Dramatica and Natural Language A.I. Systems

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Over the years, there has been considerable discussion as to whether Dramatica’s rather complex storyforming process could be operated by a natural language artificial intelligence system that could read a story and parse the text to answer Dramatica’s questions and arrive at an accurate structural model of the manuscript under study.

Ranging a little more widely, over the past five years we have done considerable work for the intelligence agencies in Washington (yep, all those ones with the three letter acronyms) using narrative to try and understand the motivations of and predict the likely behavior of individual terrorists and terror groups, and even to determine the narratives at work in complex conflicts among groups of nations.

While we have had much success is accomplishing those goals, virtually every agency had one item on their wish list that stood out above all the rest: to be able to hook Dramatica into their raw data streams and have it identify narratives at work in the world that are of interest to our government and to automatically build storyforms that accurately describe those narratives so that what is currently invisible might be drawn out of that tremendous volume of ever-changing data.

Though we have outlined the requirements of such a system, we have not yet found a natural language tool capable of achieving this function.  Still, we continue to look, scanning the horizon for potential solutions.  And when we do, here are some of the standards by which we judge them:

There are two types of context-specificity: Reference and Inference.  References include direct and indirect, as well as idioms/metaphors/similes. Inferences include contextual information that never specifically refers to the subject at all, but just as with a storyform, you paint points around it without directly addressing it, rather like a parabolic mirror in which rays coming from all angles converge on a single spot.

So, in the case of References – we need to know how well it parses natural language that contains:

1. Direct references, i.e. “His goal is to control the world.”

2. Indirect references, i.e. “He wants to control the world”

3. idioms/metaphors/similes, i.e. “The world is his oyster”/ “He is Alexander The Great” / “He’s like another Alexander The Great”

4. Inferences, i.e. “There is no level of control beyond his aspirations, which range beyond nations to the very planet itself.”

Each of these can be tagged as the Goal of the protagonist under study.

And so, a truly powerful A.I. natural language system would be able to address all four of these with some degree of accuracy.  Four – imagine that – a quad of functions it must excel at.

The main thing we always keep in mind when evaluating a system is that in terms of natural language recognition, there is nothing unique about the needs of Dramatica compared to any other system.  It just just a black box that requires specificity of input accurate to the subject under study.

Just though y’all might like to hear about another “hidden” area in which Dramatica is at work in the world.

Melanie

Learn more about Dramatica

 Dramatica Theory Home Page

Extensive Article: Dramatica – How We Did It

Dramatica Software

Everything Else Dramatica

Get Out Of My Head!!! (A tip for writers…)

By Melanie Anne Phillips

This tip is excerpted from my book, Write Your Novel Step By Step.  Click the link to read it free on my web site.

In this step, we’ll  explore how to clear your mental decks to make room for all the story development to come.

When beginning a new novel, writers are often faced with one of two initial problems that hinders them right from the get go.  One – sometimes you have a story concept but can’t think of what to do with it.  In other words, you know what you want to write about, but the characters and plot elude you.  Two – sometimes your head is swimming with so many ideas that you haven’t got a clue how to pull them all together into a single unified story.

Fortunately, the solution to both is the same.  In each case, you need to clear your mind of what you do know about your story to make room for what you’d like to know.

If your problem is a story concept but no content, writing it down will help focus your thinking.  In fact, once your idea for a novel is out of your head and on paper or screen, you begin to see it objectively, not just subjectively.

Often just having an external look at your idea will spur other ideas that were not apparent when you were simply mulling it over.  And at the very least, it will clarify what it is you desire to create.

If, on the other hand, your problem is that all the little thoughts, notions or concepts that sparked the idea there might be a book in there somewhere are swirling around in a chaotic maelstrom….  well, then writing them all down will make room in your mind to start organizing that material by topic, category, sequence, or structural element.

For those whose cognitive cup runneth over, the issue is that one is afraid to forget any of these wonderful ideas, or to lose track of any of the tenuous or gossamer connections among them.  And so, we keeping stirring them around and around in our minds, refreshing our memory of them, but leaving us running in circles chasing our creative tales.

By writing down everything your are thinking, not as a story per se, but just in the same fragmented glimpses in which they are presenting themselves to you, you’ll be able to let them go, one by one, until your mental processor has retreated from the edge of memory overload and you can begin to pull your material together into the beginnings of a true proto-story.

Whether you are plagued by issue one or two, don’t try to fashion a full-fledged story at this stage while you are jotting down your notions.  That would simply add an unnecessary burden to your efforts that would hobble your forward progress and likely leave you frustrated by the daunting process of trying to see your finished story before you’ve even developed it.

Sure, before you write you’re going to need that overview of where you are heading to guide you to “The End”.  But that comes later.  For now, in this step, just write down your central concept and/or all the transient inspirations you are juggling in your head.

In the next step, we’ll look at what to do with what you’ve written down…

Need personalized story help?


Try my story consultation service for free!

Just email me with a bit about your story,
and I’ll give you some initial feedback and
lay out a customized story development plan.

Writing from a Character’s Point of View

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Perhaps the best way to instill real feelings in a character is to stand in his or her shoes and write from the character’s point of view. Unfortunately, this method also holds the greatest danger of undermining the meaning of a story.

As an example, suppose we have two characters, Joe and Tom, who are business competitors. Joe hates Tom and Tom hates Joe. We sit down to write an argument between them. First, we stand in Joe’s shoes and speak vehemently of Tom’s transgressions. Then, we stand in Tom’s shoes and pontificate on Joe’s aggressions. By adopting the character point of view, we have constructed an exchange of honest and powerful emotions. We have also undermined the meaning of our story because Joe and Tom have come across as being virtually the same.

A story might have a Protagonist and an Antagonist, but between Joe and Tom, who is who? Each sees himself as the Protagonist and the other as the Antagonist. If we simply write the argument from each point of view, the audience has no idea which is REALLY which.

The opposite problem occurs if you stand back from your characters and assign roles as Protagonist and Antagonist without considering the characters’ points of view. In such a case, the character clearly establish the story’s meaning, but they seem to be “walking through” the story, hitting the marks, and never really expressing themselves as actual human beings.

The solution, of course, is to explore both approaches. You need to know what role each character is to play in the story’s overall meaning – the big picture. But, you also must stand in their shoes and write with passion to make them human.

Need personalized story development help?

Click below to learn about my story consulting service:

Happy New Year, Writers!

I’m Melanie Anne Phillips, owner of Storymind.com as well as the creator of StoryWeaver, Idea Spinner and the co-creator of Dramatica.

I’ve been teaching creative writing now for more that twenty-five years, and the best tip I have is both simple and the most effective:

Set aside a specific time to write. It doesn’t have to the the same clock-time every day, the same amount of time, or even every day at all.

But you need to schedule the time like you would an appointment with a friend.

And then, when that time comes, don’t sit in front of a blank page trying to come up with something to say. Rather, let your mind wander to favorite memories, favorite subjects, or even to problems, worries or fears.

Somewhere in that session, you’ll think of something so important or emotionally powerful to you that you find yourself thinking of things you want to say about it – actually composing sentences in your mind just to hear how they sound, just to feel how expressing that particular feeling or understanding affects what you are experiencing in your heart and mind.

Does it amplify it, diminish it, contextualize it or does it remain, still powerful, but unaltered by the words you think?

That’s when you write. Take those sentences and put them into your manuscript. They can be private thoughts shared by one character with another or a section of narrative in a first person novel. They can be the basis for a plot, a relationship, a personal journey, a theme: a message.

Never try to force the Muse to work on a story problem. Cut her free. By nature, she is full of boundless energy to explore any issue in which you find real interest, be it a positive draw or a negative from which you hope to escape.

Sure, we all have dreams of writing a great novel or script, and perhaps we will. But the odds go WAY down if you don’t write about what moves you personally.

Now here’s the rub – this is a real pisser for me personally… The kinds of stories I like to read are not the kinds of stories I’m very good at writing. Man, that gets stuck in my craw!

I want to write sci-fi-ish action stories of great adventure, incredible discovery and amazing tales of triumph over unbelievable odds! But every time I try it is all mechanical, stilted, or (worst of all) completely lame.

Yep, I’d like to be a pastry chef, but I’m good at making sauces. I’d like to be a chess champion, but I flub it all up, yet I can triumph in checkers or tic-fracking-tac-freaking-toe.

My private horror (don’t tell anybody): I want to write majestic,sweeping, raging fiction, but all I’m good at is this. Yes, this. Writing inspiring articles so others can write all the wonderful things I’d like to write. What manner of hell is this?

Well, I’ve come to terms with it. That’s why you’ll find literally HUNDREDS of articles on story structure and storytelling on Storymind.com.

I came to the conclusion, I’d rather write what comes naturally, than get perpetually stuck trying to write what I like to read. I’ve finally embraced the awful, yet sobering and even somehow calming notion that it is better to be a carefree pianist, bringing music into the world with little effort at all, than a continually struggling trombonist, blurting out a few stilted notes and never affecting anyone nor even finding satisfaction in my own work.

So I urge you all to set up that time where you are forced (by resolution) to do nothing. And from that nothing will rise your Muse like a Kraken of Creativity, snarling out its arms to embrace every shiny, beckoning or threatening notion within its horizon, consuming it, and spewing out prose of a grand and powerful ilk upon the world, upon yourself, upon your soul.

May God have mercy upon us all, for we are writers.

Now get Kraken in 2017, for God’s sake (and for your own)!

Melanie Anne Phillips

Character Introductions

Some stories introduce characters as people and then let the reader/audience discover their roles and relationships afterward. This tends to help an audience identify with the characters.

Other stories put roles first, so that we know about the person by their function and/or job, then get closer to them as the act progresses. This tends to make the reader/audience pigeon-hole the characters by stereotype, and then draw them into learning more about the actual people behind the masks.

Finally, there are stories that introduce character relationships, either situational, structural, or emotional, at the beginning. This causes the audience to see the problems among the characters but not take sides as strongly until they can learn about the people on each side of the relationship, and the roles that constrain them.

Of course, you do not have to treat these introductions equally for all characters and relationships. For example, you might introduce on character as a person, then introduce their relationship with another character, then divulge the constraints the other character is under due to role, then revel the other character as a person.

This approach would initially cast sympathy (or derision) at the first character, temper it by showing a relationship with which he or she must contend, then temper that relationship by showing the constraints of the other character, and finally humanize that other character so a true objective balance can be formed by the reader/audience.

Don’t forget that first impressions stick in our minds, and it is much easier to judge someone initially than to change that judgment later. Use this trait of audiences to quickly identify important characters up front, or to put their complete situations later, thereby forcing the reader/audience to reconsider its attitudes, and thereby learn and grow.

No matter what approach you take, you have the opportunity to weave a complex experience for your reader/audience, blending factual, logistic information about your characters with the reader/audience emotional experience in discovering this information.

Get personalized help from the author of this article, Melanie Anne Phillips

Or, demo her StoryWeaver Story Development Software

I Can Help You Get Your Story Told!

I CAN HELP YOU GET YOUR STORY TOLD!

Hire me as your story consultant and I guarantee your story will be riveting, your characters compelling and your structure air-tight.

As creator of StoryWeaver and Co-creator of Dramatica, for twenty five years I’ve help thousands of writers build their stories, from finding inspiration and developing ideas, to storytelling techniques and finding and refining their story’s unique structures.

Interested in improving your story and your storytelling experience?

Send me some email at consulting@storymind.com and I’ll provide some free initial feedback on your story so you can see how I can help you get your story told.

Ready to take the plunge? Click on the ad below to buy an hour of consulting time.

Don’t Forget Your Character Dismissals

Over the course of the story, your reader/audience has come to know your characters and to feel for them. The story doesn’t end when your characters and their relationships reach a climax. Rather, the reader/audience will want to know the aftermath – how it turned out for each character and each relationship. In addition, the audience needs a little time to say goodbye – to let the character walk off into the sunset or to mourn for them before the story ends.

This is in effect the conclusion, the wrap-up. After everything has happened to your characters, after the final showdown with their respective demons, what are they like? How have they changed? If a character began the story as a skeptic, does it now have faith? If they began the story full of hatred for a mother that abandoned them, have they now made revelations to the effect that she was forced to do this, and now they no longer hate? This is what you have to tell the audience, how their journeys changed them, have the resolved their problems, or not?

And in the end, this constitutes a large part of your story’s message. It is not enough to know if a story ends in success or failure, but also if the characters are better off emotionally or plagued with even greater demons, regardless of whether or not the goal was achieved.

You can show what happens to your characters directly, through a conversation by others about them, or even in a post-script on each that appears after the story is over or in the ending credits of a movie.

How you do this is limited only by your creative inspiration, but make sure you review each character and each relationship and provide at least a minimal dismissal for each.

Like this tip?

Consider hiring its author to help you with your story!

Click for details…

Revealing Your Story’s Personality

Your story’s genre is its overall personality. As with the people that you meet, first impressions are very important. In act one, you introduce your story to your reader/audience. The selection of elements you choose to initially employ will set the mood for all that follows. They can also be misleading, and you can use this to your advantage.

You may be working with a standard genre, or trying something new. But it often helps involve your reader/audience if you start with the familiar. In this way, those experiencing your story are eased out of the real world and into the one you have constructed. So, in the first act, you many want to establish a few touch points the reader/audience can hang its hat on.

As we get to know people a little better, our initial impression of the “type” of person they are begins to slowly alter, making them a little more of an individual and a little less of a stereotype. To this end, as the first act progresses, you may want to hint at a few attributes or elements of your story’s personality that begin to drift from the norm.

By the end of the first act, you should have dropped enough elements to give your story a general personality type and also to indicate that a deeper personality waits to be revealed.

As a side note, this deeper personality may in fact be the true personality of your story, hidden behind the first impressions.

Reveal your story’s personality
step by step in our StoryWeaver software

StoryWeaver Writing Software Walk Through Video

When I created the first version of StoryWeaver way back in 2001, I had no idea it would fill such a creative niche for writers.  Yet all these years later, it is still the number one best-seller on my store for writers, beating out every other program, tool, or informational product by a landslide.

So why is StoryWeaver still so popular?  I believe there are two reasons:

First, StoryWeaver was designed with a Step By Step approach to story development.  You begin with your initial inspiration, then gradually make it richer and more detailed, one step at a time.

Second, StoryWeaver automatically quotes the text you wrote in earlier steps so you can fold that into the current step.  In this way, you always have a real story from the very first step, and it just gets deeper and more complete with each mini-revision you make, step by step.

There are more than 200 steps in StoryWeaver.  There need to be in order to give your story the shading and nuance you’d like it to have.  You build and grow your characters, chart and explore your plot, focus and support your message, and expand your genre until your story develops its own unique personality.

As you might imagine, I could go on and on about each individual step, why it is there, what it does for your story, and what it does for your Muse.  But that’s just because I honest to gosh think this program is so useful, I get a little gung-ho about sharing it.

I’ve gotten two kinds of emails from users over the years: Those who practically worship StoryWeaver and those who call it everything from “simplistic” to “overly complex.”  This always leaves me with a head tilt: how can it be both too simple and too complex?

The answer, of course, is that it is one thing to one writer and something else to another.  Each writer has his or her own style, though we all follow the same basic progression.  StoryWeaver (or any writing software for that matter) can’t be right for everyone, by definition.

So, I’d like to suggest you try StoryWeaver and see if it works for you – especially since we have a 90 day money back guarantee.  All you might lose is a little of your time, but what you might gain is a really useful tool that can open creative doorways, organize your inspirations, and lead you step by step to finishing your novel, screenplay or stage play.

You can get more details and/or purchase StoryWeaver HERE.

Thanks for listening, and I hope you find it worth your while.

Melanie