Dramatic Tension: Theory 101

Dramatic tension ... such an odd and oddly specific turn of phrase. It's not dramatic STRESS, it is very specifically TENSION. Dramatic TENSION is critical, not dramatic STRESS.

And why would that be significant? Because stress is tension OR compression OR shear, but dramatic tension makes very very explicit that it's ONLY tension that matters, very very specifically. Which immediately raises the question: tension in WHAT? What is it that is being pulled? From where, TO where?

In the minds of ALL authors, ALL writers, ALL literary reviewers, ALL critics, and ALL readers ... something is being pulled from somewhere to somewhere else. There is no question about that. They just have no fucking idea what it could possibly be. Well, this will be answered today.

There are three abstract elements to the interaction between a reader and their book, a gamer and their game, a viewer and their movie, a spectator and their ballet:

• datastream - the stream of their experiences in sight and sound and motion
• control metastream - the stream of their thoughts, expectations, decisions, page-flipping, mouse-clicking, game-loading, bathroom-running
• goal - not chosen by the writer, but chosen by the reader, viewer or gamer, out of the things they care for

The existence of a uniquely reader-determined goal is most obvious in games. Some people like linear games and other people like open sandboxes. This is explained by GNS - Gameism, Narrativism, Simulationism theory. Which is itself explained by personality type theory and is the reason it really should be SGN theory, not GNS. But I don't have the other isms to prove that SGN is only a tiny subpart of personality manifesting in an aspect of reality.

What is dramatic tension? It's the pull experienced by the reader towards their goal. More obvious concepts are the pace of a film and the grip of a novel. Well, tension is similar to pacing but different because pacing is external and objective whereas tension is interrelational. Tension both originates and terminates inside the reader.

If the tension is too low, this will manifest in either of the two streams becoming highly entropic. Either the datastream will become monotonous and boring, or the control metastream will become full of "why am I reading this?". Once EITEHR of those streams passes a critical threshold in entropy, it will simply collapse catastrophically: the reader will stop reading, the gamer will cease playing.

If the tension is too HIGH, this will manifest in either of the two streams becoming highly entropic. Either the datastream becomes incomprehensible and uninterpretable, effectively just noise, or the control metastream will become full of "wait, hold on, what did that mean? I need to reread this". And yes, once either of those streams passes a critical threshold in entropy, it will simply collapse catastrophically.

Reactions To REAL Creative Genius

It annoys me that idiots continue to use "oh wow, that's so amazing" as the measure of creative genius. Or even worse, that they rely on society's direction to determine who is a creative genius and who isn't.

Narcissists Vs Society

First of all, creative geniuses are RESPECTED and LOOKED UP TO by society. And any position that is looked up to will be coveted by Narcissists who are driven by Glory, such as Richard Feynman who all his life was driven to be a jerkass asshole and a thief. And Narcissism is a form of severe brain damage and profound mental retardation.

So if you're using society's direction to determine who's a creative genius, then you're almost certain to include some profoundly mentally retarded people in your list just because those people will do anything, literally ANYTHING, to try to snow society about their status.

Some of those things will even work ... because society is made up of idiots ... like you. But then so long as society is ruled by idiots then only idiots will take the direction of society in anything. The fact you take the direction of society for who's a creative genius or not means you're an idiot. And idiots get easily lied to and taken advantage of.

Society as run by RWAs

For calibration purposes, the stereotypical (American) engineer is profoundly retarded so is an idiot but also far beyond an idiot. Engineers are most pronounced in taking the direction of society and as we'll see, implying that real creative genius (the kind that's forever beyond society's ability to evaluate) simply cannot exist.

I find these beliefs of theirs particularly objectionable, but they are typical of the engineering mindset. The typical engineer is a Right-Wing Authoritarian aka Corrupt Moralist aka Evil Moralist. They blatantly misuse and give a bad name to the word 'Morality' when they really just mean Social Norms.

The typical engineer is a Nazi just waiting to happen. Or would be if Nazism weren't proscribed by the social norms they grew up with. The typical engineer will find a novel way to enslave people since they deem slavery to be maximally desirable. So long as it's not called slavery and isn't one of the very long list of slaver-technologies which have been proscribed by modern social norms.

Society respects these people. Psychologists even have a term for "Evil person who isn't a right-wing authoritarian", it's 'sociopath'. As if it were perfectly permissible and even HEALTHY to be a right-wing authoritarian! YOU respect these people. YOU respect society. YOU respect psychologists. That's all the proof I need that you're a fucking idiot.

Incidentally, because RWAs are driven by Social Norms, it follows immediately that a freakish phenomenon such as creative genius is either profoundly undesirable or simply cannot exist. The more low-brow RWAs who openly advocate fascist ideology believe creative genius is undesirable. The more high-brow like engineers believe that it simply cannot exist. But if you prove that it exists, they'll claim it's undesirable.

Reactions

Moving on, the correct reaction to a creative genius' creative genius pronouncements isn't "oh wow, that's so amazing". No, the correct reaction is a blank stare of incomprehension. Because a creative genius doesn't operate above you, a creative genius operates on a level that is forever beyond you.

-

reaction of ordinary person	names per Disposition	description
hmmm, that sounds about right	investigator / researcher / teacher
heh, that would be nice	idealist / dreamer / freethinker
oh wow, that's so amazing, I could never come up with it	pioneer / innovator / inventor	creates something original and valuable
damn, that's so obvious now	explorer / pathbreaker / trailblazer	does something COMPLEX
blank stare of incomprehension	visionary / creative genius / father of (knowledge domain)	beyond anyone else's willingness to follow since anyone operating on this level will follow their own paths
fear and intimidation, backing away slowly	all-seing / game-changer / world-changer
cowering in the fetal position or kill the heathen!

So a real creative genius is someone who creates something new and valuable, creating that thing was a COMPLEX task, not just a long and arduous one despite its final appearance looking simple, and they did all this in a direction which the few other people who CAN follow simply WON'T because there's too many things to do and too few genuine creative geniuses to do them.

The Real Deal

How do I know I'm the real deal instead of a crazed nutter? Because I tend to elicit the 'damn, that's so obvious now' reaction from people who elicit that same reaction from people like you. Because the higher up you yourself are, the lower your own reaction to others will be. It's the reason why creative geniuses can recognize other creative geniuses. And the table of reactions above is calibrated for passive people.

How does anyone know I'm not a fake and a Narcissist lying through my teeth? Because I don't steal credit and because I want neither glory nor adulation. Rather, adulation will be met with withering verbal abuse the likes of which will make you long for the gentle caress of a cat o nine tails. I despise flattery, associating it with brown-nosing which is Self-Abasement which is done by EVIL people. If you try to flatter me, there's an even chance that I WILL TELL YOU TO DIE!!!

Compare and contrast this with Eliezer Yudkowsky's sordid and sleazy careful cultivation of a cult of nitwits praising him and his unabashed self-praise and eliciting of praise from his followers! That Narcissistic fuck once asked people in all seriousness "do you know anyone more natively intelligent than I am?" and then tried to dismiss the copious examples. The fact he humiliated himself so easily in public is a sign of his (and every other Narcissist's) profound mental retardation.

This Blog

Finally, if you think "oh wow that's so amazing" about my blog, that's not because you're a creative genius. It's because my blog is worthless. It's purely an exercise in DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself. That is, what I don't want to do when I'm lecturing morons. Or just very ignorant people. I much prefer one on one contact for people who have potential.