Which is the right Class for the Main Character Throughline in your story? For the Overall Story Throughline? For the Subjective Story Throughline? For the Impact Character Throughline? Assigning the appropriate Dramatica Classes to the Throughlines of your story is a tricky but important process.

There are four Throughlines in a story: The Main Character, the Impact Character, the Subjective Story, and the Overall Story. These throughlines provide an audience with various points of view from which to explore the story. The four audience points of view can be seen as I, YOU, WE, and THEY. The audience's point of view shifts from empathizing with the Main Character (I), to feeling the impact of the Impact Character (YOU). The audience's point of view shifts to experiencing the relationship between the Main and Impact Character (WE), and then finally stepping back to see the big picture that has everyone in it (all of THEM). Each point of view describes an aspect of the story experience to which an audience is privy.

There are four Classes containing all the possible kinds of problems that can be felt in those throughlines (one Class to each throughline): Situation (Universe), Fixed Attitude (Mind), Activity (Physics), and Manipulation (Psychology). These Classes suggest different areas to explore in the story.

In Dramatica, a story will contain all four areas to explore (Classes) and all four points of view (throughlines). Each Class is explored from one of the throughlines. Combining Class and point of view into a Throughline is the broadest way to describe the meaning in a story. For example, exploring a Main Character in terms of his situation is different from exploring a Main Character in terms of his attitude, the activities that occupy his attentions, or how he is being manipulated. Which is right for your story?

Pairing the appropriate Class with the proper throughline for your story can be difficult. An approach you may find useful is to pick a throughline, adopt the audience perspective that throughline provides, and from that point of view examine each of the four Classes to see which feels the best.

Each of the following sections present the four Classes from one specific audience perspective. For best effect, adopt the perspective described in the section and ask the questions as they appear in terms of your own story. One set of questions should seem more important or relevant from that perspective.

NOTE: Selecting a point of view/Class relationship (or Throughline) says a lot about the emphasis you wish to place in your story. No pairing is better or worse than another. One pairing will be, however, most appropriate to what you have in mind for your story than the other three alternatives.