The Four Throughlines

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Looking at the Story Mind, you see a psychology and a personality. The psychology is built by the story's dramatic structure, whereas the personality is developed through the storytelling style and subject matter covered.

Here is the Craft of Story Structure, we are specifically looking at the psychology of the Story Mind. And in fact, there are four ways to look at it.

First is the usual viewpoint of looking at the story structure from the outside in. This is like looking at someone else's psychology. It is very objective, but not at all involving.

In a sense, it is like a general on a hill, watching a battle down below in the valley. He cares about what is going on and the outcome, but isn't personally invovled in the hand to hand combat.

When seeing a story from this perspective, we see the characters by their functions as Protagonist, Antagonist, etc., and watch the plot unfold before us. Each of these archetypes represents an aspect of the Story's Mind, seen objectively from the outside. For example, the Reason archetype represents our intellect, and the Emotion archetype represents our feelings.

But a story must also include the experience of what it is like to be in the middle of the battle, slogging through the mud, and trying to make the best decisions, do our job, and get out alive.

In realy life, in real people, this view is that of the person themselves, from the inside looking out, the view of our sense of self.

Evey one of us can feel our own existence. And we look at the world around us from our personal subjective view and try to make our best decisions.

While others may see a more objective truth about our situation, we aren't privy to that perspective, and by the same token, they have no idea what the situation feels like to us.

A wise woman once told me it irked her when someone would say, "If I were you, this is what I'd do." She'd always reply, "I AM me, and I'm doing THIS instead. What you probably meant to say was, "If I was in your situation, this is what I'd do.""

In stories, the sense of self of the Story Mind is the Main Character. This character represents the reader/audience position inside the story, looking out. It provides the second point of view that we need to fully understand the Story Mind's psychology.

In a sense, rather than being a general on a hill watching a battle, the reader/audience is now able to zoom down into the shoes of one of the soldiers on the field, and experience the battle first hand.

To recap, we now have two views of the Story Mind - one from the outside looking in, which is called the Objective perspective, and the other from the inside looking out, as if we shared the internal mentality of that mind, and this is the Main Character's perspective.

For the third perspective, we must consider what story's are really about. They are, in fact, about making decisions - choosing the best path from those available. This becomes the meaning and purpose of a story - that the Main Character made the right or wrong decision on how to resolve the story's problems.

In our own minds, when pondering a decision, we argue it back and forth between our "self" and imagining what we and our situation would be like if we changed our current attitude and adopted the other point of view on the issue.

Sometimes the decisions are simply about how to approach a specific problem; other times they are about permanently changing our attitude to a particular kind of problem overall.

Since this is a part of human psychology, it must also be represented in the Story Mind, and so it is.

Imagine our Main Character is a soldier on the field of battle. He believes the best course is to take a particular path. But the way ahead of him is obscured by the smoke from all kinds of dramatic explosions.

Suddenly, through the haze, he sees an indistinct figure standing right on the road, blocking his way. This other soldier calls out, "Get off the path."

The Main Character can't see clearly enough to tell if this other individual is a friendly soldier trying to warn him from walking into a mine field, or an enemy soldier trying to lure him into an ambush.

Convinced this is the path he wants to take, the Main Character shouts back, "Get out of my way!" Once again, the other soldier yells, "Get off the path!"

As they approach one another, they argue back and forth until at the last moment, either the Main Character decides to get off the path or the other soldier steps aside and lets him pass.

This is all about the "leap of faith" that a Main Character needs to make in a story, regarding some personal decision or moral consideration.

The other soldier is the Influence Character, the counterpart to the Main Character, and represents the Devil's Advocate position we take in our own minds when coming to a decision.

In real life, we don't actually adopt that other point of view and jump back and forth between our initial view and the potentially new one to see which is best. That would require actually changing our minds, then changing back, then back again repeatedly.

Rather, we look AT this other point of view without actually adopting it. Only if we become convince over time, or over the course of a story, that this other view is more likely to be correct, do we actually shift over and make it a part of our new sense of self.

In stories, looking AT the Influence Character's alternative attitude or morality is the third perspective of the Story Mind. And the private skirmish betwen these two soldiers, against the background of the larger battle seen by the general on the hill, is the fourth point of view, called the Subjective Story.

Summing up, there are four points of view needed to fully explore the Story Mind as a model of our own minds. First is the overall Objective View from the outside looking in. Second is the Main Character's view from the inside looking out. Third is the Main Character's view looking AT the Influence Character as a way of being that the Main Character might decide to adopt. And Fourth is the series of arguments that rage between the Main Character and the Devil's Advocate Influence Character as the reasons for possibly changing are thrashed about.

Finally, these view points are not static. In fact, the entire flow of the story from beginning to end must be seen through each of these four filters. Just like four camera angles on a football game, one angle may see certain action that another one just doesn't pick up.

Only by seeing the entire story from all four perspectives can the message or moral be fully argued.

When each of the four points of view is put in motion over the course of the story, it becomes a throughline. So, there is an Objective throughline, a Main Character throughline, an Influence Character throughline, and a Subjective throughline.

NOTE: This article was excerpted from our Master Storyteller software, which is designed to improve your overall skills as a writer. You can download a demo of the full version of Master Storyteller at Storymind.com