Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips

Motivations, Methodologies, Evaluations and Purposes

Every story has a mind of its own, as if it were a single chcaracter, a single person.  The Dramatica theory of story structure includes a chart, sort of a “periodic table,” that maps out four different levels of consideration of the story mind. T

he bottom level (Elements) describes the story mind’s motivations, and has the greatest impact on character.  The next level up (Variations) represents the story mind’s value standards and is seen the story’s theme.  The third level from the bottom (Types) describes the story mind’s methods of problem solving and is made manifest in the plot.  At the top, the fouth and final lvel (Classes) ourlines the story mind’s purposes and has the greatests structural impact on genre.

Taken together, all four levels can be seen as a map of the topical or thematic aspects of all the dramatic elements in a story.

Levels of the Story Mind

The mind of your story, as with our own minds, can be seen to have four levels of consideration which fall into four topic categories describing the kind of thing that is being considered.

For any topic, the mind considers in terms of its Motivations (created at the character level), Value Standards (at the thematic level), Methodologies (at the plot level), and Purposes (at the genre level).

The four primary topic categories are Universe (an external state or situation), Mind (an internal state, attitude or fixation), Physics (an external process or activitiy), and Psychology (an internal process or manner or pathway of thinking).

Picking one of these four topic categories as being the nature of your story’s problem determines where your reader or audience will be looking.  Picking one of the four levels of consideration determines where they will be looking from.  The combination of what you are looking at and where you are looking from creates perspective and it is that perspective that defines the very nature of your story’s unique underlying dramatic structure.

Theme and the Dramatica Chart

The Dramatica chart of story elements is the equivalent of the Periodic Table of Elements in physics or chemistry.  In fact, it provides guidance for how to create the specific chemistry of your story by comining different dramatic elements.

Each of the four quadrants of the chart is a different family of dramatic elements, much as the periodic table is divided into families such as the “rare earth elements” or the “nobel gasses.”  Unlike chemistry, the Dramatica chart further sub-divides the families into four sub-family levels, allowing for extremely precise descriptions and control of the the topical subject matter of your story’s theme.

Introduction to Theme

Theme is perhaps the most powerful yet least understood aspect of story structure.  Theme is an “emotional argument” that strives to lead the reader or audience to feel about a topic as the author would have them feel.

The reason structure of Theme appears so obscure is that it is actually two things, not one.  The first part of Theme is the Topic – the subject you are looking at (exploring).  The second part is Point of View.  When you adopt a point of view in regard to a topic, you create Perspective, and it is this perspective that holds the message or meaning of a story at the most passionate and most human level.  It is also where readers and/or audience members are most strongly moved, and where propaganda can be most effective without the knowledge of the recipient.

In this first episode of the 22 part class on Theme in the overall 113 part “Dramatica Unplugged” series, you’ll learn the basic foundations of theme and get a look forward to where our explorations will take us as the Theme class unfolds.

Story Outcome and Judgment

Your story’s “Outcome” is determined by success or failure in the attempt to achieve the overall goal.  But this is independent of whether or not everyone is feeling good about the outcome, even if success is achieved.  Often the costs of achieving a goal outweigh the benefits.  And in some stories, achieving a goal may turn out to be a hollow victory.

Similarly, failing to achieve the goal may not be an emotional distaster as well if the characters learn something of greater value or grow in ways that is far more meaningful than the failed attempt to achieve.  Put these in combinations and you get the Success/Good story (a triumph), the Failure/Bad story (a tragedy), the Success/Bad story (a personal tragedy), and the Failure/Good story (a personal triumph).

Using the two dramatic elements of Outcome and Judgment and adjusting the degree of success or failure and of personal fulfillment or devestation , one can create any variety of conclusion for a story from the “happy ending” to the “sad ending” and every bitter-sweet combination in between.

The New Dramatica for Macintosh is Finally Here!

Ten years in development since the release of Dramatica Pro 4 comes the next generation of story structuring and story development software for Macintosh: Dramatica Story Expert!

Built around the same patented Story Engine, Dramatica Story Expert is bursting with new tools and features that will once again revolutionize the process of story creation for novelists, screenwriters and playwrights.

Visit the Dramatica Story Expert Product Page to learn all about the new and enhanced features!

Upgrade for just $69.95

Full Version for $169.95

Windows version expected in Spring 2013

Beyond Dramatica – a new free eBook by Dramatica co-creator Melanie Anne Phillips

Introducing a new free eBook by Dramatica co-creator Melanie Anne Phillips that explores how insights from the Dramatica Theory of Story can be applied to real world psychology, both for the individual and for society.

Click here to download “Beyond Dramatica” for free in PDF

Click here to download “Beyond Dramatica” Kindle format for $0.99

From the Preface:

In 1994, the book Dramatica: A New Theory of Story was first unveiled to the writing community and almost instantly revolutionized the way authors understood and constructed stories.  Since then, its techniques have been employed by Pulitzer Prize winning authors, academy award winning writers and directors, and producers of some of the most innovative series on television.

Melanie Anne Phillips, co-creator of the Dramatica theory, has written hundreds of articles describing Dramatica’s concepts and their application to practical story development.  But Dramatica is more than just a writer’s tool to construct fictional stories; by its very nature it has implications in the realm of human psychology at large.  This book gathers together some of the most insightful articles by Melanie on the application of Dramatica to the real world.

Assembled and edited by Dramatica expert Sandy Stone, this collection has been organized to provide useful new perspectives on how human thought functions, both individually and societally.

So, put away your preconceptions and prepare to have your eyes opened to a whole new approach to some of the most intriguing questions of our time.

Featured articles include: Storyforms in the Real World and the Mobius Doughnut, Fractal Psychology in the Real World, Narrative Space in the Real World, Dramatica and the Brain, Dramatica Theory Application on World Problems, al-Awlaki, the “Uncanny Valley” and Writing Empathetic Characters, Watson and Dramatica: Building an Artificial Mind, and more!

 

Using Dramatica Example Stories

Dramatica Pro ships with 68 complete example stories ranging from “Hamlet” to “Star Wars” and including books, movies, teleplays and stage plays. Each of the Dramatica Story Example files loads up in Dramatica as if you had written it in Dramatica yourself. In other words, each example file is a complete analysis of all the story points and descriptions in that story, in order to illustrate how you should go about creating and illustrating your own story in Dramatica.

One at a time, load story examples that are similar to the kinds of story you want to tell. Once you have viewed all the examples you want to explore at this time, then open a new blank file from the file menu and begin creating your own story, based on what you’ve learned from the examples.

The best way to begin building stories with Dramatica is in the StoryGuide – the upper left icon on the Dramatica desktop. It takes you step by step through the whole process of creating and illustrating a story in Dramatica. It also has three levels of complexity so, for new users or shorter stories, you can use the smaller list of questions to start with. You can always switch to the other levels of complexity at any time in order to add more details or depth to your story.

Later, when you are experienced in the Dramatica process, there are many powerful tools you’ll want to explore directly, outside of the StoryGuide path. They can be used at any time, and you can switch back and forth from the StoryGuide to the other features whenever you like. No matter where you answer questions or manipulate your story in Dramatica, all the information goes to the central Story Engine so a change made anywhere will instantly update throughout the software to every other area.

More Ways to Use Example Files

Dramatica’s story examples also show up throughout the software to help you make choices about your story. One of the most powerful places is in the StoryGuide. Most question screens in the StoryGuid has a HelpView bar running horizontally across the middle of the right side of the screen. I has several different buttons which can provide help and inspiration for how to best answer each question for your story. One of the buttons is labeled “Examples”.

If you select a story structure point for a given question and then click on the Examples button, it will show you all the other stories in the Examples folder that share that story point with your story. By selecting different story point choices on a question, you can see different sets of example stories that share that choice, so it will help you make the proper choice for your story by giving you a feel for the kinds of stories that use each of the available story point choices.

Finally, if you want to write a story that is very much like one of the example stories, but just change it a bit to apply it to your own story concept, you can do the following:

Load the story example you want to use as the basic framework for your story. Go to the “Storytelling” menu and select “Clear Storytelling”. This will remove all the subject matter and specifics of the story example, leaving nothing but the underlying structural dramatic framework for the story. For example, “Romeo and Juliet” has almost exactly the same structural framework as “West Side Story”. The biggest difference is in the setting and specific subject matter, while the underlying dramatic structure is very much the same.

So, by removing all the specifics, you can write your own version of two lovers caught between their warring families without being derivative any more than “West Side Story” is of “Romeo and Juliet”. And, you can always choose to make changes to the structure itself using Dramatica’s Story Engine, in order to put a different spin on the familiar concept. If you choose to do this, Dramatica Story Engine will ensure that your altered version is as structurally sound as the original, even though the dramatic tensions will have been adjusted to a different kind of audience impact.