The question I'd like to raise is, as always, how can the author apply this to his work? Somewhere along the line, the audience/reader reaches a point where reality and fiction blur; in some sense or another, he or she becomes a part of the story. I would argue that this takes place through character-identification, which is really just a longer word for empathy. In that respect, at least, Carroll is on the mark: the reader must feel more than sympathy for the characters--he or she must feel empathy.In Dramatica, this is built into the DNA of the storyform. The idea is that the main character is always the person we most identify with and it is through his or her eyes that we view the action. Dramatica also makes certain assumptions about gender and for better or worse they work like this:
Men tend to empathize with logical thinkers (i.e. masculine characters) and sympathize with holistic thinkers (feminine characters).
Women on the other hand tend to base their judgements on the story limit: empathizing with characters in situations where they explore all available options (optionlock) and sympathizing with characters in situations where they are up against a ticking clock (timelock).
Either way, the point is we engage with stories where we are able to empathize with the main character and his or her problem.
The Story Fanatic (and Dramatica expert) takes the argument a step forward:
This where the theory gets tricky, but it is ultimately a very elegant explanation. In any story you have the main character who provides the audience with the subjective point of view and the objective story that contains all of the escalating plot points. But there are also two other perspectives to keep in mind: the impact character who represents the impersonal counter-point to the main character and the subjective storyline that provides the personal perspective on the events of the story. Story Fanatic has it like this:It’s not enough, therefore, to simply have a “willful protagonist,” an antagonist, and a collection of escalating plot points. At best you’re only providing an audience with half an argument. You still need to give them that external singular perspective (often presented by the Impact Character) and that collective personal perspective (the relationship between the Main and Impact Character) that only two people can share.
If you don’t, the audience member of today will check out.
It's that "we" perspective that often goes missing in stories and it is the final piece of the puzzle. When a story has a fully developed subjective story, an engaging relationship, we (pun intended) are able to bridge the gap between the personal and the impersonal, the subjective and the objective, and become fully engaged in the story.There are four different points-of-view one can assume when examining a problem:
- The Third-Person Impersonal or “They” perspective
- The First-Person Personal or “I” perspective
- The First-Person Impersonal or “You” perspective
- The Third-Person Personal or “We” perspective
These match up nicely with the four major throughlines every great story should have:
- “They” perspective = The Overall Story Throughline
- “I” perspective = The Main Character Throughline
- “You” perspective = The Impact Character Throughline
- “We” perspective = The Subjective Story or Relationship Throughline
Immersion comes when the objective elements of the story are filtered through the personal view and give us something that allows us to make a genuine emotional connection with the material.
The Story Fanatic blog has lots of good examples of how this works.
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Listening to: Stereolab - Rainbo Conversation
via FoxyTunes
