THE BREAKDOWN

TIER 1 — ORIENTATION & DISCOVERY

“What is here?”

Tier 1 maps are light, gentle, and exploratory.
They identify the bodies in the story — the major forces, characters, or systems — and begin noticing their basic relationships.

What Tier 1 might look like:

• simple circles for characters or forces

• light arrows showing general movement

• broad questions such as:

• “Who is orbiting whom?”

• “Where is the emotional center?”

• “What feels important but not yet understood?”

• rough relational spacing (near/far, inward/outward)

• curiosity-driven notes (“something here feels off”)
  
  

What Tier 1 does NOT do:

• interpret deeply

• analyze internal tensions

• diagnose contradictions

• label emotional gravity

Tier 1 is like walking the edges of a forest before entering.

TIER 2 — RELATIONAL ARCHITECTURE

“How do these bodies move together?”

Tier 2 is where orbits, relational systems, and emotional movement become clear.
This is often the Tier where a story’s “shape” first emerges.

What Tier 2 might look like:

• concentric or offset orbits

• characters or forces exerting clear pulls

• directional arrows showing who wants what

• blocked pathways or tangled movement

• clusters of thematic or relational questions

• early internal segmentation (e.g., quadrants, inner layers)

• mapping of systems (family, world, community, environment)

Tier 2 is where you first see:

• tension

• contradiction

• gravitational imbalance

• missing elements

• the story’s emotional architecture beginning to reveal itself

Tier 2 is like entering the forest and noticing which paths are well-worn, blocked, or curving toward something unseen.

TIER 3 — DEEP ARCHITECTURE & ECOLOGY

“What invisible forces govern this world?”

Tier 3 is not “advanced.”
It is deep listening — mapping the emotional logic, symbolic architecture, and mythic/ecological forces that shape the story’s entire cosmos.

What Tier 3 might look like:

• labeled internal structures inside characters or forces

• identification of core tensions, wounds, or contradictions

• mapping of negative space (what’s missing, suppressed, or ghosted)

• whole-system patterns (ecological, ritual, ancestral, ideological)

• gravitational centers (explicit or absent)

• symbolic or cosmological architectures

• paradox mapping (“He longs for X but cannot bear what X requires”)

• emotional or thematic weather (recurrence, cycles, storms)

Tier 3 asks:

• What invisible architecture shapes this story?

• What mythic or emotional system governs the characters?

• What unresolved truth radiates through the narrative?

• What is the story trying to become?

Tier 3 is like sensing not just the forest, but the climate, the soil memory, the patterns of migration, the ancestral weather.

A SINGLE STORY MAY SHOW MULTIPLE TIER BEHAVIORS

A map may begin in Tier 1 (“Who is here?”), move into Tier 2 (“What are the orbits?”), and dip briefly into Tier 3 (“What is the missing star this whole world orbits around?”).

This fluidity is a central feature of Mriga Narrative Cartography.