Judgment determines whether the Main Character resolves his personal angst.

The rational argument of a story deals with practicality: Does the kind of approach taken lead to Success or Failure in the endeavor. In contrast, the passionate argument of a story deals with fulfillment: Does the Main Character find peace at the end of his journey?

If the Main Character's angst is resolved, then the Main Character is in a Good place on a personal level. If the angst is unresolved, then the Main Character is in a Bad place. It's important to evaluate the Judgment solely in terms of the Main Character's personal problems in this story. He may have other personal problems in other contexts, but those are not relevant to picking Good or Bad.

If you want an upper story, you will want Success in the Overall Story and a Judgment of Good.

If you want a tragedy, you will want the objective effort to fail, and the subjective journey to end badly as well.

Life often consists of trade-offs, compromises, sacrifices, and reevaluations, and so should stories. Choosing Success/Bad stories or Failure/Good stories opens the door to these alternatives.

If we choose a Failure/Good story, we imagine a Main Character who realizes he had been fooled into trying to achieve an unworthy Goal and discovers his mistake in time. Or we imagine a Main Character who discovers something more important to him personally while trying to achieve the Goal. We call each of these examples of a personal triumph.

A Success/Bad story might end with a Main Character achieving his dreams only to find they are meaningless, or Main Character who makes a sacrifice for the success of others but ends up bitter and vindictive. Each of these would be a personal tragedy.

Because Success and Failure are measurements of how well specific requirements have been met, they are by nature objective. In contrast, Good and Bad are subjective value Judgments based on a story point of the Main Character's personal fulfillment.

What is interesting about the Story Outcome and the Story Judgment are how they work independently to provide meaning to the story argument, yet also work together to create additional meaning for the audience.

Examples of Story Judgment

Stories with a Judgment of Good: Being There; A Christmas Carol; The Verdict; Casablanca; Charlotte's Web; Rain Man; A Doll's House

Stories with a Judgment of Bad: Hamlet; The Silence of the Lambs; Chinatown; The Godfather; The Glass Menagerie