Design Thinking vs Analytical Thinking

 I would like to start this post with a relevant digression and then return to story design.

Early in my career, I worked in software development. Writing software and writing stories have a lot in common, although it is beyond the scope of this post to explore that in any detail. I will, however, provide a few examples along the way. In fact, here is one. The hierarchical decomposition with step wise refinement that I discussed in the last post comes straight out of software design.

Nonetheless, in the world of software development you would start with a business problem, go through a process called analysis and design, and then turn it over to programmers to write the software. The people who did analysis and design were often called analysts and they often saw the results of their analysis as the input to the programmers. If you asked an analyst when they were doing analysis and when they were doing design, they would give you an odd look because, in their minds, the two were simultaneous. But sadly, they are not, and this was probably why the first few decades of software development were characterized by massive cost over runs and abundant user dissatisfaction.

Analysis and design are two distinct activities requiring different cognitive skills that may occasionally be found in one person although that is not common. Analysis is the process of decomposing an existing phenomenon in order to understand it better. Design is the process of constructing a solution to a given set of objectives. It is generally true that if a person is good at one kind of analysis, they will be good at another kind of analysis. And if they are good at one kind of design, they will be good at another kind of design. We can consider a few examples to establish the difference between analysis and design more concretely.

Let us begin with a simple personal problem that most people can relate to - your social life is not satisfying. What do you do? Well, you begin by determining what the underlying problem is. I am going to offer a few common reasons. Your life is just not interesting enough. You don't have ways to fill your free time. You don't have enough friends. You have friends but they are not satisfying enough. In the analysis phase of this, you would examine your life closely and try to determine which of these (or something else) is the problem. The first and most crucial step in solving a problem is figuring out what the problem actually is. 

Once you have identified the problem, you can take steps towards solving it. Consider how very different solutions to the problems listed above might be. Also consider how unlikely it would be to solve the problem if you were just trying different things. People often jump to solutions before understanding the problem which is a very hit or miss approach.  Now let us take a more complicated example.

In this next example, we will consider a business problem. Advertising costs are going up while sales are going down. We actually have two problems here that may or may not be related. How do we find out? Well, since we are trying to better understand an existing phenomenon, analysis of the situation is required. We need to determine why advertising costs are going up and why sales are going down. 

There are many reasons why advertising costs may be going up. Perhaps we are using the wrong advertising firm. Perhaps we are inefficient in reaching our target market. Similarly, there may be many reasons why sales are declining. Perhaps our products are out of date. Perhaps, we are appealing to the wrong market. Perhaps our products are too expensive or too poorly made. Perhaps it is a combination of the two. In order to find the answer, we must do some analysis of the current situation. 

Once we understand the current situation, we must come up with some solutions. Solutions don't exist in the world. We need to construct them according to some set of objectives. We may look for a new advertising firm. We may try a different advertising medium. We may more carefully target our prospective buyers. If everything looks good on the advertising side, we might decide to come up with ways to improve sales. We might need to update our products. We may need to change our pricing or ad some incentives. It may be that the problem is a combination of the two and the solution is going to be more complicated. 

Now let’s consider this process for a novel we are struggling with. In the case of sales and advertising there are fairly well understood places to look for problems. And the same is true for writing a story. Is there an overarching message or theme? Is it compelling? Is it clear? Are the characters interesting? Are they relatable? Is it set in the right kind of setting? Is the setting well presented? Does the plot move along at the proper pace and are things revealed to the reader to keep the reader interested?

In the advertising and sales example, we barely scratched the surface of what an expert in this area needs to know. And in the writing example, we similarly barely scratched the surface. If you are an experienced writer, you may want to make a list of things to consider. If you are less experienced, you might ask someone to read it and make suggestions. Or you may wish to read some books on writing that are written for new writers. They are full of things you need to consider. But remember, the purpose of the analysis phase is to understand the problem. The purpose of the design phase is to come up with a solution. So, let me emphasize this next point.

Don't jump to a design (solution) until you fully understand the problem.

Perhaps your protagonist is a bit flat. So, you decide to make him a wealthy playboy and get busy modifying your story accordingly. But then you decide the wealthy playboy doesn't work so you try making him a well-meaning public servant. Will this work? This is what happens when you try to solve the problem through trial and error instead of designing possible solutions and thinking them through. In the world of software, this is called prototyping and, as we shall see in the next post, it is the costliest way to find a solution. But, in understanding prototyping, we can understand something very important about writing stories. While prototyping is a costly way to proceed, sometimes it is the only way to fully understand the problem.

Story Objectives

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.

 

Story Design: A Teleological Approach

Books on writing will often refer to a common dichotomy which identifies writers as pantsers or plotters. A writer who simply starts out a story with no idea where it will go is referred to as a pantser, since they are writing by the seat of there pants. They may just start and wait for inspirations. They may create some characters and see what those characters do. They may start out with a situation and see how the situation evolves. Other writers will begin by sketching out a plot, or if they are more sophisticated, a narrative argument. They are referred to as plotters. They know how the story will end, although they may not know the exact fate of all the characters from the beginning. There is much to be said and much to be learned from the pantsers vs plotters dichotomy, though few, if any, books on writing, that I have seen, explore it in any depth. And, I would say, respectfully and with some reservation, that this dichotomy is somewhat naive. It is probably useful in writing workshops or academic classes in fiction writing as it allows prospective writers to orient themselves in the complex world of writing talents. But, it does not tell you what you need to do if you want to learn how to write, nor does it tell you what to do if you want to improve your writing. 

I would like to offer a Teleological approach to writing stories in which the story is designed. I need to define a couple of terms here in order to make this a little more clear. First, we understand things teleologically when we  understand them in terms of their purposes. For example, the purpose of your heart is to pump blood throughout your body. This explains why you have a heart. But, it does not explain how your heart achieves this. Second, design is the process by which we construct a solution to specific problem or to satisfy a specific purpose. So a teleological approach to writing stories would begin by defining the purpose of the story and then design a story that satisfies that purpose. I will go into design more deeply in the next post. But, this is enough to get us started with story design.

When we begin with story design, we begin by defining the purpose for which the story is being written. And, to keep things simple, we will assume that the purpose of the story involves some sort of impact upon the reader. That may seem obvious. But it is conceivable that a writer may write a story to satisfy a purpose of the writer. For example, one might write a story so that the writer can understand something a little better. Or the writer may write a story for some therapeutic purpose such as learning to see a parent as a person rather than a monster. Or the writer may want to write a story so that he or she can feel good about their self for having written a story. These are all legitimate purposes. But they are beyond the scope of what we are addressing here.The story design process would be very similar for other story purposes. But, it simplifies explaining it if we focus on the impact on the reader.

I am going to simplify the impact on the reader as well into two categories. Either the writer wishes to entertain the reader or the writer wants to provide the reader with an opportunity for personal growth. Here we are going to focus on the later. There is nothing wrong with entertaining the reader. In fact, the reader may not get to the end of a story that is not entertaining in some way. But, for the purposes of this post, we want to change the reader in some way. And that change, to narrow things down a bit more, will be in their comprehension of an ethical problem of some kind. Again, this same reasoning could apply to any number of reader impacts and the basic teleological structure would not change. But the details would and we need details if I am going to provide an example.  

Since I am currently focusing on Possible Worlds, let us consider an emerging technology which allows you to read the minds of other people and the question is whether or not there should be any restrictions on its use. I could provide some plausibility arguments here but, for the sake of space, I am just going to ask you to accept the premise. We have a spectrum that ranges from banning the technology completely to allowing its use without restrictions. Along that spectrum are any number of more nuanced positions such as only the government should be allowed to use it or only the government should be banned from using it. Perhaps it is a phone app and individuals can allow or disallow others to read their minds. If you have any creativity at all, you should be able to come up with plenty of additional options.

Next, let us assume that we have some concerns about this technology and we want to make others aware of those concerns. So, we decide to write a story to explore those concerns. What is our concern? Perhaps we feel that there are potential downsides to unrestricted use of the technology. What are those downsides and how can we explore them in a story? Perhaps we feel that there are potential upsides that skeptics need to be aware of. What are those upsides and how can we explore them in a story? Perhaps, we feel that it is a mixed bag and want to explore difficult trade offs in a story. These are basically the options for exploring this Possible World, although there are endless, more nuanced, possibilities.

Once we figure out the point of the story, we can ask some simple questions about it. Where might this story occur (setting)? What kind of people might encounter these upsides or downsides or both (characters)? How might the circumstances that reveal the main points come about (plot)? In the case of point of view, do you want the narrator to be more objective (omniscient) or personally involved (first person). You can sketch out the entire story in a hierarchical chart where the problem you are trying to solve is at the top of the chart and each of the elements in this paragraph are below it. Then we can ask - how do each of the sub-elements contribute to the solution of the problem? You can tinker with the chart elements until you have the story design you are looking for. Then all you need to do is write the story. I don't mean to minimize the work involved in writing. But the work of writing is reduced by working out the design to determine the structure rather than by having it emerge through rewrites.