Goldilocks: Telling Human Stories
Hello! Welcome to my P4T Masterclass.
I'm Nicole, and I worked on The Academy for Play4Tomorrow as part of my fellowship in 2020/2021. As I was writing and creating the game, I developed a simple empathy tool.
This website was made to help you follow my process, and recreate it.
Have fun!
Table of Contents:
About the project:
In general, people feel like the main character of their life.
I know I do! I have thoughts, feelings, and opinions about everything and to me they're very important.
Since we live life through our own lens, we get our own point of view constantly.
But everyone else in the world is experiencing a life just as rich and detailed as we are. It's easy to forget this sometimes!
When we're telling stories, we have to put ourselves in a lot of people's shoes all at once.
It's helpful to keep track of things so that we tell a story that feels true, and connects with people.
I was writing a story,
and noticed that things seemed to be skewed in the direction of one character. There were mostly plot lines relating to him, people had thoughts and feelings about him but not about themselves, the world, or each other. And the story lacked soul because of it.
They didn't feel like people at all, but rather mirrors for the reader to see the main character reflected in.
It was clear... The story had come down with a case of
Main
Character
Syndrome
That's the origin story for Goldilocks.
Goldilocks is a web, where you do the empathy exercise: thinking about how everyone in a situation might be feeling in general and towards each other. This is helpful for character development, and making stories feel consistent and fleshed out.
Why on earth is this called Goldilocks?
Because that is my cat's name and I love her. Seriously. I was going to try to think of a better name but it just ended up sticking (both with my cat when I adopted her and with this tool).
How to build:
Step 1: Lay out Characters
You'll want to arrange them into a circle, so that connecting them all is easier.
I used a website called Miro to work on this, but you can also do this with a pen and paper or sticky notes, or with any tool of your choosing.
Check: Character Development
At this point, if you haven't done much character work, take some time to think about it. There are forms online and resources to help with this, but keeping track of what sort of person you're working with will be a great help.
Resources for Character Development (click to expand):
Step 2: Spin your web
It's time to connect the dots between the characters. I personally like to use colour coding to indicate feelings.
For my method, I used:
Blue: Friendship
Purple: Romance
Red: Dislike
Grey: Ambivalence
Use arrows to indicate direction, perhaps the feeling goes both ways but often it does not.
If you're not sure about this yet, you can always colour code later!
Step 3: Get in the Feelings
Attach text to the web, discussing how people feel in relation to each other.
I recommend taking a few minutes per line to just brainstorm, and turn it around in your mind.
Some questions to consider when filling out your Goldilocks:
How might this person feel, and why would they feel that way?
Is there something in their background that affects how they're feeling and acting, has something happened?
Are the reactions of other people informing their behaviour?
What does this person know/not know?
Does this fit in with their personality and backstory?
Step 4: Trust the process!
Don't worry if it's messy at first, at one point my work looked like this! I ended up making four versions of this chart.
Make your own by clicking here:
I've made a version of the Goldilocks in Google Slides that you can duplicate and play around with!
Click the link and select 'Make a Copy'.
Edit any text in the document by double tapping on it.
Right click on images and scroll down to replace.
Add your own images, text boxes, shapes and arrows.
You can also view and duplicate the original Goldilocks in Miro by clicking here (not mobile friendly, must create an account to duplicate). To make a copy, right click on the title of the chart, in the top left corner.
You might use this method for:
Storytelling
Empathy Building
Problem Solving
Check your learning:
It only seems fitting to use the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to check if you kept up! If you aren't familiar with the story, you can read it here.
TLDR: It is the tale of a little girl who commits a B&E and ruins a family's day. Dark stuff.
