Process
Status Items Output None Questions None Claims None Highlights Done See section below
Highlights
id534719429
Psychological storytelling is the story of a person’s internal and external journey to get something they want. They are the center of the story’s universe, and without them the story wouldn’t exist. You could say these stories look inward.
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Sociological storytelling, by contrast, is the story of a system; specifically, how the system affects the people within it. Systems can be formal or informal. For instance, a family is a system; capitalism is a system; your workplace is a system; the law is a system, etc. Characters existing within the system still have internal motivations, as they do in a psychological story, but external factors are just as important as internal ones, if not more so. You could say these stories look outward.
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If choice is what defines a character, then a character in a sociological story will make a choice based not only on their internal moral compass but also on how they anticipate the system will respond to their choice.
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First, you must start with the system. Specifically, what system are you critiquing—and yes, I mean critiquing. You must have a strong opinion of this system, you must understand it very well, and you must have something to say about it. All sociological stories have a thesis statement about the world; without it, there is no story.
id534721170
create characters who will test the system. In a psychological story, the character web around the protagonist functions to either help or hinder the protagonist in their quest; essentially the web is constantly testing the main character’s critical flaw, either tempting them to give into their flaw or to overcome it. The concept is similar for sociological stories, except in a sociological story the characters form a web within the system. They all have their own goals, but how and if they reach those goals depends on their place in the system.
id534721187
pick a character who will primarily deliver the thesis statement of your story, at least in the beginning. They’re a focus character rather than a main character, in that we follow this character as they try to navigate the system in order for us, the audience, to understand the system
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The story only ends if the system fundamentally changes or is destroyed, or when the thesis statement has been proven.