level of inner conflict?
A. M
ost standard and obvious would be to dismiss melodrama in any terms of inferiority to true drama, bathos in terms over shooting the mark of pathos, and inner conflict specifically, as a merely a special case or level of conflict, generally. Far more illuminating and precise, however, to move from bathos to melodrama and thence to motivated characterization, because it is bathos that is key to the dramatic failure and limitations of melodrama precisely because melodrama is an oft bathetic inadequacy of motivation in characterization. After all, there would be little drama in passionlessly superficial Behaviorism. Indeed, conflict remains crucial psychologically on the inside as interpersonally in the world outside, and more dramatic character motivation truly depends upon the all important tension on the level of inner conflict.Life can only be lived forwards, but only understood or recognized in hindsight. Indeed, do we consider our options and consciously take action, or do our actions simply come upon us as we react, and only then rationalize afterward? People often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually. Hence, Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into cognitive dissonance, that, even as manifest in dialogue as Antiprocess, is the inner conflict of dishonest hypocrisy. Frequently, the self conscious illusion of individual will is only the burden of responsibility in hindsight, an artifact of the personal narrative facilitating growth which is possible only out of regret.
Some say that one becomes addicted to shame when another's heart is closed to one, because, however excruciating, the sheer megalomania of taking the blame protects one from the ugly truth that we really have no control over others and the universe or God. We can't make either love us or, ultimately, even protect those who do. Put more simply, then, and in complete good faith, powerlessness, the impotent helplessness of the human condition is terminally demeaning.
And beyond direct action, our influence upon others may often be even the more misguided and deluded.
A
ny good story needs conflict on every level, not only the action and adversity of external conflict together with the drama of well motivated interpersonal conflict, friction even among friends and allies, as with Spock and Bones, probing and bickering, but also, especially and as with Spock, the drives of inner conflict, ambivalence and angst, with all of the obstacles life provides us to carry with us, inside.Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into hypocrisy. When there arises a discrepancy between the feelings and activity of a character, tension mounts all the more, the greater the obstacles to resolution of whatever conflict .
And whereas Freudian ambivalence denotes inner conflict between differing motivations in terms of emotions, love and hate, attraction and revulsion, fear and desire, necessitating all manner of defenses and denials, not to mention approach-avoidance in Behaviorism, the Cognitive Dissonance Theory of Leon Festinger posits that inconsistency among related beliefs, the mounting tension of dishonest and hypocritical double-think, that, even as manifest in dialogue as Antiprocess, is the inner conflict of dishonest hypocrisy, and particularly as relating to identity and self image, either logically inconsistent or incompatible with the person's past experience, is motivation to change whatever is easiest along the path of least emotional resistance, attitude or behavior, in order thereby to regain cognitive consistency meaning consonance amongst personal beliefs.
After all, what will pose the greater resistance for any individual, is determined by the interplay of character and situation. Situation may offer the test of character, failing which Entropy increases and growth is still born.
For, alas, copping out can be so much easier. Indeed, the first lapse of integrity often occurs in a nervous and careless instant. And without adequate inner disturbance or self examination, ease becomes habit, and habit, seeming commitment. Rationalization then follows in service thereto.
Which may go towards explanation of why people troubled by discovering what they really want, so often then sacrifice their own happiness, while victims of situational forces or conniving bullying emotional extortion, particularly in relationships or by consensus manipulation, tend to rationalize instead of escaping or effectively defending themselves and their true integrity. Because in the involvement and immediacy of momentary experience, there is simply less resistance in caving in to threatening pressure and backing down from risky opportunity. And such is the inertia or momentum of situation against character, especially when character may not be not adequately reinforced or even in any way actually undermined. Uncertainty and the need for reassurance also account for vulnerability even to somewhat lame excuses.
Hence, as a matter of sex roles, all the above explains precisely why women all so often prefer sex with men who are such complete assholes, so that nice guys loose out! Because, all rationalization aside, intimidation is the easier state, and acceptance far more challenging. And not, as the most woefully inadequate often prefer to believe, because women are all just helpless and cynical congenital whores naturally drawn to self-absorbed domineering and preferably at least wealthy protectors. Indeed, all too often, what is common and even normal is not always adaptive to optimal survival or even pleasure principle let alone any loftier
meaningful value such as true love, but only to the most superficial and immediate dilemma of stimulus. -An obstacle of natural and ingrained knee-jerk temptation and despair which growth and authenticity must surmount, a drama with the outcome ever in doubt.
A. Sublimation is the transformation of conflicted impulses into anything however less threatening of inner conflict. Whether from chopping wood to vent anger, or channeling sexual libido into an artistic career. Sublimation is strategy of the moment with immediate feelings, and also what shapes the character in the long term from deep seated emotions. And if successful and adaptive, sublimation redirects even the most troublesome emotion into however constructive behavior.
However, sublimation is not always really imbued with it's reputed sensitivity and sensibility to abide and concur with normal and current social surroundings, let alone facilitating individual motility. Quite simply, many social or dramatic situations are inherently contradictory. Sublimation is, after all, a form of denial. And sometimes sublimation, as in Stockholm Syndrome, is only timid an ultimately maladaptive, amounting to no more than the most extravagant and bizarre rationalization and acting out of irresolvable inner conflict, and a desperate cry for help!
A. The ineffable, even knowable, even transmissible, nevertheless defies explanation or description. And living knowledge (as opposed to knowledge that is rightly called: inert), serving renewal and vitality, is growth, the experience of change put into practice, learned behaviors never immutable but ever subject to readaptation, emergent in collective interaction, tacit, highly charged and redolent, profoundly with the sensibility of drama, may even skirt the ineffable, often defying ready articulation let alone routine management via knowledge-driven Epistemology.
Often a tragic protagonist in transition through a range of emotion undergoes an unfolding process of recognition called Anagnorisis, a difficult moral learning progression of errors, ranging from the foolish to the ingenious and from the admirable to the despicable, that are in the psyche systematically contributive to progress, in which any character, typically the main or principle character or protagonist, climactically comes to grips with or clearer understanding of their own nature and destiny. Growth is possible only out of regret.
Inner issues no less than external problems and conflict may derive from inciting incidents in "Act Zero."
Though suffering is hardly desirable at least barring Masochism of any kind, and though to weep and to cry out seem scarcely pleasures, nevertheless, given suffering, then to weep and to cry out are, nonetheless, are distinct desires for expression, nigh uncontainable and palpable, also linked to succorance to trouble others for sympathy and understanding to and to be comforted, and all motivated by any hope at all for the alleviation of suffering.
And indeed, whatever any benefit of human connection in return, the reciprocal impulse of succor inevitably entails the sharing of another's grief and suffering.
All the aforesaid are vital considerations of deep, paradoxical and somewhat convoluted hedonic calculus of essential character, growth and value, bereft thereof, and save by overcoming all obstacles thereto, no human being shall ever become whole or mature.
Hence the Character Arc may be ascendant, declining or static.
By every
Technique of Suspense plotting, the rising tension and of dramatic conflict signifies that the resolution of whatever the central problem is such as to increasingly press character(s) inevitably to take action in struggle with whoever or whatever the antagonist in some way that must one way or another bring the very values of said character(s) into question for them.Well rounded characters manifest conscious and even false goals often in both inner turmoil as well as practical outer conflict with radically different unconscious desires unawares yet betrayed, demonstrated, shown, by their actions and growth into entirely new goals.
In other words, anyone may remain haunted by their past. One way or another, growth is a stirring and even compelling motivation and challenge of which we are often quite blithely unaware. The growth and development of feelings may be subtle or extreme, an epiphany, a sudden dawning or a subtle realization, or gradual alteration, resultant of conflict on every level, upon the character to demonstrate the story’s theme or meaning.
Meaning in the deepest sense, is dharma and karma, - plot, situation plus character motivation, which together equal dramatic destiny, because inherent meaning as a poetical figure, actually alludes to purpose of personal fulfillment, what matters deeply, growth toward self-actualization or at least autonomy, relevant value, and without which life itself threatens Zen futile Ecclesiastical vanity! and such as may be expressed, also, in the intention of deeds, including that which is most broadly signified in communication of message, information content, ideas, conveying Phenomenal subjective experience or understanding, TEXT and subtext all in CONTEXT, unless, most narrowly, scientifically, literally and precisely, denotatively or referentially, that which is signified and thus conjectured, is simply and clearly whatever corresponding objective reality, Ontologically, hence, also, implication, logically inherent consequence and Deterministic inescapable causal effect, that inspires bleak fatalism but also liberation, hope from knowledge and even wisdom, for discovering better choices, autonomously.
Hence, misdirection, whether error circumstantially and honestly, by deliberate manipulation or even hamartia and self-deception, is key in moving from promise to catastrophe. Frequently, the self conscious illusion of individual will is only the burden of responsibility in hindsight, an artifact of the personal narrative facilitating growth.
Some say that one becomes addicted to shame when another's heart is closed to one, because, however excruciating, the sheer megalomania of taking the blame protects one from the ugly truth that we really have no control over others and the universe or God. We can't make either love us or, ultimately, even protect those who do. Put more simply, then, and in complete good faith, powerlessness, the impotent helplessness of the human condition is terminally demeaning.
And beyond direct action, our influence upon others may often be even the more misguided and deluded.
Life can only be lived forwards, but only understood or recognized in hindsight. Indeed, do we consider our options and consciously take action, or do our actions simply come upon us as we react, and only then rationalize afterward?
Some say that one becomes addicted to shame when another's heart is closed to one, because, however excruciating, the sheer megalomania of taking the blame protects one from the ugly truth that we really have no control over others and the universe or God. We can't make either love us or, ultimately, even protect those who do. Put more simply, then, and in complete good faith, powerlessness, the impotent helplessness of the human condition is terminally demeaning.
In truth, any character's choices of strategy will be determined not only by their POV, situation or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior. People often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually. Hence, Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into hypocrisy. For any character's choice of strategy will be determined not only by their POV, situation or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior.
As with real people, rounded and multifaceted characters may be subject to motivation transcending satiation of physical, emotional and social deficiencies, either by individual flaws to overcome, or holes, gaps in the make up of their personality, not just skills but essential qualities that one may need to acquire or better develop, learning, challenges confronting them or even by the distressing void that is the need for challenge, the attraction of ongoing self-actualization, betterment and improvement or at least autonomy, that true fulfillment yet never quelled or satiated, but even heightened, so long as fresh novel challenges are to be discovered along the way, even creative tension as is so sadly evaded by the complacent, so long as there always remains something more to aspire to, the possibility of change to make anyone at all interesting, and to grow along whichever Character Arc standard variant, to be transformed as the plot unfolds.
Or at least if no such pat
dramatic
resolution,
then some kind of however passing introspection, as in
Minimalist, open
and unresolved
vignettes that might not affect change in the lives of the
characters who come away
much the same as when the story or sequence began, leaving unanswered questions
for the audience to ponder. Or else simply outright failure to grow, even
boredom and ennui, if not even
some sort of collapse.
For
plot
concerns
drama,
the
conflict on
every
level
that is
inherent
to
situation,
as to press and even exacerbate some such inner problem demanding growth. Hence
plot may be
derived from, and vary greatly depending upon,
rounded and
multifaceted
characterization.
Indeed, unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characters, like real people, also grow differently along the Character Arc, even if not exactly according to the standard variants, responding to their experiences, even such extremes as those of the story values, by changing or by struggle to resist change, differently. As they seek to carry out their agendas, run into conflicts on every level, fail or succeed, and confront new problems, undergoing positive disintegration, unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characters, like real people, will not stay the same, for there are a number of possible outcomes of crisis and inner conflict, growth differently even proportional to inner conflict. Indeed, people often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually. Hence Problem Solving and Justification are reciprocal functions, and one must be shaped to rationalize the other, with integrity or else into hypocrisy. Misdirection, whether error circumstantially and honestly, by deliberate manipulation or even hamartia and self-deception, is key in moving from promise to catastrophe. The inner journey must match the outer journey, beginning from the Emotional Disturbance that is is internal corollary to it's trigger, the out-of-whack event, or vice versa.
A common subplot is the development of a a relationship, an alliance necessary to further the main plot. Virtually all relationships of whatever kind begin with some sort of first discovery, romance even courtship, so to speak, even "the honeymoon," but inevitably and come into conflict on many levels, friction which is normal and even healthy, and in order to survive must reach acceptance in order to commit to substantive cooperation and collaboration.
Prolong the Agony by making life difficult so as to motivate characters. Even pander to vicarious wish fulfillment, but also inspire pathos and anticipation by the Technique of Suspense plotting, even dread from the discomfort of sheer aversion. Stir any range of emotions and force the reader to empathize, to feel. That's what makes for good entertainment, a real page turner.
So, don't be nice to your character! No Powderpuff Pitty-Pat! Throughout the plot, the tension, even discomfort and aversion, of suspense, anticipation and pathos, is heightened by increasing difficulties, the personal emotional stakes continually raised, and character growth is pressed by worsening complications for an active protagonist, definitely including onstage sex! So navigate the various possible paths and dead ends and to find stories always dig deeper for insight into difficult struggle.
Just such conflict even on levels beneath the surface TEXT and CONTEXT may, nevertheless, emerge through subtext, What Lurks Beneath, shown by way of each of the senses in setting, body language, action and atmospheric tone along with the Subtle and Delicate Art of Doublespeak dialogue, may either harmonize with text, or in true Method subtext, even disagree with text, subtly, so as to draw attention into a deeper vein or level of conflict by being subtly wrong, key to show or evoke characterization, wherein motivation should be apparent, even through thoughts, however expository.
Or else if a character seems the same at the end of a story as at the beginning, and fails however to grow, the reader at least should be be aware of whatever factors prevented or deterred said character from however growing and developing, that inertia becoming the subject of the story for want of anything more.
Character motivation is human need defining the human condition, or, in 'Star Trek', the enigmatic and irresolvable "Human equation". Beyond practical interests, identity and principles not easily put up for trade and flaws, not only blatantly and predictably consistent and chronic sins and vices, but real dishonesty, that threaten all they hope for hold dear, that unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characters, just like real people of any depth, guard even at the cost of practical gain and happiness.
Meaning and importance, all conceivable priorities and values, unless they are one way or another decisively intellectualized, profoundly detached and disengaged in the extreme, ultimately emanate from needs and desires, attraction or aversion, fundamental motivations, selfish or altruistic. Otherwise, there can only be apathy and hence no problems to relate to at all. Deeper motivation, even world view, characterization, however growth and the philosophical questions of drama, as distinguished by their dramatic gripping inherent conflict on every level, are all contextual function of the human condition or situation that has changed so drastically from the past that is the setting and milieu of historical fiction and into any modern time frame as reflected in contemporary culture, and most certainly will change into the future that is frequently subject matter of Science Fiction and the scenario planning of Futurology.
A. No, damn it, I am not referring to any inane Amway snake oil pep talks!
Plausible characters, like unto real people, require adequate motivation for their deeds and dialogue. Drama is people doing amazing things for very good reasons. But melodrama is just people doing amazing things for bad or utterly nonexistent reasons. In real life, as in drama, true character is revealed in conflict and under pressure to lower ones guard and show, demonstrate, what we are really made of and ever grow.
Because, by every Technique
of Suspense plotting, the rising tension and of dramatic conflict signifies that the resolution of whatever the central problem is such as to increasingly press character(s) inevitably to take action in struggle with whoever or whatever the antagonist in some way that must one way or another bring the very values of said character(s) into question for them, even the very values that define character by consistently taking priority over other clearer and simpler interests and concerns.And so, no Powderpuff Pitty-Pat! To propel conflict, the Protagonist and Antagonist characters must display complementary psychologies along 8 basic parameters, such that the motivating desires and intentions of the Protagonist are bound to arouse the motivating fears of the Antagonist, and vice versa.
Drama requires characters each with whatever their own motivating stake in the issues, decisions, dire yet at all free choices to make and the looming consequences thereof. And, to build tension and maintain interest and exploit every Technique of Suspense plotting, all attempts to back out must deteriorate and fail, but without such glaring plot holes as blithely overlooked or ignored obvious opportunities.
Characters need motivation over all. But, more, the plot chain of cause and effect very much includes stimulus and response. Thoughts and reactions must be revealed and shown, for the story to remain coherent. Feeling and reflex must be followed by conscious action or expression. For such are what Dwight Swain dubbed "Motivation-Reaction Units," an even smaller subdivision of action than the scene. For example, a character feels frightened by a sudden threat, and reflexively jumps out of the way. -Or leaps towards an unexpected opportunity! Then the character must consciously decide how to respond, what action to take and/or dialogue to speak.
There
are
six
core
polemically
purposeful
and dramatic motivations for
dialogue
or expression, salient
towards
literate
understanding
or
modeling
of
the
rhetorical
situation[ism]
analysis.
Indeed, voice and tone afforded motivated character POV (Point Of View) upon situation often turns out more definitive to story in TEXT, CONTEXT and subtext, than premise and plot variation. This is because any motivated character's response, reaction or choice of strategy will be determined largely by their POV or subjectivity, reflection, situation with Representation of Consciousness, perspective or even entirely mechanistic particular involvement in whatever phase of any process considered, but also defined, guided and constrained by values, into somehow or other principled behavior.
Emotion is submission to just such external experienced emotional triggers or
stimuli, but also to memory and imagination of
subjective
inner life, identity and values,
sentiment, tenderness, affection and involvement,
meaning
and
pathos,
all altering mood and behavior accordingly.
The profundity of the motivating emotional involvement may often be a factor of
character, the personal
ability to absorb and resist of the strong minded versus such weakness as to
take most anything to heart, introverted and sentimental fantasy lives. Indeed,
shyness may be seen as nothing more than the delay and hesitations of the mind
running the multiple emotionally charged
scenarios triggered.
There are many motivating emotional triggers, pleasant and unpleasant, favorable or unfavorable, according to character and situation. Motivations include aspects of characterization such as need or desire, fear, ambition, responsibility, curiosity, and interpersonal attachments. While need or desire draws approach or pursuit, while fear is the discomforting perception of risk, danger or even aversion, engendering threat avoidance by any means and ambition seeks any advantage presenting itself, and is readily drawn to intrigue, while responsibility is the superego pressure to respond from whatever such duty as demanded by any authority, allegiance or ideological values.
Curiosity is any natural inquisitive behavior, evident Empirically even by observation at all, in many animal species, and is the emotional aspect of living beings that engenders exploration, investigation and learning, even to the point of downright nosiness, a desire to know or learn even about people or things that do not concern one, an attraction in solving mysteries.
And especially, characters that care about others are easily drawn in and become involved. Otherwise, characters that have no reason to interact with the world about them also have no reason or motivations to become involved or advance the plot. And until somehow and however reluctantly motivated or involved, such will tend to stay at rest until utterly driven by situation, however also colored by what Stanislavski dubbed the "Given Circumstances," even however socially constructed, along with setting and back-story as a Gestalt.
After all, stories are made memorable not merely in whatever empathy or curiosity merely as to the plot situation, but because of the reader or audience relationship, actual motivated feelings elicited for or even against the characters.
any character acts or responds one way or another. Consistent motivation requires characters to react in any given incident, under whatever the proper conditions and causes in said given incident, for said characters to act in any given manner, even however plausibly contrived as required for the sake of the plot.Otherwise, for the plot to require any character arbitrarily to behave out of character, constitutes as major and glaring a plot-hole, logical contradiction or inconsistency as any other lapse in logic or continuity. Indeed, beyond simple plot convenience or sheer authorial caprice, action, initiative and response, the smart moves and the stupid mistakes alike, can only really ever makes senses by being consistent with able characterization via believable motivation, both/either in hte sense of the inner feelings and of responses powerful enough to compel action and/or the compelling external factors drawing or pressing response.
Stories are made memorable not merely in whatever empathy or curiosity merely as to the plot situation, but because of the reader or audience relationship, actual motivated feelings elicited for or even against the characters.
And even though distant and ever superhuman
characters unmoved by terrible events will never engage an audience, nevertheless, nor does well motivated characterization consist of overpowering shmaltzy melodramatic and Bathetic "smarm", of heroes "breast-beating," "chewing the furniture ," just hanging around emoting complete with violins and laugh track! Indeed, sentimentality and self pity are no less deadly to fiction than trying to be cute! Because, in the end, it can't look like acting. "Writing on the nose" is an old Hollywood pejorative expression denoting dialog lacking the subtlety of subtext. After all, in real life, people rarely just come out and say what they really think. Therefore, motivated characters shouldn't either. Without being blatant, attitude and context come to light in the way that people talk to others consistently with how they take measure and relate to whomever they are talking to, and revealing as to how they feel about that person and perhaps as well, whatever the topic of conversation. The dramatic efficacy of revealing and motivated subtext is in frustrated desire, giving rise to need and ingenuity. Indeed, people often make their most important decisions with their heart but only then rationalize intellectually.Gossip is the medium of reputation and accountability, the means by which one hopes to know what to expect of others. And the reader or audience is placed on the position of the individual listener no less than in real life, ever burdened with the responsibility to filter such inputs, to search out reliable sources at all, and to observe and discern when gossip is actually the more telling about the speaker than anything or anyone else!
Hence, unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characterization may best be
shown or brought to the fore, in behavior even body language and dialogue with subtext, what the character says, thinks or does, even, in the novel, demonstration by dimensioned anecdote, indeed, by what other characters say about the character and certainly by interaction between characters, and also reinforced and conveyed in the tone or even making metaphor, allegory and imagery extending beyond the setting and creative stagecraft, the Mise en Scène.
Rather, what is particularly crucial is that, no less than real people in actuality, well motivated unique and original well rounded and multifaceted characters, each from their own unique POV, filtered perceptions and Interpretive Turn, must respond to events, to suspensefuly struggle with decisions each according to their own unique priorities, even to advance the plot, as confronted with an obstacle providing conflict on every level, tension, even discomfort and aversion, of the Technique
of Suspense plotting, anticipation and pathos, capturing the attention and motivating the sympathies of the audience.Prolong the Agony
by making life difficult so as to motivate characters. Even pander to vicarious wish fulfillment, but also inspire pathos, anticipation, the Technique of Suspense plotting, anticipation and pathos, even dread and even the discomfort of sheer aversion. Stir any range of emotions and force the reader to empathize, to feel. That's what makes for good entertainment, a real page turner.Meaning in the deepest sense, is dharma and karma, - plot, situation plus character motivation, which together equal dramatic destiny, because inherent meaning as a poetical figure, actually alludes to purpose of personal fulfillment, what matters deeply and without which life itself threatens Zen futile Ecclesiastical vanity! and such as may be expressed, also, in the intention of deeds, including that which is most broadly signified in communication of message, information content, ideas, conveying Phenomenal subjective experience or understanding, TEXT and subtext all in CONTEXT, unless, most narrowly, scientifically, literally and precisely, denotatively or referentially, that which is signified and thus conjectured, is simply and clearly whatever corresponding objective reality, Ontologically, hence, also, implication, logically inherent consequence and Deterministic inescapable causal effect, that inspires bleak fatalism but also
