Category Archives: Author & Audience

The Four Throughlines in To Kill A Mockingbird

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Melanie Anne Phillips

By Melanie Anne Phillips There are four throughlines that must be explored in every story for it to feel to readers or audience that the underlying issues have been fully explored and the message fully supported. Objective Story Throughline: The Objective … Continue reading →

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A Story is an Argument

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Melanie Anne Phillips

By Melanie Anne Phillips There are two principal forms of story structure: the tale and the story. A tale is a statement – a statement that ‘this lead to this lead to that’ and ‘here’s how it ended up’. Using … Continue reading →

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Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 9 “Author’s Intent”

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story Simply having a feeling or a point of view does not an author make. One becomes an author the moment one establishes an intent to communicate. Usually some intrigu- ing … Continue reading →

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Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 8 “Communicating Through Symbols”

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story How can essential concepts be communicated? Certainly not in their pure, intuitive form directly from mind to mind. (Not yet, anyway!) To communicate a concept, an author must symbolize it, … Continue reading →

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Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 6 “The Scope of Dramatica”

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story With all these forms of communication, isn’t Dramatica severely limited in addressing only the Grand Argument Story? No. The Grand Argument model described by Dra- matica functions to present all … Continue reading →

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Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 4 “What is a Grand Argument Story?”

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story A Grand Argument Story is a conceptually complete story with both an emotional and logical comprehensiveness. There are a number of qualities which determine whether a story is a Grand Argument … Continue reading →

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Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 3 “Grand Argument Stories”

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story The question arises: Is telling a story better than telling a non-story? No. Stories are not “better” than any other form of communication — just different. To see this difference … Continue reading →

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