Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips

Write Your Novel Step by Step (Step 2)

Step 2: How to Come Up with Ideas  

Raw creativity is all about coming up with ideas from scratch – in other words, making something from nothing.  But when ideas won’t come, we are suffering from the all-too-familiar “writer’s block.”

Though creative blocks aren’t exclusive to writers, (i.e. a batting slump or derivative music), writers have to be more continuously creative, moment to moment, in a way not many other professions require.

Even more common are the less extreme cases wherein ideas come like molasses.  Sure, you make progress, but the pace of it is so excruciatingly slow!  Worse, the more you try to force it along, the more the pace declines.

If you’ve ever suffered through a creative bottleneck or a complete shut down, fear no more!  Here in Step 2 of How To Write Your Novel we’ll provide you with a whole toolkit of surefire techniques for banishing creative blocks and slowdowns once and for all.

To begin with, there are two causes of writer’s block which, when remedied, open the valve to full creative flow:  One, a mental obstacle to creativity and two, a lack of fresh input.

In the first case it is as if a mechanism in the mind has seized up – not unlike a stuck gear.  Other mental processes may be working just fine, but the place that generates the particular kinds of ideas you need won’t budge.

This is, in fact, the way half of all cases of writer’s block feel while they are occurring: as if something in your mind that used to work has frozen in place, put up a moat, or become impenetrably dark.

The second type of writer’s block feels like a great emptiness, as if the mind is a desert in which nothing can grow – the mental equivalent of a blank piece of paper and you’re fresh out of mental pencils.

In this version of the writer’s block issue, the mind’s machine is running just fine – like a windmill in a favorable breeze.  Problem is, there’s no grain for the mill to grind.

We’re going to explore these one at a time, then bring our conclusions together into a single methodology for putting writer’s block behind you once and for all.

Writer’s Block Type One: The Seized-Up Mind

To understand how to break-up this kind of mental log jam, we first must understand how it happens in the first place.

Creativity is half intellect and half passion.  Each is a separate mechanism and, left to its own devices, functions quite fine.  But our minds mesh the two together, one driving the other, then the other way ’round, all in the hopes of reaching a consensus.  When it works, we spout brilliance.  But when the results of these two parallel processes are in conflict or contradiction, and when repeated attempt to resolve that differential fail, the force of both processes collide like two meshed gears trying to move in opposite directions, and the flow of ideas grinds to a halt.

The solution to this problem, surprisingly, is stupidly simple:  Don’t use both processes together.  Now what could I possibly mean by that?  It’s like this….

Use your passion to generate ideas and your logic to analyze them.  In other words, give yourself a temporary mental lobotomy and let each process work on its own, one at a time, alternating between the two rather than trying to force them to work together simultaneously.

Here’s how it works….

Partially paraphrased from the earlier article,
 “The Creativity Two-Step“

When you find yourself stuck at some point in a project, as counter-intuitive as this may sound, shut off your creativity completely – it’s not getting anywhere anyway.  Just put on pause any efforts to come up with solutions and new ideas for a bit.  You’ll come back to that later.  For now, you need to stop beating your head against a wall and clear your mind.

A lot of writers have learned to “just walk away” from their story for a while, but that doesn’t really work.  Usually, the creative block is still there whenever you return to try again.  Sure, the idea behind taking a break is that you’ll think about other things, get new mental patterns going, and come at the problem from a new direction that bypasses the mental obstacle.  Unfortunately, this does not work all that often or all that well.

We’re going to try something else instead.  Once you’ve stopped “working” on the problem creatively, you need to shift from that passionate state into a logical one and immediately approach the problem analytically without missing a beat.  In other words, you’re going to shift gears, rather than shut off the engine.

To do this, try to stop looking at your story as the author and try looking at it as if you were a reader or part of the audience.  This helps you take a more objective view of whatever you’ve written or developed so far and makes it easier to stop being overly passionate about your own work and adopt a more analytical perspective.

Once you are thinking analytically, re-read through your material and scan for holes and inconsistencies, just like an audience would.  If you really were the reader rather than the writer, you’d have no idea about what you intend to do – just what’s actually presented on the page.

Since it is a work in progress, there’s going to be a lot of material missing.  But rather than try to fill it creatively, just describe what isn’t there.  Do this in the form of analytical questions.

For example, if you wrote “A Marshall in an Old West border town struggles with a cutthroat gang that is bleeding the town dry.” and then got stuck, you might come up with a list of questions as follows:

1. How old is the Marshall?

2. How much experience does he have?

3. Is he a good shot?

4. How many men has he killed (if any)

5. How many people are in the gang?

6. Does it have a single leader?

7. Is the gang tight-knit?

8. What are they taking from the town?

9. How long have they been doing this?

Certainly, you could come up with an almost endless list of questions about what you don’t know about the embryonic story concisely described in that one little sentence.  In fact, you might want to try this right now on your own story just to prove to yourself that it isn’t too hard to think of a whole variety of questions that spring from just about anything you might write.

It’s really pretty easy.  After all, it is always a lot easier to criticize than to create, and if you remove yourself passionately from your story you can tear it to pieces just like your readers or audience will.  But you don’t have to be that hard on yourself.  And you don’t even have to creatively try to define what ought to go in a hole.  Just read what you’ve written and ask questions the way you might if you were playing “Twenty Questions.”

Now for step two.  We’re going to move past your creative block by using each question as a branching point for your next step of story development.  To begin, its time to shut down your analytical side and re-start your passionate, creative side.

To do this, take each question, one at a time, and see how many different answers you can devise with absolutely no deference paid to whether your answers are logical or practical.  Don’t allow yourself to even consider how each answer might fit in with what you’ve already written or what you have in mind.  If you were to think about that you’d be trying to use logic at the same time as passion again and you’d grind to a halt once more.

So, just throw caution to the winds, pull out all the stops and write as many different answers to each question as you can.

Here’s an example:

Take the very first question, “How old is the Marshall?”  You might come up with a list of answers similar to this:

1) How old is the Marshall?

a. 28

b. 56

c. 86

d. 17

e. 07

f. 35

While some of these answer may, at first blush, appear ridiculous or unusable, nothing could be farther from the truth.  Fact is, most stories are pedestrian simply because they stick to the common, expected, tried and true elements.  Writers often try to play it safe by toeing the line.  But a story written in that manner has nothing about it that stands out and makes the story special and memorable.  It becomes nothing but another bland, sausage-machine crank-out, with no personality at all.

Having come up with your answers, it is time to alternate back to logic again and ask questions about each one, just like we originally did with the first little snippet we analyzed.  So, turn off the creativity again and put on your objective hat.

For an example, lets take answer “c” – the Marshall is 86 years old.  What questions come immediately and easily to mind about an 86 year old Marshall?

Here’s some examples:

c. The Marshall is 86 years old.

1. How would an 86 year old become a Marshall?

2. Can he still see okay?

3. What physical maladies plague him?

4. Is he married?

5. What kind of gun does he use?

6. Does he have the respect of the town?

Again, there must be a hundred questions you could ask right away about an 86 year old Marshall.

Now, switch off the logic and switch on the creativity again.  For example,

5. What kind of gun does he use?

a) He uses an ancient musket, can barely lift it, but is a crack shot and miraculously hits whatever he aims at.

b) He uses an ancient musket and can’t hit the broad side of a barn. But somehow, his oddball shots ricochet off so many things, he gets the job done anyway, just not as he planned.

c) He used a Gattling gun attached to his walker.

d) He doesn’t use a gun at all. In 63 years with the Texas Rangers, he never needed one and doesn’t need one now.

e) He uses a sawed off shotgun, but needs his deputy to pull the trigger for him as he aims.

f) He uses a whip.

g) He uses a knife, but can’t throw it past 5 feet anymore.

As you’ve no doubt figured out by now, you could go back and forth like this forever, branching wider and wider with each series.  On top of that, you could go back to your questions from the first branch point and follow each one just as far into detail or farther.  For example, question 2, “How much experience does he have” could easily have several interesting answers, each of which could lead to more questions.

The best part of this system is that you spiral into minutia of little details when you keep branching off, you just come up with more and more quality material of the first order with which to flesh out your story.

Also, though we have focused initially on the Marshall, you might have focused on the plot or the theme as well.  And if you develop those areas of your story using the same technique is doesn’t take long before you have more material than you’ll every be able to use in a story.

Branch by branch you develop your story’s world.  When you finally come up for air (or lunch) you’ll find that you’ve completely side stepped your writer’s block simply by employing your logic and your passion in alternating sequence, rather than at the same time.

That may be all well and good, say you, but what if I can’t come up with any ideas at all?  What if I have Writer’s Block Type Two – The Empty Mind?

Well, I hate to leave you hanging, but there’s only so much we can cram into one newsletter, so you’ll just have to wait for the next issue when we will continue with:

Step 2: How to Come Up with Ideas:
Part Two, The Empty Mind

Click here to read our latest issue

Remember:

This step by step approach is based on our best-selling
StoryWeaver Story Development Software:

StoryWeaver Story Development Software – $29.95Our Bestseller!  By far, our most popular product, outselling all of our other products combined!  StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process–from initial inspiration to completed novel or screenplay.  At just $29.95, StoryWeaver is affordable for any writer.  (Details)

Sequences, Variations, and Acts

A Dramatica user just asked:

I have reached a small roadblock in reference to SEQUENCE, in terms of a division of ACT and organization of SCENE. The term is not covered in your Dramaticapedia pages nor in your theory book online. I have an old reference manual (I bought the product in 2005) that covers the issue somewhat. It seems like an important concept to me since I am writing a novel.

I am confused about your use of Sequence as you talk about 4-ACT structure, since you talk about the Concern being looked at from the VARS of each type as it sequences through the 4 acts. Does this mean that in BEING you are looking at (CONCERN=BECOMING) as judged by [knowledge ability desire and thought]? Or am I judging BEING through those four variations:    as in     (BEING [knowledge, ability, desire & thought]) and applying that to BECOMING? 

When I look at this second interpretation it makes more sense, but I don’t want to force myself into overburdened complication (which I have a tendency to do).

My reply:

Actually, both of your statements are true:

The Concern is valid throughout the entire course of the story, so it is going to be shaded and better understood by experiencing it (learning about it) through all four variations of a given act.

Equally true, the attempt to get to the center of the story’s problem will be enhanced by looking at each Type in each Act through the four Variations of that act.  In this way, by the end of the story the location of the story’s central problem can be triangulated on (or actually quadrangulated, since there are four Acts and four Types).

But, it is not as complex as that sounds.  In truth, because all our minds work alike beneath the level of our personalities, in storytelling, all one must do is make sure that the Concern, each Act’s Type, and each Act’s Variations are all represented.  The reader/audience will assemble that information in the proper place all by itself so that the Variations act as “lenses” to clarify the location of the problem.

So, simply ensure that those elements are in the mix, and your reader/audience will actually do the hard work for you.

Melanie

How to Write Your Novel or Screenplay Step by Step

Let’s not kid ourselves.  It’s not really possible to write a novel (or screenplay) step by step because that’s not how the creative mind works.  Rather, we come to a story with a whole bag of bits and pieces of ideas, some complete, some half-baked.  But, we can describe in step by step terms our own creative processes by which we assemble those ideas into a finished book or script.

To begin with, the ideas we have are from all across the board: a snippet of dialog, a setting, a bit of action, a type of personality for a character (even though we don’t yet have any idea if it’s a protagonist or antagonist or even if it is the Main Character).

You see, inspiration – the desire to write a story and an idea of what it will be about – comes from the subjects that interest us.  But stories themselves come from the structure that holds them together.  And that is the age-old author’s dilemma: “How do I turn my interests and motivations into a finished novel that makes sense?”

When embarking on a new writing project, it often seems as if the whole process is summed up in that old saying, “You can’t get there from here.”  And for many writers, once the novel is written, they can’t really see how they did it, or more aptly, “You can’t get here from there.”

Yet, there is hope.  There is an approach you can take that works with your Muse, rather than against her.  And, it is a real step-by-step method that will actually take you from concept to completion of your novel or script.

So what is this miraculous “silver bullet” for banishing writer’s block and dancing merrily down the garden path to a finished novel?  Simple.  Rather than focusing on the needs of the story, focus on the needs of the author.

No matter what kind of author you are, no matter what kind of novel you want to write, you share the same sequence of creative steps with all other authors everywhere.  Just like the stages of grief or Freud’s psycho-sexual stage, there is a common order to the creative process which drives us all.

This process can be divided into four Creative Stages: In order, 1 – Inspiration, 2 – Development, 3 – Exposition, 4 – Storytelling.  Let me define each a little more fully.

1. Inspiration

Inspiration comes to us all, sometimes through great effort; other times unbidden.  From the outside, it appears as if a person plucks an idea out of the ether, creating something from nothing.  But in truth, every inspiration is just the synthesis of some combination of new and previous experiences.

Many inspirations aren’t worth pursuing.  But, occasionally, a worthwhile concept pops into our heads that’s just too appealing to toss away.  These little visions can be single grains of sand that require lots of time and effort to develop into a pearl.  Or, they may be fragments, glimpses really, of something larger for which we do not yet see the full extent, scope, or shape.  The most impressive of these little mental feats are those rare ideas which thrust themselves upon our conscious minds completely developed already, like a snap-shot of the whole shebang in a single big bang moment of creation, right out the head of Zeus, as it were, mature upon birth.

There’s many ways to help bring inspiration about, and I’ll be writing about those in articles to come.  But for now, here are some links to previous articles I’ve penned on the subject:

Finding Your Creative Time, Finding Inspiration for Writing, and Writing from the Passionate Self.

For your convenience, I’ve also compiled all my best articles on finding inspiration into a twenty page booklet called The Case of the Missing Muse, available as a PDF Download and also in Kindle Book format on Amazon.com.

2. Development

As obvious as it may be, it bears repeating: You can’t develop an inspiration you haven’t had yet.  And just as important: Inspiration doesn’t stop just because you move into Development.

You see, these four stages the creative process don’t follow each other one after the next.  Rather, they are layered, like a layer cake or the floors of a building under construction.

No matter what the story, you have to start with Inspiration – there’s no way around it.  Once you have that inspiration you can start adding depth and detail to it until it fleshes out in a fully developed story concept, or at least a part of one.

But even while you are developing one part or aspect of your story – perhaps because you are developing one part – new inspirations start popping up all along the way.  The very act of enriching a previous inspiration add more concepts and new perspectives into the mix.  Those bounce around in your head, run into each other, and merge and blend to create whole new inspirations.

So just because you have all your basic ideas worked out, don’t shut your mind to Inspiration just because you have started Development.  It may turn out your best ideas are yet to come!

What’s more, you don’t have to wait until you have your whole story worked out to start developing the parts you have.  There’s no reason why you can’t figure out the arc of one of your characters before you even know who the other characters are or what the plot is about.

It is more like weaving than building timeline.  You follow one thread until inspiration runs dry, then pick up another and run with it for a while.  And even these don’t have to be in story sequential order.  You can jump to the end to dabble with a surprise conclusion to your plot, for example.  You might not yet have any idea how you are going to get your characters there, but you know what kind of twist you want.  So, just go for it.  You can always rewrite later if you get in a bind.

You know, a lot of writers worry that if they don’t have everything figured out in advance, they may have to get rid of a lot of work they had already done that just doesn’t fit with the way the story turns out to be.

Hey, words are cheap.  If you are any kind of an author at all, you’ve got an endless supply of them.  It pays to remember that writing a novel almost always takes a long time.  You’re going to spend hundreds of hours tooling it together.  Don’t cry over a few hours or even dozens of hours that have to get ripped out later.  It is all part of the process of finding your story.

Keep in mind the salesman’s creed:  If you get nineteen doors slammed in your face before you make a $20 sale on the twentieth call, well then you made $1 each time you knocked on a door.  Same with writing.  It doesn’t matter how much work you have to throw away.  By following each inspiration as far as it will go, even if that material is never used, it was a necessary step to get you to the material you WILL use.

We’ll get into this a lot deeper in articles to come, but for now, here’s some links to a few techniques that will help you during the development process:

Creating Characters from Plot, The Creativity Two-Step, and Avoiding the Genre Trap.

Just a quick reminder that our StoryWeaver Story Development Software is designed to help guide you through all four stages of the creative process.

3. Exposition

Okay.  So you had some inspirations and you’ve done some development.  Perhaps you’ve even worked out your entire story and everything in it.  You know your story up one side and down the other.  But – your readers don’t.  Exposition is the process of working out how and when you are going to reveal everything you know about your story as it plays out over time.

Perhaps the most common mistake made in Exposition is knowing your story so well that you forget to share that knowledge with your readers.  It is so easy to leave out a critical piece of information because it is so important it never occurs to you to see if you actually conveyed it.

But exposition is much more than that; it is an art form in its own right.  Intentionally holding back on information to create assumptions or misunderstandings can help set your readers up for jaw-dropping shockers.  Putting information out of sequential order in flashbacks and flash forwards can force your readers to have to reevaluate characters and plot .  This makes the “read” an active endeavor rather than just a passive experience.

There are two basic ways to approach Exposition: 1 – Work out an Exposition Plan in advance so that you know how and when each key bit of information will unfold.  2 – Just go ahead and write the story and then go back to make sure you put everything in that ought to be there.

The first approach  works well when you want to keep the readers guessing, as in mysteries or conspiracy stories.  The second approach is better if you are the kind of writer who likes to go with the flow and not feel too constrained while writing.

If you elect not to have an Exposition Plan in advance, here’s a tip that will still ensure all the crucial bits of information made it into your story: Before you write in fine literary prose, write a shopping list of all the elements of your story you want your readers to know.  Describe your characters, plot, theme, and genre all in terse, concise terms.

Then, when you have written your story, refer to your list and find each element in the story as written, checking it off the list when you find the actual place at which you’ve conveyed that information.  If any of these character and plot points doesn’t get checked off your list, you’ve gotten so wrapped up in the storytelling you forgot to put them in and need to find a place to insert that information as gracefully and dramatically as possible.

As before, Exposition is layered on top of Development and Inspiration.  So, even while you are working out how to unfold your story, that very process may inspire whole new concepts to include the your novel and also suggest new details that can enrich the ones you’ve already got.

Here’s some links to some of the best techniques for solid exposition:

Introducing Characters – First Impressions, Blowing the Story Bubble, and Genre- Act by Act.

One of the best tools for working out an exposition plan is the new Outline 4D program from Write Brothers.

4. Storytelling

Finally, we arrive at the last stage of story development.  This is the part where you actually put words on paper that you intend your readers to see.  (Keep in mind that for a screenplay, your readers are not the movie-goers but the cast and crew who will interpret your words and present them to the audience on your behalf).

Now there’s no right or wrong way to tell a story, but there are more and less effective and involving ways.  Of all four of the stages, this is the one most dependent on natural ability.  Let me say a few words about that:

You are only as good as you own talent – get over it!

Most cases of writers block occur not because authors don’t have any ideas but because they don’t think the ideas and/or the way they expressed them is good enough.

Hey, we all want to be celebrated in our own time – the toast of the town, the person everyone wants to know.  Dickens was a rock star of his age – revered by scholars and applauded by his fans, especially when he went on tour throughout England doing “one-man-show” performances based on readings from his “greatest hits” and acting out all the characters himself.

Not everyone can be Dickens.  Hardly anyone can be Dickens.  In fact, only Dickens could be Dickens and only Shakespeare could be Shakespeare.  I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.

Some folks, like the aforementioned, are notable for many fine literary works.  Others, like Mary Shelly, Margaret Mitchell, and Ralph Ellison really only had one superb novel in them.  (Ellison might have had two but his entire manuscript burned up in a house fire and he had to reconstruct it from memory).

Fact is, if you aren’t good or lucky enough to be a Dickens or a Shakespeare, you’ve go two choices:  1 – labor over one single work all of your life until it is as perfect as you can make it.  2 – Write a lot of books (or screenplays) and hope one of them turns out to be great.

It really depends on whether you are writing to ensure how you will be remembered, or writing because you want to share something with people today.

Either way, there’s still only one cardinal rule in the art of storytelling: Never bore your audience!  Someone once said, “They won’t remember what you said and they won’t remember what you did.  They’ll remember how you made them feel.”

To be sure, there are all kinds of tips, tricks and techniques you can use to improve and hone your storytelling skills.  Just don’t get hung up on whatever level of ability you’ve go.  Rather, make the most of it.  After all, the more you write, the better your writing will become.

Here’s a link on storytelling  that can help grease the wheels of self expression:

StoryWeaving Tips

Naturally, the less that gets in the way of your writing process, the more smoothly it can proceed.  When you write novels or screenplays, consider Movie Magic Screenwriter.  It is not just for scripts, but automatically formats your novel, script, or stage play while you write.

—Melanie Anne Phillips

How to Use Dramatica & StoryWeaver Together

A writer who has both Dramatica and StoryWeaver Story Development Software recently asked me what was the best way to use them together.  Specifically, how could he take the information he got for one of the programs and apply it to the other.

Here’s my response:

Each one provides reports on different aspects of your story.

Dramatica provides dozens of reports about your characters, about your plot, about your theme, and so on.  StoryWeaver provides two reports – a treatment of your story describing everything that’s in it and what happens and also a time-line report which describes the order in which everything happens.

You don’t use the reports from Dramatica to do anything with the reports from StoryWeaver or vice versa.  Rather, each set of reports educates you about different parts of your story – Dramatica telling you about the structure and StoryWeaver telling you about your story’s world and the people in it.

Then, you take all that information and use it to actually write your story in the word processor of your choice.

It’s kind of like Math and Language.  Each is an area of study.  Each is a form of communication.  Some things are better said in Language and other things are better said in Math.  So, if you were to decribe a building, for example, you might be able to get all the dimensions and the colors right using math, but it wouldn’t convey what it felt like to live in or look at the building.  But, no matter how well you might try to describe the engineering of the building in language, you couldn’t build it just from that description alone.

The end product is your story, but you don’t write it in either program.  Rather, you learn about the structural side in Dramatica and learn about the passionate side in StoryWeaver and then bring those two understandings together when you actually sit down to write your story.

Application of Dramatica Narrative Theory and Technology to Analysis of Multi-Source Intelligence Data & Prediction of Target Group Activities

Application of Dramatica Narrative Theory and Technology to
Analysis of Multi-Source Intelligence Data
& Prediction of Target Group Activities

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Based on theories developed by
Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley

Introduction to Dramatica Narrative Theory and Applications

The Dramatica Theory of Story is a model of the mind’s problem solving processes which has been successfully employed for seventeen years in the analysis and construction of fictional stories ranging from major Hollywood productions to novels, stage plays, and television programs.

Software based on the Dramatica Theory is built around an interactive Story Engine which implements the problem-solving model as a method of determining the meaning and impact of data sets and of predicting motivations and actions based on potentials inherent in the data.

This is achieved by creating a Storyform – essentially, a schematic of the problem solving processes at work, their interactions, their outcomes, and the future course they will take.

The Dramatica system and its problem-solving algorithms can be applied with equal success to the analysis of real-world situations as well, specifically in determining the motivations behind the actions of a target group and in the prediction of their future actions and potentials for action.

Scalability and the Story Mind

To illustrate this methodology let us consider a generic target group. This might be a clique, club, movement, political faction, tribe, or nation. This highlights an important benefit of the system: Dramatica is scalable. It works equally well on individuals or groups of any size.

This kind of scalability is described by a Dramatica concept referred to as the Story Mind. In fiction, characters are not only individuals but[M1] also interact in stories as if they are aspects of a larger, overall mind set belonging to the structure of the story itself.

If, for example, one character may emerge in group actions and discussions as the voice of reason while another character, driven primarily by passion, becomes defined as the heart of the group.

Stories reflect the way people react and behave in the real world, and when individuals band together as a larger unit, they fall into roles where the unit itself takes on an identity with its own personality and its own psychology, almost as if it were an individual itself, in essence, a Story Mind.

Fractal Storyforms in the Real World

Similarly, if several groups become bound, as when factions join as members of a larger movement, the movement begins to take on an identity and the factions fall into roles representing aspects of individual problem solving processes.

Dramatica can move up and down the scale of magnitude from the individual to the national and even international level, while retaining an equally effective ability to analyze and predict based on its underlying model. This phenomenon is referred to the Fractal Storyform.

In actual practice, many groups of interest are ill defined, have blurry edges and indistinct leadership. Still, the core motivations of the target group can be determined, and from this the edges of the group can be refined sufficiently to create a storyform of the appropriate magnitude to suit the task at hand.

Memes and Story Points

Dramatica makes a key distinction between the underlying structure of a story and the subject matter that is explored by that structure. For example, every story has a goal but the specific nature of the goal is different from story to story. Elements such as a goal which are common to every story and, hence, every problem solving process, are referred to as Story Points.

Similarly a culture, ethnic group, religion, political movement, or faction will employ the same underlying story points but will clothe them in unique subject matter in order to define the organization as being distinct and to provide a sense of identity to its members.

Once a story point has been generally accepted in a specific subject matter form it becomes a cultural meme. Efforts to analyze and predict a culture based on memes alone have largely been unsuccessful.

Dramatica’s system of analysis is able to strip away the subject matter from cultural memes to reveal the underlying story points and thereby determine the specific storyform that describes that group’s story mind.

Essentially, Dramatica is able to distill critical story points from raw data and assemble them into a map of the target group’s motivations and intentions.

Passive Participation and Active Participation

One of Dramatica’s greatest strengths is that it works equally well in constructing stories as in analyzing them. We refer to analysis as Passive Participation and construction as Active Participation.

When dealing with a target group of interest, these two approaches translate into the ability to passively understand the target group and anticipate its behavior, and also to actively create courses of action by which to intervene in and/or influence the group’s future activities and attitudes.

To understand, we determine motivations and purposes.

To anticipate, we project actions and intent.

To intervene, we define leverage points for targeted action.

To influence, we determine nexus points for focused pressure.

Analysis

 

The passive approach is comprised of Analysis and Prediction. Analysis is achieved by first identifying independent story points and then determining which ones belong together in a single storyform.

Identifying Story Points

In addition to cultural memes, story points can also be derived from the target group’s public and private communications, in news publications and vehicles of propaganda, in works of art (both authorized and spontaneous), in popular music and entertainment, in the allocation of resources, and in the movements and gatherings of individuals. In short, any data can directly or indirectly provide valid story points.

Identifying a Storyform

Once a collection of story points has been assembled, it must be determined which ones belong together in the same storyform. Each storyform represents a different state of mind, but there may be many states of mind in a single target group. These are not different mind sets of individuals, but different mind sets of the group itself:. And just as stories often have subplots or multiple stories in the same novel, target groups may have a number of different agendas, each with its own personality traits and outlook.

This can be illustrated with an example from everyday life: a single individual may respond as a banker at his job, a father and husband at home, a teammate in a league and a son when he visits his own parents. Similarly, a target group may have one storyform that best describes its relationship to its allies and another that describes its relationship to its enemies.

It is crucial to determine which storyform is to be analyzed so that an appropriate subset can be selected from all derived story points.

Results from Limited Data

The Story Engine at the heart of the Dramatica software cross-references the impact and influence of different kinds of story points as they interact with one another, both [M2] for individual story pointsand for groups[M3] of story points.

Once the scope of the storyform is outlined, the software can actually determine additional story points within that closed system that had not been directly observed as part of the original data set. This creates a more detailed and complete picture of the situation under study than is evident from the limited data.

Spatial Data vs. Temporal Data

Unique to Dramatica’s software, the Story Engine is able to determine the kinds of events that must transpire and the order in which they will likely occur, based on the static picture of the situation provided by the complete storyform.

In stories, the order in which events occur determines their meaning. For example, a slap followed by a scream would have a different meaning that a scream followed by a slap. Similarly, if one understands the potentials at work in a storyform derived from story points pertaining to the target group, the Story Engine is capable of predicting what kinds of events will likely follow and in what order they will likely occur.

Conversely, if the originally observed data set includes sequential information, such as a timeline of a person’s travels or of the evolution of a sponsored program, the Story Engine can convert that temporal data into a fixed storyform that will indicate the motivations and purposes of the group that led them to engage in that sequence of events.

Prediction

The Dramatica theory and Story Engine (when properly used by experts) is able to translate the spatial layout of a situation into a temporal prediction of how things will unfold from that point forward.

Signposts and Journeys

The Dramatica storyform breaks events into Signposts and Journeys. These concepts are similar to the way one might look at a road and consider both the milestones and the progress being made along the path.

In stories, this data is described by Acts, Sequences, and Scenes, concepts which represent different magnitudes of time. Acts are the largest segments of a story, sequences one magnitude smaller, and scenes are even smaller dramatic movements.

Wheels within Wheels

It is commonplace to think of story events as simply being driven by cause and effect. A more accurate model may be roughly visualized as wheels within wheels, where a character sometimes may act in ways against its own best interest. For example, larger forces may have been brought to bear and might carry greater weight.

The outside pressures that are brought to bear on the target group build up these potentials as if one were winding a clock. In stories, this creates potentials that make each wheel (such as an act of a scene) operate as if it were a dramatic circuit.

Each story point within a given dramatic circuit is assigned a function as a Potential, Resistance, Current, or Power. Determining which of these functions is associated with each story point is essential to accurately predicting the nature and order of a target group’s future activities based on an understanding of the different magnitudes of motivation at work.

Closed Systems and Chaos

Storyforms are closed systems. They are snapshots of a moment in time in the mindset of a target group. But just as an individual or a character in a story is constantly influenced by outside events, new information, and the impact of others, so too is the target group. To the ordered world of a storyform, such outside influence is seen as chaotic interference.

The accuracy of a storyform analysis and its predictions has a short shelf life. The more volatile the environment in which the target group operates, the more quickly the accuracy of the storyform degrades.

Fortunately, storyforms can quickly incorporate new data to be updated in real time to give a constantly refreshed accuracy to the analysis.

In addition, just because a target group’s motivations and agenda is continually being altered by outside events does not mean the effects upon it are completely chaotic.

Some influences, such as an earthquake, an unexpected death, or a surprise attack are truly chaotic, while other influences only appear to be chaotic because they are not part of the closed storyform. Rather, they are part of a larger story.

Applying the concept of the fractal storyform, it is possible to create additional storyforms of both larger and smaller magnitudes to surround the target group so that it is seen not only by itself, but also as a player in a larger story or in terms of individual players within it. In this manner many events which previously appeared chaotic can be predicted and the accuracy of the target group storyform is enhanced.

Movie Frames

Another method for minimizing inaccuracy in prediction is to create a series of storyforms for the target group over a given period. These are then assembled in sequence, like frames in a movie, to determine the arc of change over time.

Truly chaotic events will largely cancel out, but ongoing influence from larger and smaller storyforms with their own individual agendas will create a predictable curve to the manner in which the target group’s storyform is changing, thereby allowing us to anticipate not only what the target group might do on its own, but what it is likely to do as the situation in which it operates continues to evolve.

Direct Intervention

In contrast to Passive methods, with Active methods we consider altering the actions and attitudes of a target group by either direct intervention or indirect influence.

Identifying a Problem

Once a storyform has been created and analysis and prediction have been employed, an assessment must be made to determine if the target group is currently of a mindset contrary to our interests and/or if it will be in the future.

Before a response can be developed, the specific nature of the problem must be fully defined. Again, the storyform and its component story points offer an accurate mechanism for determining the specific nature of the problem: the story point or story point arrangements that are in conflict with our interests.

Identifying a Solution

Some solutions simply require the alteration of a single story point to a different orientation within the storyform (corresponding to a slight shift in attitude, motivation, or actions by the target group). Often, once the specific nature of the problem is understood, a direct surgical impact on that story point may alter the direction of the story. Modifications to the storyform must be approached with caution, because a single small ill-advised move can sometimes do far more damage than the original problem. More complex problems may require replacing the current storyform with a completely different one.

“What If” Scenarios

Fortunately, Dramatica’s Story Engine allows for altering one or more story points to see the nature of the new storyform that will be created as a result. A large number of alternatives exist by simply altering a few story points, resulting in the ability to game out “what if” scenarios in real time to determine a wide variety of alternatives that would accomplish the same end.

Risk Analysis

By comparing the effectiveness, ramifications, and projected timelines of each alternative storyform solution, it is possible to create an effective risk analysis of each available option to ensure maximum impact with minimum risk.

These alternative storyforms can indicate the kinds of risks involved in each potential response to the problem, as well as the magnitude and likelihood of each risk.

Indirect Influence

Direct intervention may be inadvisable for any number of reasons. Also, if the problem with the target group is its overall attitude, the strength of its motivation, or its unity of purpose, any overt action might prove ineffective or even counter-productive, resulting in a response opposite to that intended.

In such cases, it may be more prudent to exert a gradual influence or series of influences over an extended time. Here again, Dramatica is able to provide tools to know when and for how long to apply specific kinds of visible and/or invisible influence to ultimately obtain the desired changes in the target group’s mindset.

Identifying Problem Qualities and Directions

At times, there may currently be no problem, but the storyform may reveal that, if left unaltered, the course of events will lead the target group into an undesired orientation. This allows for the allocation of our own resources in advance so that we might prevent the Target group from taking that particular course and opting instead for one more consistent with our interests.

Again, the first step is to create a storyform from available data and then determine the qualities of the target group’s story mind that are contrary to desired attributes.

Determining Desired Qualities and Directions

Once the problem qualities and/or directions have been defined, alternative storyforms can be created using “what if” scenarios and risk analysis to determine the best choice for a new storyform we would like to see in place.

This storyform may represent a new state of mind for the target group as a unit, or a different path that will take it through an alternative series of actions than it would otherwise instigate.

Context and the Larger Story

One method of manipulating a target group into a new outlook or attitude is through the subtle placement of the psychological equivalent of shaped charges. Rather that the direct impact of intervention, a number of small, seemingly unconnected exposures to information or manipulated environments can combine to create a single and powerful influence that will provide an immediate course correction to the undesired qualities and directions of the target group.

To effect such a subtle and undetectable influence is possible due to the depth and detail of the Story Engine’s ability to calculate the collective influence of many small magnitude story points on the overall storyform.

Movie Frames

Returning to the “movie frame” concept in a proactive, rather than analytical manner, it is possible to create a series of storyforms, each of which is slightly different that the previous one. As with individuals, the mind of a target group is more open to accepting small changes and establishing a new normal than to larger immediate changes which raise resistance.

Over time, subtle influences can follow a planned arc of change that leads the target to a new mindset, perhaps even diametrically opposed to its original viewpoint.

It is important to recognize that any long-term arc must be constantly updated and adjusted so that new influences are brought to bear to limit or leverage the impact of chaotic influence on the chosen alternative course.

Potential Future Implementations

Currently, the story engine requires manual operators versed in the Dramatica theory for processing and creating storyforms for purposes of Analysis, Prediction, Intervention, and Influence.

In the future, natural language processing can be coupled with the story engine’s operations to bring a degree of automation to the identification of story points using hub theory to locate them in large quantities of raw data.

Influence networks can be employed to determine which story points are likely to belong to the same storyform and to assemble them into alternative storyforms which may co-exist in the same raw data.

Employing a real-time version of Dramatica’s Story Engine could allow for real time analysis of ongoing data flow and indicate new storyforms as soon as they manifest in the mindsets of target groups, alerting operators when existing storyforms have dissolved or altered due to ongoing influences.

Natural language output can provide continuously updated options in time-crucial situations with a series of live “what if” scenario suggestions.

In Summary

The Dramatica Theory of Story and the software that implements the theory in an interactive story engine has, for the last seventeen years, successfully enabled accurate analysis and creation of story structures in motion pictures, novels, stage plays, and all forms of narrative communication.

By identifying the crucial story points in the mindsets of target groups of any size, the Story Engine is equally effective in analyzing and altering a target group’s current and future attitudes and behavior in the real world.

Contact me about Narrative Analysis

Written June 5, 2011 – Revised June 6, 2011 – Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips

Narrative Modeling for Real World Problems

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Narrative is not an artificial construct imposed upon fiction, but a model of the way we organize information in our efforts to extract meaning and project likely scenarios.

More and more corporations organizations, and government entities are employing narrative to analyze the motivations of individuals and groups and to determine their future behavior.

Of the models available for such analysis, the Dramatica model of narrative structure has proven to be most accurate and most specific.

Introduction to Dramatica Theory and Applications

The Dramatica Theory of Story is a model of the mind’s problem solving processes which has been successfully employed for seventeen years in the analysis and construction of fictional stories ranging from major Hollywood productions to novels, stage plays and television programs.

Software based on the Dramatica Theory is built around an interactive Story Engine which implements the problem-solving model as a method of determining the meaning and impact of data sets and of predicting motivations and actions based on potentials inherent in the data.

This is achieved by creating a Storyform – essentially, a schematic of the problem solving processes at work, their interactions, their outcomes, and the future course they will take.

The Dramatica system and its problem-solving algorithms can be applied with equal success to the analysis of real-world situations as well, specifically in determining the motivations behind the actions of a target group and in the prediction of their future actions and potentials for action.

Scalability and the Story Mind

To illustrate this methodology we let us consider a generic target group.  This might be a clique, club, movement, political faction, tribe or nation.  Which brings us to the first benefit of this system: Dramatica is scalable.  That is to say that it works equally well on individuals or groups of any size.

This kind of scalability is described by a Dramatica concept referred to as the Story Mind.  In fiction, characters are not only individuals but come to interact in stories as if they are aspects of a larger, overall mind set belonging to the structure of the story itself.

So, for example, one character may emerge in group actions and discussions as the voice of reason while another becomes defined as the heart of the group and is driven primarily by passion.

Stories reflect the way people react and behave in the real world, and so we find that when individuals band together as a larger unit, they fall into roles so that the unit itself takes on an identity with its own personality and its own psychology, almost as if it were an individual itself, in essence, a Story Mind.

Fractal Storyforms in the Real World

Similarly, if several groups become bound as when a number of factions join as members of a larger movement, the movement begins to take on an identity and the factions fall into roles representing aspects of our own problem solving processes.

Like nested dolls, Dramatica can move up and down the scale of magnitude from the individual to the national or even international level and its ability to analyze and predict based on its underlying model is equally effective.  This phenomenon is referred to the Fractal Storyform.

In actual practice, many groups of interest are ill-defined, have blurry edges and indistinct leadership.  Still, the core motivations of the target group can be determined, and from this the edges of the group can be refined sufficiently to create a storyform of the appropriate magnitude to the task at hand.

Memes and Story Points

Dramatica makes a key distinction between the underlying structure of a story and the subject matter that is explored by that structure.  For example, every story has a goal but the specific nature of the goal is different from story to story.  Elements such as a goal which are common to every story and, hence, every problem solving process, are referred to as Story Points.

Similarly any culture, ethnic group, religion, political movement, or faction will employ the same underlying story points but will clothe them in unique subject matter in order to define the organization as being distinct and to provide a sense of identity to its members.

Once a story point has been generally accepted in a specific subject matter form it becomes a cultural meme.  Efforts to analyze and predict a culture based on memes alone have largely been unsuccessful.

Dramatica’s system of analysis is able to strip away the subject matter from cultural memes to reveal the underlying story points and thereby determine the specific storyform that describes that group’s story mind.

Essentially, Dramatica is able to distill critical story points from raw data and assemble them into map of the target group’s motivations and intentions.

Passive and Active Modes

 One of Dramatica’s greatest strengths is that it works equally well in constructing stories as in analyzing them.  We refer to analysis as the Passive mode and construction as the Active mode.

When dealing with a target group of interest, this translates into the ability to not only passively understand and anticipate the group, but also to actively create courses of action by which to intervene in and/or influence the group’s future activities and attitudes.

To understand, we determine motivations and purposes.

To anticipate, we project actions and intent.

To intervene, we define leverage points for targeted action.

To influence, we determine nexus points for focused pressure.

Let us look more deeply into the methods employed in the Passive mode, then return to do the same for the Active mode.

Analysis

 The passive mode is comprised of Analysis and Prediction.  Analysis is achieved by first identifying independent story points and then determining which ones belong together in a single storyform.

Identifying Story Points

As described earlier, story points can be derived from cultural memes, but are also evident in the target group’s communications (both for internal and external consumption), in new publications and vehicles of propaganda, in works of art (both authorized and spontaneous), in popular music and entertainment, in the allocation of resources, in the movements and gatherings of individuals – in short, any data can directly or indirectly provide valid story points.

Identifying a Storyform

Once a collection of story points has been assembled, it must be determined  which ones belong together in the same storyform.  Each storyform represents a different state of mind, but there may be many states of mind in a single target group.  These are not different mind sets of individuals, but different mind sets of the group itself or, put in a different way, just as stories often have subplots or multiple stories in the same novel, for example, target groups may have a number of different agendas, each with its own personality traits and outlook.

This can be illustrated with an example from everyday life where a single individual may respond as a banker at his job, a father and husband at home, a teammate in a league and a son when he visits his own parents.  So too, a target group may have one storyform that best describes its relationship to its allies and another that describes its relationship to its enemies.

Crucial to this aspect of the process is to determine which storyform is to be analyzed so that the proper story points can be selected as a subset of all those that were derived.

Results from Limited Data

The Story Engine at the heart of the Dramatica software cross references the impact and influence of different kinds of story points upon one another, both individually and in groups.

As a result, once the scope of the storyform is outlined, the software can actually determine additional story points within that closed system that had not been directly observed as part of the original data set.  Some story points are more influential than others, but the bottom line is that Dramatica is able to create a far more detailed and complete picture of the situation under study than is evident from sparse data by itself.

Spatial Data vs. Temporal Data

Unique to Dramatica’s software, the Story Engine is able to determine the kinds of events that must transpire and the order in which they will likely occur, based on the static picture of the situation provided by the complete storyform.

In stories, the order in which events occur determines their meaning.  For example, a slap followed by a scream would have a different meaning that a scream followed by a slap.  Similarly, if one understands the potentials at work in a storyform derived from story points pertaining to the target group, the Story Engine is capable of predicting what kinds of events will likely follow and in what order they will likely occur.

Conversely, if the originally observed data set includes sequential information, such as a timeline of a person’s travels or of the evolution of a sponsored program, the Story Engine can convert that temporal data into a fixed storyform that will indicate the motivations and purposes of the group that led them to engage in that sequence of events.

Prediction

 As described, the Dramatica theory and Story Engine (when properly used by experts) is able to translate the spatial layout of a situation into a temporal prediction of how things will unfold from that point forward.

 Signposts and Journeys

In Dramatica storyforms, events are broken into Signposts and Journeys, just as one might look at a road and consider both the milestones and the progress being made along the path.

In stories, this data is represented in Acts, Sequences, and Scenes.  Each of these is a different magnitude of time.  Acts are the largest segments of a story, sequences one magnitude smaller, and scenes are even smaller dramatic movements.

Wheels within Wheels

As a loose visualization, one might think of story events as not being driven by simple cause and effect, but rather being wheels within wheels, in which sometimes a character may act in ways against it’s own best interest (for example) because of larger forces that have been brought to bear and carry greater weight.

In fact, it is the outside pressures that are brought to bear on the target group that build up these potentials as if one were winding a clock.  In stories, this creates potentials that make each wheel (such as an act of a scene) operate as if it were a dramatic circuit.

In fact, each story point within a given dramatic circuit is assigned a function as a Potential, Resistence, Current, or Power.  Determining which of these functions is associated with each story point is essential to accurately predicting the nature and order of a target group’s future activities based on an understanding of the different magnitudes of motivation at work.

Closed Systems and Chaos

Storyforms are closed systems.  As such, they are flash photographs of a moment in time – a snap shot of the mindset of a target group.  But every group, just as an individual or a character in a story, is constantly influenced by outside events, new information, and the impact of others.  To the ordered world of a storyform, such outside interference is chaotic.

The accuracy of a storyform analysis and its predictions, therefore, has a short shelf-life.  The more volatile the environment in which the target group operates, the more quickly the accuracy of the storyform degrades.

Fortunately, storyforms can quickly incorporate new data and changes in older data and update literally in real time to give a constantly refreshed accuracy to the analysis.

In addition, just because a target group’s motivations and agenda is continually being altered by outside events does not mean the effects upon it are completely chaotic.

While some influences, such as an earthquake or an unexpected death or a surprise attack are truly chaotic, other influences only appear to be chaotic because they are not part of the closed storyform.  Rather, they are part of a larger story.

Applying the concept of the fractal storyform, it is possible to create additional storyforms of both larger and smaller magnitudes to surround the target group so that it is seen not only in and of itself, but as a player in a larger story and also in terms of individual players within it.  In this manner many events which previously appeared chaotic can be predicted and the accuracy of the target group storyform is enhanced.

Movie Frames

 Another method for minimizing inaccuracy in prediction is to create a series of storyforms of the target group over a given period.  These are then assembled in sequence like frames in a movie to determine the arc of change over time.

Truly chaotic events will largely cancel out, but ongoing influence from larger and smaller storyforms with their own individual agendas will create a predictable curve to the manner in which the target group’s storyform is changing, thereby allowing us to anticipate not only what the target group might do on its own, but what it is likely to do as the situation in which it operates continues to evolve.

Again, this method allows for real-time updates so that the most accurate prediction of the likely motivations and actions of the target group can be both anticipated and acted upon.

Direct Intervention

Turning our attention from Passive methods to Active methods, we consider altering the actions and attitudes of a target group by either direct intervention or indirect influence.

Identifying a Problem

Once a storyform has been created and analysis and prediction have been employed, an assessment must be made to determine if the target group is currently of a mindset contrary to our interests and/or if it will be in the future.

Before a response can be developed, the specific nature of the problem must be fully defined.  Again, the storyform and its component story points offer an accurate mechanism for determining the specific nature of the problem – the story point or story point arrangements that are in conflict with our interests.

Identifying a Solution

Some solutions simply require the alteration of a single story point to a different orientation within the storyform (corresponding to a slight shift in attitude, motivation, or actions by the target group).  Often, once the specific nature of the problem is understood, a direct surgical impact on that point may alter it by direct force alone.

Still, this is not certain and (especially in more complex problems that require replacing the current storyform with a completely different one) a single small ill-advised move can do far more damage that the original problem and perhaps in ways not anticipated.

“What If” Scenarios

Fortunately, Dramatica’s Story Engine allows for altering one or more story points in a storyform to see what kind of new storyform will be created as a result.  In fact, a large number of alternatives exist by simply altering a few story points.  This results in the ability to game out “what if” scenarios in real time to determine a wide variety of alternatives that would accomplish the same end.

Risk Analysis

By comparing the effectiveness, ramifications, and altered projected timelines of each alternative storyform solution, it is possible to create an effective risk analysis of each available option to ensure maximum impact at minimum risk.

In fact, alternative storyforms can indicate not only the kinds of risks involved in each potential response to the problem, but also their extent, their magnitude, and their likelihoods.

Indirect Influence

 Often, direction intervention is inadvisable for any number of reasons.  Further, if the problem with the target group is its overall attitude, the strength of its motivation, or its unity of purpose, any overt action might prove ineffective or even counter-productive, resulting in a response opposite to that intended.

In such cases, it may be more prudent to exert a gradual influence or series of influences all at once or, alternatively, put into play over and extended time for a less obviously directly influence.  Here again, Dramatica is able to provide tools to know when, and for how long to apply specific kinds of visible and/or unobserved influence to ultimately obtain the desired changes in the target group’s mind set.

Identifying Problem Qualities and Directions

Again, the first step is to create a storyform from available data and then determine the qualities of the target group’s story mind that are contrary to desired attributes.

At times, there may currently be no problem, but the storyform may reveal that, if left unaltered, the course of events will lead the target group into an undesired orientation.  This allows for the allocation of our own resources in advance so that we might prevent the Target group from taking that particular course and opting instead for one more consistent with our interests.

Determining Desired Qualities and Directions

Once the problem qualities and/or directions have been defined, alternative storyforms can be created using “what if” scenarios and risk analysis to determine the best choice for a new storyform we would like to see in place.

This may simply be a new state of mind for the target group as a unit and/or a different path that will take it through an alternative series of actions than it would otherwise instigated.

Context and the Larger Story

One method of manipulating a target group into a new outlook or attitude is through the subtle placement of the psychological equivalent of shaped charges.  Rather that the direct impact of intervention, a number of small, seemingly unconnected exposures to information or manipulated environments can combine to create a single and powerful influence that will provide an immediate course correction to the undesired qualities and directions of the target group.

To affect such a subtle and undetectable influence is possible due to the depth and detail of the Story Engine’s ability to calculate the collective influence of many small magnitude story points on the overall storyform.

Movie Frames

Returning to the “movie frame” concept in a proactive, rather than analytical manner, it is possible to create a series of storyforms, each of which is slightly different that the previous one.  As with individuals, the mind of a target group is more open to accepting small changes and establishing a new normal that to larger immediate changes which raise resistance.

Over time, subtle influences can follow a planned arc of change that leads the target to a new mindset, perhaps even diametrically opposed to its original viewpoint, that would be impossible to achieve immediately, even with the most powerful influences brought to bear.

It is important to recognize that due to the effects of chaotic influences (as described earlier) any long-term arc must be constantly updated and adjusted so that new influences are brought to bear to limit or leverage the impact of chaos on the chosen alternative course toward a more desirable storyform for the target group.

Implementation

 Currently, the story engine requires manual operators versed in the Dramatica theory for processing and creating storyforms for purposes of Analysis, Prediction, Intervention, and Influence.

In the future, natural language processing can be coupled with the story engine’s operations to bring a degree of automation to the identification of story points using hub theory to locate them in large quantities of raw data.

Influence networks can be employed to determine which story points are likely to belong to the same storyform and to assemble them into alternative storyforms which may co-exist in the same raw data.

Employing Dramatica’s real-time Story Engine (in operation since 1991, but not included in the commercially available version of the software) can allow for real time analysis of ongoing data flow and indicate new storyforms as soon as they manifest in the mindsets of target groups and alert operators when existing storyforms have dissolved or altered due to ongoing influences.

Natural language output can provide continuously updated options in time-crucial situations with a series of live “what if” scenario suggestions.

In Summary

 The Dramatica Theory of Story and the software that implements the theory in an interactive story engine has, for the last seventeen years, successfully enabled accurate analysis and creation of story structures in motion pictures, novels, stage plays, and all forms of narrative communication.

By identifying the crucial story points in the mind sets of target groups of any size, the story engine is equally effective in analyzing and altering the target groups’ current and future attitudes and behavior in the real world.

Contact the author, Melanie Anne Phillips, about narrative consulting services

Zen of Writing: “Prediction”

Prediction explores the effort to learn the course of one’s destiny.

Destiny is the path to a particular fate, or through a series of fates. Fates are experiences or conditions one must encounter along the way as one’s destiny directs one’s course.

The nature of destiny is such that no matter how much a character is aware of the nature and location of an undesirable fate, nothing it can do is enough to pull it off the path. However, if one could know the future course, one could prepare for each eventuality in order to minimize or maximize its effect.

DEFINITION: Prediction: a predetermination of a future state of affairs.

SYNONYMS: foresight, foreseeing, anticipation, envisioning one’s future, prophecy, forecast, foretell, prognosticate.

DYNAMIC PAIR: Interdiction, an effort to change a predetermined course.

Excerpted from
The Zen of Story Structure

Zen of Writing: Fate

The distinction between Fate and destiny is an important one. Destiny is the direction one’s life must take, Fate is any given moment along that direction. So whereas one can have many Fates, one can only have one destiny.

Fate describes a state of situation and circumstance that exists at a particular point in time. In other words, Fate is something of an outcome, or perhaps a step – just one of a number of Fates along the path of one’s destiny.

Characters often either make the mistake of assuming that they have only one Fate and are therefore stuck with it, or they mistakenly believe they can achieve their destiny without “passing through” unattractive fates that lie along the path.

The nature of a Fate is that no matter how you try to avoid it, it tracks you. All options that you might exercise still lead to that Fate. That is what also defines Destiny as the limitations on free will that force you to arrive at your Fate no matter how you alter what you do or what kind of person you are.

If we all knew the future, there would be no freewill.

DEFINITION: Fate: a future situation that will befall an individual.

SYNONYMS: inevitable events, unpreventable incidents, eventual events, destined occurrence, destined events, unavoidable situations.

DYNAMIC PAIR: Destiny, the future path an individual must take.

Excerpted from
The Zen of Story Structure

The Objective Story Issue

The Objective Story is the overall story in which all the characters are involved.  Essentially, it is what the reader or audience will think of as the “plot” of the story. 

To add meaning and purpose to your objective story you’ll want to include a message, statement or value judgment about some aspect of life or some human quality.  The subject you choose to explore will be your Objective Story Issue.

For any given issue there can be many points of view. To make a successful argument about a particular point of view on the issue an author must address them all, yet select one as the preferred perspective.

If an author wishes to merely explore an issue rather than argue it, the issue must still be touched on by all perspectives and the author must select one of them as the view from which all the others are measured.

If this yardstick is not provided, the reader/audience is free to judge anything from any point of view and will simply adopt the one they are familiar with out of habit.   As a result, they will gain no new understanding and the story will have no meaning or purpose other than to reiterate what the audience already knew.

Conversely, if an author wishes to make a point or deliver a message or even document the similarities and differences between dramatic incidents, then the events of the story must be measured against something.

Choosing the Issue tells an audience by what standard the author intends them to evaluate what they experience in the story.

Ultimately, the objective story thematic issue places the story’s central problem in context.

Excerpted from
Dramatica Story Development Software

Matching Character Personalities to Archetypes

There is much to be gained by populating a story with interesting personalities, but personalities are not necessarily functioning characters. You can have as many “window dressing” characters as you want. Make sure, however, that each of the eight archetypes is represented by one of your characters.

For a given character, why would you pick one archetypal function over another? Simple: the archetypal functions are essentially descriptions of different personality types. Take the Sidekick archetype, for example. The Sidekick is described as a “faithful supporter.” If you select a character as the Sidekick, you have already said a lot about the kind of person it will be.

Note that the archetypal description says nothing about in what the character has faith or what it supports. This is why Toto in The Wizard of Oz can be a sidekick, but so can Renfield in Dracula. The Sidekick is not necessarily the faithful supporter of the Protagonist, but simply fulfills the dramatic function of illustrating how the qualities of faith and support fare in regard to solving the story’s central problem.

So, in choosing which archetypes you want to assign to which characters, select the matches in which the characters function best reflects its personality, and vice versa.

Excerpted from
Dramatica Story Development Software