Every story has a mind of its own.   It has a Psychology determined by its structure, a personality established by its subjective matter, and a persona developed through its storytelling style.

This Story Mind is not that of the author, the audience or the characters, but rather that of the story itself, as if it were an individual person with its own motivations, approaches, standards and outlook.

Within the story mind, characters represent its motivations, plot its approaches, theme its standards, and genre its outlook.  The story mind functions like our own minds but projected outward and made tangible in the characters, plot, theme and genre so that we might better understand ourselves.

Characters influence our own drives – plot, our methods – theme, our values – genre, our attitude toward life.  By manipulating these elements, an author is able to shape the audience as it becomes one with the story.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica