Dramatica Story Theory

Dramatica is Culture Independent

2010-11-09T14:45:00.000-08:00

Op Quads (2 of 2) - Beyond Dramatica

2010-11-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

Mental Relativity & The Mind

2010-11-01T15:59:00.000-07:00

Mental Relativity & The Brain

2010-11-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Introduction to Mental Relativity

2010-11-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Quad, Part 3 - Spirals

2010-10-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

The Quad, Part 2 - Functions

2010-10-21T05:44:00.000-07:00

The Quad, Part 1 - Introduction

2010-10-18T17:54:00.000-07:00

Fractal Psychology 4

2010-10-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Fractal Psychology 3 (Beyond Dramatica)

2010-10-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

Fractal Psychology 2 (Beyond Dramatica)

2010-10-11T23:29:00.000-07:00

Fractal Psychology (Beyond Dramatica)

2010-10-11T12:49:00.000-07:00

Blowing the Story Bubble

2010-10-09T12:38:00.000-07:00

Beyond Dramatica - Scalability & Chaos

2010-10-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

Beyond Dramatica - Scalability

2010-10-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

Audience Reach - Dramatica Story Structure

2010-10-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

Beyond Dramatica - The Psychology Circuit

2010-10-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

Beyond Dramatica 2 - The "Dramatic Circuit"

2010-10-08T16:14:00.000-07:00

Beyond Dramatica 1 - Introduction

2010-10-07T17:40:00.000-07:00

Difinitive Scientific Article on the Dramatica Theory

2010-10-01T10:51:00.001-07:00

Here is a link to the definitive explanation of the Dramatica theory (in PDF) from 1993, that explains all of the key concepts in text and graphics, including descriptions of non-story uses of the psychological model and the functioning of the model in terms of the dramatic circuit created by Potential, Resistance, Current, and Power (Outcome) and its relationship to the prediction of temporal story progression in terms of a quad-based 1 2 3 4 sequence.

http://storymind.com/free-downloads/sa_article.pdf

Check out our new FREE web site for writers!

2010-02-09T07:49:00.001-08:00

This Blog is Moving to a New Location

2009-10-03T10:58:00.000-07:00

Hi, and thanks for stopping by! In order to save time and consolidate our creative efforts, we're moving all future postings to our web site at:

Storymind.com

"Story" - Our Story Structure book from 1991

2009-05-19T14:17:00.001-07:00

No, it's not Robert Mackee's book. This is before that. Back in 1990 we started a book on story structure later to become "Dramatica". In the early days we simply called it "Story". The following PDF file (40 meg) contains the first 20 pages from a draft we were working on in November of 1991.

Click to download the file:

http://storymind.com/dramatica/archive/pdf/10.pdf

My most expansive Dramatica development Doc from the 1990s

2009-05-19T09:59:00.000-07:00

You can download the PDF at:

http://storymind.com/dramatica/archive/pdf/3.pdf

Two articles on "Justification"

2009-05-18T21:38:00.001-07:00

Early articles describing the mechanisms by which we justify and rationalize.

Download in PDF format:

1 - Justification

2 - Justification

Dramatica Theory Development Notebook

2009-05-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to the Dramatica Theory Development Notebook I kept in the 90s when we were moving beyond Dramatica to more advanced areas

My Dramatica Development Notebook

Origins of the Dramatica Theory

2009-05-07T07:39:00.000-07:00

Many people have asked how we came up with the Dramatica Theory. Well, it didn't happen all at once. In fact, it was a three year full-time effort, 8 hours a day. And the theory we now have is quite different than the concepts with which we started.

In going through my archives, I just discovered four hours of recordings we made in 1991 to document our very first attempt at a "complete" theory - kind of a unified field theory of story. Here are all four hours of audio in mp3 formt, divided into 8 parts. Enjoy!

Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 1 of 8
Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 2 of 8
Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 3 of 8
Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 4 of 8

Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 5 of 8

Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 6 of 8
Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 7 of 8
Origins of the Dramatica Theory - Part 8 of 8

Download Lost Recording of Dramatica Theory Development

2009-05-06T19:06:00.001-07:00

From October 30, 1991 - A lost audio recording of Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley discussing their work as they develop the origins of the Dramatica theory of story. Click to listen or download.

10-30-91 Dramatica Development Part 1

10-30-91 Dramatica Development Part 2

The Story Mind (free download ebook)

2009-05-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Here's the first 27 pages of a book in process that I'm writing about the Story Mind concept and how to apply it in your writing.

Just thought I'd share it since it may be years before I get around to finishing it:

Here's the download link:

The Story Mind - Download in PDF

Storymind Basics 5

2009-05-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

Returning to Star Wars, we can see the elements at work in each of the eight Archetypes:

Name Archetype Internal External

Luke Skywalker Protagonist Consider Pursue

Empire Antagonist Non-Consideration Prevent

Princess Leia Reason Logic Controlled

Chewbacca Emotion Feeling Uncontrolled

Obi Wan Guardian Conscience Help

Darth Vader Contagonist Temptation Hinder

Droids Sidekick Faith Support

Han Solo Skeptic Disbelief Oppose

Beginning with Luke, he has taken it upon himself to Consider

Let's get practical for a moment and build some characters using archetypes. Although the names and description of most of these archetypes are no doubt familiar to you, an exact definition of their functions in story structure may not be. In fact, if you ask any group of authors to define each of these characters by their role in a story, you are likely to get such a range of different descriptions that some are actually contradictory. In other words, most everyone has a "feel" for these archetypes, but few have an exact understanding of them.

Moreover, even if two authors agree on a definition, they often use a different name for that archetype. For example, the terms "Protagonist," "Main Character," "Central Character," and "Hero," are often used interchangeably, sometimes even by the same author, when in fact, each is a completely different dramatic attribute.

The Main Character represents the audience position in the story, from where they experience the pathos first hand. In our own minds, the Main Character represents our sense of self - essentially, where we are coming from. Every Story Mind must also have a sense of self, otherwise, the audience only comes to the story from the outside looking in, as if it were something outside themselves, and therefore they never empathize with any of the characters in the story.

The Main Character provides the audience a place to stand on the inside. And, just as with our own minds, where we are coming from may change with the situation and/or with with issue in question. So, we may spend varying amounts of time looking through the eyes of any number of characters in our story.

Still, there is always one character that feels like the "Main" character. What is it that makes this character feel special? As we shall soon see with our archetypes, each of the elements of character represents a different kind of concern - a different area of consideration in a complete map of the mind. One of these issues is the "message issue" of the story, the human quality around which the story's moral revolves. The character who contains that element represents that issue. So when we look through that character's eyes, we are standing at ground zero of the story's argument. It is this outlook which is being questioned in the story, the one that the author is trying to prove is better (or worse) than all the other approaches to the problem. Simply, that is why the Main Character feels so important, even if we actually spend more time looking through the eyes of other characters.

The character through whose perspective is give the most time or attention in the story is the Central Character. Notice I wrote "time or attention" rather than just "time." The impact of a character is not due solely to screen time in a movie or number of pages in a novel. It is also dependent upon how strongly that character is drawn. It is the combination of the amount of exposure to a character and the intensity with which the author describes the character that determine its overall impact on the audience.

This concept is well-known in psychology, and they even have a name for it: Temporal and Spatial Summation. Simply put, it means that your response to the world is partly built on a life-time of experience and partly on those fleeting but intense moments that will live forever in your memory. (In fact, even the neurons of the brain respond to the collective energy of repeated exposure to the same information over and over again and to the sudden exposure to very intense momentary information.)

Just as the functioning of the brain's neurology is represented fractally in the mind's psychology, so too is it represented in the characters (and in fact in all the dramatics) of the Story Mind.

So, the terms "Main Character" and "Central Character" do not mean the same thing at all. Still, the player in a story that stands on the crucial issue is often given the most "play" by an author, and is therefore the Central Character as well as being Main. I just doesn't necessarily have to be that way. One character could be the "message character" and another the one who is most intense.

It should also be noted that you might present all of your characters in an equally intense manner. Who then is Central? As it happens, the term "Central" is not really about a single character, but is the measurement of how impactful on the audience each character is compared to the others. It is not a wasted question to ask of each character in a first draft you have written, "How Central is he (or she)?" The answer can give you a good idea how your audience's attention and empathy will be distributed.

Just being Central does not mean you are Main, and vice versa. In the human mind, and therefore in the Story Mind as well, we sometimes adopt a point of view looking at things from that perspective. We also look internally at our own attributes without necessarily adopting that outlook . The most important character whose point of view we share (the one possessing the trait at the heart of the message) is Main. The most important character whom we observe (the one most strongly drawn by the author) is Central.

When you have a Main Character who is also the Central Character, you have the beginnings of the traditional "Hero," who we will continue to explore in a moment. But first, what of the Protagonist? The Protagonist is the character who drives the plot forward. Note that while the Main Character is dealing with the judgmental aspects of the story's message regarding a particular issue or quality of human nature, the Protagonist is dealing with the practical issues of trying to achieve the story's Goal.

As with Main and Central, the Protagonist represents an aspect of the mind: our initiative. Within each of us is a drive to shake up the status quo, to make things different (for good/benefit or for bad/detriment). It doesn't matter if that drive is benevolently or malevolently applied. It is just the drive itself that the Protagonist represents.

You'll note that in the list of eight archetypes above, they are arranged in pairs, each associated with its most antithetical match. Reason is most directly offset to Emotion, and so on. And, as expected, Protagonist is set against Antagonist.

The Antagonist represents that force within ourselves that seeks hold things back or prevent them from happening WHETHER GOOD OR BAD. Note that in a structural sense, neither Protagonist nor Antagonist (nor the other six archetypes) are absolutely associated with any moral imperative, with right or wrong, kind or mean, positive or negative intent. Protagonist and Antagonist represent only our drive to make something happen and our drive to keep things as they are.

This concept is likely quite different than what you have encountered before, but it is absolutely essential to separating the function of a character in a story's structure from the moral judgment of the author.

When a character is made to appear to be moralistically correct or righteous, it is the author's opinion of the character's action, and is not directly dependent on whether the character is trying to instigate something or to block something.

Where then do the notions of right and wrong bear on the nature of characters? This occurs when we try to fashion a Hero. The stereotypical Hero is the Main Character who is also the Central Character, the Protagonist, AND is on the side of Good. His counterpart, the Villain, is the Influence Character (more about this concept later), who is also a Central Character (the second most impactful), the Antagonist, and is on the side of Evil.

Those other characters who are on the side of "right" are the "Good Guys" and those on the side of "wrong" are the "Bad Guys." And, of course, Good Guys can fall from grace and Bad Guys can be redeemed.

By separately defining Main Character, Central Character, and Protagonist, we have now opened up a whole world of possibilities for creating far less stereotypical characters that the standard Hero and Villian.

For example, suppose we have a character who is Main, Central, and Protagonist, but Bad to the bone. This character will stand at ground zero of the story's moral issue, because he is Main. He will also be the most strongly drawn and memorable character because he is Central. He will be the character who drives the plot forward as Protagonist. But, because he is Bad (moralistically) he will be an "Anti-Hero."

Or, a character might be Main, Central, and Good, but be an Antagonist. A well-known example of this is James Bond. It is the "Villian" of the story that has the agenda, instigates things, and tries to achieve a goal. Bond's function is to stop the Bad Guy, so, by definition, Bond is an Antagonist.

It is hard to disassociate the labels of Good and Bad from Protagonist and Antagonist, but doing so allows one to break out of formula ruts and to investigate a wealth of sound, new character types.

Returning to our list of eight archetypes,

In summary, if you have only been creating Heros and Villians, you
ve been severely limiting your storytelling opportunities.

Storymind Basics 4

2009-05-02T13:35:00.001-07:00

Archetypal Characters in Star Wars
Describing archetypes conceptually has its place, but it is much easier to get a feel for them in an actual story. One of the best examples of archetypal characters can be found in the original Star Wars movie, "Episode IV - a New Hope." It should be noted that these arechetypes are NOT maintained in any of the sequals or sequals.
In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is the Protagonist, for he is the one driven by initiative. Although it might appear at first that Darth Vader is the Antagonist, it is actually the Empire itself, in the form of the Gran Mof Tarkin (and all the Storm Troopers) that seeks to maintain the status quo (its own totalitarian hold on the galaxy).
The reason Darth seems to be the Antagonist is that he is the first of the "bad guys" we see. He enters with his flowing, black robes, and is clearly the leader of the evil minions. But, this is just the opening teaser of the story. Once the main plot gets going, Darth is relegated (in this first movie) to the role of glorified henchman.
Darh, in fact, is the Contagonist - the Temptation of the Dark Side of the Force - and the opposite of Obi Wan Kenobi's representation of Conscience.
Princess Leia is the cold force of Reason, the counterpart of the Emotional Chewbacca.
And finally, where the Droids are the faithful supporters or Sidekicks, the Skeptic is Han Solo (who doesn't believe in the Force, and verbally opposes every plan with which he is presented.
Again, the differences between the Droids' personalities and the bickering between them is part of a minor sub-plot. But, in the main plot, they function together as joint sidekicks.
In practice, very few stories use archetypal characters exclusively. A frequent method is to employ a mix of both archetypal and Complex characters. A good example of this technique can be seen in "The Wizard of Oz."
In the cast of Archetypal characters, Dorothy (like Luke) is the initiating Protagonist. Glinda, the good witch, fills Obi Wan's role as the helpful force of Conscience. Toto is the standard Sidekick, balanced by the Skeptical, doubting, Cowardly Lion.
The remaining principal characters (Scarecrow, Tin Man, Wicked Witch, and the Wizard himself) are close to being archetypes, but actually "swap" some elements among them that make them mmore complex. The remaining archetypes from which they will draw are Reason, Emotion, Antagonist, and Contagonist.
Although the Scarecrow (who always has a plan) might appear at first glance to be the equivalent of Leia's Reason archetype, he differs in that Leia is exceendingly controlled in her physical activities, whereas the Scarecrow is frenetic and uncontrolled (more like Chewbacca).
Similarly, though the Tin Man (who crys and rusts himself) seems to be the Emotion archetype like Chewbacca, externally, he is controlled like Leia.
It is almost as if the Scarecrow is internally like Leia, and externally like Chewbacca, whereas the Tin Man is just the reverse! In fact, we are on the verge of seeing how Archetypes are made up smaller elements of character which can be combined in different ways.
The Reason Archetype (as illustrated by Princess Leia) uses Logic internally, and is Contolled externally. The two elements work hand in hand as members of the same family, each a different spin on the same basic approach to problem solving. The Emotion Archteype (as illustrated by Chewbacca) is driven by Feelings internally, and is Uncontrolled externally.
The Scarecrow takes the internal quality of Logic from the Reason archetype, but matches it with the exterenal trait of Uncontrolled from the Emotion archetype. In the same manner, the Tin Man posseses Emotion's internal quality of Feeling and pairs it with Reason's external Control.
This "swap" makes Scarecrow and Tin Man each half of one archetype and half of another. We note that each character still has one internal and one external characteristic, just like the archetypes, but "flipped." As it turns out, this is not the only way to split an archetype.
The Wicked Witch and the Wizard also swap elements from the Antagonist and Contagonist, but not in the same way. The Antagonist, externally, tries to Prevent the Protagonist from upsetting the status quo. It's internal equivalent is Non-Consideration (simply, don't even think about it!) The Contagonist, internally, represents Temptation and externally is the fly in the ointment or the Hinderer.
In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch gets both external elements and the Wizard takes both internal ones. So, the Witch tries to Prevent Dorothy (the Protagonist) from fulfilling her quest with the Ruby slippers, and also gums up the works whenever she can, just to make things more difficult and discouraging (i.e., the apple trees and scaring the travellers with fire).
In contrast, the fearsome Wizard presents the force of Non-Consideration (put it out of your mind), and also represents Temptation. The Wizard as Tempation? This is most clearly illustrated when tells Dorothy the only way to get her back to Kansas is if he takes her there himself in his balloon. Clearly, if Dorothy returned by balloon, she would never learn the lesson that "There's no place like home" and that she had the power all along.
As we shall see, Archetypal characters are made up of more that just two elements, internal and external. The point of the moment is that Archetypal characters and Complex Characters share the same elements, just in different combinations.
For now, let's consider a complete breakdown of the internal and external elements of the eight archetypes:
Archetype Internal External
Protagonist Consider Pursue
Antagonist Non_Consideration Prevent
Reason Logic Controlled
Emotion Feeling Uncontrolled
Guardian Conscience Help
Contagonist Temptation Hinder
Sidekick Faith Support
Skeptic Disbelief Oppose
From this table it is easy to see why these characters are Archetypal. The internal and external elements of each archetype are equivalent, and between opposing archetypes are most nearly opposite. So, Archetypal Characters are consistent inside and out, and are equally in opposition to their chief opponant in both realms.
Returning to Star Wars, we can see the elements at work in each of the eight Archetypes:
Name Archetype Internal External
Luke Skywalker Protagonist Consider Pursue
Empire Antagonist Non-Consideration Prevent
Princess Leia Reason Logic Controlled
Chewbacca Emotion Feeling Uncontrolled
Obi Wan Guardian Conscience Help
Darth Vader Contagonist Temptation Hinder
Droids Sidekick Faith Support
Han Solo Skeptic Disbelief Oppose
Beginning with Luke, he has taken it upon himself to Consider
Let's get practical for a moment and build some characters using archetypes. Although the names and description of most of these archetypes are no doubt familiar to you, an exact definition of their functions in story structure may not be. In fact, if you ask any group of authors to define each of these characters by their role in a story, you are likely to get such a range of different descriptions that some are actually contradictory. In other words, most everyone has a "feel" for these archetypes, but few have an exact understanding of them.
Moreover, even if two authors agree on a definition, they often use a different name for that archetype. For example, the terms "Protagonist," "Main Character," "Central Character," and "Hero," are often used interchangeably, sometimes even by the same author, when in fact, each is a completely different dramatic attribute.
The Main Character represents the audience position in the story, from where they experience the pathos first hand. In our own minds, the Main Character represents our sense of self - essentially, where we are coming from. Every Story Mind must also have a sense of self, otherwise, the audience only comes to the story from the outside looking in, as if it were something outside themselves, and therefore they never empathize with any of the characters in the story.
The Main Character provides the audience a place to stand on the inside. And, just as with our own minds, where we are coming from may change with the situation and/or with with issue in question. So, we may spend varying amounts of time looking through the eyes of any number of characters in our story.
Still, there is always one character that feels like the "Main" character. What is it that makes this character feel speical? As we shall soon see with our archetypes, each of the elements of character represents a different kind of concern - a different area of consideration in a complete map of the mind. One of these issues is the "message issue" of the story, the human quality around which the story's moral revolves. The character who contains that element represents that issue. So when we look through that character's eyes, we are standing at ground zero of the story's argument. It is this outlook which is being questioned in the story, the one that the author is trying to prove is better (or worse) than all the other approaches to the problem. Simply, that is why the Main Character feels so important, even if we actually spend more time looking through the eyes of other characters.
The character through whose perspective is give the most time or attention in the story is the Central Character. Notice I wrote "time or attentian" rather than just "time." The impact of a character is not due solely to screen time in a movie or number of pages in a novel. It is also dependent upon how strongly that character is drawn. It is the combination of the amount of exposure to a character and the intensity with which the author describes the character that deteremine its overall impact on the audience.
This concept is well-known in psychology, and they even have a name for it: Temporal and Spatial Summation. Simply put, it means that your response to the world is partly built on a life-time of experience and partly on those fleeting but intense moments that will live forever in your memory. (In fact, even the neurons of the brain respond to the collective energy of repeated exposure to the same information over and over again and to the sudden exposure to very intense momentary information.)
Just as the functioning of the brain's neurology is represented fractally in the mind's psychology, so too is it represented in the characters (and in fact in all the dramatics) of the Story Mind.
So, the terms "Main Character" and "Central Character" do not mean the same thing at all. Still, the player in a story that stands on the crucial issue is often given the most "play" by an author, and is therefore the Central Character as well as being Main. I just doesn't necessarily have to be that way. One character could be the "message character" and another the one who is most intense.
It should also be noted that you might present all of your characters in an equally intense manner. Who then is Central? As it happens, the term "Central" is not really about a single character, but is the measurement of how impactful on the audience each character is compared to the others. It is not a wasted question to ask of each character in a first draft you have written, "How Central is he (or she)?" The answer can give you a good idea how your audience's attention and empathy will be distributed.
Just being Central does not mean you are Main, and vice versa. In the human mind, and therefore in the Story Mind as well, we sometimes adopt a point of view looking at things from that perspective. We also look internally at our own attributes without necessarily adopting that outlook . The most important character whose point of view we share (the one possessing the trait at the heart of the message) is Main. The most important character whome we observe (the one most strongly drawn by the author) is Central.
When you have a Main Character who is also the Central Character, you have the beginnings of the traditional "Hero," who we will continue to explore in a moment. But first, what of the Protagonist? The Protagonist is the character who drives the plot forward. Note that while the Main Character is dealing with the judgmental aspects of the story's message regarding a particular issue or quality of human nature, the Protagonist is dealing with the practical issues of trying to achieve the story's Goal.
As with Main and Central, the Protagonist represents an aspect of the mind: our initiative. Within each of us is a drive to shake up the status quo, to make things different (for good/benefit or for bad/detriment). It doesn't matter if that drive is benevolently or malevolently applied. It is just the drive itself that the Protagonist represents.
You'll note that in the list of eight archetypes above, they are arranged in pairs, each associated with its most antithetical match. Reason is most directly offset to Emotion, and so on. And, as expected, Protagonist is set against Antagonist.
The Antagonist represents that force within ourselves that seeks hold things back or prevent them from happening WHETHER GOOD OR BAD. Note that in a structural sense, neither Protagonist nor Antagonist (nor the other six archetypes) are absolutely associated with any moral imperative, with right or wrong, kind or mean, positive or negative intent. Protagonist and Antagonist represent only our drive to make something happen and our drive to keep things as they are.
This concept is likely quite different than what you have encountered before, but it is absolutely essential to separating the function of a character in a story's structure from the moral judgement of the author.
When a character is made to appear to be moralistically correct or righteous, it is the author's opinion of the character's action, and is not directly dependent on whether the character is trying to instigate something or to block something.
Where then do the notions of right and wrong bear on the nature of characters? This occurs when we try to fashion a Hero. The stereotypical Hero is the Main Character who is also the Central Character, the Protagonist, AND is on the side of Good. His counterpart, the Villian, is the Influence Character (more about this concept later), who is also a Central Character (the second most impactful), the Antagonist, and is on the side of Evil.
Those other characters who are on the side of "right" are the "Good Guys" and those on the side of "wrong" are the "Bad Guys." And, of course, Good Guys can fall from grace and Bad Guys can be redeemed.
By separately defining Main Character, Central Character, and Protagonist, we have now opened up a whole world of possiblities for creating far less stereotypical characters that the standard Hero and Villian.
For example, suppose we have a character who is Main, Central, and Protagonist, but Bad to the bone. This character will stand at ground zero of the story's moral issue, because he is Main. He will also be the most strongly drawn and memorable character because he is Central. He will be the character who drives the plot forward as Protagonist. But, because he is Bad (moralistically) he will be an "Anti-Hero."
Or, a character might be Main, Central, and Good, but be an Antagonist. A well-known example of this is James Bond. It is the "Villian" of the story that has the agenda, instigates things, and tries to achieve a goal. Bond's function is to stop the Bad Guy, so, by definition, Bond is an Antagonist.
It is hard to disassociate the labels of Good and Bad from Protagonist and Antagonist, but doing so allows one to break out of formula ruts and to investigate a wealth of sound, new character types.
Returning to our list of eight archetypes,
In summary, if you have only been creating Heros and Villians, youve been severly limiting your storytelling opportunities.

Storymind Basics 3

2009-05-02T13:34:00.001-07:00

The Elements of Character

In the Story Mind, characters represent different facets of the human psyche. Archetypal characters illustrate broad personality traits whereas more Complex characters illustrate combinations of specific human qualities.

When a story seeks to explore overall aspects of human nature, it is best populated with Archetypal characters. A story that delves into specific attributes requires the use of Complex characters.

Just as with the personality of a real individual, a single story is usually comprised of a mixture of both broad, Arthetypal traits and and complex attributes as well.

In fact, Archetypal and Complex characters are all made up from the same essential elements, just as real people all possess the same palette of emotions and componants of reason. It is the way we put the pieces together that determines our personalities as individuals, and the same is true for characters.

The Archetypal arrangement simply groups a whole family of similar traits into a single character, while Complex characters are composed of conglomerations of both similar and dissimilar elements.

Grouping elements together creates the particular chemistry for each character, much as the elements in physics combine to create chemical compounds. And, just as in chemistry, mixing certain elements will produce stable or unstable characters, and some elements may not mix at all, or at least not without a suitable dramatic catalyst.

So what are these elements of character? Since Complex arrangements of elements are almost infinite in their variety, it is easiest to begin with the Archetypes and then break them down into their componants to discover the "Periodic Table of Character Elements."

The Eight Archetypal Characters

For the moment, we shall propose that there are eight Archetypal characters. Later, when we have a better understanding of arhcetypes, we shall expand our list of archetypes to sixty-four! (Note, the number of archetypes is not arbitrary, but reflects very specific qualities of the human mind, as represented by the Story Mind.)

The eight Archetyapl characters are:

Protagonist - Antagonist
Reason - Emotion
Guardian - Contagonist
Sidekick - Skeptic

Protagonist drives the plot forward.
Antagonist tries to stop him.

Reason looks at the practical side
Emotion reacts from the heart.

Guardian tries to keep things on the True Path.
Contagonist tries to lead things astray.

Sidekick is the faithful supporter
Skeptic is the doubting opposer

The archetypes provide a kind of short hand for an author. Rather than having to illustrate each and every element independently, one by one, the author can simply illustrate a whole family of similar elements at a time, thereby saving pages and/or screentime.

When an author identifies a character as an archetype, the audience assumes that however the character fairs reflects on all of the contained elements as a group. So, since each element represents a different path (attitude or approach) that might be taken to resolve the problem, valuable "media real estate" is saved for other issues the author wishes to explore.

For example, in an action movie, an author might use archetypes to save time for chases and pyrotechnics. In a deep thematic novel, and author might employ archetypes to simplify the characters so fine nuances of the moral issues can be explored without distraction.

Any story that does not at least explore these eight essential facets of the Story Mind is leaving out some of the ways human beings evaluate and grapple with problems. Such a story's argument would be incomplete, and to an audience this would feel as if there were holes in the story's structure.

Of course, some stories have fewer characters that eight. In such stories, all of the same underlying elements must be present, but they will not be combined in an archetypal manner. In other words, at least some of the characters will have more than eight elements, meaning that they will contain qualities from at least two different broad personality traits. As long as all the essential elements are accounted for, stories can have as few as one single character.

In contrast, a character might only have a single element and still be functional dramatically. A character with fewer elements than an archetype, even if they are all in the same family, is also called complex, because they must be described for the audience, element by element. So a character with onlyone element would, in fact, be considered Complex.

Archetypes work with an audience because they represent the eight basic human drives we all use when trying to resolve a problem or better our situation. As individuals, we all have a sense of initiative (Protagonist) and a tendency to maintain the status quo (Antagonist). We use our Intellect (Reason) and our feelings (Emotion). We are influenced by our Conscience (Guardian) and by Temptation (Contagonist). We believe in ourselves (Sidekick) but may also be unsure of ourselves (Skeptic).

These eight qualities (Initiative, Reticency, Intellect, Feelings, Conscience, Temptation, Confidence, and Doubt) are the cornerstones of human thought, and the archetypes that represent them are the cornerstones of the Story Mind.

The first four of these archetypes (Protagonist, Antagonist, Reason, and Emotion) are called "Driver Characters" because they set the course and speed for the journey. The second four (Guardian, Contagonist, Sidekick, and Skeptic) are called "Passenger Characters" because they influence the Drivers, much like "back seat drivers."

Although the names and description of most of these archetypes are no doubt familiar to you, an exact definition of their functions in story structure may not be. In fact, if you ask any group of authors to define each of these characters by their role in a story, you are likely to get such a range of different descriptions that some are actually contradictory. In other words, most everyone has a "feel" for these archetypes, but few have an exact understanding of them.

Moreover, even if two authors agree on a definition, they often use a different name for that archetype. For example, the terms "Protagonist," "Main Character," "Central Character," and "Hero," are often used interchangeably, sometimes even by the same author, when in fact, each is a completely different dramatic attribute.

The Main Character represents the audience position in the story, from where they experience the pathos first hand. In our own minds, the Main Character represents our sense of self - essentially, where we are coming from. Every Story Mind must also have a sense of self, otherwise, the audience only comes to the story from the outside looking in, as if it were something outside themselves, and therefore they never empathize with any of the characters in the story.

The Main Character provides the audience a place to stand on the inside. And, just as with our own minds, where we are coming from may change with the situation and/or with with issue in question. So, we may spend varying amounts of time looking through the eyes of any number of characters in our story.

Still, there is always one character that feels like the "Main" character. What is it that makes this character feel speical? As we shall soon see with our archetypes, each of the elements of character represents a different kind of concern - a different area of consideration in a complete map of the mind. One of these issues is the "message issue" of the story, the human quality around which the story's moral revolves. The character who contains that element represents that issue. So when we look through that character's eyes, we are standing at ground zero of the story's argument. It is this outlook which is being questioned in the story, the one that the author is trying to prove is better (or worse) than all the other approaches to the problem. Simply, that is why the Main Character feels so important, even if we actually spend more time looking through the eyes of other characters.

The character through whose perspective is give the most time or attention in the story is the Central Character. Notice I wrote "time or attentian" rather than just "time." The impact of a character is not due solely to screen time in a movie or number of pages in a novel. It is also dependent upon how strongly that character is drawn. It is the combination of the amount of exposure to a character and the intensity with which the author describes the character that deteremine its overall impact on the audience.

This concept is well-known in psychology, and they even have a name for it: Temporal and Spatial Summation. Simply put, it means that your response to the world is partly built on a life-time of experience and partly on those fleeting but intense moments that will live forever in your memory. (In fact, even the neurons of the brain respond to the collective energy of repeated exposure to the same information over and over again and to the sudden exposure to very intense momentary information.)

Just as the functioning of the brain's neurology is represented fractally in the mind's psychology, so too is it represented in the characters (and in fact in all the dramatics) of the Story Mind.

So, the terms "Main Character" and "Central Character" do not mean the same thing at all. Still, the player in a story that stands on the crucial issue is often given the most "play" by an author, and is therefore the Central Character as well as being Main. I just doesn't necessarily have to be that way. One character could be the "message character" and another the one who is most intense.

It should also be noted that you might present all of your characters in an equally intense manner. Who then is Central? As it happens, the term "Central" is not really about a single character, but is the measurement of how impactful on the audience each character is compared to the others. It is not a wasted question to ask of each character in a first draft you have written, "How Central is he (or she)?" The answer can give you a good idea how your audience's attention and empathy will be distributed.

Just being Central does not mean you are Main, and vice versa. In the human mind, and therefore in the Story Mind as well, we sometimes adopt a point of view looking at things from that perspective. We also look internally at our own attributes without necessarily adopting that outlook . The most important character whose point of view we share (the one possessing the trait at the heart of the message) is Main. The most important character whome we observe (the one most strongly drawn by the author) is Central.

When you have a Main Character who is also the Central Character, you have the beginnings of the traditional "Hero," who we will continue to explore in a moment. But first, what of the Protagonist? The Protagonist is the character who drives the plot forward. Note that while the Main Character is dealing with the judgmental aspects of the story's message regarding a particular issue or quality of human nature, the Protagonist is dealing with the practical issues of trying to achieve the story's Goal.

As with Main and Central, the Protagonist represents an aspect of the mind: our initiative. Within each of us is a drive to shake up the status quo, to make things different (for good/benefit or for bad/detriment). It doesn't matter if that drive is benevolently or malevolently applied. It is just the drive itself that the Protagonist represents.

You'll note that in the list of eight archetypes above, they are arranged in pairs, each associated with its most antithetical match. Reason is most directly offset to Emotion, and so on. And, as expected, Protagonist is set against Antagonist.

The Antagonist represents that force within ourselves that seeks hold things back or prevent them from happening WHETHER GOOD OR BAD. Note that in a structural sense, neither Protagonist nor Antagonist (nor the other six archetypes) are absolutely associated with any moral imperative, with right or wrong, kind or mean, positive or negative intent. Protagonist and Antagonist represent only our drive to make something happen and our drive to keep things as they are.

This concept is likely quite different than what you have encountered before, but it is absolutely essential to separating the function of a character in a story's structure from the moral judgement of the author.

When a character is made to appear to be moralistically correct or righteous, it is the author's opinion of the character's action, and is not directly dependent on whether the character is trying to instigate something or to block something.

Where then do the notions of right and wrong bear on the nature of characters? This occurs when we try to fashion a Hero. The stereotypical Hero is the Main Character who is also the Central Character, the Protagonist, AND is on the side of Good. His counterpart, the Villian, is the Influence Character (more about this concept later), who is also a Central Character (the second most impactful), the Antagonist, and is on the side of Evil.

Those other characters who are on the side of "right" are the "Good Guys" and those on the side of "wrong" are the "Bad Guys." And, of course, Good Guys can fall from grace and Bad Guys can be redeemed.

By separately defining Main Character, Central Character, and Protagonist, we have now opened up a whole world of possiblities for creating far less stereotypical characters that the standard Hero and Villian.

For example, suppose we have a character who is Main, Central, and Protagonist, but Bad to the bone. This character will stand at ground zero of the story's moral issue, because he is Main. He will also be the most strongly drawn and memorable character because he is Central. He will be the character who drives the plot forward as Protagonist. But, because he is Bad (moralistically) he will be an "Anti-Hero."

Or, a character might be Main, Central, and Good, but be an Antagonist. A well-known example of this is James Bond. It is the "Villian" of the story that has the agenda, instigates things, and tries to achieve a goal. Bond's function is to stop the Bad Guy, so, by definition, Bond is an Antagonist.

It is hard to disassociate the labels of Good and Bad from Protagonist and Antagonist, but doing so allows one to break out of formula ruts and to investigate a wealth of sound, new character types.

Returning to our list of eight archetypes,

In summary, if you have only been creating Heros and Villians, you
ve been severly limiting your storytelling opportunities.

Storymind Basics 2

2009-05-02T13:33:00.001-07:00

Your Story's Mind

To an audience, every story has a distinct personality, almost as if it were a person rather than a work of fiction. As with the people we meet, some stories are memorable and others we forget as soon as they are gone. Some are the life of the party, but get stale rather quickly. Some initially strike us as dull, but become familiar to the point we look forward to seeing them again.

When we first encounter a person or a story, we tend to classify it in broad categories. We might label someone as a bully, a nerd, or a money-grubbing shark. Similarly, we might label a story as a Romance, an Adventure, or a situation comedy. As with the people we meet, the more time we spend with stories the less we see them as generalized types and the more we see the traits that define them as individuals.

Some stories might like to scare us, some to make us laugh. One story might be interested in the Civil War while another is heavily into science fiction. One story might be slow going and one charged with nervous energy.

The personality of a story is created by the combination the subject matter and the manner in which it is expressed. It is the personality of a story that defines its genre.

Like real people, stories suffer from conflicting drives, represented by the characters. They struggle with conflicting vlaue standards, as illustrated in the theme. And, they try various methods to resolve their troubles, documented in the plot.

In short, characters are the motivations of the Story Mind, theme its reasessment of values, plot its problem solving techniques, and genre its overall personality.

When an audience sits down with a book, in a theater, or in front of a television, it is sitting down with a person to make conversation. In fact, it is a one-sided conversation. Your story must have a personality intriguing enough to hold the audience's interest until the show is over.

Is your story a good enough conversationalist, or does it need to go back to finishing school with another draft before it is ready for prime time? You have days, months, perhaps even years to prepare your story to exude enough charisma to sustain just one conversation. How disappointing is it to an audience when a story's personality is plain and simply dull?

As an author, thinking of your story as a person can actually help you write the story. All too often, authors get mired in the details of a story, trying to cram everything in and make all the pieces fit.

Characters are seen only as individuals, so they often unintentionally overlap each other's dramatic functions. The genre is depersonalized so that the author trying to write within a genre ends up fashioning a formula story and breaking no new ground. The plot becomes an exercise in logistics, and the theme emerges as a black and white pontification that hits the audience like a brick.

Now imagine that you are sitting down to dinner with your story. For convenience, we'll call your story "Joe." You know that Joe is something of an authority on a subject in which your are interested. You offer him an appetizer, and between bites of pate, he tells you of his adventures and experiences.

Over soup, he describes what was driving him at various points of his endeavors. These are your characters, and they must all be aspects of Joe's personality. There can be no characters that would not naturally co-exist in a single individual. You listen carefully to make sure Joe is not a split-personality, for such a story would seem fragmented as if it were of two or more minds.

While munching on a spinach salad, Joe describes his efforts to resolve the problems that grew out of his journey. This is your plot, and all reasonable efforts need to be covered. You note what he is saying, just an an audience will, to be sure there are no flaws in his logic. There can also be no missing approaches that obviously should have been tried, or Joe will sound like an idiot.

Over the main course of poached quail eggs and Cohoe salmon (on a bed of grilled seasonal greens), Joe illucidates the moral dilemmas he faced, how he considered what was good and bad, better or worse. This is your theme, and all sides of the issues must be explored. If Joe is one-sided in this regard, he will come off as bigoted or closed-minded. Rather than being swayed by his conclusions, you (and an audience) will find him boorish and will disregard his passionate prognositications.

Dessert is served and you make time, between spoonfuls of chocolate soufle (put in the oven before the first course to ready by the end of dinner) to consider your dinner guest. Was he entertaining? Did he make sense? Did he touch on topical issues with light-handed thoughtfulness? Did he seem centers, together, and focused? And most important, would you invite him to dinner again? If you can't answer yes to each of these questions, you need to send your story back to finishing school, for he is not ready to entertain an audience.

Your story is your child. You give birth to it, you nurture it, you have hopes for it. You try to instill your values, to give it the tools it needs to succeed and to point it in the right direction. But, like all children, there comes a time where you have to let go of who you wanted it to be and to love and accept who it has become.

When your story entertains an audience, you will not be there to explain its faults or compensate for its shortcomings. You must be sure your child is prepared to stand alone, to do well for itself and to not embarassed you. If you are not sure, you must send it back to school.

Personifying a story allows an author to step back from the role of creator and to experience the story as an audience will. This is not to say that each and every detail in oot importat, but rather that the details are no more or less important than the overall impact of the story as a whole. This overview is one of the benefits of looking at a story as a Story Mind.

But what of the details? After all, the overview only gets one in touch with the big picture, yet every big picture is made through hundreds of brush strokes.

In the sections that follow, we'll begin to psychoanalyze the Story Mind to learn the specific details about its drives (characters), value standards (theme), problem solving techniques (plot), and overall personality (genre). As we identify the Elements of Story Structure, we will explore how to use them to construct complete blueprints for our own stories that are complete, sound, and provide form without formula.

Story Mind Basics 1

2009-05-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

What if your story had a mind of it's own, as if it were a character unto itself with its own personality, its own psychology?

Suppose your characters were seen as the conflicting drives of this "Story Mind," theme as its troubled value standards, plot as its efforts to resolve its problems, and genre as the Story Mind's overall personality?

More importantly, what if you could psychoanalyze your story's mind to learn who your characters should be, what thematic issues you should explore, how your plot should unfold, and what unique twists define your story's genre?

In this book you'll learn about all facets of the Story Mind. You'll find out how to create a personality profile for your story and to use it as a map to exactly what your story is about and what happens in it.

STRUCTURE vs. PASSION

The Story Mind approach to story is a structural approach. But no one reads a book or goes to a movie to enjoy a good structure. No author writes because he is driven to create a sound structure. Rather, audiences and authors come to opposite sides of a story because of their passions - the author driven to express his, and the audience hoping to ignite its own.

As an audience, what draws us to a story in the first place is our attraction to the subject matter and the style. We might love a taut mystery, a fulfilling romance, or a chilling horror story. We might be intrigued by the potential applications of a new discovery of science, the exploration of newly rediscovered ancient city, or the life of a celebrity.

As an author what brings us to write a story may also be a clever concept for an action story, a bit of dialog, a notion for a character, a setting, time period, or a clever twist of plot. Or, we might have a deep-seated need to express a childhood experience, work out an irrational fear, or make a public statement about a social injustice.

No matter what our attraction as audience or author, it is our passions that trigger our imaginations. So why should an author worry about structure? Because passion rides on structure, and if the structure is flawed or even broken, then the passionate expression from author to audience will fall.

When structure is done properly, it is invisible, serving only as the carrier wave that delivers the passion to the audience. But when structure is flawed, it adds static to the flow of emotion, breaking up and possibly scrambling the passion so badly that the audience gets nothing of what the author was sending.

Yet, the attempt to ensure a sound structure is an intellectual pursuit. Questions such as "Who is my Protagonist?" "Where should my story begin?" "What happens in Act Two?" or "What is my message?" force an author to turn away from his passion and embrace logistics instead.

As a result, an author often becomes mired in the nuts and bolts of storytelling, staring at a blank page not because of a lack of inspiration, but because he can't figure out how to make his passion make sense.

Worse, the re-writing process is often grueling and frustrating, forcing the author to accept unwanted changes in the flow of emotion for the sake of logic. So what is an author to do? Is there any way out of this dilemma?

In the pages that follow, you'll discover a new way of writing stories - a method that allows an author to retain his passion even while serving the demands of structure. This system can be used either before you write to know exactly where things will be going or after you write to find and refine the structure already hidden in your passion.

You won't be asked to discard any techniques or approaches you are currently using. Rather, you'll simply be adding to what you already know, to what you are already doing; extending your understanding of how stories really work and how to write them.

So join me on an expedition into the uncharted frontiers of story structure. The risks are low, the potential rewards are great, and all you need to carry with you is your own passion.

Introducing the "Story Mind"

This book is entitled, "The Story Mind." and as described above, the Story Mind is a way of looking at a story as if all the characters were facets of a larger personality, the mind of the Story itself.

To illustrate, imagine that you stepped back from your story far enough that you could no longer identify your characters as individuals. Instead, like a general on a hill watching a battle, you could only see each character by his function:

There's the guy leading the charge - that's the Protagonist. His opponent is the Antagonist. There's the strategist, working out the battle plan - he's the Reason archetype. One soldier is shouting at the pathos and carnage - he's the Emotion archetype.

The structure of stories deals with what makes sense in the big picture. But characters aren't aware of that overview. Just like us, they can only see what is around them and try to make the best decisions based on that limited view. And so characters must also be real people as well, with real drives and real concerns.

Characters, therefore, really have two completely different jobs: They must act according to their own drives and desires and also play a part in the larger mosaic of the story as a whole. The trick is to create a story in which these two purposes work together, not against each other.

As individuals, each character must be fully developed as complete human beings. As cogs in the Great Machine, they must each fulfill a function. So, when we develop our characters we need to stand in their shoes, make them real people, and express ourselves passionately through each of their points of view. But when we develop our story's structure, we must ensure that each character fulfills his, her, or its dramatic purpose in the story at large.

It is that larger purpose that we call the Story Mind. As previously described, the Story Mind is like a Super Character that generates the personality of the overall story itself, as if it were a single, thinking, feeling, person. So, in addition to being complete people, each of our characters also represents a different aspect or facet of a greater character, the Story Mind.

For example, the Reason archetype represents the use of our intellect. The Emotion archetype illustrates the impact of our feelings. Individually as complete characters, they each employ both Reason and Emotion in regard to their own personal issues. But when it comes to the central issue of the story - the message issue that is the essence of what the overall story is about - then one of these two Characters will attempt to deal with that issue solely from a position of Reason and the other solely from the position of Emotion.

This is why we, the audience, see characters simultaneously as real people and also by their dramatic functions, such as Protagonist and Antagonist. Regarding their own concerns, characters are well rounded. Regarding the overall concern of the story as a whole, they are single-minded. Collectively, they describe the conflicting motivations or drives of the Story Mind.

But characters are only part of the story. As we shall see, Plot, Theme, and Genre are represented in the Story Mind as well. For now, suffice it to say that the Story Mind is the character of the story itself.

In a moment, we'll explore each of the archetypal characters and see what aspect of the human mind each represents. Then we'll break them apart into their essential mental componants - the Elements of Character - and learn how to combine these elements in different ways to create the chemistry of characters.

But first, there is an essential question which begs to be answered....

Why a Story Mind?

Before asking any writer to invest his or her time in a concept as different as the Story Mind, it is only fair to provide an explanation of why such a thing should exist. To do this, let us look briefly into the nature of communication between an author and an audience.

When an author tells a tale, he simply describes a series of events that both makes sense and feels right. As long as there are no breaks in the logic and no mis-steps in the emotional progression, the structure of the tale is sound.

Now, from a structural standpoint, it really doesn't matter what the tale is about, who the characters are, or how it turns out. The tale is just a truthful or fictional journey that starts in one situation, travels a straight or twisting path, and ends in another situation.

The meaning of a tale amounts to a statement that if you start from "here," and take "this" path, you'll end up "here." The message of a tale is that a particular path is a good or bad one, depending on whether the ending point is better or worse than the point of departure.

This structure is easily seen in the vast majority of familiar fairy "tales." Tales have been used since the first storytellers practiced their craft. in fact, many of the best selling novels and most popular motion pictures of our own time are simple tales, expertly told.

In a structural sense, tales have power in that they can encourage or discourage audience members from taking particular actions in real life. The drawback of a tale is that it speaks only in regard to that specific path.

But in fact, there are many paths that might be taken from a given point of departure. Suppose an author wants to address those as well, to cover all the alternatives. What if the author wants to say that rather than being just a good or bad path, a particular course of action the best or worst path of all that might have been taken?

Now the author is no longer making a simple statement, but a "blanket" statement. Such a blanket statement provides no "proof" that the path in question is the best or worst, it simply says so. Of course, an audience is not likely to be moved to accept such a bold claim, regardless of how well the tale is told.

In the early days of storytelling, an author related the tale to his audience in person. Should he aspire to wield more power over his audience and elevate his tale to become a blanket statement, the audience would no doubt cry, "Foul!" and demand that he prove it. Someone in the audience might bring up an alternative path that hadn't been included in the tale.

The author might then counter that rebuttal to his blanket statement by describing how the path proposed by the audience was either not as good or better (depending on his desired message) than the path he did include.

One by one, he could disperse any challenges to his tale until he either exhausted the opposition or was overcome by an alternative he couldn't dismiss.

But as soon as stories began to be recorded in media such as song ballads, epic poems, novels, stage plays, screenplays, teleplays, and so on, the author was no longer present to defend his blanket statements.

As a result, some authors opted to stick with simple tales of good and bad, but others pushed the blanket statement tale forward until the art form evolved into the "story."

A story is a much more sophisticated form of communication than a tale, and is in fact a revolutionary leap forward in the ability of an author to make a point. Simply put, when creating a story, and author starts with a tale of good or bad, expands it to a blanket statement of best or worst, and then includes all the reasonable alternatives to the path he is promoting to preclude any counters to his message.

In other words, while a tale is a statement, a story becomes an argument.

Now this puts a huge burden of proof on an author. Not only does he have to make his own point, but he has to prove (within reason) that all opposing points are less valid. Of course, this requires than an author anticipate any objections an audience might raise to his blanket statement. To do this, he must look at the situation described in his story and examine it from every angle anyone might happen to take in regard to that issue.

By incorporating all reasonable (and valid emotional) points of view regarding the story's message in the structure of the story itself, the author has not only defended his argument, but has also included all the points of view the human mind would normally take in examining that central issue. In effect, the structure of the story now represents the whole range of considerations a person would make if fully exploring that issue.

In essence, the structure of the story as a whole now represents a map of the mind's problem solving processes, and (without any intent on the part of the author) has become a Story Mind.

And so, the Story Mind concept is not really all that radical. It is simply a short hand way of describing that all sides of a story must be explored to statisfy an audience. And, and if this is done, the struture of the story takes on the nature of a single character.

Armed with this information we are now prepared to examine the nature of the Story Mind, and to see how we might apply what we discover to meet the demands of a logical structure without sacrificing our passion.

2009-05-02T13:25:00.000-07:00

POINTS OF VIEW

To examine the Story Mind, we need to know how to look at it. If audiences only looked AT stories, then there would only be one point of view from which to see the Story Mind. But the audience not only looks AT stories, but also becomes involved IN them. It follows that there must be more than one way to look at the structure of a story.

In fact, there are four principal points of view that are necessary to fully satisfy the mind of the audience, and each of these is represented in the Story Mind as well. We'll begin with the most obvious and then explore some points of view that many authors fail to include in their structure, leaving serious holes in their stories.

The first point of view is the easiest: the OBJECTIVE view. We've already encountered the Objective View when we described how we might look at a story as if we were a general on hill, watching a battle in the valley below.

From that perspective, we can't identify the characters by name as we are too far removed from the conflict. Instead, we see them by function - the fellow leading the charge or the strategist, to refer to the examples used earlier.

If we could stand outside ourselves and look at our thought processes objectively, we could take that dispassionate perspective and observe the various logistic and emotional forces at work within our minds. Of course, we cannot do this with ourselves. The closest we come is when we pass judgment on others, observing them outside of their own passionate experiences.

We often say things such as, "If I were you, I'd...." More often than not, such comments get an angry reaction because in taking the Objective view, we have completely ignored the personal experiences that we can't see from the outside looking in. That is why our Objective view is dispassionate. It is not that we don't care about the individual, just as a general cares about his troops. But no matter how intently we seek to understand another from the outside, we can never really know what they are experiencing - what they are truly going through.

When it comes to our own minds, it is the Objective view we can never truly see, for we can never truly stand aside from ourselves dispassionately. That, in fact, is one of the principal reasons audiences are attracted to stories (beyond the simple entertainment value). Stories, through their Story Mind structure, provide a projection of our own minds, in a book, on stage, or on the screen, where we can look into our own thought processes from the outside in, made tangible as characters, theme, plot, and genre.

The author is essentially saying, "I have some life experience or some special insight that I can share about the big picture, the larger meaning of life in which we struggle." It is the author's argument that when this Objective view is taken into account, we can learn when we should go against what feels right personally, or when we should ignore the admonitions of others and go with our gut instincts.

So it is from this Objective view of the overall story that we see characters by their functions, such as Protagonist, Antagonist, Reason and Emotion. And each of these archetypal characters represents a broad quality of every human mind. We'll explore each of those characters of the mind soon. But first, what about that passionate internal view?

Returning to the general on the hill, suppose we zoomed down and stood in the shoes of one of the soldiers on the field. Naturally we lose our overview of the grand strategies and movements of the battle as a whole. But we are now intimately involved in the battle itself.

WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND?

You have an idea for a story. In fact, you have lots of little bits and pieces of ideas. But how do you put them together into something that makes sense? Your enthusiasm can carry you so far, but at some point you're going to wonder how to fit everything in and how to figure out what happens next.
Here's how the Story Mind can help. First, ask yourself what your story is about. Don't describe the order of events at this point, just describe the set-up. For example, "My story is about people trapped in a space ship with a monster," or "My story is about a man who lacks compassion."

Like our minds, the Story Mind examines issues in it's environment and issues within itself. So, if your story is about something something like people trapped in a space ship, that's an external issue within the outside universe. But if your story is about a man who lacks compassion, that's an internal issue within a person's mind.

So ask yourself, "Is my story about something external (Universe) or something internal (Mind)?" Of course, every external situation will create and also be affected by people's attitudes. And, every internal attitude will be affected by and lead to various situations. So, every story will have both situations and attitudes which affect each other.

But how do YOU think about your story? Which is more important to you, the external situation or the internal attitudes? Answering this question is the first step in giving your Story Mind a personality. Is your story more concerned with a situation or with an attitude?

Stories that are more concerned with external situations include "The Posiedon Adventure," "The Matrix," and "The Edge."

Stories that are more concerned with internal attitudes include, "A Christmas Carol," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," and "Analyze This."

Characters, Dramatica Style

2009-05-02T09:06:00.001-07:00

Here's an 18 minute mp3 recording of some basic Dramatica character concepts for a program I never got around to completing. Thought I might as well share it with y'all. Hope you find it useful.

Characters, Dramatica Style

(Click to listen, right click to download)

Introducing the Story Mind

2009-05-01T15:56:00.000-07:00

Syllabus from one of my seminars:

Introduction To The Story Mind
Excerpted from “Writing with The Story Mind”
by Melanie Anne Phillips

What if your story had a mind of it's own, as if it were a character unto itself with its own personality, its own psychology?

Suppose your characters were seen as the conflicting drives of this "Story Mind," theme as its troubled value standards, plot as its efforts to resolve its problems, and genre as the Story Mind's overall personality?

More importantly, what if you could psychoanalyze your story's mind to learn who your characters should be, what thematic issues you should explore, how your plot should unfold, and what unique twists define your story's genre?

In this book you'll learn about all facets of the Story Mind. You'll find out how to create a personality profile for your story and to use it as a map to exactly what your story is about and what happens in it.

Structure Vs Passion

The Story Mind approach to story is a structural one. But no one reads a book or goes to a movie to enjoy a good structure. No author writes because he is driven to create a sound structure. Rather, audiences and authors come to opposite sides of a story because of their passions - the author driven to express his, and the audience hoping to ignite its own.

What draws us to a story in the first place is our attraction to the subject matter and the style. As an audience, we might be intrigued by the potential applications of a new discovery of science, the exploration of newly rediscovered ancient city, or the life of a celebrity. We might love a taut mystery, a fulfilling romance, or a chilling horror story.

As an author what inspires us to write a story may be a bit of dialog we heard in a restaurant, a notion for a character, a setting, time period, or a clever twist of plot we’d like to explore. Or, we might have a deep-seated need to express a childhood experience, work out an irrational fear, or make a public statement about a social injustice.

No matter what our attraction as audience or author, it is our passions that trigger our imaginations. So why should an author worry about structure? Because passion rides on structure, and if the structure is flawed or even broken, then the passionate expression from author to audience will fail.

When structure is done properly, it is invisible, serving only as the carrier wave that delivers the passion to the audience. But when structure is flawed, it adds static to the flow of emotion, breaking up and possibly scrambling the passion so badly that the audience gets nothing of what the author was sending.

Yet, the attempt to ensure a sound structure is an intellectual pursuit. Questions such as "Who is my Protagonist?" "Where should my story begin?" "What happens in Act Two?" or "What is my message?" force an author to turn away from his passion and embrace logistics instead.

As a result, an author often becomes mired in the nuts and bolts of storytelling, staring at a blank page not because of a lack of inspiration, but because he can't figure out how to make his passion make sense.

Worse, the re-writing process is often grueling and frustrating, forcing the author to accept unwanted changes in the flow of emotion for the sake of logic. So what is an author to do? Is there any way out of this dilemma?

In the pages that follow, you'll discover a new way of writing stories - a method that allows an author to retain his passion even while serving the demands of structure. This system can be used either before you write to know exactly where things will be going or after you write to find and refine the structure already hidden in your passion.

You won't be asked to discard any techniques or approaches you are currently using. Rather, you'll simply be adding to what you already know, to what you are already doing; extending your understanding of how stories really work and how to write them.

So join me on an expedition into the new world of the Story Mind. The risks are low, the potential rewards are great, and all you need to carry with you is your own passion.

Introducing the "Story Mind"

This book is entitled, "The Story Mind." and as described above, the Story Mind is a way of looking at a story as if all the characters were facets of a larger personality, the mind of the Story itself.

To illustrate, imagine that you stepped back from your story far enough that you could no longer identify your characters as individuals. Instead, like a general on a hill watching a battle, you could only see each character by his function:

There's the guy leading the charge - that's the Protagonist. His opponent is the Antagonist. There's the strategist, working out the battle plan - he's the Reason archetype. One soldier is shouting at the pathos and carnage - he's the Emotion archetype.

The structure of stories deals with what makes sense in the big picture. But characters aren't aware of that overview. Just like us, they can only see what is around them and try to make the best decisions based on that limited view. And so characters must also be real people as well, with real drives and real concerns.

Characters, therefore, have two completely different jobs: They must act according to their own drives and desires and also play a part in the larger mosaic of the story as a whole. The trick is to create a story in which these two purposes work together, not against each other.

As individuals, each character must be fully developed as a complete human being. As cogs in the Great Machine, they must each fulfill a function. So, when we develop our characters we need to stand in their shoes, make them real people, and express ourselves passionately through each of their points of view. But when we develop our story's structure, we must ensure that each character fulfills his, her, or its dramatic purpose in the story at large.

It is that larger purpose that we call the Story Mind. As previously described, the Story Mind is like a Super Character that generates the personality of the overall story itself, as if it were a single, thinking, feeling, person. So, in addition to being complete people, each of our characters also represents a different aspect or facet of a greater character, the Story Mind.

For example, the Reason archetype represents the use of our intellect. The Emotion archetype illustrates the impact of our feelings. Individually as supposedly real people, they each employ both Reason and Emotion in regard to their own personal issues. But when it comes to the central issue of the story - the message issue that is the essence of what the overall story is about - then one of these two Characters will attempt to deal with that issue solely from a position of Reason and the other solely from the position of Emotion.

This is why we, the audience, see characters simultaneously as real people and also by their dramatic functions, such as Protagonist and Antagonist. Regarding their own concerns, characters are well rounded. Regarding the overall concern of the story as a whole, they are single-minded. Collectively, they describe the conflicting motivations or drives of the Story Mind.

But characters are only part of the story. As we shall see, Plot, Theme, and Genre are represented in the Story Mind as well. For now, suffice it to say that the Story Mind is the character of the story itself.

Why a Story Mind?

Before asking any writer to invest his or her time in a concept as different as the Story Mind, it is only fair to provide an explanation of why such a thing should exist. To do this, let us look briefly into the nature of communication between an author and an audience.

Tales vs. Stories

When an author tells a tale, he simply describes a series of events that both makes sense and feels right. As long as there are no breaks in the logic and no mis-steps in the emotional progression, the structure of the tale is sound.

Now, from a structural standpoint, it really doesn't matter what the tale is about, who the characters are, or how it turns out. The tale is just a truthful or fictional journey that starts in one situation, travels a straight or twisting path, and ends in another situation.

The meaning of a tale amounts to a statement that if you start from "here," and take "this" path, you'll end up "there." The message of a tale is that a particular path is a good or bad one, depending on whether the ending point is better or worse than the point of departure and perhaps whether or not the result was worth the journey.

This structure is easily seen in a vast majority of familiar fairy "tales." Tales have been used since the first storytellers practiced their craft. In fact, many of the best selling novels and most popular motion pictures of our own time are simply tales, expertly told.

In a structural sense, tales have power in that they can encourage or discourage audience members from taking particular actions in real life. The drawback of a tale is that it speaks only in regard to that specific path.

But in fact, there are many paths that might be taken from a given point of departure. Suppose an author wants to address those as well, to cover all the alternatives. What if the author wants to say that rather than being just a good or bad path, a particular course of action is the best or worst path of all that might have been taken?

Now the author is no longer making a simple statement, but a "blanket" statement. Such a blanket statement provides no "proof" that the path in question is the best or worst, it simply says so. If the blanket statement reflects popular assumptions, it might be accepted at face value. But, if the blanket statement diverges from conventional wisdom or expectation, an audience is not likely to accept such a bold claim, regardless of how well the tale is told. It will demand to be convinced; it will demand proof.

In the early days of storytelling, an author related his tale to his audience in person. Should he aspire to manipulate his audience by making a blanket statement that conflicted with the norm, the audience would likely cry, "Foul!" and demand that he prove it on the spot.

Someone in the audience might bring up an alternative path that hadn't been included in the tale. The author could then counter that rebuttal to his blanket statement by describing how the path proposed by the audience was not as strong as the path he did include. One by one, he would disperse any challenges to his tale until he either exhausted the opposition or was overcome by an alternative he couldn't dismiss.

But as soon as stories began to be recorded in media such as song ballads, epic poems, novels, stage plays, screenplays, teleplays, and so on, the author was no longer present to defend his blanket statements. If he were to convince his audience of his point of view he must anticipate all reasonable challenges that might arise to his blanket statement and incorporate them in his presentation in advance. In fulfilling this new requirement, authors pushed the tale format forward beyond the blanket statement until it became a new art form we call the story.

A story is a much more sophisticated form of communication than a tale, and is in fact a revolutionary leap forward in the ability of an author to make a point. Simply put, a tale is a statement, a story is an argument.

Now this puts a huge burden of proof on an author. Not only does he have to make his own point, but he has to prove (within reason) that all opposing points are less valid. Of course, this requires than an author anticipate any objections an audience might raise to his blanket statement. To do this, he must look at the situation described in his story and examine it from every angle an audience might consider in regard to that issue.

By incorporating all reasonable (and valid emotional) points of view regarding the story's message in the structure of the story itself, the author has not only defended his argument, but has also included all the points of view the a person would normally take in examining that central issue. In effect, the structure of the story now represents the whole range of considerations a human mind would make if fully exploring that issue.

As each of the points of view is explored and the argument is made, the structure of the story begins to resemble a map of the mind's problem solving processes, and (without any intent on the part of the author) has become a Story Mind. The more accurately the story's structure represents the Story Mind, the more powerful the story's argument.

And so, the Story Mind concept is not really all that radical. It is simply a short hand way of describing that all sides of a story must be explored to satisfy an audience. And, and if this is done, the structure of the story takes on the nature of a single character.

Armed with this information we are now prepared to examine the nature of the Story Mind, and to see how we might apply what we discover to meet the demands of a logical structure without sacrificing our passion.

What's In Your Story's Mind?

As with people, your story's mind has different aspects. These are represented in your Genre, Theme, Plot, and Characters. Genre is the overall personality of the Story Mind. Theme represents its troubled value standards. Plot describes the methods the Story Mind uses as it tries to work out it's problems. Characters are the conflicting drives of the Story Mind.

Genre

To an audience, every story has a distinct personality, as if it were a person rather than a work of fiction. When we first encounter a person or a story, we tend to classify it in broad categories. For stories, we call the category into which we place its overall personality its Genre.

These categories reflect whatever attributes strike us as the most notable. With people this might be their profession, interests, attitudes, style, or manner of expression, for example. With stories this might be their setting, subject matter, point of view, atmosphere, or storytelling.

We might initially classify someone as a star-crossed lover, a cowboy, or a practical joker who likes to scare people. Similarly, we might categorize a story as a Romance, a Western, or a Horror story.

As with the people we meet, some stories are memorable and others we forget as soon as they are gone. Some are the life of the party, but get stale rather quickly. Some initially strike us as dull, but become familiar to the point we look forward to seeing them again. This is all due to what someone has to say and how he goes about saying it.

The more time we spend with specific stories (or people) the less we see them as generalized types and the more we see the traits that define them as individuals. So, although we might initially label a story as a particular Genre, we ultimately come to find that every story has its own unique personality that sets it apart from all others in that Genre, in at least a few notable respects.

In the Genre section of this book, we'll describe how to get a feel for the personality of the story you wish to tell, how to create a Genre map describing your story's primary attributes, and how to develop your story so that its unique qualities surface and reveal themselves.

Theme

Everyone has value standards, and the Story Mind has them as well. Some people are pig-headed and see issues as cut and dried. Others are wishy-washy and flip-flop on the issues. The most sophisticated people (and stories) see the pros and cons of both sides of a moral argument and present their conclusions in shades of gray, rather than in simple black & white. All these outlooks can be reflected in the Story Mind.

No matter what specific thematic topic is explored, the key structural point about value standards is that they are all comprised of two parts: the issues and one's attitude toward them. It is not enough to only have a subject ( abortion, gay rights, or greed) for that says nothing about whether they are good, bad, or somewhere in between. Similarly, attitudes (I hate, I believe in, or I don't approve of) are meaningless until they are applied to something.

An attitude is essentially a point of view. The issue is the object under observation. When an author determines what he wants us to look at it and from where he wants it to be seen, he creates perspective. It is this perspective that comprises a large part of the story's message.

Still, simply stating one's attitudes toward the issues does little to convince someone else to see things the same way we do. Unless the author is preaching to the audience as choir, he's going to need to convince it to share his attitude. To do this, he will need to make a thematic argument over the course of the story which will slowly dislodge the audience from its previously held beliefs and reposition the audience so that it adopts the author's beliefs by the time the story is over.

In the Theme section of this book we'll outline how to discover your story's message and how to create a thematic argument that presents all sides of the issues. You'll find out how to make your point without hitting the audience over the head with binary statements of right and wrong, and how to lead the audience to your point of view.

Plot

Novice authors often assume the plot of a story is the order in which events unfold. In fact, the order in which events are revealed to an audience is seldom the same order in which they happened to the characters. Through exposition, an author unveils the story, dropping bits and pieces that the audience rearranges until the meaning of the story becomes clear. This technique involves the audience as an active participant in the story rather than simply being a passive observer. It also reflects the way people go about solving their own problems.

When people try to work out ways of dealing with their problems they tend to identify and organize the pieces before they assemble them into a plan of action. So, they often jump around the timeline, filling in the different steps in their plan out of sequence as they gather additional information and draw new conclusions.

In the Story Mind, both of these attributes are represented as well. We refer to the internal logic of the story - the order in which the events in the problem solving approach actually occurred - as the Plot. The order in which the Story Mind considers these elements as it develops a plan of action is called the Storyweaving.

If an author blends these two aspects together, it is very easy to miss holes in the internal logic because they are glossed over by smooth exposition. By separating them, an author gains complete control of the progression of the story as well as the audience's progressive experience. In the plot section of this book you will learn how to create a complete sequential treatment for your story and to develop an exposition plan that involves and captivates your audience.

Characters

If characters represent our conflicting drives yet they each have a personal point of view, where is our sense of self represented in the Story Mind? After all, every real person has a unique point of view that defines his or her own self-awareness.

In fact, there is one special character in a story that represents the Story Mind's identity. This character, the Main Character, functions as the audience position in the story. He, she or it is the first person experience of the story - the story's ego.

Earlier I described how we might look at characters by their dramatic function, as seen from the perspective of a General on a hill. But what if we zoomed down and stood in the shoes of just one of those characters, we would have a much more personal view of the story from the inside looking out.

But which character should be our Main Character? Most often authors select the Protagonist to represent the audience position in the story. This creates the stereotypical Hero who both drives the plot forward and also provides the personal view of the audience. There is nothing wrong with this arrangement but it limits the audience to always experiencing what the quarterback feels, never the linemen or the waterboy.

In real life we are more often one of the supporting characters in an endeavor than we are the leader of the effort. If you have always made your Protagonist the Main Character, you have been limiting your possibilities.

In the Character section of this book we will fully describe each of the Story Mind's drives, how to choose the right one as your Main Character, and how the Main Character needs to come into conflict not with the Antagonist but with an Obstacle Character who represents the opposite point of view.

Getting Our Mind Together

We've now established four key aspects of the Story Mind. Characters are the conflicting drives of the Story Mind, theme its reassessment of values, plot its problem solving techniques, and genre its overall personality. But how do these fit together in an integrated story?

When an audience sits down with a book, in a theater, or in front of a television, it is sitting down with a person to make conversation. In fact, it is a one-sided conversation. Your story must have a personality intriguing enough to hold the audience's interest until the show is over.

Is your story a good enough conversationalist, or does it need to go back to finishing school with another draft before it is ready for prime time? You have days, months, perhaps even years to prepare your story to exude enough charisma to sustain just one conversation. How disappointing is it to an audience when a story's personality is plain and simply dull?

As an author, thinking of your story as a person can actually help you write the story. All too often, authors get mired in the details of a story, trying to cram everything in and make all the pieces fit.

Characters are seen only as individuals, so they often unintentionally overlap each other's dramatic functions. The genre is depersonalized so that the author trying to write within a genre ends up fashioning a formula story and breaking no new ground. The plot becomes an exercise in logistics, and the theme emerges as a black and white pontification that hits the audience like a brick.

Now imagine that you are sitting down to dinner with your story. For convenience, we'll call your story "Joe." You know that Joe is something of an authority on a subject in which your are interested. You offer him an appetizer, and between bites of pate, he tells you of his adventures and experiences.

Over soup, he describes what was driving him at various points of his endeavors. These are your characters, and they must all be aspects of Joe's personality. There can be no characters that would not naturally co-exist in a single individual. You listen carefully to make sure Joe is not a split-personality, for such a story would seem fragmented as if it were of two or more minds.

While munching on a spinach salad, Joe describes his efforts to resolve the problems that grew out of his journey. This is your plot, and all reasonable efforts need to be covered. You note what he is saying, just an an audience will, to be sure there are no flaws in his logic. There can also be no missing approaches that obviously should have been tried, or Joe will sound like an idiot.

Over the main course of poached quail eggs and Coho salmon (on a bed of grilled seasonal greens), Joe elucidates the moral dilemmas he faced, how he considered what was good and bad, better or worse. This is your theme, and all sides of the issues must be explored. If Joe is one-sided in this regard, he will come off as bigoted or closed-minded. Rather than being swayed by his conclusions, you (and an audience) will find him boorish and will disregard his passionate prognostications.

Dessert is served and you make time, between spoonfuls of chocolate soufflé (put in the oven before the first course to ready by the end of dinner) to consider your dinner guest. Was he entertaining? Did he make sense? Did he touch on topical issues with light-handed thoughtfulness? Did he seem centers, together, and focused? And most important, would you invite him to dinner again? If you can't answer yes to each of these questions, you need to send your story back to finishing school, for he is not ready to entertain an audience.

Your story is your child. You give birth to it, you nurture it, you have hopes for it. You try to instill your values, to give it the tools it needs to succeed and to point it in the right direction. But, like all children, there comes a time where you have to let go of who you wanted it to be and to love and accept who it has become.

When your story entertains an audience, you will not be there to explain its faults or compensate for its shortcomings. You must be sure your child is prepared to stand alone, to do well for itself and to not embarrass you. If you are not sure, you must send it back to school.

Personifying a story allows an author to step back from the role of creator and to experience the story as an audience will. This is not to say that each and every detail in not important, but rather that the details are no more or less important than the overall impact of the story as a whole. This overview is one of the benefits of looking at a story as a Story Mind.

The following is excerpted from
Dramatica: A New Theory of Story
by Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley

The Four Throughlines
It is not enough, however, to develop a complete Story Mind. That only creates the argument the audience will be considering. Equally important is how the audience is positioned relative to that argument.

Does an author want the audience to examine a problem dispassionately or to experience what it is like to have that problem? Is it more important to explore a possible solution or to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of alternative solutions? In fact, all of these points of view must be developed for a story to be complete.

An author's argument must go beyond telling audience members what to look at. I must also show them how to see it. It is the relationship between object and observer that creates perspective, and in stories, perspective creates meaning.

There are four different perspectives which must be explored as a story unfolds in order to present all sides of the issue at the heart of a story. They are the Objective Story Throughline, theMain Character Throughline, theObstacle Character Throughline, and theSubjective Story Throughline.

The Objective Story Throughline
The first perspective is from the Objective Story Throughline, so called because it is the most dispassionate look at the Story Mind.

Imagine the argument of a story as a battle between two armies. The Objective Story view is like that of a general on a hill overlooking the battle. The general focuses on unfolding strategies and, from this perspective, sees soldiers not by name but by their function on the field: foot soldier, grenadier, cavalryman, scout. Though the general may care very much for the soldiers, he must concentrate on the events as they unfold. Because it emphasizes events, the Objective Story Throughline is often thought of as plot, but as we shall see later, plot is so much more.

The Main Character Throughline
For a story to be complete, the audience will need another view of the battle as well: that of the soldier in the trenches. Instead of looking at the Story Mind from the outside, the Main Character Throughline is a view from the inside. What if that Story Mind were our own? That is what the audience experiences when it becomes a soldier on the field: audience members identify with the Main Character of the story.

Through the Main Character we experience the battle as if we were directly participating in it. From this perspective we are much more concerned with what is happening immediately around us than we are with the larger strategies that are really too big to see. This most personally involved argument of the story is the Main Character Throughline.

As we shall explore shortly, the Main Character does not have to be the soldier leading the charge in the battle as a whole. Our Main Character might be any of the soldiers on the field: the cook, the medic, the bugler, or even the recruit cowering in the bushes.

The Obstacle Character Throughline
To see the third perspective, keep yourself in the shoes of the Main Character for a moment. You are right in the middle of the story's battle. Smoke from dramatic explosions obscures the field. You are not absolutely sure which way leads to safety. Still, before there was so much turmoil, the way was clear and you are confident in your sense of direction.

Then, from out of the smoke a shadowy figure appears, solidly blocking your way. The shadowy figure is your Obstacle Character. You can't see well enough to tell if he is friend or foe. He might be a compatriot trying to keep you from stepping into a mine field. Or, he might be the enemy luring you into a trap. What to do! Do you keep on your path and run over this person or try the other path instead? This is the dilemma that faces a Main Character.

To completely explore the issue at the heart of a story, an Obstacle Character must present an alternative approach to the Main Character. The Obstacle Character Throughline describes the advocate of this alternative path and the manner in which he impacts Main Character.

The Subjective Story Throughline
As soon as the Main Character encounters his Obstacle, a skirmish ensues at a personal level in the midst of the battle as a whole. The two characters close in on one another in a theatrical game of "chicken," each hoping the other will give in.

The Main Character shouts at his Obstacle to get out of the way. The Obstacle Character stands fast, insisting that the Main Character change course and even pointing toward the fork in the road. As they approach one another, the interchange becomes more heated until the two are engaged in heart-to-heart combat.

While the Objective Story battle rages all around, the Main and Obstacle Characters fight their private engagement. The Subjective Story Throughline describes the course this passionate battle takes.
The Four Throughlines Of A Story You Know

Here are some examples of how to see the four throughlines of some well known stories. Completed stories tend to blend these throughlines together in the interest of smooth narrative style. From a structural point of view, however, it is important to see how they can be separated.
Star Wars
Objective Story Throughline: The Objective view of Star Wars sees a civil war in the galaxy between the Rebels and the evil Empire. The Empire has built a Death Star which will destroy the Rebels if it isn't destroyed first. To even hope for a successful attack, the Rebels need the plans to the Death Star which are in the possession of a farm boy and an old Jedi master. These two encounter many other characters while delivering the plans, ultimately leading to a climactic space-battle on the surface of the Death Star.

Main Character Throughline: The Main Character of Star Wars is Luke Skywalker. This throughline follows his personal growth over the course of this story. Luke is a farm boy who dreams of being a star pilot, but he can't allow himself to leave his foster parents to pursue his dreams. He learns that he is the son of a great Jedi Knight. When his foster parents are killed, he begins studying the religion of the Jedi: the Force. Surviving many dangerous situations, Luke learns to trust himself more and more. Ultimately he makes a leap of faith to trust his feelings over his computer technology while flying into battle as the Rebel's last hope of destroying the Death Star. It turns out well, and Luke is changed by the experience.

Obstacle Character Throughline: The Obstacle Character of Star Wars is Obi Wan Kenobi and this throughline describes his impact (especially on Luke Skywalker) over the course of the story. Obi Wan is a wizened old Jedi who sees everything as being under the mystic control of the Force. He amazes people with his resiliency and ability, all of which he credits to the Force.

Subjective Story Throughline: The Subjective Story throughline of Star Wars describes the relationship between Luke and Obi Wan. Obi Wan needs Luke to help him and he knows Luke has incredible potential as a Jedi. Luke, however, needs to be guided carefully because his desires are so strong and his abilities so new. Obi Wan sets about the manipulations which will help Luke see the true nature of the Force and learn to trust himself.
To Kill A Mockingbird
Objective Story Throughline: The Objective view of To Kill A Mockingbird sees the town of Maycomb with its horns locked in various attitudes over the rape trial of Tom Robinson. Due-process has taken over, however many people think this case should never see trial. As the trial comes to fruition, the people of the town argue back and forth about how the defense lawyer ought to behave and what role people should take in response to this alleged atrocity.

Main Character Throughline: The Main Character of To Kill A Mockingbird is Scout and her throughline describes her personal experiences in this story. Scout is a young tom-boy who wants things in her life to remain as simple as they've always been. Going to school, however, and seeing the town's reaction to her father's work introduces her to a new world of emotional complexity. She learns that there is much more to people than what you can see.

Obstacle Character Throughline: The Obstacle Character point of view in To Kill A Mockingbird is presented through Boo Radley, the reclusive and much talked about boy living next door to Scout. The mystique surrounding this boy, fueled by the town's ignorance and fear, make everyone wonder what he is really like and if he's really as crazy as they say.

Subjective Story Throughline: The Subjective Story view of To Kill A Mockingbird sees the relationship between Scout and Boo Radley. This throughline explores what it's like for these two characters to live next door to each other and never get to know one another. It seems any friendship they might have is doomed from the start because Boo will always be locked away in his father's house. The real problem, however, turns out to be one of Scout's prejudice against Boo's mysterious life. Boo has been constantly active in Scout's life, protecting her from the background. When Scout finally realizes this she becomes a changed person who no longer judges people without first trying to stand in their shoes.
Summary - The Grand Argument Story
We have described a story as a battle. The overview that takes in the full scope of the battle is the Objective Story Throughline.

Within the fray is one special soldier through whom we experience the battle first-hand. How he fares is the Main Character Throughline.

The Main Character is confronted by another soldier, blocking the path. Is he friend or foe? Either way, he is an obstacle, and the exploration of his impact on the Main Character is the Obstacle Character Throughline.

The Main and Obstacle Characters engage in a skirmish. Main says, "Get out of my way!", and Obstacle says, "Change course!" In the end, the steadfast resolution of one will force the other to change. The growth of this interchange constitutes the Subjective Story Throughline.

Taken together, the four throughlines comprise the author's argument to the audience. They answer the questions: What does it feel like to have this kind of problem? What's the other side of the issue? Which perspective is the most appropriate for dealing with that problem? What do things look like in the "big picture?"

Only through the development of these four simultaneous throughlines can the Story Mind truly reflect our own minds, pitting reason against emotion and immediate advantage against experience in the hope of resolving a problem in the most beneficial manner.

Copyright 2001 Melanie Anne Phillips
http://storymind.com

Introduction to the Story Mind

2009-05-01T15:52:00.000-07:00

Op Quads

2009-05-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Dramatica software's model of Mental Relativity psychology, for which we received a patent for its implementation in the Story Engine, is based on a series of operations - dynamics that are applied to the dramatica structural model to twist and turn it like a Rubik's Cube of psychology. Like the structure, the operations fall into Quads (groups of four). The following picture shows some example Op Quads that are applied to the StoryEngine, and what they do (in short-hand symbols).

What is Dramatica -- REALLY!!

2009-04-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

An article I wrote on October 26, 1993 explaining our early work on Dramatica Theory

What is Dramatica -- REALLY!!

All self aware minds work in the same patterns. They have the same points of view and understandings available to them. Personal experiences put different input to those points of view creating different values to the understandings. So minds don't differ in their operating system, only in the software that is running on it.

Dramatica has mapped out this intrinsic operating system using fractal patterns, non-linear equations, chaos theory, as well as new means of appreciating systems that are unique to Dramatica. When views with these tools, the reason for Characters, Themes, Plots, Acts and Scenes becomes clear: they all represent nodal points in the spatial and temporal processing of the Story Mind. The specific story that is being told is the software that is loaded into the Story Mind's operating system.

Dramatica allows an author to set values in the Story MInd - values that create justification and inequities. The unfolding of a story is the path by which the Story Mind attempts to rid itself of inequities and shake itself free of justifications. Sometimes the Story Mind can accomplish this and sometimes not. All the specifics are interrelated so that a change in Character (representing a point of view of the Story Mind) will have an effect upon the plot (representing a methodology of the Story Mind).

When all is said and done, Dramatica allows an author to document a single problem or inequity completely and move an audience to understand the impact and outcome of such an imbalance.

Main Character by Class

2009-04-30T08:36:00.000-07:00

From 1993, and article about our early concepts in Dramatica:

Understanding the intrinsic nature of Main Characters by Class is much different than understanding a storyline by class. In storylines, Universe Class represents a situation, Mind Class a fixed attitude, Physics Class and activity, Psychology Class a manner of thinking. These four views describe two major sources of difficulties that will be created in the story: Internal or External. Both of these categories can be further divided into a state and a process. Mind Class is an internal state. Psychology Class an internal process. Universe is an external state, Physics an external process.

However, when we are considering a Main Character's Class, rather than that of a storyline, the categories are a bit different. Mind and Psychology still refer to the character's internal state and process, but Universe and Physics refer to her body.

From this perspective, a Physics Class Main Character is physically active, such as in Rambo, Flashdance, or Robin Hood. A Universe Class Main Character is one with a steady body state. We see this kind of character in the Elephant Man, My Left Foot, Ghost, or Dumbo.

A Universe Main Character is bombarded by pressures to succumb to the limitations of their body's attributes. Body limitations does not mean they have less ability for, as we see in Dumbo, there is plenty of ability to fly. The real issue is one of physical self worth, and the change/steadfast issue revolves around the decision to accept one's bodily limitations and cease trying to achieve a thing of difficulty or to continue to strive to overcome them.

Either decision can be correct, depending upon the author's point of view. For example, in Johnny Got His Gun, a young soldier wakes up to find he has lost his arms and legs and cannot move. He is utterly helpless. He ponders giving in to this terrible fate and drifting off into non-awareness. Ultimately he determines to hold on so that he might be able to help prevent future wars by showing the horror of what was done to him. He finds a way to communicate by blinking his eyes. After months of struggling to get through, he remains steadfast until a nurse catches on. He is then able to talk to the generals and express his wishes. They hob nob and decided that their positions would be threatened by his public appearance so the put his room off limits and leave him there to be cared for, but denied public visitation for the remainder of his life. This is a Universe Class Main Character, Steadfast, Success, Bad story.

Sub Plots

2009-04-30T08:23:00.000-07:00

An early Dramatica article from October 23, 1993

How do Subplots work?

Subplots are miniature stories in their own right with one important difference: the Main Character of each subplot is also a character in the Main Plot, but is never the Main Character. There reasons for this are simple. Stories provide an audience with a subjective view of the problem through the eyes of a Main Character. They also provide an objective view through the eyes of the author. If a Main Character of a story had a subplot attached to them they would have two subjective views: one for each plot. As a result the two views would overlap each other obscuring the message of the story.

The uses of subplots are many, but all revolve around one consideration: the author wants to explore some aspect of the main story in more detail that would prove interesting. To overcome this constraint, an author can create a mini-story revolving around a character in the main story that resides in the area of interest. In this manner, new dramatic tensions can be created that will sustain interest while the author explore.

Subplots can also be used to maneuver a character into a new understanding so a necessary function they must fill in the main plot will not appear to come out of left field.

WORDSMITH

2009-04-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

One of our earliest attempts to share what we had learned about story theory. This was before we ever considered turning our theories into story development software. When Wordsmith was written, we intended simply to publish a book on the subject. Unlike the eventual book, "Dramatica - A New Theory of Story", Worsmith is a much more conversational work, rather than an academic textbook approach used in Dramatica.

WORDSMITH

(A tool for writing)

He wanted to write a story. But he was confused. Sure, he had ideas: settings, characters, even entire scenes that had just sprung up in moments of inspiration. But he also had big blank areas between the ideas, and no idea how to fill them in.

Where should he begin? How should he organize his story. For that matter, should he organize at all or just jump right in? Being the sort who looks before he leaps, and not wanting to waste time stumbling in the dark, he decided to do some research.

His name was John.

Now, John checked the libraries and bookstores; he subscribed to magazines and periodicals. He took seminars and watched movies and TV. He came away more confused than ever. THIS authority said to do THIS. And THAT authority said to do THAT. But THIS and THAT often disagreed. What was worse, the both seemed to work some of the time. And even worse: most of the time they didn't (at least not completely).

So John, being the sort who doesn't give up, decided to visit other successful writers and see how THEY did it.

His first visit was with a very prolific author who never outlined anything in advance. This fellow just hammered away at the keyboard letting one thought create the next in a never ending chain of thought until THE END. But when John went home to try it himself, he found that his work came out directionless. And although the words were pretty and the scenes grand, his characters wandered about aimlessly, or at best just went along for the ride.

So he visited another successful writer. And this author spent a full year researching and outlining until he knew what every paragraph would be before he wrote a word. But when John tried it, his work lost spontineity and came out dry and lifeless.

He gave the "visit" scheme one more try. This author used a formula for everything he wrote. He simply plugged in his ideas until he had a complete story, then merely expanded them into a finished work. "Wow!", thought John. But, alas, when John tried it, everything came out looking the same, time after time.

He had nearly given up and gone to work for the phone company when a flyer appeared in his mail. It read: "Story problems? Learn the Science of Story Structure from Professor Wordsmith." Included were an address and business hours.

John knocked on the Professor's door. A kindly old man with the firey eyes of a sage greeted John, identifying himself as the Professor in question and invited him in. Unlike the working space of the authors he had visited before, Wordsmith's facility was a modern scientific laboratory, and although devoid of clutter, was filled with a plethora of odd objects in endless variety. "Inspiration!", smiled the Professor, anticipating John's question. Along the back wall were three doorways labelled, "Motivation Room", "Supply Room", and "Play Room". But before John could comment, the Professor rambled on.

"So you want to know about story structure, right? And you want to know why I think I have discovered the end-all system, right? And you want me to prove it to you, right? And then you want to know how to use it yourself, RIGHT?" John could only nod.

"Then let's begin.", he began. "In the past, most systems for understanding stories used INDUCTIVE logic. That is, they analyzed existing works looking for patterns. Then they "boiled down" what they found into rules or laws. Problem is: if you start with "4", how can you tell if it was created by 2 + 2, 2 x 2, 1 + 3, 20/5 or what? You can't! That's why inductive analysis has failed to offer complete explanations of all story situations. Further, it is almost impossible to create a story from scratch using techniques that are geared toward breaking complete works into their component parts."

The professor smiled wryly. HIS system, he explained, relyed on DEDUCTIVE logic. That is, he started from an understanding of where a story "grows" from and combines the elements to arrive at a finished product. The Science of Story Structure, therefore, is a most useful tool in not only analysing existing works, but in creating new ones as well.

But where does a story grow from, wondered John. But before he could pose the question, the professor answered it: Story grows from the mind. The mind trying to solve a problem. We can "reason" our way to a solution, or act solely on our "feelings" about it. We can "accept" pondering the problem, or "ignore" it. That's ALL we can do. No matter what the problem is, there are ONLY THESE FOUR APPROACHES to solving it.

But we are faced with two types of problems in life. Those of the mind, and those of the body. One is posed in the inner world, the other in the physical world around us. But ONLY THESE FOUR APPROACHES exist for us to solve either.

Now the problem of the inner plane is a "moral dilemma". Not to be mistaken as a religious issue, but rather question of basic right or wrong. And the problem of the phyical plane is a question of expediency. Meaning, "What is the best way to accomplish my goal(s)?"
Primary characters represent these four approaches. In the most simple stories each of the primary characters represents one of these four approaches and uses it for both the moral dilemma and the physical quest. In complex stories, as we shall later see, characters may represent more than one of these approaches, or a different one for the moral choice than on the pysical question, or only one for the moral choice, and none for the physical, ad nauseum.
The point being, that once you understand the FOUR APPROACHES, you can mix and match in almost limitless variety to create virtually any story you desire. Hence, we have the "Motivation Room" that contains the "Character Generator", where you make these decisions of combination.

But characters alone have nothing to due, much as pure energy cannot act without something physical to be applied to. So the second room, is the "Supply Room". This is the "plot" room where we pull from an infinite inventory the materials we wish our characters to employ. These materials may be vocations, interpersonal relationships, setting, time, talent, knowledge, posessions... In short, any ability, knowledge, situation, or object that a character can move, manipulate or employ.

But where do they do this? In the "Play Room". This is the "Story" room where it is all put into motion. You see, just as energy cannot accomplish anything without materials to act upon; materials without energy remain motionless. But when you apply characters to plot, story happens.

Of course, play must occur on a playing field. And the exact dimensions and nature of that field are wholly up to the author. Further, the materials from the supply room may be added or removed from the "Play Room" at any time during the story. This room may have objects bolted to the floor that serve as obstacles, or pitfalls, that may or may not be hidden to the characters. And both obstacles and pitfalls may be moved, removed, or changed in nature throughout the play at the whim of the author.

The essential point to remember is: Once you have established a playing field, filled with materials, manipulated by characters, the success of your story depends upon your ability to "call the game".

"But that is just the surface explanation!", the Professor continued. "To learn how to use this system to create your own stories you must examine each concept at it's most elemental level, then combine these basics into the next level of complexity... You wanna learn?", he demanded. John nodded the afirmative, and the Professor threw open the door to the "Motivation Room", motioning John inside...

A bright glow radiated from the beaconing door, but the professor was prepared, handing John a pair of darkened safety glasses and donning a pair himself. "Put these on.", he explained. "This room contains the energy that runs the story machine, much as a nuclear reactor creates the electricty to do physical work."

As his eyes adjusted, John could see that the walls were featureless except for a set of shelves containing four brilliant crystaline cylinders from which burst the intense light. One glowed blue, one red, another yellow, and the last a pure white. John turned to see that the center of the room was dominated by a large machine possessed of four slots, obviously designed to hold the cylinders, and a single fiber-optics line running from the machine through a hole in the wall to the Play Room.

"These", the Professor exlpained, "are the FOUR APPROACHES to solving problems in the "Moral Plane". The blue one is "Reason". A Character driven by reason will approach the moral dilemma with logic and attempt to "figure out" a solution. Similarly, the red cylinder is "Emotion". Obviously, this character lets his feelings soley determine his conclusion on the Moral Plane, even if he flies in the face of logic. Yellow is the color of the Character called "Denial", who won't even consider the moral issue, pretending to be unaware of it, or simply denying it is an issue at all."

"What about the White one?", John inquired. "Ah!", the Professor's voice took on a reverential quality. "The White resepticle contains "Acceptance". This is the Character who accepts the burden of considering the moral question and acts as moderator to the debate. He is colorless in purity, not only because he must consider the other three moral approaches and therefore their primary colors combine into white, but also because he is neutral in his approach until he finally makes the moral decision. It is only this "pure" Character who can make the final, decisive choice."

"Give me a minute!", John stammered, his head reeling.

"Read the One Minute Manager!", retorted the Professor, not unkindly.

"Now, if the only decisions to be made in a story were "moral" ones, this would be enough. But the "real" world intrudes on this simplicity. In story as in life, physical existence demands its due, as neither mind nor meat can survie without the other. So, "plot" decisions occur at every turn, and each must be handled before the story can continue.

"These Four Approaches each have a plot equivalent. Although not identical, these Plot Approaches act in similar manners to their moral kin.

Can / Need

2009-04-30T07:59:00.000-07:00

Some notes from our early development of the Dramatica theory of story. Probably written around 1991:

CAN/NEED

GOAL -- WANTS TO BE HAPPY

* Begins in a negative state of being. "I am not happy. I don't know how to become happy, but I want to BE happy".

* Tries to resolve "unhappiness". Looks inside of self for answer but cannot find it. "What can I DO to become happy? I don't know what to do to become happy".

* Looks outside of self for answer. "Let me look at others who are happy. If I become what they ARE, I too will BE happy".

(NOTE: This is the first level of Justification. They are looking at what they DO, not what they ARE. To BE is a state of being, not reachable by DOing. However, the PROOF is preceived as the reactions of others to ones deeds and since a can/need person is unable to measure BEing in any other terms, it is as good a place to start as any.)

* Decides on a course of action. "If I DO what they are doing, I will BE what they ARE". Specifically, "What do I NEED to do to do what they are doing", or, "I NEED to do what they did to BECOME what they ARE".

* Something occurs (or is) that threatens to worsen their situation and/or condition if they proceed on the course of action.

POTENTIAL DILEMMA

* If risk to situation and/or condition is perceived to be minimal they may decide to go for it and actual dilemma is averted.

* If risk to situation and/or condition is perceived to be greater than the potential of achieving the goal, they will find a way to try and have both by trying to NEGOTIATE their situation. "I'll give you fifty cents on Tuesday for a hamburger today".

"I will DO something that will eventually let me DO what I NEED TO DO so that I CAN BECOME what I NEED TO BECOME to BE HAPPY without worsening my current situation and/or condition".

* The "I will DO something" is a limited term OBLIGATION. The first justification is their belief in the NEED to do it before proceeding with their own goal. It can be argued that they subconsciously know that it is actually buying them time to better understand their own goal. The second justification is their perception that they are UNIQUELY ABLE to fulfill the OBLIGATION.

Story

2009-04-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

Extended version of one of our first attempts to organize our work on story structure theory. Though undated, I probably wrote this some time in 1991.

Here 'tis.....

Contagonist. A word you've probably never heard. But it was the starting point to our discovery of a new system of story analysis and construction nearly ten years ago.

We had a script that didn't work. Try as we might, we couldn't figure out why. So, we decided to look to other similar screenplays for inspiration. We wondered if there were certain plot devices, rythms, patterns, and characters that appeared in all fulfilling screenplays of a similar basic nature to our own. If we could find the same thing in most of them, we should use it too. But at this stage we didn't even know if there were any aspects at all that were alike from one successful story to another, or if you really did have to write by the seat of your pants.

As we analyzized these other scripts, certain patterns began to emerge. Patterns of conflict, patterns of dramatic tension, patterns of structure and character. In fact, in simple adventure stories such as ours, many of the same character types kept reappearing, almost as if there were a limited number of types to deal with. Indeed, there were fewer than one dozen different characters we cataloged at that most naive stage of exploration.

There were the obvious two: A Protagonist (the hero) and an Antagonist (the villian). But everything from Star Wars to The Wizard of Oz to Jaws seemed to have one character that tried to reason his way out of problems, and another that responded primarily by emotion, almost with disregard to logic. There was also a Skeptical character that kept complaining and whining that they could never succeed. All he wanted to do was surrender or retreat, or not even admit there was a problem.

Of course, the Sidekick was around, but looked to us like just a plot device for the Protagonist to express his thoughts to, and an achiles heel to be used by the villian against the hero.
Every night for weeks we would get together or talk on the phone, and each time, we made what we felt was an incredible discovery. Then the next night, we would find problems with our Divine Inspiration only to make another discovery that built on the first one, making us feel Divinely Inspired until that brilliant concept fell the next night.

Eventually, we'd drop the whole effort for years at a time, then dabble at it, find new tools and new perspectives, hit a brick wall and put it back in the box for another day. This went on for nearly ten years until we got serious. One day, over breakfast, we realized the time was right. Suddenly, we both wanted to finish the bastard up and get the monkey off our backs once and for all.

Was there anything to this or not? Could a system actually be developed that would allow a writer to structure a story from scratch without becomming formula? Were there even any underlying principles at all to the art and craft of writing?

Okay, so we dusted off our file folders, fished our scraps of notes out of the shoebox and tackled the project in earnest. Once again we had daily inspirations, only to have them dashed and rebuilt the next day. But, strangely, it wasn't so much like blasting each previous days work, but more like rising to a new level and seeing the same thing from a different and more encompassing perspective.

And that is the way we're going to tell it to you. Because once we put the finishing touches on the system, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING had a place. Character, plot, motivation, moral decision, what have you. BUT!!!

You can't see the forest for the trees. The perspective that makes sense of story is alien to our normal way of thinking. This is because the concepts that govern story are derived from the way we think, and until we learn, STEP BY STEP how stories and character parallel our own minds, we cannot see the patterns for they are too much like ourselves.

So we're going to describe the way we came to discover the Overview. In essence, we're going to rediscover it with you. First, making startling revelations, only to discover the exceptions. But TRUST US! When we have arrived at the summit, THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS. Once you have scaled the Overview, ALL ASPECTS OF STORY STRUCTURE WILL BE SIMPLE AND CLEAR TO YOU.

So strap on your backpack and join us as we retrace the steps that led us to the Overview of Story Structure.

When we dusted off the files, we recalled that we had discovered two other common, almost essential characters. One was a helper or teacher who pulled the Protagonist out of scrapes and offered moral guidance.

But there was one other character that didn't quite fit any molds we'd been taught to cast characters with. This guy seemed to ve a villian, yet he was not the Antagonist. He might speak against a course of action, yet was not the Skeptic. He was a repugnant character in some stories, an admirable character in others, and could be associated with either the Antagonist or Protagonist. What kind of a character was this? He was Darth Vader and the Mayor in Jaws. He is Burke in Aliens, Belloq in Raiders and the Wizard in Oz. We were confused as blazes. The only thing he ALWAYS did in each and every case, was hinder the Protagonist. So we called him the Contagonist.

Now these are the characters we ended up with that kept showing up in all kinds of stories (we shall use simple adventure stories as examples for now as this most basic set of characters was derived from that genre).

The Protagonist: Luke Skywalker, Chief Brody, Indiana Jones. All easy to see, all simple to understand.

The Antagonist: The Shark, the Aliens, the Nazis.

The Emotional: Chewbaca, the Tin Man, Quint.

The Intellectual: Leia, Hooper (Dreyfus in Jaws), and the Scarecrow (yes, intellectual -- think about it!)

Skeptic: Han Solo, the Cowardly Lion.

Sidekick: C3PO, Toto, Newt (to Ripley in Aliens).

Teacher/helper: Glinda, Obi Wan.

Contagonist: Burke (in Aliens), Belloq, the Mayor (in Jaws), the Wizard, Darth Vader.

Okay, you get the idea. But we wanted to know if these characters are related. Yep. They're opposites and they all come in pairs.

Darth Vader is Balanced by Obi Wan, Lukes faith is balanced by Han's lack thereof. Quint's emotionalism is balanced by Hooper's Reason. The Antagonist is the Problem and the Sidekick holds the solution.

Now this was news. We always thought the Protagonist was balanced by the Antagonist. Not so. The Antagonist is the Problem. The Protagonist wants to solve it, the Skeptic wants to avoid it.

Things were shaping up nicely here. We had a pattern and it looked an awful lot like a morality play. Not religious morality, but the "good vs. evil" type thing. And this is what it looked like:
First diagram of simple characters goes here.

So what have we got? We've got a prolem represented by the Antagonist. The Protagonist (or Faithful character) wants to solve the problem; the Skeptic wants to run away. One character tries to reason a solution and his opposite responds without thinking. The whole process is swayed by the Contagonist ( representing temptation) who hinders the Protagonist and by the Guardian (representing moral conscience) who protects and aids him.

Next step: Each of these characters represents an aspect of the human mind in dealing with a problem. When a problem (Antagonist) appears, our will to overcome it (Protagonist) wishes to move forward toward a solution, but is held back by the fear of failure (Skeptic). We have feelings about how we want it solved (Emotion) and logic about the most efficacious way to solve it (Reason). We are swayed by the temptation to take the immoral but "easy" way out (Contagonist) and urged to do what is "right" by our conscience (Guardian).

Very definately: a morality play.

As we looked at the chart it became clear that there is not a single Protagonist, but rather, a Protagonistic Group. The Faithful, Skeptical, Emotional, and Intellectual represent aspects of a SINGLE MIND in dealing with a problem and move (in spite of interal conflict) as a team. Luke and Han and Chewy and Leia, Dorothy and Lion, and Tin Man and Scarecrow. Quint and Hooper and Brody and... and... And the characters are so easy to understand. But... what about the skeptic in Jaws? Who was that? What a devestating question. After all, if Brody is the Protagonist, who in the story was the skeptic? It wasn't Quint: he wanted to kill the shark. It wasn't Hooper: he wanted to kill the shark. It wasn't the Mayor: he wanted the shark problem to go away, but hindered Brody. He was the Contagonist. But... Brody was afraid of the water. And Brody said "You gotta get a bigger boat". Brody was both Protagonist AND skeptic.
Next step: Character types can be combined into a single indivdual. The strongest internal conflict is to combine opposites. This tears the poor Protagonist apart, until he succombs to or overcomes his own foreboding. Suddenly a whole new world of slightly more complex characters opened up: the self doubting hero who accepts the responsibility of the quest while doubting the success of the venture. But the nice thing was, he could be analyzed, designed and built to exact specifications because we knew what was going on in his head.

Previously for us, writing for this type of character was confusing and frustrating. But now, we could see much more clearly what drove him and therefore our heros could become more interesting, human, and three dimensional. The one caution was never to lose sight of the dual nature of this character. He must be consitant and true to both his motivations, which therefore must be clearly defined. Brody was faithful to his sense of duty, but skeptical due to his fear of water, but he was not wishy-washy about his drive to hire Quint and go after the shark. Similarly, he was not corageous, but terrified when he went out on the water.

Aha! Once aspect of his personality was plot oriented - what he had to do. And the other was motivational - how he felt. That is how he didn't get muddled. Each aspect operated in a different realm.

Next step: All characters operate on two levels, a Motivational Level and a Situational Level.
What do we mean by that? Well, we found that each character plays two roles. First he represents an approach to solving the "moral" problem on the internal or motivational level. Second, he represents an approach to solving a "plot" problem on the external or situational level. But wouldn't the approach be the same on both levels for a given character? In SIMPLE characters, they are. That, in fact, is exactly what MAKES them simple, by definition.

More precisely though, we discovered that the approaches on both the level of the mind and the level of the body were SIMILAR, not identical. Let's describe each simple character on both levels and see how the approaches differ.

The moral level represents the human mind trying to solve a mental dilemma; trying two choose between two ATTITUDES, one right, but difficult, one wrong, but easy. For example, in Jaws, Brody must decide whether or not to overcome his fear of the water, or succomb to it.

If he makes the "right" choice and conquers his fear, he MUST succeed at the plot level in defeating the shark or we, the audience would feel cheated. Making the proper moral choice is what makes a hero, and the hero MUST win once he has done so. (Remember we are talking about SIMPLE characters in adventure stories at the moment. Obviously, this is not true for more complex characters in other genres. Rest assured, we will address those as well STEP by STEP).

If the hero chooses incorrectly, he is hero no longer and MUST be defeated by the Antagonist for us, the audience, to feel fulfilled.

But notice here the connection between a moral choice and success in the plot. They are intimately bound up together. What happens when we separate them for analysis purposes?
The faithful character is made up of the moral aspect of accepting the burden of considering the moral dilemma. His opposite, the skeptic, refuses to consider the issue. Indeed, he may even deny the issue (or question) exists. Acceptance and Denial, the first moral pairing.

On the plot level, the faithful character Pursues the quest, while the Skeptic avoids it. Pursuit and Avoidance, the same characters paired on the plot level.

But note the subtle differences Acceptance is a condition, not a process like pursuit. Similarly, Denial is a condition, not a process like avoidance.

Now let us look at the Emotional. On the moral level, he approaches the dilemma with his feelings. On the plot level, he is FRENZIED. This creates the stereotypical character who reacts violently without thinking, common in simple stories. And the Intellectual. On the moral level he employs reason, but applies that reason on the plot level with calm and almost calous disregard for the "human" impact of his action, and is not influenced by how people feel about a situation. Again, a pairing of opposites on both levels. Feelings are not equal to Frenzy, and Reason is not equal to Calm, but they go hand in hand in simple characters in simple stories.

What about the Antagonist? Well, on the moral level, he causes the moral dilemma to exist. As long as he exists, he forces the Faithful (Accepting) character to consider the issue. And he cannot be defeated until the Faithful character makes his moral decision. Luke cannot destroy the deathstar until he turns off his computer and "trusts the force". Indiana Jones cannot defeat the nazis until he finally believes in the power of the arc "Close your eyes, Marianne; don't look at it!". Brody cannot defeat the shark until he overcomes his fear, "Smile, you son-of-a-bitch!".
Only AFTER the faithful character has made his moral decision can he face the Antagonist in the final showdown. Corollary: Once the moral decision has been made, the faithful character MUST face the Antagonist in a final showdown.

On the plot level, the Antagonist represents the external obstacle that must be overcome to achieve an external goal.

On the moral level problems must be solved. On the plot level obstacles must be overcome.
The Guardian at the moral level acts as Conscience and at the plot level to help.

The Contagonist at the moral level acts as a Tempter and at the plot level to hinder.

It took us a long time to see the subtle differences between characteristics on the two levels because we were looking only at simple characters. In that case, these characteristics match up with the most similar one from the other level. That is exactly why the characters ARE simple.
But once we realized that there were two levels, we wondered what would happen if you rotated one level in relation to the other, creating characters that possessed dissimilar attributes. What we discovered was that these "complex" characters explained just about every other character we could think of.

Mix and Match. Any one of the moral approaches can be matched with any one of the plot approaches to create a complex character.

First, we tried it among the four protagonistic group characters. For example: Suppose you match the moral approach of Feelings with the plot approach of Calm. You might end up with a much more interesting character who is driven to his decisions by his convictions, but institutes his plans methodically. His direct opposite might be a character who Reasons his way to solutions, but pursues his goals in a rampant, inefficient manner.

We found that any of the characteristics of the protagonistic group on one level could be matched to any characteristic on the other. And, of course, you could still combine characteristics on one level into a single character. In fact, they could all be placed in one character, just as they are in a real person. But this makes it difficult to see each aspect clearly, which defeats the purpose behind creating stories in the first place. Still, it was perfectly correct to do so, and explained alot of other characters we had encountered.

The main thing to remember is that each characteristic on each level MUST be represented somewhere, or the story is not as well rounded as it should be. That is to say that an aspect of the human mind in dealing with a problem will be missing and the point you, as author, are trying to make will not be as convincing. You will have left a hole in the complete pattern of proving your moral or situational point.

Once you start combining moral approaches with dissimilar plot approaches, characters become consistant, but unpredictable to the audience, and therefore much more interesting. The course of action such a character will embark upon, as well as his attitude stems to how that character perceives the weight of moral obligation to plot necessity. And which of these somewhat conflicting internal approaches will prevail shifts from scene to scene, situation to situation, as that balance changes or is perceived to change by that character.

Next, we tried swapping the Contagonist and Guardian on the two levels and found that, indeed, the Guardian could be the conscience on the moral level, but hinder the Protagonist at the plot level, especially if the Protagonist is trying to do something wrong. Similarly, the Contagonist could be temptation on the moral level, and HELP the Protagonist to achieve his incorrect goal. This made for much more interesting characters in these roles.

Now, our curiosity at full power, we tried mixing the role of conscience with Frenzy, or Calm or any of the others, and found that, once again, YES you can do it successfully, but it tends to make the visibility of the workings of each aspect less clear. Nevertheless, it can and does work, and explains many other complex characters.

The next logical step was to try putting only one aspect from one level in each character. This would require eight protagonistic group characters, two for each of the original simple characters, and two for Antagonist, Contagonist, and Guardian as well.

Again, YES you can do it. But it tends to simplify the characters so much, that they tend to appear unreal, and less than well rounded. But it is possible, and explains even more characters.
Now, let's look back. Stories reflect how the human mind deals with problems. Characters represent the approaches. There is a mental or motivational level and a physical or situational level. The mental level deals with morality, the physical level deals with plot. The moral level requires a decision to solve the problem; the plot level requires action to reach a goal. Simple characters combine the most similar aspects, one from each level. Complex characters combine dissimilar aspects, one from each level.

Now we felt we understood individual characters fairly well by themselves. By mixing and matching between the levels we could analyze virtually every character we came across. Better still, we could CREATE unpredicable, yet consistent characters, with a full understanding of their motivations, and a complete knowledge of what they would and would not do. Plus, we knew all the basic approaches that needed to be represented so there would be no holes in our We had it all wrapped up. Except we couldn't write a story from it.

We could design the most interesting and well-rounded characters, but we didn't know what to do with them. We could conceive of the most explosive combinations of traits, but had no clue how to employ them. Character motivation, no matter how well designed and understood, is only dramatic POTENTIAL It told us which characters might come into conflict, but not what that conflict would be. -- Frozen Potential.

The obvious finally occurred to us: Story is like a machine. It is a physical apparatus run by energy to accomplish a task. Without energy, the machine will not move. Without the physical gears and rotors, there is no way for the energy to accomplish anything. Only when energy is APPLIED to physical material is WORK done. In other words, for a current to flow, potential must be applied across a resistance.

Story is the current, Motivation is energy or potential, Situation is the machine or resistance.
Motivation told us WHY something might happen, but not WHAT (resistance/situation/plot) or HOW (current/action/story).

So where do you start? Anywhere you want! You can begin with anything at all that makes you want to tell a story and fill in the other blanks from the character structure. In a moment, we'll show you how. The point is: different authors get their inspirations in different ways. Even a single author may be inpsired by a person he knew or a period in history or a geographic location, ad nauseum.

Now here's the first beautiful thing: You can write about anything you want. outer space, the Civil War, homeless children, a man hen-pecked by an overbearing wife, a puppy trying to find his way home, whether it is better to do a sure thing for yourself or a chancey thing for others, a low-level government clerk who uncovers a plot to overthrow Zsa Zsa Gabor -- ANYTHING!! And note that we listed a mixed bag. Some items were plot, some a setting, some a character, moral dilemma, whatever.

But even in this wide open field, structure exists to guide us. Let's back track for a moment to "morality". Who exactly is it that decides what is moral? In real life, that role is ostensibly reserved for the Creator, and in Story, the role is the same.

The author decides what morality is in Story. That is the author's Point Of View. Without a point of view there is no way for the audience to know if the Protagonist makes the right choice or not.

Try to imagine writing a story without a point of view. Everything that happens, everything that is done, the actions of every character are neither good nor bad, they simple are. There are no villians, no heros, and no satifaction for the audience. It would be a dull story indeed!
And look at why you write stories in the first place. Do you want to make a statement that will lead to people taking action to stop a war? Do you want to document a migrant worker's courage. Do you want to share the joy of a special Christmas morning you had as a child. Do you simply want the audience to thrill to the exploits of a larger than life hero?
Fact is, no matter what inspired you to write a story in the first place, you always end up establishing a moral point of view that tells the audience how to feel about the characters and the situation.

We all know what theme is: point of view applied to situation. And now we all know what morality is: point of view applied to motivation.

Okay, so you've got your starting point and your point of view, which suggests your theme and your morality. All you need to get started is a plot goal. And again, a plot goal can be anything you want it to be. A priest might want to become a painter, a small child might want to find the parents who abandoned her, a general might want to overthrow a president -- ANTYTHING AT ALL!!

Let's take stock: Morality, Situation, Point Of View, Theme, Goal, Moral Decision, all of these are connected and interrelated. And once you have nailed them down and selected your characters, you have all the elements to begin telling a story.

So how do you nail them down? By design or by chance, it doesn't matter. You see, you could write a story about a priest who wants to find the parents that abandoned him or about a general who wants to be a painter. And they could be in outer space, or in the Civil War. It really doesn't matter. If you had no preference, you could put several hats on the floor, drop goals in one, themes in another, settings in another, etc., then draw one from each hat and have a complete story at your disposal. And we guarantee it would not be formulaic. All you would have to do is decide how you were going to mix and match the moral and plot character aspects and you could start writing. Of course, it would make a much more integrated story if the Theme, Moral Dilemma, Point of View, etc., were all related. THAT way, you could make a very strong statement to get your point of view across to the audience.

Now, you have all the elements you need to write a story. Great! Except there's still no clue as to what SCENES you need to create. And you sit there with all your characters and situations and settings and don't know what to do with them.

There is a solution.

Conflict. A very simple word, but essential to determining what scenes are needed in a story.

In The Beginning....

2009-04-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

Back in the very earliest days of Dramatica development, we decided to document what we had learned so far. So, we wrote the following short introduction to our work.

Before Robert Mackee camed out with his noted book, we had decided to call our work:

STORY

Contagonist. A word you've probably never heard. But it was the starting point to our discovery of a new system of story analysis and construction nearly ten years ago.

The system itself is not based on searching stories for similarities, but rather, looks at why stories exist, and therefore what they must do to fulfill their purpose.

Stories exist as a replica of the way a human mind solves a problem. We can apply REASON or decide based on our EMOTIONS. We can have FAITH in our ability to solve the problem or SKEPTICISM that it can be solved at all.

Only these four approaches can be taken.

In the human mind, we flit from one to another, considering them all simultaneously. In Story we use individual characters to illustrate these approaches.

In simple stories, one character represents each approach. Examples: 1. In Star Wars, Luke is the FAITHFUL, Han Solo the SKEPTICAL, while Chewbaca is EMOTION, and Leia, REASON. The other characters will be explained later. 2. In Wizard of Oz, Dorothy is FAITHFUL, the Cowardly Lion, SKEPTICAL, Scarecrow, REASON, and Tin Man, EMOTION.

These approaches can be combined within one charachter, as in Jaws, where Quint is EMOTION, Hooper is REASON, and Brody combines both FAITH and SKEPTICISM. This leads to his inner conflict between his sense of duty and his fear of water.

This establishes a set of a maximum of four characters we call the PROTAGONISTIC GROUP. It is our contention that there is no single protagonist unless he combines all four approaches. But for clarity of conflict, most stories separate them.

The PROTAGONISTIC GROUP is identified by the sharing of a common goal, whether it be to kill the shark, evade the Empire, or see the Wizard. They simply try to solve the problem in the manner of the approach they represent.

Imagine a circle with FAITH at the top, SKEPTICISM at the bottom, REASON on the left, and EMOTION on the right. The greatest conflict is between characters on opposite sides, or if a character embodies two approaches, the greatest internal conflict is generated the same way.
But there are other characters. The Mind in solving a problem is swayed by CONSCIENCE and TEMPTATION. These are represented by the GUARDIAN and CONTAGONIST. Obi Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader. Glinda, and the Wicked Witch of the West.

It was the discovery of the Contagonist that set us down the decade-long path toward this final and complete version of "Story".

Characters like the Mayor in Jaws are not the antagonist - the shark is. But they still hinder the PROTAGONISTIC GROUP in its goal. The CONTAGONIST function as a hinderer, while the GUARDIAN serves to protect.

The remaining simple character is the ANTAGONIST who is defined as the character in DIRECT opposition to the sucess of the PROTAGONISTIC GROUP in achieving its goal.
These seven characters round out the list of the maximum necessary to tell a story.

March 2, 1992 - Dramatica Development Memo

2009-04-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Hypercard format needs to be revamped, as the quad box arrangement of elements is different for each thematic perspective.

The Thematic points ARE the simple characters. Theme describes the outcome, Character describes potential.

The Right minded nodal point load up is important, because it is actually part of the structure and dynamics of each story. The Thematic points in the RMNPLU will appear to be the premises of the Left. They will be such things as Greed, Fear, Hate, Love, Lust, etc.

Outcome (Theme) and potential (Character) are only one dynamic pair of the quad. The other pair is in the RMNPLU. They will be the Resistance and the Current. Only by including the RMNPLU in the engine will many aspects of story dynamics be predictable.

When we looked at plot and seemed to see invalidations of the Z pattern, we were actually seeing the effect of the RMNPLU on the story universe. Again, the white elements remain the same. They are the maximum diffusion of the perspectives that function as a single pivot point to all aspects of story structure.

The Type names in the RMNPLU will be TKAD and Time Space, Mass and Energy. Each load up is a way of looking at the totality of the interrelationships between Mind and Universe. The Left version shows the relationship between Mind and Universe, the Right version shows the relationship between the Mind's view of the Mind and the Mind's view of the Universe.

Togther, they create the four points of the Justification map we used to have on the dry marker board. M, M', U, U'. When looking at the Dynamic Quardrangle for a specific story, we get the projection we were working with that had a quad of Character, a quad of Theme, a quad of Type, and a quad of Perspectives. But to create the engine that determines the generic arrangement of the Dynamic Quadrangle, we need the RMNPLU.

One set of quad names in the RMNPLU will be Fear, Lust, etc. The other set will be Intersecting, Parallel, Speed, Direction - all the physical terms we discarded months ago. One man's character is another man's premise. Fear and Lust, will describe the nature of a character as much as Protagonist.

When the Left of Right is seen as Structure, the other is seen as Dynamics. The relationship between Structure and Dynamics is like that of Musical Notes and Melody. The levels of each Load Up provide Harmony in Structure and Sychopation in the Dynamics.

Melanie

From 1996 - "The Story Mind"

2009-04-29T13:37:00.000-07:00

This is a transcription of an online audio recording I made in 1996:

Hi, this is Melanie Anne Phillips with another Dramatica Sound Byte. Today's topic: The Story Mind. Story mind... what is that? And more importantly, what does it have to do with writers or writing? Well, if there is a central concept to the Dramatica Theory of Story, it is the notion of The Story Mind. According to Dramatica theory, every complete story is an analogy to a single human mind, trying to deal with an inequity. That's quite a mouthful, so let me say it once again for clarity. Dramatica sees every complete story as an analogy to a single human mind trying to deal with an inequity.

In other words, stories are not really about characters, plot, theme, and genre, but rather, characters, plot, theme, and genre represent different families of consideration that go on in a single human mind when it is trying to come to terms with an inequity. Characters are the different motivations of the Story Mind that influence each other, jockey for position, or come into conflict. Theme represents the value standards of the Story Mind - the measuring sticks by which the Story Mind determines what is better and what is worse. Plot demonstrates the Story Mind's methodologies or techniques it employs in trying to resolve the inequity at the heart of the story. And genre determines the Story Mind's personality - what kind of a mind it is that is doing this consideration.

Well, that's a rather bold statement to make. After all, why would such a complex model of psychology end up being at the center of story structure? Surely writers didn't sit down and say, "I think I'll write an analogy to a single human mind trying to deal with an inequity." Not hardly. So where does the Story Mind come from? According to Dramatica, this model of the mind happens quite naturally, by itself, as a byproduct of the process of communication.

When we seek to communicate we can't reach our audience directly - mind to mind . Rather, we must transmit our message through a medium. To do this, we fashion a symbolic representation of what we have in mind in the hope it will affect our audience the same way it does us. In effect, we create a model of what we are thinking and feeling for the audience to embrace. Which symbols we use depends upon our personal experiences and the culture in which we are working. But beneath the specific symbols are the essential human qualities that are the same in all of us - all cultures and all times.

In and of themselves, these qualities do not yet constitute a model of the mind. For example, if we wanted to convey fear, then we would choose a symbol that would invoke fear in our audience. That human quality would then be communicated. But it is only a small part of what makes up each of our minds.

As communication evolved, the earliest storytellers progressed beyond simply expressing basic emotions or single concepts and began to tell tales. A tale is a progession of symbols that connect one feeling or consideration to the next in an unbroken chain. In this way, an author could lead an audience along an emotional journey and also illustrate that a particular approach led to a particular outcome.

It didn't take these authors long to realize, however, that the human heart cannot leap from one emotion to another indescriminately without passing through the emotions in between. This concept is well documented in The Seven Stages of Grief, and even in Freud's Stages of human development.

Similarly, a logistic chain must not skip any links or it will be held as invalid. So, when telling a tale, the early storytellers developed a feel for which intermediate symbolic steps were required to get from one point of view to another, both logistically and emotionally. We see the result of these discoveries in concepts such as the hero's journey, and story as myth.

Still, this is not a complete model of the mind. A tale is simply a statement that a series of concepts led from point A to point B. In other words, the message of a tale is that a particular series of events can happen. It will be accepted or rejected by an audience solely on the basis of taking the right steps logistically and making the right connections emotionally. Yes, this could happen, or no it could not.

Many fine works through the ages and even today in novels, motion pictures and television are really not complete stories, but simply tales. So what constitutes a story? Well, if a tale is a statement, then a story is an argument. A tale says, "this path led to this outcome indicating it is a good way or a bad way to go about solving a problem". A tale states that a particular outcome is possible. A story says, "this path always leads to this outcome indicating it is always a good way or a bad way to go about solving a problem". A story argues that a particular outcome is inevitable.

If an early author made a statement that a particular case was good or bad, he or she would simply have to prove that a particular approach led to a positive or negative outcome. But if that author tried to tell the audience the approach was always good or always bad, more than likely someone in the audience would "Well, what about under these conditions," or "what about in this context?" Being right there, the author could counter that rebuttal by explaining how the approach would still be best or worst even in that additional case. He or she would either make the point, or fail to make it, in which case the argument would be lost, and the tale would remain as a only a statement, true for that case alone.

As the art of communication evolved beyond the spoken word to the written word, however, the author was no longer physically present to argue the point. Instead, if an author wanted to "prove" inevitability, he or she would have to anticipate all resonable challenges to that statement, and preclude dissension by incorporating all appropriate arguments in the work itself. In this manner, by the time the story is told, not only is a statement made that an approach is good or bad, but all necessary supporting arguments have also been made to "prove" it could not be any other way.

To make these supporting arguments, an author needs to look at the story not only from his or her own point of view, but to anticipate all the other points of view on the issue that audience members might take. By the time the work is finished, it should represent a full exploration of the issue at the heart of the story - both logisitcally and emotionally, addressing all considerations a human mind might explore within the scope of the argument. In so doing, a complete mind-set is created - an full analogy of a single human mind trying to deal with an inequity - the Story Mind.

Characters, plot, theme, and genre, evolve naturally out of this process to represent the full spectrum of considerations made by the human mind. Acts, Sequences, Scenes, and Events also evolve naturally as the Story Mind finishing considering the issue from one point of view and shifts it's attention to another.

A story suffers if it's argument is left incomplete because a valid point of view is not considered. To avoid plot holes, missing charcters, unblanced themes, and sporadic genres, it pays an author well to consider the story mind as a foundation upon which to build a story.

New Dramatica Semantics Ideas from Jun 11, 1997

2009-04-28T22:38:00.000-07:00

From: "Melanie Anne Phillips"
To: "Chris N. Huntley" ; "Stephen Greenfield"
Cc: "Katy M. Huntley"
Subject: Re: A Dramatica User's comments...

Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 23:26:41 -0700

Excellent wish list! And I agree. I believe that any words which are difficult to understand in the semantic chart should be replaced immediately with more accessible words that are just as accurate.

For example, Conceiving and Conceptualizing are much too osbcure to be of use to the vast majority of writers. They should absolutely be replaced. Unfortunately, I have personally been unable to come up with alternatives.

We need to investigate an approach whereby writers themselves, having acommand of the vocabulary, might suggest replacement words which we could consider. I don't know who the Dramatica user is who sent along these comments, but perhaps he would be a good person with which to start.

As a test case, let me give some "plain English" definitions of the term she used as examples, and see if he, or any of us, can find different words that fit the definitions.

First, he notes that the difference between Mind and Psychology is "paper thin". That is probably due to our choice of words. In fact, the definitions between the two are quite far apart.
The most notable difference is that Mind is a state and Psychology aprocess. Mind can also be defined as our fixed attitude on any subject. It is also how we feel about things emotionally, such as what we enjoy eating, the sports we like to watch, who we love, whether we like the mountains or the beach better. It also means our whole collection of memories. It is also includes our prejudices. Part of Mind is describedby the phrase, "Hey, that's just where his head is at."

What "Mind" DOESN'T mean: It is NOT a person's personality. It is NOT their instinct. It is NOT thought or consideration. Personality is a combination of the fixed attitudes AND the mental processes in which ani ndividual engages. Instinct describes how a mind responds to its environment based on built-in tendencies, meaning that intinct is seen asthe behavior, not what causes it. Thought and Consideration are mental processes, so they have no place in a descripition of a STATE.

Perhaps the best way to come up with words is to look at the whole quad. Each quad is really based on the very same relationships among four items as any other quad. It is the relationships that define the quad, not thewords in it. So, if you can find one word in a quad that makes sense, youcan base the other three words on that relationship.

For example, a quad of Male, Female, Masculine, Feminine, has exactly the same relationship among the words at Mass, Energy, Space, and Time. This is also the same relationship as Up, Down, Higher, Lower or Knowledge,Thought, Ability, Desire, and Dead, Alive, Getting older, Becoming more youthful.

So, if we look at the quad containing Mind and Psychology, we see that Universe, Mind, Physics, and Psychology has that same relationship inconcept: in this case, an external and internal State and Process. That's really all it means. Just that: Universe, an external state. Mind, and internal state. Physics, and external process. Mind, and internal process.

Armed with this perspective, we can see why Mind would describe which sports we like to watch, while Psychology would describe the path our thoughts and emotions take while watching the game.

Okay, so for those two words, we now have a number of explanations available from which to work. Now, the question is: what better words can be chosen for these two distinct meanings that are more accesible, cover the complete ground of each meaning, do not stray into the other word's meaning in connotation or denotation, and fit as appropriately with the other two words in the quad (Universe and Physics) while maintaining the foundational quad relationship which must hold true in every quad.

As I mentioned, I've personally been unable to come up with more appropriate alternatives, but fresh minds considering the above definitions may find a solution more apparent.
Now, looking at the remaining words suggested as prime candidate forc hange:

Preconscious and Subconscious.

Preconscious is a filter which prevents sensory information from making itsway into the energy patterns of the mind, be they logistic, emotional, or even autonomic. It does not matter where this filter comes from to fit this definition. It might come from built-in brain patterns caused by genetic memory, caused by brain injury or damage, caused by experience at such a low level it doesn't even effect one's subconscious drives and desires.

The key point is that even the SUBCONSCIOUS is not affected by the Preconscious in a proactive way. Rather, Conscious, Memory, and Subconscious are equally presented with filtered sensory information sothat the Observation we Perceive may not be an accuate representation of the information in which our sensory organs were actually bathed.

In contrast, Subconscious is the mean average of ALL the sensory experiences which actually get into the mind and aren't stopped cold by thefilter. Conscious, Memory, and Subconscious ALL receive sensory information directly, as well as receiving sensory information from eachother which has already been processed by one or both of the other two. But none of those three receive ANY information which hasn't already been filtered by the Preconscious.

What sets the Subconscious apart is that it is not a mental force caused by specific observation, but is more like a field of snow drifts of different breadth, depth, and shape. This field is modeled by the constant driftdown of sedimentary thoughts which evaporate out of inactive considerations, forming the storm clouds of memory, which drop a gentle snow fall on the field of the Subconscious.

So, whereas Preconscious would be like sitting in a room with a ticking clock, and after a while no longer hearing it (habitation), Subconscious would be more like having a gut level reaction to some person, place or thing you had never met, been, or seen before - either to be drawn towardit or repulsed by it.

Preconscious determine of what we will be aware. Subconscious determines which of those things we will pay attention to above others, because of asense of attraction or repulsion. As simply as I can put it: Preconscious determines what we see, Subconcious determines what we perceive. Preconscious determine if we hear. Subconscious determines if we listen.

Again, we must look at the whole quad to determine if our new words work in the essential relationships among all four items that define the quad in the first place. This quad has Memory, Conscious, Preconscious, and Subconscious in the same positions as Mass, Energy, Space, and Time, and Dead, Alive, Growing older, Getting younger, as well as all the other examples listed above. The new words must also fit.

Finally, my most hated of words in the whole chart: Conceiving and Conceptualizing
Simply put, Conceiving is the process of determining what is needed. Conceptualizing is determining how to fill that need. Now that is a really warped view, but it is simple. For example, Conceiving would be looking atall the things that might lower the night-time crime rate in a third world city to find the best thing to do the job. Conceptualizing would be visualizing how to build an electric light.

Conceiving takes time because it requires the consideration of a number of alternatives: a bigger police force, turning vicious dogs loose at dusk, more severe punishments for night-time criminals, arming the populace, etc. Each time a new item comes to mind, Conceiving concludes.
So, some stories might be about the mental work of trying to arrive at just one idea, while the course of the story is filled with frustration until that happens. But another story might show a series of efforts ofconceiving, each of which is shown not to be satisfactory, so the process begins again. In the example above, the story would not end until someone conceived of using artificial lighting of some sort, rather than dogs or vigilantes.

In that story, no one spends time figuring out how to actually PAY for more police, how to keep the dogs from attacking innocent people who were visiting sick relatives, how to know which members of the population shouldreceive guns since the criminals would receive them as well if the whole population got them, OR how to build an electric light bulb. All of THOSE ideas require Conceptualizing, rather than Conceiving.

But to say, as I did, that this was just about figuring out what was needed (Conceiving) and what would fill that need (Conceptualizing) is seriously misleading, if not absolutely wrong.

Conceiving and Conceptualizing also apply to internal issues, and even emotions. And, they don't have to be about a lack, but can be about anover abundance. AND, they don't have to be about something that is a problem, but can be about something that is good. AND they don't have to be about changing anything, but can be about fully appreciating orexperiencing something.

So, a person who sits for hours at a computer answering email might engagein Conceiving by looking for the aspect of that activity which most attracts her. She also might Conceptualize some other more healthy activity which would bring the same pleasure. Or, she might Conceptualize a way to make email answering revolve around the most joyous aspect even more. (Clearly, this example is fiction!)

In truth, Conceiving and Conceptualizing do not require each other. One might be a cave man who conceives of the need for artificial lighting, but will never Conceptualize an electric light bulb or any other means because the pre-requisites simply don't yet exist.

Similarly, one might conceptualize an electric light bulb without havingany idea to what use it might be put. That is the "D" in "R & D". Development in the hope that once something is actually created, a use for it will be found.

Again looking at the quad, Conceptualizing, Conceiving, Being, and Becoming have the same relationship at Mass, Energy, Space, and Time. They don't feel like it though, do they? That is because we are in the Psychology Class, and that class is the one of the four in the quad of Classes that isat the "end of the trail". Just like, Dead, Alive, Growing older, and Becoming Younger, the last one, "Becoming Younger," is the least accessibleto simple understanding.

So, the Psychology Class is the hardest to see in a logical mode. But, since Conceiving and Conceptualizing are down at the Type level, they arealready two levels into the area in which logic works least well. That means that these areas are really best understood in terms of emotion. Idon't mean words describing emotion, but in terms of actually FEELING the meaning, rather than THINKING the meaning.

But, we can't put feelings directly in the chart. So, when we go even one more level down in the Psychology Class, we get even farther away from the experiential aspect. For example, the Variations Rationalization, Obligation, Commitment, and Responsibility are all understandable as things we see in others, but they are SUPPOSED to describe how those things feel to US.

What do YOU FEEL when you have a sense of Obligation - a sense so strong that even though all your logic and common sense tell you to chuck it all,y ou still stick around? This is one reason people stay in awful marriageseven though they are quite aware of all the awful things they endure. There is that gut-level twang of Obligation, or Responsibility, or a truly motivational, adrenaline-rush sense of commitment, or that strange littlef orce of Rationalization which allows you to lie to yourself about yourreal reasons for doing something, yet buy it hook line and sinker until youabsolutely believe it as if it were the gospel.

So, jumping back up to Conceiving and Conceptualizing, the new words must not only capture the definitive meanings but also the much more important emotional feel of what is going on.
Finally, we must note that although every quad illustrates the same relationships among four items, there is a reason why each quad uses four different words. The entire structure is based on the upper left item in the topmost quad which we call "Universe". That is the Knowledge positionin the quad, which is why we call the structure a K-based system. That is also why we say that the whole structure is biased toward K. In our society, we read from upper left to lower right, which makes that Universe postion the most powerful.

But more than that, whatever we chose to be the upper left item would set the tone or bias for the approach by which the other semantic terms need to be chosen. This means that the quad is not only about relationships, but that each of the items in the quad, even before it is named, has some intrinsic value.

For example, if we picked four math functions: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, each has a meaning in and of itself. Now suppose we put these functions in a quad - not the names like "addition", but the actual functions themselves.

The FUNCTION of addition might go in the upper left of a K-based quad, and then following the same pattern as all our previous examples the subtraction, multiplication, and division functions would follow. We still haven't named them, just made their functions operate in each of the four spaces in the quad.

So, each has an identity without a name. Now, if we create a second quad under the addition function and give that quad the very same four functions something interesting happens. If we want to look at that quad, we have to go through addition first. In other words, we would have to perform the addition function before we could get to the subtraction below it, or anyof the others in the second level quad. We are applying one operation on top of another. Clearly, the order in which these functions are played out will change the result of the equation we are creating. This means that wec annot consider the second level equations except in the context of the operation which was already performed to get there.

The result of all this is that if we wanted to name each item in the second level quad under "addition" in the top quad, the names would have to be different than those under "division" in the top quad, even though the same four functions are at work.

This creates a fractal nesting to the whole structure. And, with any fractal structure one can see repetitive patterns. So, when we compare the second level word, "Past" to its parent "function", Universe, this has the exact same relationship as the second level word, "Memory" compared to ITS parent function, Mind.

Therefore, when we come up with new words, they must not only match the definition of the function and maintain its relationship with the otherthree items in its quad, but must ALSO maintain an analagous relationship with any parents above it and any children below it COMPARED TO all other items and their parents and their children.

Tha'ts why it took so long to create. You start from K and work your way down to the elements and maintain identities, intra-quad relationships, inter-quad relationships, and analagous fractal relationships.

So, in conclusion, I absolutely agree that some of the words in the chart are difficult to access. Absolutely we must find better alternatives. But since we aren't just talking words here, but semantic representations of mathematical relationships and functions, it is important to be sure accuracy is not lost in the quest for accessibility.

The only reason the Dramatica chart and Story Engine work at all is because the algorithms which created them are accurate and mathematically precise. The most accurate appreciation of it would be to simply understand the structure without any words at all. But, since that is virtually inaccessible to most, the next best thing is to assign words to each of the functions that intuitively describe their identities and illustrate their relationships. It is almost as if distance between terms in the model holds meaning, and if one pre-supposes a meaning, one could know precisely where to chart it on the model.

Let us move forward, then, with all haste to replace obscure words, but let us also move forward with utmost caution to ensure that accuracy is maintained. For if the words chosen to not accurately fulfill all of the precise identities and relationships they are intended to represent, then the model they create as semantics will no longer function accurately tohold and predict meaning. The Story Engine will keep working according to its programming and the chart will still be nested, but the meaning of the chart and the semantic output of the engine will start missing the mark as being intuitive. The Dramatica effect will be diluted, and the power, usefulness, and magic of the theory and product will be reduced.

By all means, we MUST make things more accesible, but I firmly believe we do writers a better service by providing slightly obscure absolute accuracy than by providing slightly accurate absolute understanding. With an accurate model, a certain amount of learning can ultimately provide complete understanding, but with an inaccurate model, the more one learns, the more obscure it becomes.

If you've read this far, congratulations on your tenacity: you are ready toc onsider all the variables you'll need to juggle in the process to suggest alternative semantics.

Melanie

Search Engine Idea from 1997

2009-04-28T22:30:00.000-07:00

From 1-16-97 - a preliminary note from me to Chris and Steve about using Mental Relativity concepts to create a new intelligent search engine algorithm. This was later followed by a more extensive and detailed description of the actual agortihm. If I ever find a copy of that document, I'll include it also.

Here's the short memo:

On another note, since I've been working on the Mental Relativity stuff so much lately, the old idea of a software version of a thinking machine as a proof of concept came to mind. I was thinking about it early this morning, when I recalled an article I recently read about engines designed to assist users to locate information of use to them on the internet. Also, I had just read how Microsoft Internet Explore browser 4.0 will actually replace the desktop on Windows 95 and become the new operating environment, based entirely on HTML links (they even showed some screen shots!)

As you probably have heard, Microsoft Office 97 has updated the bundled programs including Word, Excel, and Power Point to be fully functional with HTML and links. In fact, Word 97 will save anything to HTML using the OLE format for embedding, and recognizes URLs in the text and turns them into hot links automatically, right in the Word document!

Well, it all came together in my mind this morning, and I sat down and wrote out the design for a database search engine that is self-teaching and self-organizing, and learns as it goes. It can be guided by the user like a boss to an employee, or turned loose to net surprises. In the end, it is both reflective of an individual user's interests, and also a source of new connections to keep things fresh.

It is both denotatively and connotatively oriented, and comes in two varieties: SBOS and TBOS, which might be used separately or in conjunction to provide parallax and alternatives. Best of all, it doesn't require any new technology, but incorporates essential MR concepts that simply have not been used before, likely making it patentable as software.

After working it out, I realized that in implementation it could benefit greatly from such things as your PFM technology, as well as SSI experience with recognition of gramatical units such as slug lines and dialog.

I thought I'd outline this for you should you at some time in the future think the internet market is one you should tap, and if the notion of a context-driven search engine / data organization tool might appeal to you.

I realize this falls outside the realm of our current and proposed contracts, but I thought since it just plopped out, I'd send the idea your way in case you wanted first crack at it.
Let me know what you think.
Melanie

Replacing Dramatica's Semantic Terms

2009-04-05T18:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a note I wrote to Chris in 1994 on thoughts about replacing Dramatica's logical terminology with a more emotional set of semantics which would be just as accurate but more easily accessible.

Semantic Conversions from a K based system to a D based system.

Chris - I think we can create a completely different semantic "overlay" of template that can translate the engine into a D based system without having to do anything but replace the existing words. If we label the structure with dynamic terms and change the descriptions of 12 essential questions, the entire underlying mechanism can remain the same, yet the right minded view of storyform will be completely accessible.

In practice:

The only quad that remains the same is the TKAD quad. After that, everything takes a different name. Sample conversions are:

Pursuit = yearn
Avoid = shun

Self-Interest = Greed
Morality = Generosity

Situation = conditions
Circumstances = relationships

Some terms would naturally remain the same, as they are common to both minds.

The 12 essential questions would become more emotional in their power to evaluate. For example:

Success = Joy
Failure = Sorrow

Good = Satisfied
Bad = Unsatisfied

The new 12 questions would give rise to new high level appreciations such as:

Content or Discontent

Fulfilled or Unfulfilled

Seems to me that if we could develop this template and supporting definitions, it might be easy enough to offer this perspective in the first version release. The original semantics would be Cognitive (logical) and the second set would be Affective (emotional) - of course we will need better words than these as they are both too sterile. The point is, that right now we are only providing an intellectual appreciation of the story model that works best for calculating writers. But for the touchy-feely writers, the emotional approach will be much more comfortable.

map

The Story Mind

2009-03-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for a streaming video on this topic

What is the Story Mind? Dramatica says that "Every complete story is an analogy to a single mind trying to deal with an inequity." Now that's very scientific, but what does it really mean? It means that characters, theme, plot and genre are not just people with value standards doing things in an overall setting - rather, character, theme, plot and genre are different families of thought that go on in our own minds, mad tangible, incarnate as character, thematic arguments and plot points.

So a story is as if an author took the mechanism of our minds, made it tangible and put it out there for us to look at so we could examine the problem solving process. Rather than having to be involved in it subjectively, we are told by the author that he or she has the benefit of insight or experience, and that even though it may feel one way to us on the inside, there is a more objective understanding of how we should proceed.

In fact, the Main Character represents the reader/audience position in the story. It represents our own position in our own heads. We know who we are at any given time. In regard to any given issue, we know where we stand.

In essence then, the Story Mind concepts says, "Think of a story as if it were a person." There's only one Main Character in a story because there's only one "I" in our own minds. Further, we all have the same emotional and logical considerations, and each of these must appear as characters in a story for it to feel complete as well. If any parts are missing, the story's argument will feel incomplete.

Dramatica also says that this Story Mind system came into being as a natural by-product of the process of communication. If you want to state that the approach you are promoting in your story is either the best or worst of all that might be tried, that you have to actually show all the other approaches that might reasonably be taken and illustrate why they aren't as powerful as yours.

When you create a story argument that has no holes, then you have included all the ways a human mind might consider to solve a problem. In effect, you have created a model of the mind's problem solving process - a Story Mind.

No one set out to build this model directly. But through centuries of trial and error in storytelling, conventions were developed that worked because they built an analogy to the psychology of the mind.

Every once in a while, stand back from your story. It is so easy for an author to get so lost in the details of making all the parts work that he or she loses sight of the big picture - the overall impact of the story as a whole.

Take time to examine whether your story has a sound psychology that makes it feel like a functional person, that there are no wanky inconsistencies, and that the personality of the story itself is both human and interesting as well.

Video Clip - The Story Mind

Own the entire 12 Hours of Video Lessons
on DVD for just $19.95 (Click for Details)

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

The Dramatica Chart

2009-03-24T08:41:00.001-07:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for a streaming video on this topic

At the heart of the story engine is a matrix of story points: The Dramatica Chart of Story Elements (which is not unlike the Periodic Table of Elements in chemistry). You can use it to create the chemistry of your characters, plot, theme, and genre.

The Dramatica chart contains all the psychological processes that must exist in a Story Mind. In fact, every human mind shares all of these processes. What makes one mind different from another is not the kinds of mental activities in each, but rather how the activities are interconnected.

Just as in chemistry, various elements might be combined to create an infinite number of compounds, so too the dramatic elements of the Dramatica Chart can be combined to create virtually all valid psychological structures for stories.

At its most simple level, the chart can be seen as having four principal areas (called classes): Universe, Physics, Mind, and Psychology. These represent the only four fundamental kinds of problems that might exist in stories (or in life!)

Universe is an external state

Physics, an external process

Mind is an internal state

Psychology, an internal process.

Essentially, any problem you might confront can be classed as either an external or internal state or process.

Universe then is our external environment. Anything that is a problematic fixed situation falls into this category. For example, being stuck in a well, held captive, or missing a leg are all situational "Universe Class" problems.

Physics is about activities that cause us difficulty. Honey bees dying off across the country, the growth of a militant organization, and cancer are all "Physics Class" problems.

(Note that if having cancer is a problem – such as people being prejudiced against you because you are cancerous – that is a situation or Universe problem because it is a steady or fixed state: a condition. But if it is the spread of the disease that we see as a problem, then it is a Physics-style activity problem. It is important not to assume content in a story falls into a particular class until you determine how that content is actually problematic.)

Mind is the internal equivalent of Universe – a fixed internal state. So, a prejudice, bias, fixation, or fixed attitude would be the source of problems in a "Mind Class" story.

Psychology is the Physics of the mind – an internal process. A "Psychology Class" problem would be someone who makes a series of assumptions leading to difficulties, or someone whose self-image and confidence are eroding.

(Again, note that having a negative self-image is a state of "Mind" whereas the erosion of one’s self-image is a process that must be stopped or even reversed, and would therefore be a Psychology problem.)

In stories, as in real life, we cannot solve a problem until we can accurately define it. So, the first value of the Dramatica Chart is to present us with a tool for determining into which of the four fundamental categories of problems our particular issue falls.

Now you may think that the terms, Universe, Physics, Mind, and Psychology, are a little antiseptic, perhaps a bit scientific to be applying to something as intuitive as the writing of stories.

Back when we were naming the concepts in the Dramatica Theory, we were faced with a choice – to either use extremely accurate words that might be a bit off-putting or to use easily accessible words that weren’t quite on the mark.

Ultimately we decided that the whole point of the theory was to provide an accurate way of predicting the necessary components of a sound story structure. Therefore, we elected to use the terms that were more accurate, even if they required a little study, rather than to employ a less accurate terminology that could be grasped right away.

Returning to the chart itself, it appears as four towers, each representing one of the four classes and each class having four levels. As we go down the levels from top to bottom we subdivide each kind of problem into smaller and smaller components, thereby refining our understanding of the very particular kind of problem at the core of any given story.

The top level, being the most broad, describes the structural aspects of genre. Genre (in the traditional sense) is largely a storytelling or content-driven realm. But genre is not immune to structure. In fact, as we shall see down the line genre must be built upon a solid structural foundation or it will flounder.

The second level, slightly more refined, deals with the dramatic components that are most associated with plot, especially at act resolution. That’s an odd term, so let’s define it. An act is the largest building block of plot. Each act has a particular kinds of concern that defines all the action that goes on in that act. For example, one act may deal with looking for a lost object, the next act with trying to obtain it, and the last act with bringing it back against steep odds.

"Resolution" is a term we use in Dramatica to describe how big a dramatic component is. The Genre "classes" cover the whole story since each story falls within a particular genre. But the acts change over the course of the story, shifting from one concern in a given act to another in the next. Therefore, we say that the components of the Dramatica Chart in the second or act level, are of a smaller resolution. Just as the genre level components are called "classes," the act level components are referred to as "types." So, we have classes of genres and types of acts.

The third level has the greatest structural impact on a story’s theme. Each of these components is called a Variation, as in "variations of a theme." The Variations are of an even smaller resolution, and therefore provide more detailed information about the story’s problem.

A story’s thematic conflicts can be mapped in the Variation level. Story-wise, variations are sequence sized. "Sequences" are smaller than acts and are usually comprised of a number of scenes that deal with a particular moral issue or ethical topic.

The fourth and lowest level of the chart provides the greatest resolution on a story’s problem. It is comprised of components called Elements (in reference to their indivisible nature) and has the greatest structural impact on characters.

It is here in the Element Level that we find the plethora of human traits that make up our motivations or drives. It is the interaction among characters representing these various drives that constitute the scenes of our story. So, we say that the Element Level is at scene resolution.

So, like nested dolls, scenes fall within sequences within acts within a genre. In this manner, the structure of a story can be understood not as a simple sequence as one would find in a tale, but rather as a complex mechanism built of wheels within wheels.

I’ll provide a full description of the chart and its workings later on, but for now, picture it as a cross between a three dimensional chess set, a Rubik’s Cube, and the Periodic Table of Elements, which can be used to build perfect story structures.

Video Clip - The Dramatica Chart

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

Introducing The Story Mind

2009-03-02T11:58:00.000-08:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for streaming video on this topic

The central concept in Dramatica is called "The Story Mind." It is what makes Dramatica unique. Dramatica says that every complete story is an analogy to a single human mind trying to deal with an inequity.

That’s quite a mouthful, but all it really means is that a story structure is a model of the mind’s problem solving process. It means that all the dramatic elements of a story are actually psychological aspects of the human mind.

This is not the mind of the author, reader or audience, but of the story itself – a mind created symbolically in the process of communicating across a medium. It is a mind for the audience to look at, understand, and then occupy.

Moreover, characters, plot, theme, and genre are not just a bunch of people doing things with value standards in an overall setting. Rather, characters, plot, theme, and genre are different families of thought that occur in the Story Mind, in fact, in our own minds.

In story structure, these thoughts are made tangible, incarnate, so that the audience members might look into the mechanisms of their own minds, see them from the outside in, and thereby gain an understanding of how to solve similar problems in their own lives.

Video Clip - Introducing the Story Mind

Own the entire 12 Hours of Video Lessons
on DVD for just $19.95 (Click for Details)

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

A Story is an Argument

2009-03-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for a streaming video on this topic

A tale is a simple linear path that the author promotes as being either a good or bad one to take, depending on the outcome. There’s a certain amount of power in that. It wouldn’t take our early storyteller long to realize that he didn’t have to limit himself to relating events that actually happened. Rather, he might carry things a step farther and create a fictional tale to illustrate the benefits or dangers of following a particular course.

That is the concept behind Fairy Tales and Cautionary Tales – to encourage certain behaviors and inhibit other behaviors based on the author’s belief as to the most efficacious courses of action in life.

But what kind of power could you get as an author if you were able to not merely say, "This conclusion is true for this particular case," but rather "This conclusion is true for all such similar cases"?

In other words, if you begin "here," then no matter what path you might take from that given starting point, it wouldn’t be as good (or as bad) as the one I’m promoting. Now, rather than saying that the approach you have described is simply good or bad in and of itself, you are suggesting that of all the approaches that might have been taken, yours is the best (or worst) way to go.

Now that has a lot more power to it because you are telling everyone, "If you find yourself in this situation, exclude any other paths; take only this one," or, "If you find yourself in this situation, no matter what you do, don’t do this!"

That kind of statement has a lot more power to manipulate an audience. But, because you’ve only shown the one path (even though you are saying it is better than any others) you are making a blanket statement.

An audience simply won’t sit still for a blanket statement. They’ll cry, "Foul!" They will at least question you. So, if our caveman sitting around the fire say, "Hey, this is the best of all possible paths," the audience is going to say , "What about this other case? What if we tried this, this or this?"

If the author was able to successfully argue his case he would compare all the solutions the audience might suggest to the one he is touting and conclusively show that the promoted path is clearly the best (or worst). Or, a solution might be suggested that proves better than the author’s, in which case his blanket statement loses all credibility.

In a nutshell, for every rebuttal the audience voices, the author can attempt to counter the rebuttal until he has proven his case. Now, he wont’ have to argue every conceivable alternative solution – just the ones the audience brings up. And if he is successful, he’ll eventually exhaust their suggestions or simply tire them out to the point they are willing to accept his conclusions.

But the moment you record a story as a song ballad, a stage play, or a motion picture (for example), then the original author is no longer their to counter any rebuttals the audience might have to his blanket statement.

So if someone in the audience thinks of a potential way to resolve the problem and you haven’t addressed it in your blanket statement, they will feel there is a hole in your argument and that you haven’t made your case.

Therefore, in a recorded art form, you need to include all the other reasonable approaches that might be tried in order to "sell" your approach as the best or the worst. You need to show how each alternative is not as good (or as bad) as the one you are promoting thereby proving that your blanket statement is correct.

In order to do this, you must anticipate all the other ways the audience might consider solving the problem in question. In effect, you have include all the ways anyone might think of solving that problem. Essentially, you have to include all the ways any human mind might go about solving that problem. In so doing, you create a model of the mind’s problem-solving process: the Story Mind.

Now, no caveman ever sat down by a fire and said to himself, "I’m going to create an analogy to the mind’s problem-solving processes." Yet in the process of successfully telling a story in a recorded art form (thereby showing that a particular solution is better than all other potential ones) the structure of the story becomes a model of psychology as an accidental byproduct.

Once this is understood, you can psychoanalyze your story. And you find that everything that is in the human mind is represented in some tangible form in a story’s structure.

That’s what Dramatica is all about. Once we had that Rosetta Stone, we set ourselves to documenting the psychology of story structure. We developed a model of this structure and described it in our book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story.

Beyond that, we implemented this construct as an interactive software engine – the Story Engine, which sits at the heart of the Dramatica software. It allows authors to answer questions about their dramatic intent in any story they are developing, then cross references the impact of their various dramatic choices and predicts the remaining structure necessary to achieve that particular impact.

Video Clip - A Story is an Argument

Own the entire 12 Hours of Video Lessons
on DVD for just $19.95 (Click for Details)

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

A Tale is a Statement

2009-03-02T11:04:00.000-08:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for a streaming video on this topic

Imagine the very first storyteller, perhaps a caveman sitting around a campfire. The first communication was not a full-blown story as we know them today. Rather, this caveman may have rubbed his stomach, pointed at his mouth and made a "hungry" sound.

More than likely he was able to communicate. Why? Because his "audience" would see his motions, hear his sounds, and think (conceptually), "If I did that, what would I mean?"

We all have roughly the same physical make-up, we make the assumption that we also think similarly. Therefore when that early man encoded his feelings into sound and motion, the others in his group could decode his symbolism and arrive back at his meaning.

Buoyed by his success in communication, our caveman expands his technique, moving beyond simple expressions of his immediate state to describe a linear series of experiences. For example, he might relate how to get to a place where there are berries or how to avoid a place where there are bears. He would use sign language to outline his journey and to depict the things and events he encountered along the way.

When our storyteller is able to string together a series of events and experiences he has created a tale. And that, simply put, is the definition of a tale: an unbroken linear progression.

We call this kind of tale a "head-line" because it focuses on a chain of logical connections. But you can also have a "heart-line" – an unbroken progression of feelings. For example, our caveman storyteller might have related a series of emotions he had experienced independently of any logistic path.

Tales can be just a head-line or a heart-line, or can be more complex by combining both. In such a case, the tale begins with a particular situation in which the storyteller relates his feelings at the time. Then, he proceeded to the next step which made him feel differently, and so on until he arrives at a final destination and a concluding emotional state.

In a more complex form, emotions and logic drive each other, fully entertwining both the head-line and hear-line. So, starting from a particular place in a particular mood, driven by that mood, the storyteller acted to arrive at a second point, which then made him feel differently.

The tale might be driven by logic with feelings passively responded to each step, or it might be driven completely by feelings in which each logic progression is a result of one’s mood.

And, in the most complex form of all, logic and feelings take turns in driving the other, so that feelings may cause the journey to start, then a logical event causes a feeling to change and also the next step to occur. Then, feelings change again and alter the course of the journey to a completely illogical step.

In this way, our storyteller can "break" logic with a bridge of feeling, or violate a natural progression of feelings with a logical event that alters the mood. Very powerful techniques wrapped up in a very simple form of communication!

We know that the human heart cannot just jump from one emotion to another without going through essential emotional states in between. However, if you start with any given emotion, you might be able to jump to any one of a number of emotions next, and from any of those jump to others. But you can’t jump to all of them. If you could, then we all just be bobbing about from one feeling to another. There would be no growth and no emotional development.

As an analogy, look at Freud’s psycho-sexual stages of development or consider the seven stages of grief. You have to go through them in a particular order. You can’t skip over any. If you do, there’s an emotional mis-step. It has an untrue feeling to the heart.

A story that has a character that skips an emotional step or jumps to a step he couldn’t really get to from his previous mood it will feel wanky to the audience. It will feel as if the character started developing in a manner the audience or readers can follow with their own hearts. It will pop your audience or readers right out of the story and cause them to see the character as someone with home they simply can’t identify.

So the idea is to create a linearity. But doesn’t that linearity create a formula? Well it would if you could only go from a given emotion to just one particular emotion next. But, from any given emotion there are several you might jump to – not all, but several. And from whichever one you select as storyteller, there are several more you might go to next.

Similarly with logic, from any given situation there might be any one of a number of things that would make sense if they happened next. But you couldn’t have anything happen next because some things would simply be impossible to occur if the initial situation had happened first.

Now you can start from any place and eventually get to anywhere else, but you have to go through the in-betweens. So as long as you have a head-line and/or a heart-line and it is an unbroken chain that doesn’t skip any steps, that constitutes a complete tale.

Video Clip - A Tale is a Statement

Own the entire 12 Hours of Video Lessons
on DVD for just $19.95 (Click for Details)

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

What Is The Story Mind?

2009-02-07T14:15:00.000-08:00

The Story Mind is a model of human psychology that grew out of the development of the Dramatica Theory of Story, which describes the psychologies of characters. In fact, every story has a mind of its own. Its structure represents the story's psychology, its storytelling determines the story's personality.

In stories, characters portray our conflicting motivations, theme describes our value stndards, plot relates our problem solving techniques, and genre documents our moods.

By examining story structure from a psychological point of view, we can learn how to resolve our own problems and to find balance and equity between our reason and our passion.

Introducing the Story Mind

2009-02-06T21:38:00.000-08:00

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Scroll down for streaming video on this topic

Video Clip - Introducing the Story Mind

Own the entire 12 Hours of Video Lessons
on DVD for just $19.95 (Click for Details)

Also by Melanie Anne Phillips...

Click for Details

Write Your Novel or
Screenplay Step by Step

StoryWeaver Story Development Software with more than 200 interactive Story Cards guides you through the entire process from concept to completed novel or screenplay. Download or CD ROM.

Get the Writer's Survival Kit Bonus Package
FREE with StoryWeaver! A $300 Value!

Visit Storymind.com - Everything for the Writer

What is Dramatica?

2009-02-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

Dramatica is a theory of story structure.

Dramatica is also the name of a line of software products that implement the theory as a tool to help writers develop their stories.

The Dramatica theory is centered around a concept called the "Story Mind". It states that every story has a mind of its own. The Story Mind's psychology is determined by its structure; its personality is developed by the storytelling.

Though characters are written to come across as real people, structurally speaking, characters are no more than facets of the overall Story Mind, just as our own minds are driven by many conflicting motivations.

Plot represents our own problem solving mental mechanisms, made tangible in stories as the logical progression of events in the effort to achieve a goal.

Theme projects our value standards into tangible terms, and Genre captures the Story Mind's overall attitude.

The Dramatic Software is centered around a patented "Story Engine" which is a computer model of the Story Mind's psychology.

The dramatic elements that make up the Story Engine (such as Goal and the Main Character's resolve to either change or remain steadfast in its outlook and approach) are held together in a flexible network of interconnections, just as the aspects of our own minds are not independent units but continually affect one another as our thought processes continue.

As an author answers questions about his or her dramatic intent for a story, the Story Engine cross-references the dramatic impact of those choices and reports on how other dramatic elements are affected.

In this way, writers are able to see what would be appropriate and inappropriate choices for their stories if they are to remain consistent to their own dramatic intent. In the end, the Dramatica Software enables authors to ensure their stories' structures are flawless, complete, and fully functional.

Welcome!

2009-02-02T08:25:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm Melanie Anne Phillips, co-creator of the Dramatica theory or story and the Dramatica software. and I'd like to welcome you to a blog about all things Dramatica!

For more than a decade I've kept a web site on Dramatica at Storymind.com/dramatica but web sites are geared more to large articles and organized explanations., making it rather stodgy and overbearing.

In contrast, my personal style has always been more fluid and toward serendipity - following the Muse when an idea pops up as long as interest holds, be it a short trip or a long one. A blog suits itself well to this kind of approach.

So, while longer and more detailed articles may appear here (especially at first, as I import materials from the Dramatica web site) the purpose at hand is to create an open, expanding, free-wheeling exploration of the story theory and how to use the software tool designed to wield it.

For me, a theorist by trade, this is quite liberating. I hope you find it a good source of information and inspiration, and I look forward to your comments and participation.