Chapter 11
Problem Solving and Justification
Deep Theory:
The following section delves deeply into the inner workings of a Main Character and how
that character grows over the course of a story. The material covered will address the
following questions: How does a Main Character come to have a particular problem? How does
that problem come to relate to the Objective Story as well? If the Main Character has a
problem, why doesn't he just solve it? How can an Obstacle Character bring a Main
Character to the point of change?
This discussion can get pretty theoretical at times, and is presented more for those who
are interested in details, rather than as essential reading. If you have an interest in
theory, read on! If not, you may wish to skip to the next chapter on Theme, or jump ahead
to The Art Of Storytelling for a more practical approach.
Problem Solving and Justification
What are Justifications?
At the moment we act in response to a problem, each of us sees our approach as
justifiable. If we later regret our actions or are called to task, we all have reasons why
we should not be blamed or at least not held accountable. We call these reasons
"Justifications." To us, these justifications legitimize our actions. To others
who find our actions unwarranted, our reasons seem more like excuses, and our actions
unjustified.
Sometimes, we ourselves may be unsure if we are justified in our actions or not because
there is a conflict between what our reason and our feelings are telling us. When we see
no clear-cut response, we go with the side of ourselves that makes the stronger case.
Excuses, Excuses!
To convince ourselves (and others) that our actions are justified, we say things like,
"This is going to hurt me more than it's going to hurt you," "It's for your
own good," I had to teach him a lesson," "She had it coming," I had no
other choice," "I couldn't help myself," "There was nothing I could
do," "It was the right thing to do," "The end justifies the
means," etc. Each of these statements tries to imply that even though feeling says
this is wrong, reason makes a stronger case that it is right (or vice versa).
Whenever the "proper" response is unclear, the legitimacy of our actions is open
to interpretation. If there were a way to stand outside of it all and take a truly
objective view, we could see absolutely which actions were justifiable and which were not.
Unfortunately, we are not afforded this objective view in real life. So, we create stories
to try and approximate the objective truth.
The Author Giveth; the Audience Taketh Away
An author builds an argument that the Main Character was either justified or not in his
actions, then "proves" the point by concluding the story with an outcome of
success or failure and a judgment of good or bad. In this way, the author hopes to
convince an audience that actions taken in a particular context are appropriate or
inappropriate. The audience members hope to become convinced that when the proper course
of action is unclear, they can rely on a more "objective" truth to guide them.
In real life, only time will tell if our actions will ultimately achieve what we want and
if that will bring us more happiness than hurt. In stories, it is the author who
determines what is justified and what is not. Within the confines of the story, the
author's view IS objective truth.
The author's ability to decide the validity of actions "objectively" changes the
meaning of justification from how we have been using it. In life, when actions are seen as
justified, it means that everyone agrees with the reasons behind the actions. In stories,
reasons don't count. Even if all the characters agree with the reasons, the author might
show that all the characters were wrong. Reasons just explain why characters act as
they do. Consensus regarding the reasons does not determine correctness.
What is Problem Solving?
All characters are driven by their justifications, but only some of the actions they take
will end up solving a problem. From the author's "objective" view, approaches
that lead to solutions are "problem solving". Approaches that do not are simply
justifications.
The process of "problem solving" describes the paths an author promotes as being
the most appropriate approaches to the story's problem. The process of justification
describes all paths that are not as appropriate.
In a binary sense, the best path of all will be represented by either the Main or Obstacle
character. The remaining character of the two will represent the worst path. Of Main and
Obstacle, one will be problem solving, the other justifying. All the remaining characters
represent alternative approaches between the two extremes.
From an author's perspective, though it is important to know how things will turn out, it
is equally important to know how things got started. How is it that people can become so
misguided? How is it that characters can become so justified?
Problems Start Innocently Enough....
It is the nature of people and characters as well, to try and find a source of joy and a
resolution to that which hurts them. This hurt might be physical suffering or mental
torment. The resolution may be to rearrange one's environment or to come to terms with the
environment as it is. Regardless of the source of the inequity or the means employed to
resolve it, all thinking creatures try to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain.
That is the primal force which drives us in our lives, and the dramatic force that drives
a story.
If our environments would instantly respond to our desires and if our feelings would
immediately adjust to new attitudes, all inequities between ourselves and our environments
would be equalized at once. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Rather, to solve external
problems we must apply effort to rearrange the material that surrounds us, and to solve
internal problems we must adopt a series of paradigm shifts to arrive at a perspective
that minimizes our anguish.
Getting to the Heart of the Problem
Because it takes time to resolve inequities, problem solving can be defined as a process
we engage in over time. Step by step we chip away at pieces of a problem until we arrive
at a solution. We meet pre-requisites that give us the resources to fulfill the
requirements that must be accomplished to clear the way to our goal. Or, we change the
nature of the forces at work that determine the processes that sustain the inequity, so
that it dissolves when its foundation is eroded.
Problem solving requires identifying the source of the inequity and/or the kind of effort
that will bring an end to it. Each of these requirements depends upon an accurate
assessment of the mechanism that generates the inequity, and therein lies the opportunity
for error.
Characters, Problems, and Justification
Stories are about one character who is truly problem solving and a second character who
believes they are problem solving but are in error. One will be the Main Character and the
other the Obstacle Character. In terms of the Story Mind, these two characters represent
our own inability to know in advance if the method we have chosen to apply to a problem
will lead to success or failure. When our approach leads to failure Dramatica does not
refer to the process as problem solving, but calls that process Justification.
Why We Justify
It is important to note that no one justifies because they are stupid or mean. They are
simply adopting the best approach they can conceive, based on their life experience.
Neither justification nor problem solving are intrinsically good or bad. In fact, they are
really the same process, the only difference being how things ultimately turn out. With
the value of hindsight we can judge if the decisions made and actions taken were
appropriate, but we cannot judge this as the effort is happening since none of us can see
the future. So, no character or person can be certain whether their approach to an
inequity will resolve it, not effect it, exacerbate it, or create another inequity
somewhere else that might be even more disturbing. All any of us can do - all any of us
EVER do is to make the decisions and take the actions our experience dictates as the best
options toward resolving our inequities.
Poor, Misguided Souls....
From this perspective, no character is bad, merely misguided. However, that is not the
only perspective. If we step into the story and see a misguided character doing hurtful
things to others and even to ourselves, from OUR life experience we determine that
character must be stopped. Perhaps we argue with them, try to educate them, fight with or
kill them or just write them off, severing our emotional ties and letting them spiral down
into self destruction because it is the only way to avoid being dragged down with them.
Or, we might argue with them and find ourselves convinced of their point of view, try to
educate them but learn something instead, fight with them and lose or be killed, or be
written off BY them or hold on to them and be dragged down as well, or drag them down with
us.
The point is, both Main and Obstacle characters will feel they are right, believe in what
they do, try to convince or thwart their counterpart and ultimately prove to be correct or
misguided.
Uniqueness Means Never Having to Say, "I Agree"
As we are driven by life experiences and since the experiences of each of us are unique,
it is no wonder we come into conflict and confrontation over most everything we can think
of. Stories are about the incompatibility of two life experiences as they relate to the
best way to resolve an inequity.
If a character stands by his life experience, then it stands to reason his approach served
him well in other scenarios. Similarly, his counterpart has had different life experiences
that served him equally well. In the context of the current inequity in question, each
life experience generates an approach incompatible with the other. In one context, each
set of experiences was problem solving. In the current context, one will be seen to be
problem solving, the other justification.
Tell Me A Message, Mommy....
This is the purpose and function of story: to show that when something has previously
served you well one hundred percent of the time, it may not continue to hold true, or
conversely, that it will always hold true. Either message is equally valid and depends
wholly upon the author's personal bias on the issue, which arbitrarily determines the
slant of the message. Obviously, the outcome is not arbitrary to the author, but it is
completely arbitrary to the story.
Whether the Main Character is change or steadfast, the outcome success or failure, and the
judgment good or bad, determines the audience's position in relationship to the correct
and incorrect approaches to the problem, and therefore the impact of the message upon
them.
Step By Step, Slowly We Argued....
So far we have only identified the difference between problem solving and justification in
terms of the results they create. From this point of view, no character can tell for sure
if he is on the right or the wrong track until he sees the results. This is fine for the
characters, but an author will want to fashion a story so that judgment is passed on each
action and decision as it is taken. This is what constitutes the theme of the story and
builds the emotional side of the story's argument event by event until (hopefully) the
audience is buried under overwhelming evidence to support the author's message and
contentions.
Note the difference between the result-oriented rational argument and the more
holistic passionate argument. In a story, when all is said and done, the author
hopes to convince the audience of his point of view both in terms of its reasonable nature
and that it simply feels good as well. In this manner, the audience members adopt the
author's bias on the issue and are moved to alter their behavior accordingly in their
everyday life. In a broader sense, participating in the story has added to the life
experience of the audience and will affect their future choices for problem solving.
To carry an emotional appeal to an audience, a story must not only show the results of a
method of problem solving, but must document the appropriateness of each step as well. To
do this as an author requires an understanding of the process of problem solving
and its justification counterpart. Let us examine both.
A Simple Example of Problem Solving
Imagine a waitress coming through the one-way door from the kitchen into the restaurant.
Her nose begins to itch. She cannot scratch her nose because her hands are full of plates.
She looks for a place to lay down the plates, but all the counter space is cluttered. She
tries to call to a waiter, but he cannot hear her across the noisy room. She hollers to a
bus boy who gets the waiter who takes her plates so she can scratch her nose. Problem
solved! Or was it justification?
What if she could have solved the problem just by shrugging her shoulder and rubbing her
nose? Then there were two possible solutions, but one was much more direct. Rationally,
either one would serve as well in that particular context, yet one was much more efficient
and therefore more emotionally satisfying because it required less unpleasant work than
the other method.
There's a Problem In Your Solution!
If the waitress could not use her hand to scratch her nose, then using her shoulder was
another potential solution to the same problem. However, trying to find a place to put
down the plates is a generation removed from solving the original problem. Instead of
trying to find another way to scratch her nose, she was using her problem solving efforts
to try and solve a problem with the first solution. In other words, there was an obstacle
to using her hand to scratch her nose, and rather than evaluating other means of
scratching she was looking for a place to get rid of her plates. When there was a problem
with that, she compounded the inefficiency by trying to solve the plate problem with the
solution devised to solve the problem with the first solution to the problem: she tried to
flag down the waiter. In fact, by the time she actually got her nose scratched, she had to
take a round-about path that took up all kinds of time and was several generations removed
from the original problem. She made one big circle to get to where she could have gone
directly.
But, what if there was a limit: her itching nose was about to make her sneeze and drop
everything. Then, going on that long circular path might mean she would sneeze and fail,
whereas the only appropriate path would be to use her shoulder to scratch before she
sneezes. But what if her stiff uniform prevents her shoulder from reaching her nose? AND
what if the extra time it took to try the shoulder actually delayed trying the round-about
method just long enough to make her sneeze before the waiter arrived? If she had only
taken the great circle route in the first place, she would have had just enough time to
solve the problem.
Paying the Price For a Solution
Clearly, problem solving turns into justification and vice-versa, depending on the
context. So how is it that achieving results in the rational sense is not the only
determining factor as to which is which? Simply because sometimes the costs that must be
paid in suffering in a long, indirect path to a goal far outweigh the benefits of
achieving the goal itself. When we try to overcome obstacles that stand between us and a
goal (pre-requisites and requirements) we pay a price in effort, resources, physical and
emotional hardship. We suffer unpleasant conditions now in the hope of a reward later.
This is fine as long as the rewards justify the expenses. But if they do not, and yet we
continue to persevere, we cannot possibly recoup enough to make up for our losses, much as
a gambler goes into the hole after losing her intended stake.
My Kingdom for a Solution!
Why is it that we (as characters) throw good money after bad? This occurs because we are
no longer evaluating what we originally hoped to achieve but are trying to solve the
problems that have occurred with the solutions we have employed. In the case of our
waitress, she wasn't thinking about her nose when she was calling to the waiter or yelling
to the bus boy. She was thinking about the problem of getting their attention. Because she
lost sight of her original objective, she could no longer tally up the accruing costs and
compare them to the benefits of resolving the inequity. Rather, she compared each cost
individually to the goal at hand: putting down the plates, calling to the waiter, yelling
at the bus boy. And in each case, the individual costs were less than the benefits
of resolving the individual sub-goals. However, if taken as a whole, the sum of the
costs may far outweigh the benefits of resolving the original problem. And since the
pre-requisites and requirements have no meaning except as a means to resolving that
original problem, any benefits she felt by achieving those sub-goals should have had no
bearing on determining if the effort was worth the benefits. But, as she had lost sight of
the original problem, that measurement could not be made. In fact, it would never occur to
her, until it was too late to recoup the costs even if the problem came to be resolved.
Does this mean the only danger lies in the round-about path? Not at all. If it were to
turn out that there were NO direct paths that could work, ONLY an indirect one could
resolve the problem at all. And if the existence of the problem is such that its inequity
is not just a one time thing but continues to cause friction that rubs one physically or
mentally raw, then the inequity itself grows the longer the problem remains, which
justifies ANY indirect method to resolving the issue as long as the rate at which the
costs accrue is less than the rate at which the inequity worsens.
Accelerating Inequities!
But let's complicate this even more... Suppose the inequity doesn't worsen at first,
but only gets worse after a while. Then what may have been the most appropriate response
for problem solving at one stage in the game becomes inappropriate at a later stage. In
such a complex web of changing conditions and shifting context, how is an individual to
know what choices are best? We can't. That is the point: we can never know which path is
best because we cannot predict the future. We can only choose what our life experience has
shown to be most often effective in similar situations and hope for the best. It does not
matter how often we re-evaluate. The situation can change in unpredictable ways at any
time, throwing all of our plans and efforts into new contexts that change their evaluation
from positive to negative or the vice versa.
Stories serve as collective truisms, much like the way insurance works. Through them we
strive to contain the collective knowledge of human experience so although we cannot
predict what will happen to any specific individual (even ourselves) we can tell what is most
likely the best approach to inequity, based on the mean average of all individual
experience.
Strategy vs. Analysis
Although we have covered a lot of ground, we have only covered one of two kinds of
problem solving/justification: the effort to resolve an inequity. In contrast, the second
kind of problem solving/justification refers to efforts made to understand inequities so
that we might come to terms with them. In a sense, our initial exploration has dealt with
strategies of problem solving whereas this other area of exploration deals with defining
the problem itself.
Defining the Problem
We cannot move to resolve a problem until we recognize the problem. Even if we feel the
inequity, until we can pinpoint it or understand what creates it, we can neither arrive at
an appropriate response or act to nip it at its source.
If we had to evaluate each inequity that we encounter with an absolutely open mind, we
could not learn from experience. Even if we had seen the same thing one hundred times
before, we would not look to our memories to see what had turned out to be the source or
what appropriate measures had been employed. We would be forced to consider every little
friction that rubbed us the wrong way as if we have never encountered it. Certainly, this
is another form of inefficiency, as "those who do not remember the past are condemned
to repeat it."
In such a scenario, we would not learn from our mistakes, much less our successes. But is
that inefficiency? What if we encounter an exception to the rules we have come to live by?
If we rely completely on our life experience, when we encounter a new context in life, our
whole paradigm may be inappropriate.
You Idiom!
We all know the truisms, "where there's smoke, there's fire," "guilt by
association," "one bad apple spoils the bunch," "the only good (fill
in the blank) is a dead (fill in the blank)." In each of these cases we assume a
different kind of causal relationship than is generally scrutinized in our culture. Each
of these phrases asserts that when you see one thing, another thing will either be there
also, or will certainly follow. Why do we make these assumptions? Because, in context,
they are often true. But as soon as we apply them out of context they are just as
likely false.
Associations in Space and Time
When we see something occur enough times without exception, our mind accepts it as an
absolute. After all, we have never seen it fail! This is like saying that every time you
put a piece of paper on hot metal it will burn. Fine, but not in a vacuum! You need oxygen
as well to create the reaction you anticipate.
In fact, every time we believe THIS leads to THAT or whenever we see THIS, THAT will also
be present, we are making assumptions with a flagrant disregard for context. And that is
where characters get into trouble. A character makes associations in their backstory.
Because of the context in which they gather their experiences, these associations always
hold true. But then the situation (context) changes, or they move into new areas in their
lives. Suddenly some of these assumptions are absolutely untrue!
Hold on to Your Givens!
Why doesn't a character (or person) simply give up the old view for the new? There are two
reasons why one will hold on to an outmoded, inappropriate understanding of the
relationships between things. We'll outline them one at a time.
First, there is the notion of how many times a character has seen things go one way,
compared to the number of times they've gone another. If a character builds up years of
experience with something being true and then encounters one time it is not true, they
will tend to treat that single false time as an exception to the rule. It would take as
many false responses as there had been true ones to counter the balance.
Context is a Sneaky Thing
Of course, one is more sensitive to the most recent patterns, so an equal number of false
items (or alternative truths) is not really required when one is aware he has entered a
new situation. However, situations often change slowly and even in ways we are not aware.
So context is in a constant state of flux. If something has always proven true in all
contexts up to this point then one is not conscious of entering a whole new context.
Rather, as we move in and out of contexts, a truism that was ALWAYS true may now be true
sometimes and not true at other times. It may have an increasing or decreasing frequency
of proving true or may tend toward being false for a while, only to tend
toward being true again later. This kind of dynamic context requires that something be
seen as false as often as it has been seen as true in order to arrive even at a neutral
point where one perspective is not held more strongly than the other.
Building Paradigms
The second reason characters hold onto outmoded views is that they have built other views
upon the outmoded ones. In fact, this is how we learn. We see something as an unerring
truth, stop considering it every time we see it and accept it as a given. Then, we
assemble our givens, look for patterns and accept the relationships between givens as
being givens in their own right. Layer upon layer we weave an intricate web of
interconnections, some based on the order in which things are expected to occur, some
based on items or activities we associate as always occurring together.
Strength in Paradigms
When we encounter something at the top level of the most recently determined givens, it
can be a relatively small feat to rethink our conclusions. If one of our base assumptions
was wrong, however, there may be no way to reconcile the occurrence with our understanding
without completely dismantling the foundations of our whole belief system. Not an easy
task! It is much easier to discount the variance as an exception. Even more important,
because we have not added the unusual incident to our knowledge base, but simply let it
bounce off, the next occurrence of the same "new" truth will meet with the same
strength of resistance as the first. We can hold onto our old paradigm unless so many different
new truths hit us all at once that it becomes easier to create a new paradigm than to try
and dismiss them all.
The Justified Main Character
This is the nature of the Main Character's struggle in a story. He has either built up an
understanding of how to try and solve problems that no longer fits, or he has built up an
understanding of what causes problems that is no longer correct. The backstory builds upon
one of these scenarios. A context is established that creates one kind of problem solving
regarding a specific problem. The story begins when the context changes and the problem
solving technique is no longer appropriate. The question then becomes whether the Main
Character should Change to conform to the new situation or remain Steadfast until things
get back to "normal."
Dancing Toward Neutral Ground
The story unfolds as the Main and Obstacle Characters argue over direct vs. indirect,
repetition vs. framework, strategy vs. analysis, and problem solving vs. justification. As
the story progresses, it is the Obstacle Character's function to force the Main Character
through all four of these conflicts, each representing a different "level" of
justification (problem solving) until they both stand at the neutral point where one means
of problem solving/evaluation is as good as the next. This is the moment of the Leap of
Faith, where life experience has been completely counterbalanced by what has been recently
learned. This is the moment the Main Character must step into the void with absolutely no
personal experiences to guide him, and choose to continue with the path he has always
taken or adopt a new one.
The story then resolves in Success/Good, Success/Bad, Failure/Good, Failure/Bad. These
four resolutions are the "Author's Proof," wherein he states his personal bias
as to what the most appropriate and inappropriate choices were.
Sequence and the Passionate Argument
From this perspective, we can see how the sequence in which dramatic events occur has
tremendous impact not on the structure of a story, but on the meaning derived from that
structure. The "feel" of the passionate argument will be determined by the order
in which the Main Character passes through the levels of justification to face the real
source of the story's inequity.
This sequence affects not only character, but plot and theme as well, and is therefore a
complex series of cycles within cycles that is unpredictable during the viewing of a work,
but falls into understanding at the conclusion or denouement. Because it is so
complex, this is the part of Dramatica best left to computer calculation or to the
intuition of the author himself.
Proceed
to the Next Section of the Book-->
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concept in the Dramatica Theory of Story is fully explained in this
double-CD set.
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Writing
Characters of the Opposite Sex - $29.95
A three-hour
audio CD set that explains everything you need to know to create
characters of both sexes that ring absolutely true (and maybe even gain
insight into the communication problems in the real world!)
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Master
Storyteller Improves Your Writing - $29.95
Become a
better writing with this series of interactive exercises.
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How
to Create Great Characters DVD - $19.95
A 90 minute
video program recorded during Dramatica co-creator Melanie Anne
Phillips' live in-person seminar on story structure and storytelling.
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Structure
vs. Passion - Audio CD $19.95
The Story
Mind approach to writing uses your own passions to create your story's
structure. It focuses your efforts, clarifies the direction of
your story, and triggers your imagination.
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Writing
with the Story Mind - Audio CD - $19.95
Learn how to
psychoanalyze your story's "mind" to uncover and treat
problems with characters, plot, theme, and genre.
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Academic
Prices - Discounts on Select Products
Are you a
student, teacher, or academic staffer? Get the very best price on
select products with these manufacturer sponsored academic discounts!
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Package
Deals - Starting at $49.95
Get deep
discounts with these bundles of our most popular writing products.
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Writer's
Survival Kit Bonus Package - FREE!
Free with
ANY purchase - Writing software, online writing workshops, writing
seminars on video, story theory book, and much, MUCH more!
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Format:
Windows / Mac CD-ROM
