I don't know about you, but I've always had trouble grasping those four Dramatica elements.
"Deduction: a method of thought that determines certainty"
"Induction: a method of thought that determines possibility"
"Reduction: a method of thought that determines probability"
"Production: a method of thought that determines potential"
Hmm...
What on Earth does this mean? How do you determine "certainty" or "potential"? How does a character use "Reduction"? and, most of all, how do they use these stuff in my story?
Hmm.
However, lately I've been using a silly dramatic situation tounderstand these arcane elements. Here it is:
The school bully takes your lunch money and says "I'll give it back if you guess the number I'm thinking. It's between one and five."
Since he feels superior he says "you have five guesses."
The way to go here is to use deduction. Deduction is a process where you go one by one through the options, discarding the wrong ones, until you find the right one.
"Is it one?"
"No."
"Is it two?"
"No."
"Three?"
"No."
"Four?"
"No."
"Then it's five."
The bully gives you back your money, feeling dumb for having giving you that many options.
But the next day he takes your money again. He poses the same puzzle but this time he says cautiously "you only have three guesses.
Here's the time to use reduction. Reduction is a process where you arrange your clues into groups, discard the less likely and choose the group more likely to have the answer.
"Is it bigger than three?"
"No."
"Is it bigger than one?"
"No."
"It's one."
He gives you back your money muttering "you got lucky, punk."
Reduction is not as safe as deduction when it comes to finding the right answer, but when you don't have all the clues or have limited options, it's your best bet.
Anyway, next day comes and the bully takes your money away once more. This time he ends his puzzle saying "you have only one guess."
Time to use induction. Induction is a process where you think "outside the box," look at clues that don't necessarily belong in the problem and sum it all up to give your best guess.
"Is it four?"
The bully opens his eyes amazed. "How did you know?"
"Because the first time you thought 'five' and the second time you thought 'one.' Today you were going something along the middle, but 'three' was too obvious, so you upped it one notch to threw me off."
The bully gives the money back and promises not to make it easy for you the next day.
And, as expected, he takes your money again, but feeling paranoid and cornered, he says "I'm thinking of a number between one and five alright, but I'm not gonna give you any chance to guess it."
When you're out of options, when you don't have a single clue on how to solve a problem is time to use production, which is a process where you produce a solution out of nowhere.
"Principal's coming!" you yell.
"Where?" The bully looks down the hall.
So you kick him in the crotch, take the money from his hand and run as fast as you can.
Or whatever gets the job done.
Deduction, Induction, Reduction and Production are all ways to solve a mental problem. Each method works better in a particular situation and you can evaluate this situation by the chances you have to solve it and the given clues.
The catch is that not all characters are brilliant in all these methods. Like real people, characters are capable in one method of thought and try to use it for every single problem they face, creating difficulties for everyone when they try to think outside the box in a problem that called for going through all the options.
If your Overall Story Problem is "Induction" usually it's because that's what the characters are trying to do, if the Solution is "Deduction" it's because that's what was called to solve this problem. The real solution is to find someone (or develop the ability themselves) to go through the options one by one to solve the problem.
(Tip by Armando Saldana Mora)
