Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips

Descrepencies in Dramatica Terminology?

A Writer recently asked:

Dear Melanie,

I think, if I understand this correctly, that there is an incongruence between the Dramatica software terminology and the book – in that the software calls it the “Main vs. Impact Storyline” whereas the book calls it the “Subjective Storyline”. Am I correct in assuming that both mean the same thing?

Best wishes,

Jens

My reply:

Hi, Jens.

There are a few terms over which I and the other co-creator of Dramatica, Chris Huntley, don’t completely agree.

So, when we teach separate classes, we usually go with what we each think is best. When we teach together, we go with what is in the software because that is how most people come to Dramatica.

Example: “Main vs. Impact Storyline” is the same as the “Subjective Story”. Just different names.

Additionally I don’t use the term Impact Character at all, because this character does not necessarily have any physical impact on anything. In fact, even the old term “Obstacle Character” also seemed to me to give a wrong impression. Chris changed it from Obstacle to Impact to improve it, but in my writings on Dramatica I use the term “Influence Character” because that (to me) more clearly indicates its role as the most influential character over the Main Character in regard to his or her central, personal drive or issue.

For example, the lost diary of a long-missing poet might make that poet the Influence Character for a young Main Character who is a young aspiring poet himself. The Main Character learns from the writings how to avoid self-destruction, to continue the example, and does not commit suicide like his idol does at the end of the diary. There is no “impact” or “obstacle” in this storyline, but a lot of gentle and gradual influence.

But, you did ask the right question in the first place. What is really important is the concept, not the term, and on that Chris and I both agree.

Melanie

StoryWeaver vs. Dramatica

Writers often ask what the difference is between StoryWeaver and Dramatica Pro (or it’s little brother, Writer’s DreamKit).

Here’s the answer in a nut shell:

StoryWeaver and Dramatica (or Writer’s DreamKit) are like hand and glove, or two sides of the same coin. Every story has a personality and a psychology. The personality is developed in the storytelling, the psychology is built by the structure. StoryWeaver deals with the perosnality; Dramatica (and DreamKit) deal with the structure.

StoryWeaver is an inspiration and development tool for figuring out your story’s world, who’s in it, what happens to them, and what it all means. DreamKit helps you find and refine the underlying dramatic framework for your story to ensure there are no holes or inconsistencies.

Each one offers a step-by-step approach, and many authors use both for the two different aspects of story creation. Which one is used first, depends on the author. A structural writer will want to use Dramatica first to build the dramatic framework for the story, then use StoryWeaver to turn it into real people, places and events. An intuitive writer will want to use StoryWeaver first to help them find their story, then use Dramatica to find and refine the underlying structure that has evolved in their story along the way.

As always, you can learn more about both StoryWeaver and Dramatica at our sales-oriented web site at Storymind.com

A Poem Based on Dramatica

Some time ago, I decided to write a poem based on sound Dramatica Theory of Narrative concepts.  Specifically, I wanted to cover all four throughlines (I, You, We, and They) and have each follow a quad (family of four) of plot points as an illustration of signpost/journey four act/three act structure seen from all four points of view.

Here’s the result:

“Lulladie”

by Melanie Anne Phillips

My emotions are dead
and lack any resistance
to the onslaught of logic’s
relentless persistence.

I’m malleable, moveable,
flexible, still.
I succumb with aplomb,
as I alter my will

to conform to the pressures
that weigh on my soul
without motive, or method,
opinion, or goal.

They reach for the stars,
as they stand on our hearts,
and they sell us off piecemeal,
parcels and parts.

They slice us to mincemeat
and padlock the door,
while our blood runs quite freely
through holes in the floor.

But nothing is wasted,
tho’ everything’s lost.
So our blood is recycled
to offset the cost.

We huddle in darkness
yet shy from the fire
to howl at the moon
with the rest of the choir.

And when the glow wanes,
we stoke it with dreams
in hopes that the crackle
will drown out our screams.

You sleep in your bed
and you doze in your chair.
Your cushions are comfy
and so is your air.

But your heartache grows heavy,
as well as your head,
‘til you nod away, nod away,
nod away, dead.

Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips

Learn more about Dramatica

Four Archetypes

Excerpt from an upcoming book on story structure:

So far I have spoken of characters as representing or embodying fragments of the overall Story Mind, but that is misleading; characters are much more orderly than that. The term “fragments” provides an easy visualization that each character is a part of a larger whole and that perhaps they are different shapes and sizes. This is all true. But the shapes are regular and the sizes are in specific increments.

In this section we are going to introduce the largest of the characters, called Archetypes, and then in succeeding sections we’ll break them down into progressively smaller components until we arrive at the elemental building blocks of characters called, not surprisingly, Elements.

It is these Elements which form the bottom layer of the Dramatica Table of Story Elements and, in fact, provide the Table its name. It is at this level in which the chemistry of characters is born. Some elements combine to form complex aspects of the human psyche they represent. Others are like oil and water. A character may even exist as a single element, simple and pure, yet still advance a small part of the story’s argument.

But that is for later. For now, let us start at the top.

In the Periodic Table in chemistry, elements are arranged in families in which all of its member elements share certain attributes. While they each have individual differences, a family resemblance between, say, Fluorine and Chlorine is as hard to miss as that in some human family lines.

In a like manner, the elements at the character level of the Dramatica Table are also organized into families of similar traits called Archetypes. Each archetypal family contains exactly eight elements and, collectively, they form an entire facet of the Story Mind and, by extension, of our own minds.

The names of some of these archetypes are familiar: Protagonist and Antagonist, for example. But that creates a problem. The term archetype has been used by so many others, from Jung to Campbell, that it carries a great deal of baggage. The words Protagonist and Antagonist carry even more. So for Dramatica to come along and try to redefine those terms is to be fighting a lot of inertia and preconceptions.

Still, the traditional archetypes are looking at the same character functions as Dramatica, just through the obscurity of storytelling. So Dramatica is not so much redefining the archetypes as it is clarifying them. With that caveat in mind, let us proceed.

Each archetype exists to portray one of the major facets of our minds in a story. In a sense, each presents a different kind of argument, just as we work out a problem in our own thinking from several directions. Perhaps the two archetypes that most easily illustrate this point are Reason and Emotion.

The Reason archetype represents our intellect and the Emotion archetype, our passion. Certainly Reason and Emotion are two of the largest contributing factors in any decision we make in life. So it stands to reason (and feels about right) that they must be present in any story for its argument to be complete.

Turning now to the best known archetypes, Protagonist and Antagonist, we find that they are heavily masked by the storytelling concepts of Hero and Villain. While a Protagonist can be a Hero, that role is just one set of clothes it might wear. In fact, your Protagonist might as easily be a Villain. (And, in a like manner, an Antagonist might be Villain or Hero, for as we shall later see, both Hero and Villain are not archetypes but Stereotypes, which are over-used combinations of structural and storytelling elements working together.)

When you pare the Protagonist and Antagonist down to their structural bare bones, Protagonist represents our initiative and Antagonist, our reticence. In simpler terms, the Protagonist stands in for that part of ourselves that gets us up out of our chairs to get things done; to accomplish something. The Antagonist, in contrast, is the avatar of our desire to maintain the status quo, or more colloquially, to let sleeping dogs lie.

This fits in well with our common understanding of a Protagonist as the character leading the effort to achieve the goal and the Antagonist as the one who will do anything to stop him. (Note that while it stands for reticence, the Antagonist is not lazy or inactive, but rather exemplifies that counter-force within our own minds that acts in opposition to change: i.e. “If it works, don’t fix it.”)

We’ve just covered a lot of new ground, so let’s pause for a moment to take stock: We have learned that any entity in a story that exhibits a personality is a player. And any player that advances the story’s argument is also a character. Characters are made of elements, which are the smallest and purest fragments of the Story Mind.

Groups of elements share certain family traits. When a whole family of elements is represented by a single character, it is called an Archetype. Each archetype represents one of the major families of thought that go on in our own minds as we seek to resolve life’s problems.  So far, we’ve identified four archetypes: Protagonist (which represents our initiative), Antagonist (our reticence), Reason (our intellect), and Emotion (our passion).

Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips

Players vs. Characters

What is a character? Like most dramatic concepts, it depends on who you ask. Some say characters are just ordinary people in extraordinary situations. Others say characters represent personality types. And then there are those who see characters as archetypes personifying human ideals and exemplifying quintessential human qualities.

As varied as these descriptions are, they all share one thing in common: They are looking at characters through the veil of storytelling. As before, when we strip that away, we begin to see the true structural nature of characters: past their personalities and into their underlying psychologies.

But before we delve into the structure of characters, let us take a moment consider their personalities, as that is what makes them intriguing, involving, charismatic and memorable.

In a story, anything can have a personality: a person, an animal, a tree, the sea, a star, even a virus. This stands to reason because in our every day lives we imbue inanimate objects with human qualities when we name our boats, call the wind Mariah, or refer to the Fatherland, Mother Russia, or Lady Liberty. In Dramatica, we call any entity that exhibits a personality a player.

Some players are just part of the background as with extras in the movies. Others are tools of convenience an author uses to drop information or solve a logistic conundrum in the plot. And still others are nothing more than window dressing – simple elements of entertainment that are purely storytelling devices.

But a player can also perform another dramatic task: it can function as part of the story argument. When it does, the player has become a character. To be a character, then, the player must (through its attitudes and/or actions) illustrate one of the ways the story’s central problem might be solved. And so, by this definition, not every personage populating a story is a character. Simply put: while all characters are players, not all players are characters.

As we shall fully explore later, the Main Character and Influence characters are special cases for these two players represent the best and worst of all the approaches that might be tried. (Which is which depends on the message the author wants to send – again, much more on this later.)

Now we shed a little more light on a statement from the beginning of the first chapter:

The elements of the story, therefore, must do double-duty. Characters, for example, must depict fully developed people in the storytelling so that the readers or audience might identify with them and thereby become personally involved in the entertainment and, perhaps, internalize the message.

Structurally, however, each character idealizes a different facet of the Story Mind’s conflicting motivations, made tangible, incarnate, so that we (the readers or audience) might directly observe the mechanisms of our own minds, see them from the outside looking in, and thereby gain a better understanding of how to solve similar problems in our minds and in own lives.

And so we see two distinct kinds of functions in each player when it also acts as a character: the fully developed aspect that makes it a real person and the small fragment of the overall story mind’s psychology that makes it part of the story’s argument.

Ultimately, as the story unfolds, all of these fragments will come together through the interactions of the characters like pieces of a puzzle to create the overall message of the story.