relationships may be built and/or described since the characters may be contentious in regard to two of their traits, but positive companions when issues arise in regard to two other traits they possess.

As for question two about the psychological depth. Unlike life in which we all have a myriad of central problems, each becoming paramount in a different context and in which contexts are constantly changing, stories are about a single central problem (the message issue of the story) and how it is explored in a single fixed context (the thematic topic)

Since characters represent facets (traits or problems solving techniques) of our minds the elements they possess are fixed. But, as in our own minds, there are two special characters – the Main Character who represents our sense of self (“I think, therefore I am”) and that “devil’s advocate” voice within us that takes the contrary position on any issues so we weigh the pros and cons of going with our old tried and true method or trying something new the might be better but is unproven. In fact, it is this conflict over methods, attitudes, ethics, morals, word views or personal codes or paradigms that defines the Subjective Story while the Objective Story is defined by the attempt to achieve the logistic goal of the plot.

All of the Dramatica structure is divided into four large areas called Domains. One is about situations, one is about attitudes, one is about activities, and the other is about manners of thinking. The Objective Story will explore one of these in the effort to achieve the goal. The Subjective Story will explore another in the push and pull relationship over the message between the Main Character and its opposite. And the Main Character and its counter part will each get one of the remaining two parts of the structure.

So, Main and the other character (called the Obstacle, Impact, or Influence Character) each get a whole 1/4 of the structure to describe their inner growth, angst, or deliberations. Their psychologies are quite complex as a result, not to mention the special relationship between them that is far more complex than the simple Objective Characters who only represent traits.

Yet in stories, we see that many characters might be explored deeply, not just these two. That is a parallel for how we deal with more than one problem in real life. Since a story, by definition, will center on a single problem, to create complex psychological explorations around an Objective Character other than the Main or Obstacle character, you create sub-plots. In a sub-plot, one of the other Objective characters becomes the Main or Obstacle character in another story that hinges, plot-wise or subject matter-wise on the first story but is not actually part of the main story – just a side trip or a tributary.

In this way, as a Main or Obstacle character in a sub-plot or sub-story, you can greatly increase the psychological complexity of as many of the objective characters as you like with a separate sub-story for each of the characters you wish to deepen.

Ultimately, this creates a very rich set of characters and a very complex and subtle plot, while avoiding muddying the original story through the use of tributary sub-stories.

But, that’s pretty heady stuff – not what people are usually prepared to start out with when they first come to Dramatica which can be daunting enough even on a superficial first introduction to it. So, we hold that information back until people master the single story structure before immersing them in the web of multiple sub-stories and many complex internal explorations of characters.

Hope this helps.

Melanie

 

Can Two Characters Share the Same Traits?

A Dramatica user recently wrote:
 
Hello Melanie
 
I need help, I’m trying to assign characteristics to my characters, I have a multitude of characters, and many share the same characteristics but the software seems to only allow one character a set characteristic, example ‘temptation’ if I try to assign it to more than one character, it gets eliminated from the second.  This is a severe limitation as my characters are not simple archtypes, but complex beings, is there a way around this?
 
All the best
 
Alice
 
My reply:
 
Hi, Alice
Here’s some information to about characters and Dramatica that should solve your problem.

First of all, Dramatica has 64 elements from which to make up characters – they are kind of a like a spectrum of human qualities such as “logic” or “avoidance”

Stories are partly about making an argument to the audience that a particular trait is a good one or a bad one to have. To make that argument, only one character should have that trait at a time. Otherwise, the message gets confusing.

But, a character may have one trait, then drop out of the store such as traveling away for a while or dying, and another character may show up to represent that trait. This is called a “hand-off” because the original character illustrating the value of a given trait is replaced by another who carries on the “argument.”

Archetypes, on the other hand, are collections of 8 traits that all belong to the same “family” – that is to say they are all similar, just like you might group colors like Scarlet, Crimson, and Cardinal together in a family called “Red.”

So, archetypes are like primary colors, and as such, they do no need to explore each element independently because your readers or audience will accept that you aren’t going into more detail on characters for this particular story. This is useful in action stories or epic romance stories where the characters are no so important as the things that happens to them.

But if you want to fully explore the individual traits and get down to that level of human qualities, then you build each character one element at a time.

A character need have only one element to be a functional character in the story’s structure. And, you should never put an element and its opposite in the same character as it become very hard for a person to represent, for example, both “order” and “chaos.” It makes it hard for the audience to understand and rather grid-locks the character as they cannon fully embrace either of the conflicting traits without the other hobbling them.

If you do want conflicting traits in a character, keep in mind the difference between a character and a player. A player is just the “host” for a character – essentially a person, place or thing that can potentially exhibit (illustrate) the traits (elements) in action, so as to make the story’s argument about those qualities.

Normally, there is one character per player, but in stories such as Doctor Jeckyl and Mister Hyde, there are two different personalities inhabiting the same player. In such cases, each will have its own collection of traits, some or all of which may be in conflict with the other. But, they didn’t inhabit the same body at the same time (being the controlling personality, as it were).

And that is how elements work among characters as well. You may have a mob that is a “collective character” in which it is treated as a single individual player and therefore the individual members of the mob may all share the same traits, but single individual characters should never share traits at the same time as it splits the argument and muddies the message.

Let me know if you have any other questions and I hope this helps.

Melanie

StoryWeaver – Exposition of Structural Character Roles

A StoryWeaver user recently asked:

Inside the story weaver software in the stage 3 Exposition part, inside the character folder, and precisely at the structural role, it says I should describe how I will reveal to my readers or audience the structural role of my characters.  Please does that mean that I should bring out the story points and then describe how each character played, and put them in scenes or dialogue, please what doe this mean?

My reply:

The structural roles are the functions of the characters as players in the plot, rather than as people. For example, the Protagonist is the one leading the effort to achieve the goal. If you have a character who is the Sage, he would promote the use of Wisdom in solving the story’s problems, just as a Reason Archetype would promote (and employ) logic as the best way to solve the problem.
 
But the question StoryWeaver is asking in Stage 3 (Exposition), Characters:
 
“Describe how you will reveal your characters’ structural roles to your readers or audience.”
 
 is all about the kinds of instances you will create in your story that will allow your reader or audience to identify the structural roles represented by each of your characters. You don’t need at this point to write actual scenes or fully developed dialog but rather describe the kinds of scenes or dialog you will use to convey this information about your characters to your readers or audience.
 
For example, you might answer this question in part by saying, “Bob has an argument with Sally in which he says here personal issues have no bearing on his decision because survival is at stake and that makes the logic of the situation the only factor that should be considered.” This then describes one way in which you will illustrate to your readers or audience that Bob is a Reason Archetype.
 
Try to come up with as many different examples as you can to convey the structural role (function) of each of your characters. You don’t have to use them all, but later when you build your scenes or chapters you can select from your examples the ones you want to use, rather than having to devise them while you are also trying to write.
 
For example, another instance of Bob being a Reason Archetype might be that he organizes all the foods on his plate in a particular order because his research has shown that this sequence of consumption will assist in digestion. Another character asks him, “But doesn’t it taste better to mix them up and eat several of them in the same bite?” Bob replies, “Irrelevant.”
 
Hope this helps.
 
Melanie

Does your story suffer from “Multiple Personality Disorder?”

Does your story suffer from “Multiple Personality Disorder”?

In psychology, Multiple Personality Disorder describes a person who has more than one complete personality. Typically, only one of those personalities will be active at any given time. This is because they usually share attributes, and so only one can have that attribute at any particular moment.

Stories can also suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder if more than one character represents a single attribute. In such a case, both should not be able to appear in the story at the same time. If they do, the audience feels that the story is fragmented, or more simply put, the story has developed a split-personality.

Dramatica sees a story as representing a single mind. Most writers have been taught that characters, plot, theme, and genre are people, doing things, illustrating value standards, in an overall setting and mood. In contrast, Dramatica sees characters, plot, theme, and genre as representing different “families of thought” which go on in the story mind as it grapples with a central problem.

Characters are the “drives” of the Story Mind, which often conflict as they do in real people. Plot describes the methods used by the Story Mind in an attempt to find a solution to its central problem. Theme represents the Story Mind’s conflicting value standards, which must be played out one against another to determine the best way of evaluating the problem. Genre describes the Story Mind’s overall personality.

Traditional story theory states that each character must be a complete person to be believable to an audience. But because the characters represent the independent drives of a single Story Mind, each is not really a complete person but is rather a facet of a complete mind. In fact, if you make each character complete, they will all be overlapping, and will give your story a split-personality.

It is in the story TELLING stage where characters take on the trappings of a complete person, not in the story STRUCTURE. Each character needs to be given traits and interests, which round out the character’s “presence,” making it feel like a real human being. But these trappings and traits are not part of the dramatic structure. They are just window dressing – clothes for the facets to wear so the audience can better relate to them on a personal level.

Think about the characters you have seen in successful stories. They might represent Reason, Emotion, Skepticism, or function as the Protagonist or Antagonist, for example. Each of these kinds of characters is an “archetype” because it contains a whole family of drives in one character. For example, a Protagonist may contain the drive to “pursue,” and also the drive to be a self-starter, “pro-action.” Because these drives work together in harmony, the character becomes archetypal.

The individual drives don’t have to be bundled in an archetype, however. In fact, each single drive might be assigned to a different character, creating a multitude of simple characters. Or, characters might get several drives but conflicting ones. These characters are more “complex” because their internal make-up is not completely consistent.

Regardless of how the drives (also called character “elements”) are assigned, each drive should appear in one and only one character. If not, your story may develop Multiple Personality Disorder and leave your audience unable to relate to the story as a whole.

The Structural Side of Love Interests

A lot of books about writing describe the importance of a “Love Interest.” Other books see a Love Interest as unnecessary and cliché. What does Dramatica Say? As with most dramatic concepts, Dramatica pulls away the storytelling to take a clear look at the underlying structure.

A Love Interest has both storytelling and structural components. The storytelling side is what most people think of – A Love Interest is the character with whom the “hero” or “heroine” is in love. Simple! But what does that tell us about the kind of person the Love Interest is, or even what kind of relationship the two have between them? Not a whole lot!

For example, the Love Interest might be the leader of the enemy camp, in which case he or she is the Antagonist! Or, the Love Interest might be the supportive, stay-in-the-background type, in which case he or she is the Sidekick. In both cases, the hero is in love with this person, but structurally each positions the relationship on different sides of the effort to achieve the story goal. Also, the Love Interest might be a person of noble heart, a misguided do-gooder, or even a crook! And, any of these types of people might fit into either of the two example scenarios we’ve just outlined.

As we can see, the structural and storytelling elements have little to do with one another, other than the fact that there will be some of each. So, what can Dramatica do to help provide some guidelines for developing a Love Interest that works?

Lets start with some basics. Dramatica sees there being two types of characters in every story (and a prize in every box!). The first type contains the Objective Characters such as the Protagonist, Antagonist, Sidekick, or Guardian, who are defined by their dramatic functions.

The Protagonist strives to achieve the goal; the Antagonist tries to prevent that, for example. In and of itself, this aspect of character outlines how the participants line up in regard to the logistic issues of the story. But there is a second side of the dynamics of every story that center on the second type of characters – the Subjective Characters.

There are two Subjective Characters, and unlike their Objective relatives who represent functions, the Subjective Characters represent points of view. These characters are the Main Character and the Obstacle Character. The Main Character represents the audience position in the story. The Obstacle Character represents the point of view, ideology, or belief system opposite that of the Main Character.

The Objective Characters represent the “headline” in the story and the Subjective Characters represent the “heartline.” Often, the character who is the Protagonist is also given the Main Character job as well. This creates the archetypal “hero” who drives the story forward, but who also represents the audience position in the story. Of course, the Main Character (audience position) might be with ANY of the Objective Characters, not just the Protagonist. For example, in most of the James Bond films, Bond is actually the Antagonist and Main Character because although he represents the audience position, he is also called into play AFTER the real Protagonist (the villain) has made his first move to achieve a goal (of world conquest.) It is Bond’s functional role as Antagonist to try and stop it!

Not quite as often, the Antagonist is given the extra job of also being the Obstacle Character. In such a case, not only does the Antagonist try to stop the Protagonist, but he (or she) also tries to change the belief system of the Main Character, whether the Main Character is the Protagonist or another of the Objective Characters by function.

The worst thing you can do is to make the Protagonist the Main Character and the Antagonist the Obstacle Character. Why? Because then the two “players” in the story are not only diametrically opposed in function regarding the story goal, but are also diametrically opposed in belief system. As a result, it is difficult for the audience to figure out which of the two throughlines them is being developed by any given event between them.

What’s worse, as an author it is easy to get caught up in the momentum of the drama between them so that one skips steps in the development of one throughline because the other “carries” it. Well it may carry the vigor, but it doesn’t hold water. Both throughlines must each be fully developed or you end up with a melodrama or worse, plot holes you could drive a truck through.

The solution is either to assign the Main Character and Protagonist functions to one character and split the Antagonist/Obstacle Character functions into two separate characters, or vice versa.

And this brings us to the Dramatic Triangle and how it is used to create a sound Love Interest relationship.

First, let’s assume we assign the Main Character and Protagonist jobs to the same player to create an archetypal hero. Now, this hero (we’ll call him Joe) is a race car driver who is vying with the Antagonist for the title of best overall driver of the year. Each race is a new contest between them with their balance so close that it all comes down to the last race of the season.

But there is something troubling Joe’s heart – his relationship with Sally. Sally is very supportive of Joe (a Sidekick, in fact) but Joe feels that if he really loves Sally, he should quit racing to avoid the potential of an accident that would leave him dead or crippled and ruin her life. Why does he feel like this? Because his own dad was a racer, whose untimely death on the track left his mother devastated, and ultimately committed to an asylum. (Hey, I never said this example would be creative!)

In any event, Sally doesn’t feel that way at all. She would rather see Joe go out in a blaze of glory having done his best than to spend her life with a limp shell. She tries to tell him, but he just won’t be convinced. He starts to play it safer and safer as his worries grow (because the closer he gets to the final race, the more it resembles the chain of events that happened to his dad.) Finally, he has lost his edge and his lead and it all comes down to that final event.

Now, realizing that she would never be able to live with Joe if she felt that he lost the title because of her, Sally tells him at the final pit stop that if he doesn’t win the race, she is leaving him. Joe must now decide whether he should stick with his approach born from fear of hurting another, or let Sally be her own judge of what is right for her and put the pedal to the metal.

What does he do? Up to you the author. He wins the race and Sally’s heart. He hasn’t got the courage and loses both race and girl. He loses the race, but Sally realizes how deep his love must be and decides to stay with him. He wins the race, but there is such a dangerous near-fatal crash that Sally realizes Joe was right and leaves him anyway because she discovers she really can’t take it after all.

Or, you could have Sally want him to quit and Joe refuse, resulting in four other endings with a more cliché flavor.

Why this long example, to show how the conflict of the logistics of the plot occur between Joe and the Antagonist, but the emotions of the personal relationship occur between Joe and the Sidekick, Sally.

If you charted it out, there are two throughlines. Both hinge on Joe, and then they split farther and farther apart to connect to the Antagonist on one and to the Obstacle Character, Sally on the other. In this way, the events that happen in the growth of each relationship are much easier to see for the audience and much easier to complete for the author, yet they both converge on the “hero” to give him the greatest possible dramatic strength.

Now, you could hinge them both on the Antagonist, as in a James Bond film, and slip the Protagonist from the Obstacle Character. Look at “Tomorrow Never Dies.” The Protagonist is the mad newspaper mogul. The Obstacle Character is the beautiful Chinese agent (whose function is muddled dramatically by Bond’s relationship with the mogul’s wife). Bond is Antagonist AND Main Character, but the dramatic triangle is still functional.

Silence of the Lambs: Starling is the Main Character / Antagonist, Jamie Gumm (Buffalo Bill) is the Protagonist (after all, she didn’t go looking for a crime and THEN he committed one!) Hannibal is the Obstacle Character and perhaps a Love Interest of a sort (as described by the director on the Criterion Edition DVD.)

For a different approach, consider Witness: John Book is the Obstacle Character / Antagonist, the crooked Chief of Police is the Protagonist. Rachel, the Amish Girl is the Love Interest and Main Character. Or is John Book (Harrison Ford) the Love Interest to Rachel? It’s hard to tell because John is such an active Objective Character that he carries more momentum than Rachel, even though we are positioned in her shoes. The important point is that even if the Protagonist is made to be the Obstacle Character and the Antagonist and Main Character are split into two different people, the dramatic triangle still exists!

The dramatic triangle is one of the best structural ways to focus attention on one character even while splitting the headline and heartline to make a more pleasing and complete story. It can be used for “buddy” pictures and even used when the heartline isn’t between lovers or even likers but between two people who would like to see each other’s emotions destroyed by slyly manipulating the other to change his or her beliefs. Think of all those “cheat the devil” stories in which the Main Character/Protagonist is after something and the devil tries to convince the Main Character to sell his soul to get it. Yep, the dramatic triangle at work again!

So, in considering whether or not to have a Love Interest in your story, simply consider whether that would make your storytelling cliché or not. Either way, consider the dramatic triangle as a means of putting heart into an otherwise logistically mechanical plot.