Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips

Dramatica – Iterations, Justifications, 1234, and PRCP (Expert Level)

Here’s a portion of my response in a recent conversation with a student of Dramatica:

Well, let’s be clear about the different between iterations and flips and rotates. Flips and rotates are justification. Iterations is the process of the mind expanding to the size of mind constant wherein, you can look at something larger that the top of the tower, but you’d lose the bottom level, or vice versa. With four dimensions to look at self – KTAD – and four to look at the material world – MEST – we must make the rounds, mentally, to check the value of each of those eight compared to the other seven. But, in the process of looking at our relationship to the material world, moving from one measurement to the next takes time. So, in a spatial sense, by the time you’ve gotten through all eight measurements, one of the earlier ones might have changed due to inner or outer circumstances, so the mind goes back and does it all again. But in a temporal sense, doing it all again in the same order always favors the last point, so one must go back and do them all again, but in a different order. Of course, this could go on and on, but that’s what iterations are all about – the process of examining all of these different perspectives over again to see if something has changed and in a series of progressively different sequences. Naturally, this reduces inaccuracy, but it cannot eliminate it, no matter how many iterations you build into the system. But that never comes up because of the size of mind constant that can only hold four items across (horizontally) and four levels down (vertically) before you run out of available dimensions and iterations and run into that problem of losing detail to see a bigger picture or losing the overview to see more detail. All you can know about a single point on the helix is expressed by the table of story elements. Any more than that, you are moving up and down the helix.

Now, justification isn’t breaking bonds, it is breaking position (space) or sequence (time) in going through the iterations as listed above. And this is driven by an incompatibility between the mind and the material world, as outlined earlier. So, iterations are non-justified and flips and rotates are the process of justification upon the non-justified mind. PRCP tells you to what degree your spatial assessment is out of whack. 1234 tells you the degree to which your sequential assessment is out of whack. Between the two you can determine if you should go with your spatial or temporal view because it is more accurate. And that is seen in having two justification wind-ups – one that will be labeled with 1234 or PRCP and then wound up again when the other of 1234 or PRCP will be applied. The second one applied is the one doubly out of whack and in a narrative, that is the one that must be changed in order to resolve the inequity, or at least to put the problem where the inequity is.

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Dramatica’s Pairs: Dynamic, Companion, Dependent, and Collective

Here’s an in-depth response to a student of the Dramatica theory who recently stated:

“I assume the Independent has 4 iterations where each Splay and Display go together for a total of 4. This makes 4 Dynamic, 4 Companion, 4 Dependent, 4 Independent, which does give the correct number of appreciations for each tower.”

Here’s my lengthy reply that really gets to the core of how that part of the theory works:

Let’s talk about Independent for a minute. The quad of relationships that can exist between any two items are Dynamic, Companion, Dependent, and Component. Component is the fourth item in pair relationships. There are two dynamic pairs in a quad, two companion pairs, two dependent pairs and two component pairs. What are the two component pairs? Independent and Collective. Independent means all four items in the quad are seen as individual unconnected elements with individual traits. Collective means they are all taken together as a family in which all individual items are part of that family share overall traits.

In truth, every motion from one element in a quad to the next has a vertical component, but it is ignored in the spatial view until, by the time you have gone all around the quad, the vertical rise prevents the fourth item in the quad from connected back to the first in a true circle, creating a cycle as you would in trigonometry.

The spatial view prefers things all on the same level, so rather than addressing the temporal iterative rise element by element, it is ignored until at the fourth level, it all has to be dealt with at once, like a leap year in the calendar, and so the way that forth level works, and its semantic values all reflect the entire vertical rise from all four items combined, all at once.

That’s why Dynamic, Companion, and Dependent have the same feel as one another, each has two instances in the quad, and one will be a positive relationship and one a negative relationship to balance the potential of the polarity.

As you know, a negative dynamic relationship is where both elements beat each other into the ground until no potential is left. A positive dynamic relationship is when the conflict between both elements sparks a synthesis that helps solve the problem. One is destructive, the other constructive.

But what about the component relationships, independent and collective? One is positive and the other negative because one leads to the solution and one away from it. Picture the slinky toy view. A quad is in the middle of the slinky somewhere. From there, you can move up the slinky to the next quad or down the slinky to the next quad.

Collective relationships move up (arbitrary direction) but that means that it combines the elements into a family, thereby moving up to the next level in the tower and are now considered a family, rather than independent elements. Independent relationships move down (arbitrary direction just for illustration of the concept) and split apart into new parents that will have new children in the level below.

The family relationship they previous had is now gone as they are considered parents in their own right and the next level down in the tower is now created.

The mind can only hold four levels of iteration at one time before it runs out of perspectives (we call it the “size of mind constant.” But, like the slinky, it theoretically goes up and down the helix like a railroad track, only covering four railroad ties at a time, but able to move more into the macroscopic overview (up the tower) or down into the details in the other direction, if that is what is needed for a particular problem.

Now keep in mind that is how the mind operates ongoing. But narrative structure does not move up or down. Narrative structure defines the size of mind constant for one particular problem and explores all the mind’s perspective about that problem without moving up or down.

Narratives are a closed system that is defined by the size of mind constant as applied to a single problem. The mind itself is an open system the moves up and down the helix into the broader view or the narrower view as needed for each new problem it fields and must consider.

Bottom line, that is why the fourth pair relationship is actually Independent or Collective – it sets the direction of exploration up or down the town in a given closed system narrative, which mimics the completely open system movement of the mind along the helix in the wild.

That’s it for now, and I’ll be back later to talk about splay and display and your other points, unless you’d rather have me address some other issue instead. Talk to you again soon, either way.

–Melanie Anne Phillips

Dramatica – A Conversation with AI (Part 1)

I decided to have a chat with AI about the Dramatica theory as a means of sharing information about the central concepts with more people in a more conversational tone.

Here’s the transcript of our first conversation:

You said:

I’d like to have an ongoing conversation with you about the Dramatica theory of story that I can share with my followers in order to convey information about Dramatica concepts and how they relate to narratives both in fiction and in the real world. You up for this?

ChatGPT said:

Absolutely! I’m up for it. We can discuss Dramatica concepts in depth, explore how they apply to storytelling, and even analyze real-world narratives through the Dramatica lens. Do you have a particular format in mind—like a structured Q&A, casual discussion, or guided walkthroughs of specific topics? Also, would you like to start with an overview for new audiences or jump into more advanced concepts?

You said:

I was thinking that, at least initially, a casual discussion would be best, but including questions from you about anything where you’d like more depth or clarity, and also requests from you to explore side topics that you see as being linked to what we’re discussing at any given time. What do you think about that approach?

ChatGPT said:

That sounds like a great approach! A conversational style will make it more engaging, and I can prompt deeper exploration or suggest related topics as we go. Where would you like to start? Would you prefer to introduce Dramatica in broad strokes, or dive into a particular aspect that you think is foundational or often misunderstood?

You said:

I think we need to begin with some basics overview information for those who are unfamiliar with the Dramatica theory. My notion is we ought to begin by exploring what to me is absolutely the central concept of Dramatica from which all else derives, and that is “the story mind.” Thoughts?

ChatGPT said:

That makes perfect sense. The “story mind” is the foundation of Dramatica, and understanding it unlocks everything else.

To kick things off, how would you introduce the concept of the story mind to someone who has never encountered it before? Would you frame it in terms of how a story functions as a single mind solving a problem, or emphasize its structural implications—like how characters represent aspects of thought? I’m curious how you personally explain it when introducing Dramatica to others.

You said:

My thoughts are that we need to begin at an even more basic level than a single mind solving a problem or that characters represent aspects of the story mind. Those other lines of inquiry are certainly important and each should eventually be explored as we go along. But to start with, I need to convey several things, rather all at once, since each one almost requires a pre-knowledge of the others in order to really get a sense of what the Story Mind concept is all about. How about if I list those key sub-concepts in no particular order, and you help me arrange them for the best presentation to someone new to Dramatica?

ChatGPT said:

That sounds like a solid plan. Go ahead and list the key sub-concepts you think are essential to understanding the Story Mind, and I’ll help arrange them into an order that makes them as clear and accessible as possible for someone new to Dramatica.

You said:

Thanks! Okay, here we go. Let me start with one concept first, have you write a conversational explanation, and then we’ll add more concepts one by one, rewriting the conversational explanation each time until we arrive at a final version that includes all the points we’d like in there. Here’s point one: Every story has a mind of its own, as if it were a real person – a “super-character” in which characters, plot, theme, and genre represent different aspects of the Story Mind’s psychology. Please give this a whirl in more conversational terms, then we’ll add another concept and rewrite to include it.

ChatGPT said:

Got it! Here’s a conversational take on that first concept:

Think of a story not just as a sequence of events, but as if it were a single mind—a kind of “super-character” with its own way of thinking. Just like a person has different mental functions—logic, emotion, desires, doubts—a story has different elements that work together to form a complete psychology. The characters, plot, theme, and even the genre aren’t just separate parts of storytelling; they all represent aspects of this larger Story Mind. In a way, a story is like stepping into someone else’s thought process and watching it play out from the inside.

Does this feel like the right tone? Once you’re happy with it, we can add the next concept and refine it further.

You said:

Not bad! Let’s go with that and add the next concept. Please shorten what I’m about to write and fold it into a new piece of text that incorporates both the section you just wrote and this new concept as well: How did a model of the mind end up as the structure of a story? Why would that be so? The short answer is that in the process of spinning tales, early storytellers found that certain pieces needed to be there for the story to feel complete and also compelling. Over hundreds of generations, and through hit-and-miss, these necessary pieces became the conventions of storytelling. As it turns out, without thinking about it, those pieces were necessary because they are the same issues and techniques we all explore as human beings when trying to grapple with a problem or figure out our best way forward in life. So, without any intent behind it, narrative structure became a model of the common architecture of problem solving shared by every individual. So – please rework this for clarity and brevity, fold it into what we have already, and let’s see what we get.

ChatGPT said:

Here’s the revised version, incorporating both concepts smoothly:

Think of a story not just as a sequence of events but as a single mind—a “super-character” with its own way of thinking. Characters, plot, theme, and even genre all represent different aspects of this Story Mind’s psychology, working together like thoughts and emotions inside a person.

But why does story structure take this form? It all goes back to early storytellers. Over generations, they discovered—through trial and error—that certain elements had to be present for a story to feel complete and compelling. Without realizing it, they were mirroring the way we, as humans, grapple with problems and make decisions. In other words, narrative structure naturally evolved into a model of the way we think.

How does that feel? If it’s working, we can add the next concept and refine it further!

You said:

Hey, that’s pretty good. Let’s go with that and move on to another concept: Armed with the understanding of how narrative structure came to be and what it represents, Dramatica was able to discern and refine that model of the Story Mind, adding missing pieces and moving things into alignment. Previously all other narrative theories tried to understand structure by looking for what worked with stories in their finished version, in which narrative is often obscured by the storytelling that surrounds it. This resulted in story techniques that didn’t work in for all kinds of stories and often were missing pieces as well. But the Dramatica theory, based on the core structure of narrative, was developed so that it works for all stories to create narratives that are consistent and complete, to form the strongest and most powerful foundations for stories. Let’s revise our text to include this, edited and reworked for brevity and clarity, and perhaps to change the tone a bit so it doesn’t sound so much like a sales pitch.

ChatGPT said:

Here’s the revised version, now incorporating the new concept while keeping it clear, balanced, and informative:

Think of a story not just as a sequence of events but as a single mind—a “super-character” with its own way of thinking. Characters, plot, theme, and even genre all represent different aspects of this Story Mind’s psychology, working together like thoughts and emotions inside a person.

But why does story structure take this form? Over generations, storytellers discovered that certain elements had to be present for a story to feel complete and compelling. Without realizing it, they were mirroring how we, as humans, grapple with problems and make decisions. In other words, narrative structure naturally evolved into a model of the way we think.

Dramatica builds on this idea by refining that model, aligning its pieces, and filling in the gaps. Traditional storytelling theories have often looked at finished stories, where narrative structure is intertwined with style, genre, and personal expression. This approach led to techniques that worked some of the time but lacked consistency. Dramatica, in contrast, was developed by examining the core structure beneath storytelling, ensuring a complete and internally sound foundation that works for any story.

This keeps the tone more objective while still making a strong point. How does it feel to you? Ready to add another concept?

You said:

Very nice! Let’s conclude this session here and I’ll return soon with another area of the theory for us to explore. And thanks for your help – I couldn’t do it without you!

ChatGPT said:

You’re very welcome! This has been a great start, and I’m looking forward to diving deeper into Dramatica with you. Just let me know when you’re ready to explore the next area of the theory. Always happy to help—this is exactly the kind of discussion I enjoy. See you next time!

The Reasoning Behind Dramatica 2

Another installment in my ongoing series explaining why things are the way they are in Dramatica.

The Four Classes: Universe, Physics, Mind, and Psychology

As mentioned in the previous episode of this series, in our efforts to explore how story structure worked, we had early on determined that exploring the psychology of the main character might be the key to unlocking it, for reasons described there.

So, we began looking at many different kinds of stories for anything having to do with the main character’s motivations and manners of thinking, and whenever we found something that described such things, we put it on a post-it note and stuck it to the wall.

Eventually we saw patterns in the notes that had by now absolutely covered the wall in our conference room.  For example, we could see that some of theses psychological attribute seemed to be opposite attitudes such as Faith and Disbelief or to represent two ways of looking at things, such as Hope or Fear, or two approaches such as Pursue or Avoid.

So, we organized as much as we could of the notes we’d already gathered into pairs of opposites.  When we’d done that, we found we had a lot of single items left.  Naturally, we figured that once all the pairs were pulled aside, these remaining single that we had observed in stories probably also had opposites that we just hadn’t noticed or encountered yet.  Rather that go looking for them, which would take quite a while, we thought it would be a lot easier just to calculate what the opposite of a single item should be.

Now this is a pretty important decisions because it marked the first time we built a part of the model not just from observation but by extending patterns we had observed into new patterns never directly observed (at least not then, though all these “predictions” have now been verified in thousands of stories).

The notion was, in pulling together the initial pairs from data, we had developed a “feel” for the relationships between the two items.  Based on that feeling, we could take any of the single words and determine a pair for it so that the semantic relationship between the two words, between their meanings, would be just like the relationship between the pairs we had already observed.

The development of Dramatica is largely a story of seeing relationships in data, then extending the theory/model to fill in other patterns that were only partially complete.

As we continued, we saw that some of the pairs seemed like a counter-point to another pair, such as the pair of Support and Oppose seemed related to the pair of Help and Hinder – the first pair being more about attitude and the second pair more about action.

So, we started gathering as many pairs as we could  into groups of two related pairs.  As it turned out, the pairs from data did best as groups of just two pairs.  Any more pairs seemed unbalanced – again, based on intuition that story structure ought to be symmetrical.  I mean it just made sense, didn’t it?  We didn’t know, but it sure seemed that way so far, so we proceeded under that assumption, and having one pair counter-balance another pair played right into that.

We also found that some items that seemed like they were higher level concepts that were kind of like an umbrella word that described the family of two counter-balanced pairs.  In other words, our simple groups of four were now  beginning to be seen as the children of a parent post-it term.  Conversely, the parent terms might be seen as being made up of the two pairs within it – or even perhaps made up of the four items contained in the two pairs.

And then we found that two parents made a higher level  pair, and two pairs of parents were topped by an even higher level parent and so on.  Now, some of this was from observed data, some was from extending the patterns we found.  But all along, we were developing a sense of some underlying relationship that existed just beneath the surface of the patterns – we couldn’t see it, but we could feel it.

In his book about how they discovered DNA, James Watson (of Crick and Watson) describes how they had a feeling based on all the data that DNA might be some sort of helix, but had no proof and also no idea what kind of helix.  So, they ordered some molecular models, basically industrial tinker toys, and started assembling them into all manner of helices – singles, doubles, left and right handed, and also how many molecular bonds in each twist – stuff like that.

Eventually, they knocked off all the candidates but one because all the others failed to explain all of what little known hard data they had.  And that was the famous double-helix.  They were so sure they’d found it, just on the basis of its elegance and simplicity (and the lack of alternatives) that they announced their findings and, fortunately for their careers, they were soon proven right.

But we didn’t know that yet – hadn’t read the book.  We were just looking for patterns in the data we gathered from real stories, as seen through the notion of the psychology of the main character.

At some point, and I really can’t provide more information on that because we were constantly striking off in all kinds of directions simultaneously, but at some point, we realized the obvious: stories on not built from characters alone.  Duh.

As I recall, we already had some items on post-it notes we’d gathered that seemed more descriptive of plot than of characters or, perhaps, of the material world than of the mental world.

Taking a clue from the hierarchy we were building and expanding for the main character psychology,  we took those more external post-it items and started building a companion hierarchy of them.

At first, we worked the external hierarchy’s parents and children independently of the psychology.  An then, much to our surprise, we started to see that some items in one hierarchy had a  comparative item in the other.  For example, Memory in the psychology set had a counterpart in Past in the external set AND in the same relative position in external as Memory was in internal.

Now that pretty much knocked us on the floor.  It was looking as if each set was the same as the other, just with a different perspective – one looking out and the other looking in.  How?  Why?

Perhaps, we speculated, the relationships in each hierarchy represent what we see when we look at anything – all the available perspectives we have available to us.  When we look at the external world, we see things colored that way, and when we look inside ourselves, we see the very same things colored another.

But, we didn’t spend too much time getting all philosophic about it – not yet, anyway.  We were out to crack the code of story structure and make a name for ourselves – fame and fortune!

Now working with these evolving hierarchies on the wall was getting a bit cumbersome.  Everything was spreading laterally across the room.  So, Chris being (among his many talents) a graphics guy, started modeling our concepts and understandings in a more accessible form.

At first he tried putting each into a 3 D pyramid with Mind at the top of one and Universe at the apex of the other.  We discovered each was a four-sided pyramid because there were always for items in a set of two pairs.  And then their parents made two pairs that also made four items and so on.  Not making it up, just following the patterns inherent in the semantics of the words on the post-ii notes, originally discovered in stories.

And then we had the pair of Memory and Conscious in Mind and the equivalents of Past and Present in Universe.  After some work, we added Subconscious to Mind and Future to Universe.  But how could those be equivalent?  Well, perhaps, it is in the Subconscious from whence come our desires, which might be based on looking at what we want in the future?

Well, that turned out to be just wrong – at least as stated – but we had no time for that.  We were trying to finish the two hierarchies and discover a way to efficiently present them – not to try and  understand any of it yet, unless we couldn’t help it.

So, in time we got two pyramids visualized on paper, but they had a lot of problems, just like Crick’s and Watson’s tinker toy models.  For one thing, it was beginning to look like the bottom level of each hierarchy was using the same words as in the other hierarchy and in the exact same places, which was just weird: How could the external world and the internal world meet at the exact same things?

To help answer that, we attempted to put the two four-sided pyramids together, base to base.  But if things are in the same position at the bottom of each, they can’t possibly meet item to item, because you’ve flipped them over so they are at opposite sides.

Paradox.

So, we tried putting them point to point, but that provided no practical use at all.  Finally we just settled on two pyramids, side by side, where the bottom level was exactly the same in each.  Didn’t like it, couldn’t do anything about it, and at least it was easy to see equivalencies from one to the other.

Now how did we get from two classes to four?  Well as I said earlier, it’s hard to establish a clear linearity of evolution here since we were working on a myriads of things all at once, which muddies the water.  But basically, it is as follows:

Within each hierarchy, we had arranged each set of two pairs in what we came to call a “quad.”  This was designed as a visualization by Chris so that the most specific or tangible pair was put on a diagonal from the upper left, and the more ethereal of process-oriented was put on a diagonal from the upper right.  By doing this consistently, the natures of each pair and their relationship from pyramid to pyramid was easily seen.

And somewhere along the line, we realized everything in each pyramid was made of quads of four, but the top level only had two items – one pair – Universe and Mind.  If story structure was indeed symmetrical, there ought to be four.  So what would be the other two?  Well, by looking at the relationships of the pairs in the  hierarchies at all levels, we were able to determine that the pair of Universe and Mind needed a complimentary pair of Physics and Psychology.

As it turned out, we hadn’t been building a model of psychology but of mind – the tangible pieces of our inner world like Conscious, Memory, and Subconscious.  But the processes of the mind, the way it rolled, that would be in a hierarchy of Psychology.  And Universe had a process equivalent of Physics.

So, we realized what we were building were four perspectives on the reality that was the same thing at the bottom of each point of view.  We called them Classes to give a sciency ring to them.

And Chris, Graphic Man Extraordinaire, converted the pyramids to towers and eventually bound them into the 3D projection we all know and love and the flat table of story elements that holds our hearts to this day.

Again, a lot of things were going on at once, but I think this paints a good picture of where we were coming from and a glimpse at the order in which things happened.

Hopefully, this will help you adopt the same intuitive mind set to guide your logic in continuing to refine and expand the theory.

Comment from Irvaxis, a patron:

Since this post talks about the Table of Elements’ origins, there are some theoretical questions i’ve recently been debating with a friend of mine in regards to its construction. Therefore, here is my question: · In the Table of Elements, at rest, unjustified, does every quad there respect the traditional K A D T arrangement for every term/mental process placed in there, or rather, the K A D T arrangement follows a different logic for each quad, and in such case, which one? This is the closest thing i found to explain it, and it quickly became confusing beyond my comprehension. I was unable to map this onto the entire table: https://www.storymind.com/mental_relativity/mrmath2.htm Thanks in advance like always.

My response:

Hi, Irvaxis. Though I will be doing a “Reasoning” post specifically about the Table of Elements and several about the quad, let me answer your question with a few brief things to consider, and later I’ll hold forth more expansively.

First, the link you included explains part of the issue in the section entitled the non-linear form. It describes (in text and in the included graphic) how the KTAD equation iterates. Let me here address the salient points, not in a “reasoning behind” approach but, for efficiency and clarity, in a “this is what it is” approach.

First, the entire model is a K based system which means that of all the ways you could look at narrative structure, Dramatica was all built from point of view of definitive elements arranged in rigid relationships.

The “why” of this will be covered later, and there are many other ways to build a structure and an engine than this one that addresses the same thing, just as DNA can been seen as a double-heilx or under X-Ray will appear as a crystal. The Table of Story Element is the crystalline version of Dramatica.

Next – the quad is not a thing, it is a visual representation of a logic equation – even an equation of relativity. The primary equation is K/T = AD, which is from a K-base perspective. But the equation itself is designed to describe the relationships among four processes, each represented by one of the four letters, which are the four “bases” of the DNA of narrative.

When the equation iterates is is not just working like traditional iterative equations where the result is then plugged back into the variables of the equation to create expanding fractals. Rather, the quad represents an iteration in which the result of the equation changes the operations in the structure – essentially, changing the position of the variables in the equation but not the nature of the items nor the nature of the equation’s operations, just where specific variables reside in the operation.

Side note: this describes how the mind goes over the same ground again and again, but in different orders through the variables to understand the role of time (sequence) in affecting the results. i.e. : a slap followed by a scream has a different meaning than a scream followed by a slap.

From the top of the Tower of Dramatica, the K perspective (Spatial perspective) is maintained all the way down to the elements, and so, from that perspective, K is always in the upper left and KTAD maintain their relative positions.

But, laterally within the model, the horizontal levels represent the temporal aspect of the iteration, and so, as in the line you included, each quad iterates until it completes creating set of four states of the equation (or if you prefer four iterated equations of KTAD) .

But once that happens at the Type level, to create 16 types (four quads of four), then the temporal process iterates the entire set of 16 types through the same pattern as in the link to create a “chess set” of 64 variations. And so, the tower view has iterated not only horizontally but vertically as well.

As an aside, this is why we say Dramatica is a quad helix, because it is really two helices, each identical to DNA, but wrapped around each other in a super double helix, which reflects in the dynamics as the two different justifications. But finally, we reach the bottom where it all falls apart. There, Quads are broken apart into their original binary pairs and then recombined into new quads in a final iterative operation that takes into account how all four classes are ultimately looking at the same things, but by the time you get into the greatest depth of detail or granularity, the physics of it breaks down.

And at that place at which all four classes come together with the same items but in arrangements that bread the bonds of the physics of it in each of the other three classes, respectively, you are on the edge of atomic dissolution where it interfaces with the quantum realm, and that is the final step before you leave the K based system and move on to the next master perspective.

And when you have iterated through all four master perspectives down to the bottom, collectively, you have arrived at the point where you are no longer looking at structure and the relationships among items, but at dynamics and the influences that alter them – the mythical dynamic model. That is where I am working currently.

Irvaxis:

Let’s see if i got this right so far: · There are at least two perspectives we can hold in the static table of elements (with no component of time/sequence): A vertical one (i assume, top down), and a horizontal one (or also named lateral, which would be within the same floor of the towers). · The vertical view keeps the classic KADT arrangement as the equations themselves are represented with the same bias. · The lateral view of a floor is iterating through the equation positions. I assume this refers to each floor independently. The top floor is the base equation, the next floor is 4 iterations, the next floor is 16 iterations and the last floor is 64 iterations, that iterate according to the rules in that article of yours that i still can’t wrap my head around at this time. · The mix/combination of these two factors decides what the mental process in that place is. Or: · The top down view is the towers/Table of Elements. This is the “spatial” component. This also determines KADT arrangement in this perspective. · The lateral view is the result of justification / is basically for the “time” component. This also determines KADT arrangement in this other perspective. · The Dynamics from the algorithms would operate upon this temporal/lateral side in matching accordance to what’s what on the top down/spatial side. Would it be one of these two? Or something else entirely? Still, i might need a bit of a walkthrough to get how these equations iterate, especially as we go down to the element level, unless that’s planned for a dedicated post. Still, thanks in advance like always.

My response:

Interestingly, all of what you said above “or” is correct and some of what you said below “or” but not all.

For the first point below “or” – Yes, the top down view is the spatial perspective of the mind, which manifests itself in a repetitive KTAD pattern from top to bottom with no iteration.

For the second point – No, the lateral view is not the result of justification. Justification has not happened yet in the model. It is the temporal view of KTAD, unjustified, and from that perspective, the KTAD pattern flows through the iterations, seen as static shifts of meaning in the semantic model.

It can help to think of it this way conceptually – In our minds we have a time sense and a space sense. They do not and cannot see eye to eye. It is like trying to put a plastic ruler down on a pencil that has been laid on a table. If you press one side of the ruler to the table, the other side will move up from the table, like a seesaw. If you press the other side down, the first side will move up. There is not way to make it match on with both sides being down at the same time (though they can both be half-way up.

Down on both sides is a solved problem. Up in any balance between the sides is an inequity in the mind. The mind is driven by inequity and will never be balanced. Self awareness is the interference pattern between space and time. It does not exist within the brain but in the differential between our space sense and our time sense. It is that interference pattern that you see between the top down view, which makes total sense spatially, and the horizontal view, which makes total sense temporally.

But when you put them both in the same space/time construct (the tower) they are incompatible and in place contradictory. And yet they both exist in the same space/time.

It helps sometimes to think of the model without any words in it and without KTAD labels stuck on it. For this perspective the framework of the model appears to make total sense from the top down and total sense from the side across. That is the view from inside out minds because our self awareness cannot view things both spatially and temporally at the same time.

And so, we cannot see the paradox within – it looks good from space, then again looks good from time, then back to space and back to time and everything appears compatible, from the inside. But, from the outside, there is that discrepancy you are beginning to visualize.

Simultaneously, the model is consistent from the top and iterating from the side, which cannot be, yet is. This is expressed in the semantics. Each word in the model was chosen to represent simultaneously the best seesaw compromise between the consistent space down view and the progressive sideways across view. That is built into the matrix of the model itself BEFORE justification.

That is the view from outside the mind, as when we are looking at others, leading to why we say, “If I were you, this is what I’d do,” because from the outside their decisions make no sense. But from inside their minds, your advice makes no sense. As my mom put it to me as a teaching moment when I was young, “People say to me, ‘If I were you, I’d do this…” and I tell them, ‘No, if you were me, you’d do exactly what I’m doing, but if you were in you but in my shoes, you’d do the way you suggested.” Smart woman, my mom.

So, as I say, that paradox is built into the model at rest, BEFORE justification. Now, imagine we can only think at all because of that paradox, and it is the best we can get living inside our minds by virtue of how they are constructed, how they MUST be constructed.

And now in that mind at rest, filled with nothing but ready to operate, life experience enters the picture. In a practical world, we see things happen a certain way long enough and we assume givens – if this, then this, and when this, also this. Then the situation changes, but we are stuck with the givens. (We must adopt givens or we would have to refigure everything we know every time we considered anything at all – bad survival trait for the species. So, we establish givens which become the framework of how we see the world.

And then something changes and those givens don’t work any longer. For example, you understand when to use logic and when to use feelings to solve a problem, but now logic isn’t working any longer because of a different environment. So, you eventually give up on it and go with somebody’s advice to stop over thinking it and just go with your feelings and you do.

That’s the moment logic moves to the back burner for this kind of problem and feeling moves to the front. And now you’ve moved a mental process from its original position in the model matrix to another position in a flip. That is the beginning of the justification process, when something is either flipped spatially, or rotated temporally to adjust to experience altering either its position in the model or its sequence.

But, since time and space are interconnected in the model, when you flip or rotate one thing, the other goes with it and is also altered – space alters time and time space simultaneously. And this is how and when the justification process is applied to the model. It is not contained in the model – that is only the paradox of the interference pattern of space and time that creates self awareness in a mind (or model) at rest, carried to the the nth degree as far into the details as we can see within ourselves before we reach the point where if we look deeper, we lose a level of the upper view – the size of mind constant – so that the model is always the same size, no matter what kind of human issue we are looking at.

And it is upon that model of constant size and built-in paradox at rest that first one justification wind up is applied and then the other, in response to the eight dynamic questions. The final four questions of the total of twelve serve to position that effect upon the model in a particular place, but more on that later.

So, that’s why the model is as it is and where and when justification is applied and does not inherently reside within the model at rest and is not involved in the paradox in the vertical and horizontal levels. Good stopping point for now. 🙂

Irvaxis:

Alright, that is super-clarifying, thanks a lot! I feel like i have the gist of why the algorithm found coded in the patent and the apparent simplicity of “there are only 8 algorithms” seemed to mismatch. I have to ask one more thing, although this may need its own topic sometime: Is there a known representation of the temporal/lateral, unjustified perspective, with the corresponding KADT attachments/iterations? Because if there is, or if it can be created, this might heavily accelerate the process of recovering the algorithms and most especially the theory behind them, i conjecture. Because if these two are implemented as a single piece of code as i suspect, de-coupling them may prove to be crucial to get back the correct understanding of it.

My response:

In fact, I do not know. I was always on the theory side, not on the implementation side, so I’d come up with the concepts and the next thing I know they’d show up working in software. I see what you are saying – that if we could take the iteration “code” out of the software the justification code would remain, sort of. But, as far as I know, the iteration code isn’t in the software at all.

Rather, that’s just the concept that explains why you run into the semantic terms seeming like they don’t follow a strict KTAD pattern in the Table. But there was no need to code that part. All that was needed was the semantic terms that were used and their position in the model at rest, and then to run the two justifications on it.

So, essentially, that whole vertical/horizontal iteration “slip” it encoded in the semantics so that the semantic relationship among the four items in a quad gradually shifts as one moves through the at rest model, indicating the changing nature of KTAD through a gradual change in semantic meaning an the relationships among those altered meanings and relationship due to iterations.

Essentially, I imagine there is a semantic change in nature of the specific words from top to bottom and a change in the semantic distance between the words within quads from side to side across the model. This way, both the alteration in meaning of moving from top to bottom spatially through the four levels KTA and D and the alteration in the nature in the change of the relationships among KTAD within the evolving equations are combined in a single semantic shift, literally word by word. Therefore, both spatial and temporal shifts are unseen in terms of the toward and only contained in the semantic values. As a result, in the program it was not necessary to code either the spatial nor temporal shifts. All that was needed was:

1. Construct the matrix of the table.

2. Assign the semantic terms to their at rest position in the matrix.

3. Twist and turn the model with the two justifications based on the algorithms, including overlaying the PRCO and 1234 with the first and second justifications, which goes first depends on the algorithms.

That’s all that really happens with the model. Then the story point relationship table is overlaid so the engine can narrow the number of storyforms remaining by making choices, thereby providing more information about the structure than the author entered. And then you derive the PRCO and 1234 information and provide that to the author as well.

You know, when I stop to think about it, perhaps my greatest frustration is that to most folks, the elegance of the model is invisible. Of course, for writers, why would they want to bother with that anyway, as long as it works.

But there’s such a hidden beauty there, yet with many people, they perceive the Dramatica quad structure of the tower view as just a bunch of nested cubby holes that are just handy for holding dramatic topics that might show up in stories and have been grouped in quads of similar words.

Of course, as described above, the quads in the tower represent nested iterative equations at four different fractal levels as their variable are altered. And the iteration of the actual operations within each equation, not the variable values but the operations of the equation itself across the horizontal axis of the model CANNOT be included in the tower itself because they cannot co-exist with the top-down fractal approach – those two view are incompatible in the same space-time, must like real and imaginary numbers.

So the words in the model do the job of illustrating the gradual shift of temporal iterations (frictals) in the lateral plane, and in that way they transcend the limitations of the three dimensional representation of space-time in the model to separate out the fourth dimension of time into the semantics. And so, the model is space from the top down, but time in the iterations of semantic meanings laterally.

Now that’s pretty freaking elegant. But the real clincher is that the whole model with the space of the quads and the time of the semantics, both locked together is that they are twisted and turned through the process of justification to represent not the at-rest state of the mind, but the the potential of the mind’s experience-derived inequities, which are manifest in the potentials created through justification.

And then, of course, there is a second justification. One of the justifications occurs in the overall story mind. The other in the mind of the main character.

The main character is our self-awareness that exists without our mind. But our mind is so much more. Self-awareness is our Conscious mind, but there is also our Memory, our Subconscious, and our Pre-conscious.

And so, there is a fractal relationship between the main character and the overall mind, for the main character resides within it, but as an exact structural fractal – one tower of the complete four, a fractal of the totality.

But what’s more is that one justification is a frictal of the other – temporal fractals of one another that operate identically but one before the other. And so they are temporal fractals (frictals).

Finally, have you as of yet seen the quad that is made up of the two fractal structures (main character and overarching mind) and the two frictal dynamics (the first wind up and the second wind up)?

The structural fractals fall into the K and T positions within this master quad and the dynamic ones exist in the A and D positions. Armed with the understandings denoted above, anything within or without ourselves can be described and understood in the most accurate perspective available to us in our existence as the interference pattern between the mental world and the material world.

Perhaps “elegance” is too tame a word for this?

The Reasoning Behind Dramatica 1

I’m starting this new series of posts to provide a glimpse into our thought processes as we developed the Dramatica theory and the software implementation of the story engine.  It is my hope that sharing the reasoning behind key theory concepts will help provide perspectives others can employ to refine and expand the theory further.

Keep in mind the posts in this series are not intended to explain the concepts but to describe how we came to them.

The Story Mind

How and why did we come to the belief that the underlying structure of every story is the psychology of a single mind, that of the story itself, as if every story is something of a super character of which all the other characters are facets?

Here’s the quick version of how our thinking evolved, and below that a more detailed description of the pathway that got us there.

THE SHORT VERSION

Chris and I had been discussing story structure every morning over coffee for months before we each went off to our respective jobs. One day, Chris asked a question that would directly lead, years later, to the discovery of the story mind.  He asked, “If a characters, such as Scrooge, are the cause of a story’s problems, how come they can’t see it?”

We pondered that a bit and concluded that characters like Scrooge must have some sort of blind spot – a psychological filter that actually prevents them from seeing the real problem and in fact, causes him to believe the problem comes from somewhere else.  If that was true, how would something like that come to be, and more, how is that remedied by the end of a story?

At this point in our discussions we shifted gears from looking for structural patterns in stories to trying to understand the psychology of the main character, and when I eventually joined Chris at his company to work on the problem, that is where we focused.

So, we started looking at all manner of movies, books, plays, etc. to find anything in those stories that pertained to the main character’s psychology.  As we found them, we put each on on a post-it note and stuck it to the wall in the conference room.

Eventually that wall was plastered with these individual points.  But, as we mulled them over, we began to realize that some of them seemed like they belonged together, as if they belonged to the same family.  And so we grouped them as best we could, chipping away at all the remaining post-it notes that hadn’t been yet assigned to a group of similar items.

In time, it became clear that some of these psychological attributes of the main character were more like an umbrella under which a family of similar items resided.  We thought of them as parents and children.

We arranged and rearranged the notes, groupings, parents, and children, until we’d used up most of original notes on the wall.  But there was this one collection of all the remaining psychological aspects that just didn’t seem to be part of the psychology of the main character, though they were certainly psychological attributes within the story.

Our next thought was that perhaps these other points were part of one of the other kinds of characters than the main character – but which one, and how were they related.  I spent days staring at the notes on the wall, looking for a pattern that might explain what these orphan notes were and how they fit into stories.

And then, one day (and I actually recall this moment so very clearly) I was looking at all those loose notes and reading them over when I thought, no, those aren’t part of the main character’s psychology, and they really don’t fit with any of the other characters either.  So what are they?

And as I examined them more closely, reading the names of each attribute, I suddenly realized that what tied them all together as a group were that they were “higher-level” concepts than the ones in the main character group.  They were more broad stroke, more expansive.

And at that moment I said to myself, I wonder if these aren’t about the characters at all, but about the psychology going on in the story itself.  And then the next thought was the Eureka moment, it popped into may head that, “maybe the story has a psychology of its own.”

I snapped out of my thought as if out of a trance and ran down the hall to Chris’ office blurting out, “Maybe those extra post-its aren’t about the characters, maybe they are about the psychology of the story itself!”

As he often did when confronted with a wholly new concept, Chris said “Wait a minute…” got up from his desk, lay down on his back on the carpet, folded his hands on his chest and closed his eyes to let his subconscious wander around the new idea and take stock.

After what seemed five minutes (though was probably shorter) he opened his eyes saying simply, “I think you’re right.”  And from that moment forward we re-approached all the work we had previously done, dividing it into the psychology of the main character and the psychology of the story at large, which we came to refer to as the story mind.

Hopefully, that short (ish) description of how the story mind concept first emerged can help any of you who want to grok the wholeness of the theory.  It’s not so much about what’s i the theory but about how to have to see things to perceive the theory – the truth of it – to know when something is accurate to it and working as it should.  For in the end, the ability to almost intuit the structure and dynamics is what drives new concepts, rather than building them from extensions to a chain of logic alone.

THE LONG VERSION

Now, here’s how the evolution in our thinking that led to the story mind happened, step by step:

1.  In the early 1980s Chris and I had just finished producing a feature length horror movie and we about to start another script.  We recognized problems in our last story and decided to investigate if there were any truisms we might employ to solve those problems and prevent others.  So basically, we had no idea why problems in stories happened or how we might avoid them – no understanding of story at all – that’s where we were coming from.

2.  Our instructors at the USC Cinema Department didn’t seem to have a clue either.  Oh, they had some tips, but no system, no overview that hung together.  So, we weren’t sure if anybody anywhere really understood how stories work or even, for that matter, if there was any rhyme or reason to it.  We speculated that either no one had found the answer yet or maybe there was no answer and stories were just result of unfathomable intuition.

3.  We decided to cast a wider net and see what had been written about story structure throughout history.  We encountered Aristotle, of course, and his seminal work, Poetics, and we also ran into Jung and Joseph Campbell.  But we never went too deep before we became dissatisfied with inconsistencies, incomplete reasoning, and contradictions.  So, we figured we should either drop the who thing or strike out on our own to understand what was going on in stories a little better.  We were in our twenties, so of course we were filled with hubris and arrogance and decided to chase after the prize on our own.

4.  We were so full of ourselves that we decided not to read anything about story structure by anybody else, except for the little bit of skimming we’d done.  We reasoned that maybe we’d end up reinventing the wheel, but we might just go off in a direction everyone else knew would not be productive and actually find answers they never had because they had blinders on.  Yes, we actually had that conversation and then put our own blinders on to not look elsewhere while we worked on our own quest for understanding.

5.  We actually came up with a few good ideas (such as “the rule of threes” that you’ll hear about in a later post) by looking at stories that we knew worked (you could feel which stories worked or didn’t work without an inkling why).  We got lots of little original bit and pieces, but in the end, we stalled out and without any kind of an overview about structure.  We spent a few weeks stalled and then Chris wisely said we probably hadn’t had enough life experience, and perhaps we should put it all on hold until we later.  That made sense, so that is what we did, agreeing we wouldn’t pollute our virgin thinking in the meantime with other people’s ideas about story structure until we reconvened some time in the future.

6. About ten years later, Chris called me up and said, You know that old story structure project we were working on?  I think we’re ready.”  And so we met for breakfast at a booth near the door in the Coral Cafe near my home, and from that point we were off to the races and never looked back.

7. Our first order of business was to decide to meet over coffee at my home for about an hour every day before we went to our respective jobs.  Then, we went over all our old material from ten years ago, reorganizing it to suit our more experienced point of view, and beginning to ask new questions.

And that is where this long version of the story connects to the short version at the top.

Next time, we can dispense with a lot of this background material as we look into the thought processes behind the next Dramatica concept.

The Dramatica Book | Preface

What follows is from an early unpublished draft of the book that ultimately became, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story. This excerpt is a note from me to Chris explaining the layout of the material in the draft to be considered for inclusion in the final relase version.

CHRIS:  This material is divided into seven sections.  Each is described briefly below:

Section One:      The existing book

This is the most complete and updated version I wrote.  I have edited in additional essays to fill holes, and changed and updated terms.  Aside from the Exploratorial, this approx 200K document contains all our best shots at explaining the whole damn thing.

Section Two:      The Storyforming Exploratorial

Much of this material is culled from the book in section one.  Still, there are important updates and changes in perspective and terms in this version.  In fact, if you choose to use the book material, look to this part of the tutorial for slightly different and sometimes better versions of the same material.  There is also much new material here.  This section was designed to describe what Dramatica is.

Section Three:    The Storytelling Exploratorial

You’ve already read through this one and shared your comments.  I have not yet incorporated any changes, pending what your decisions are about what ought to be used of all this material in the book.  This section was designed to tell an author how Dramatica will affect their audience.

Section Four:      The Dramatica and the Creative Writer Exploratorial

This section describes the relationship between Dramatica and the author in a conceptual, philosphic sense.

Section Five:       The Putting it in Motion Exploratorial

This section describes what it feels like when writing from the appreciations, so that an author can tap into their emotional experience of creating.

Section Six:         The Scientific American Article

‘Nuf said on this one!  I do feel this should be in the book in the back somewhere to give the tenacious reader something to dig into and to document the extent of our work.

Section Seven:         Various appendices

I’m sure you have updated versions of these, but I just threw in the Help, DQS and Definition stuff to have my most recent versions all in one place, since these need to be at the back of the book anyway.

Read the free online edition of Dramatica – A New Theory of Story in its final form.

Have Your Characters Write Their Own Autobiographies

When fleshing out your characters, have each one write a short autobiography in their own voice about their lives prior to the beginning of the story, touching on key turning points, memories of special events – both cheerful and tragic, and of the people who meant/mean the most to them.

What are their biggest disappointments, narrowest escapes, greatest triumphs, deepest regrets?

Have them tell you, the author, about their hobbies, religious and political views, hopes, and dreams.

And finally, have your character each write about how the people and events in your story appear to and affect them, from their unique point of view and position in your story.

In this way, your character development will become more organic and more informed.

Keep in mind, however, that our sense of our own selves is usually quite different from how others see us. So, it is a good idea to make sure each character writes about the others in terms of whether they trust them, what they think is their greatest strength, most detrimental weakness, and must fun/frustrating trait. This will not only illuminate how each character sees the others, but how the others see them.

And finally, when you actually sit down to write your characters, don’t just approach them from your author’s view as to what you need/want them to do in the plot, but stand in their shoes and try to understand why they do these things. Is it easy or hard for them to do what they do, compatible or contrary to their nature, and what personal costs or benefits will their actions bring them?

In the end, never forget that we are each the main character or our own personal story, even when we are playing a subordinate role in a larger story involving many others.

Read more writing tips at Storymind.com, the Creative Writing Tips web site.

Story Structure is Based on Fours, Not Twos

Story structure is built on fours, not on twos.  Though it may seem like conflict is created between two opposing forces, there are two other forces at play as well.

Consider a dramatic circuit consisting of four elements: Potential, Resistance, Current, and Power – just like an electrical circuit.

Every scene has all four elements and if one is missing, the circuit is incomplete and the story won’t flow.

But there’s more to it than that.  These four elements have a relationship that we see in many areas of life.

Here are some other sets of four that create the same kind of internal mechanism:

  • Earth, Water, Wind, Fire
  • Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb
  • Red, Blue, Green, Brightness
  • Universe, Physics, Mind, Psychology
  • Mass, Energy, Space, Time
  • Characters, Plot, Theme, Genre
  • Motivation, Method, Evaluation, Purpose

As you can see, each group of four has a very similar feel.  And the last item in each set seems a little out of place compared to the other three.

There’s an important psychological reason for that, but it would require going way too deep for this post.  For now, just know that stories reflect how we think, and we think in four dimensions because we perceive four dimensions.  So, it is no surprise that story structure is also based on fours, because that is the way we fully explore a topic in fiction or in life.

The Structure of Plot

Story Structure | The Structure of Plot

Most authors think of plot as what their story is about. And beyond that, they recognize key events and turning points in the story that are part of plot as well. That’s a good place to start, because it is how plot appears from the creative perspective as you are developing and writing your story.

But plot is quite a bit more than that. Structurally, a plot needs specific story points such as a goal, requirements that need to be met to achieve that goal, and even the price that will be paid if the goal is not met.

In this installment of our series on story structure, we’re going to reveal the key story points of plot and lay out the structural timeline as well.

By the time we’re done, you’ll have a much more refined understanding of what plot structure is, and how to manipulate it to create just the kind of story you want.

Let’s begin with the four most important plot points: Goal, Requirements, Consequences, and Forewarnings. All four of these work together to define what your story is about, what needs to be done, and what happens if the protagonist fails. Taken all together, these are the control knobs that adjust your plot’s dramatic tension.

Let’s investigate each of these four primary plot points:

Goal is really about as straight-forward as it seems: what the characters of your story are trying to achieve. Now, keep in mind that the protagonist is leader of the effort to achieve the goal. And, as we all know, there’s also going to be an antagonist who is working against the protagonist, either to prevent the goal from being achieved, or to achieve it for himself instead.

Without a goal, there is no clear cut destination your characters are trying to reach. So, you’ll need to describe that goal in no uncertain terms of your story will come off as unfocused and without a defined purpose. To your readers (or audience) it will seem to meander.

What kinds of things can be a goal? Just about anything: To escape from something or someone, to complete a task, to obtain something (could be a treasure, a diploma, or someone’s love), to discover something, to become a better person, to come to terms with the past. Really, almost anything can be a goal. It just needs to be something you don’t currently have, and can’t get just by snapping your fingers – you have to work for it.

Requirements describe the specific steps that must be taken or the necessary conditions that must be met for the goal to be achieved. If any step or condition is not completed, the goal will not be achieved.

Why are requirements important? Without them, your characters (and readers) have no idea what is needed to arrive at the goal. So, everything that happens seems arbitrary. And if they are ultimately successful, it comes off as if the characters just magically achieved the goal – it just happened, not because they worked to make it happen, but just because after running around in all kinds of directions, eventually the goal just plopped down in their lap for no apparent reason.

Like goals, requirements can be all kinds of things: getting the approval of all the members of the board of directors to stop an immoral project, gathering all the ingredients for the secret formula to saving the dying princess, searching the rooms in a haunted house to find an close the portal to hell, meeting the conditions necessary to prove you are worthy of someone’s love.

The key point in regard to requirements is that they be a limited set – a specific number of items or steps, well-delineated right up front, so the reader knows exactly what conditions must be met and can, therefore, track progress toward the goal.

Consequences are the bad things that will happen if the goal is not achieved. Why are consequences necessary? Because they double the motivation to achieve the goal. Without consequences, characters, just like real people, are likely at some point to say, “Hey, that goal would’ve been nice, but geesh, these requirements are just too darn hard. That goal ain’t worth it!”

But, with consequences in place, there is a price to pay if you just give up on the goal. If the goal isn’t achieved, you (and/or those you care about) will suffer. Achieving the goal not only obtains a good thing, but also prevents a bad one. And that is why your characters will push on to the end.

Forewarnings are the indicators that the consequences are gaining on you. They could be cracks in the dam that show it is getting closer to the consequence of it breaking and flooding the town if the goal of diverting the water upstream isn’t achieved or some unknown individual buying up more and more shares of stock until the consequence of him gaining control of the company prevents you from the goal of stopping an evil project.

As with requirements, forewarnings need to be clearly specified, but they don’t have to be a specific number of them. For example, how many cracks does it take before the dam breaks? With forewarnings, additional cracks, small pieces of concrete popping out, shuddering do to increasing instability, all these things can indicate the dam is getting closer to breaking, and collectively they ratchet up the motivation for the characters to push harder and faster because time and/or options are running out.

You can easily see how Goal, Requirements, Consequences, and Forewarnings work together as the master controllers of any plot’s structure.

These are the four power-drivers of the plot. However, there are many other plot points that fine tune how the dramatic tension of the Big Four is channeled through your story. But that is a subject for a future installment in our ongoing series on story structure.

This entire story structure series is referenced from our book on the subject that we published way back in 1991, Dramatica: A New Theory Of Story.  Just click on the link to read it for free in a downloadable PDF.

Also, you may wish to try our Dramatica Story Structure Software with the world’s only patented interactive Story Engine. The Story Engine cross-references your answers to questions about your story to generate a structure that perfectly supports your intent, free of holes or inconsistencies.

Until next time, May the Muse be with you!

Melanie Anne Phillips
Creator, StoryWeaver
Co-creator, Dramatica