Forum: Author Hangout

The Four (5?) Fs

JoeBobMack 🚫

I once heard the basic drives of the older (reptilian) portion of our brains (just a metaphor, don't overthink it!) described as:
Fight
Flee
Feed
and
Give Valentines!

I'm a day late on the last one. However, if stories are more enjoyable when they have interesting people doing interesting things in interesting ways, are these the interesting things? One more category comes to my mind:

Farm.

At least, if you treat as "farming" anything to do with shaping the environment to meet basic needs (the first four Fs). That would include things like building and crafting, maybe even science. Music and Art? Not sure. Can they be understood as some combination or higher order of some of the four Fs? Are there great stories centered on feeding?

I know there are other schemas for organizing basic human motivation. I'm just playing with this one, but would be interested if any wish to mention a schema they use in writing.

Replies: maracorby Dominions Son

maracorby 🚫

@JoeBobMack

I can't say that I've ever tried applying it to writing, but are you familiar with Maslow's heirarchy of needs? It's probably not a perfect model, but it does encompass stuff like art.

A huge portion of video games these days involve crafting/building and often actual farming. Sometimes without any violence. In the beginning, most of them involved fighting and fleeing. (And in the case of Pac-Man, eating.) It's interesting that creation has captured so much of the entertainment market in that way. (Although I suppose long before Minecraft there were Legos and Lincoln Logs.)

Replies: JoeBobMack

JoeBobMack 🚫

@maracorby

Yes, I'm familiar with Maslow, at least in the sense I know of it. Haven't studied it much, but it has distinct similarities with other frameworks of human motivation. The pyramid structure didn't come from Maslow (according to one reason overview of the field I read) and that design has been criticized extensively. People will act to fulfill higher needs even when lower needs are unmet. An example would be Frankl acting to achieve meaning in a concentration camp. Another criticism has been the grouping of some activities, such as placing sexual intercourse in the category of physiological needs such as eating and breathing. So, an author who uses the Maslow's categories as a lens for thinking about characters, challenges, and plot could beneifit assuming some nuance and and no rigid adherence to the hierarchy.

Your point about the public response to crafting/building/farming games is really interesting. I'm not that tuned in to the video game market, so your insight catches my attention. Apparently, there's also demand for the literary variant where the MC is focused on acquiring resources, setting up systems, and so forth, often in the form of kingdom building.

Thanks for the thoughts!

Dominions Son 🚫

@JoeBobMack

The 4 Fs for male "players".

Find-em
Feel-em
Fuck-em
Forget-em.

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Forum: Author Hangout

The Four (5?) Fs

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