The more time we spend on story design, the less time we need to spend on writing. If you have created a hierarchy as discussed in the last post where the elements of the story all contribute to the solution of the problem statement, we can take each element now and treat it as a sub-problem. This is the beauty of Teleological story design. You can create the design hierarchically with step wise refinement through step wise decomposition. The main problem of the story can be decomposed into the commonly used story elements of plot, character, setting and point of view. You can go beyond foundational story elements and add in less common story elements such a voice, tone or pace, conflict, resolution, or symbolism. You can use less traditional story elements such as Who, What, Where, When Why and How. We will refer to this first level of decomposition as story elements and revert back to the basic character, plot, setting and so on as needed for examples.
For the next layer of decomposition when need to take each story element and decompose it into story objectives. But, in order to do that we need to discuss some different kinds of objectives. There can really be any number of kinds of objectives, but for the sake of simplicity we will focus on just three: component objectives, competing objectives and constraining objectives.
Component objectives form a hierarchy of objectives and sub objectives which is an ends/means decomposition of one aspect of the problem. In order to achieve objective A, we must achieve sub objectives B, C, and D. If B, C or D is not an achievable unit of work, then we may have to decompose further until we arrive at achievable units of work.
Competing objectives cannot be achieved simultaneously and thus must be evaluated in a trade-off analysis which determines the relative priority of each. If A and B are competing objectives, then we might decide something like 60% A and 40% B.
Constraining objectives place limitations on the possible solutions. The different between a constraint and a constraining objective is that a constraining objective is something you are trying to achieve, and it can be achieved in a variety of ways. However, too many constraining objectives may make the problem unsolvable.
As I said a few paragraphs earlier, there can be any number of kinds of objectives and this tripartite structure is merely to simplify the model to make it easier to get started. As you get more comfortable with it, you might very well invent various kinds of new objectives and see whether they facilitate your writing or just make it more difficult. Now, let us see these three kinds of objectives in some examples.
At some level in your decomposition, your sub-objectives should be solvable problems and doable pieces of work. If this is not possible, then you have probably not defined your objectives correctly. Here are some common mistakes that people make when defining objectives.
As mentioned earlier, the use of objectives is nothing new but successfully using objectives is a challenge. One of the reasons for this is that there are some predictable mistakes that people make when trying to define objectives. Simply because a statement is a goal that someone wants to achieve does not make it a good objective. Following are some examples of statements that may sound like objectives to one who does not fully understand the concept but are not really objectives. Poorly defined objectives can even do more damage than not defining objectives at all. This is because poorly defined objectives can waste effort in pursuit of a goal that cannot be achieved.
A common mistake that people make when defining objectives is that they simply replace objectives with values. We can think of these as universal objectives. Universal objectives are objectives that are true regardless of circumstances. Consider the following statements: the objective of our company is to make a profit; my objective in writing this story is to get an A for the class; my objective in life is live life to its fullest. These are not well-formed objectives for two reasons. First is that they do not represent units of work and cannot reasonably be decomposed into units of work. Second, it would be difficult to imagine a circumstance in which the opposite objective would be appropriate. An objective should not only contain a statement of what is to be done. But it must also, by implication, suggest what is not important.
A second mistake is the unrealistic objective. Consider the statement – my objective is to change the way the world thinks about biotechnology. This is more specific than the universal objective in that it focuses on biotechnology. But it is unrealistic because one is unlikely to impact the entire world. Further, it is too vague as “changing the way people think” can mean a lot of different things. Some people may have thought biotechnology was a wonderful thing and then changed their minds to think it was a danger. Other people may have gone the other way. But both would have changed their thinking. Others yet may have thought biotechnology was interesting but changed their minds to think it was boring. These kinds of objectives may feel good but are of limited value in achieving goals.
Sometimes we forget about what we are trying to achieve and state a possible solution as an objective. This is a little more difficult to explain in stories so consider a different kind of example. Let’s say that your social life has begun to sag a bit. You notice that you spend way too much time watching TV and eating junk food. Your clothes no longer fit as well as they once did. So, you decide to go on the XYZ diet and state, as your objective, that you want to go on the XYZ diet for four months. We view the diet to be a solution to our problems here, but we have not really articulated the problem. Is the problem that you don’t have enough friends? Or enough interests? Are you bored or maybe boring? Are you antisocial or lazy? There can be any number of problems here and any number of things that we may want to achieve. But jumping to the diet solution is not the answer. It may well be that you stay on the diet as you planned but other than your clothes fitting a little better, you haven’t solved anything.
What if your objectives look fine to you but they are not decomposed into doable units of work? The answer is easy. Start writing. You are no worse off that if you had not gone through the process of defining objectives and writing crude drafts and following with a lot of rewriting. If you have at least a crude decomposition you have at least a crude model of the story and you don't have to discover the model of the story through rewrites. And any mistakes that you make will be of more limited scope. Further, any thought you put into the model of the story is thought you don't have to discover through mistakes.
Think of your hierarchical model as a pyramid. There is far less detail at the top and far more at the bottom. Mistakes discovered at the top are easy to fix. But as you discover mistakes further down the pyramid the cost of the mistakes grows exponentially. So, even if your objectives are not perfect, they are better than no objectives, assuming that you have not made one of the common mistakes addressed above. And the more you define objectives and use them in your writing the better you will get at it.
