Category Archives: Author & Audience

Do You Want To Change Your Audience?

Posted on April 20, 2018 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Do you want your story to bring your audience to a point of change or to reinforce its current view? Oddly enough, choosing a steadfast Main Character may bring an audience to change and choosing a change character may influence … Continue reading →

Posted in Propaganda, Writing Tip of the Day | Comments Off on Do You Want To Change Your Audience?

Message and Context

Posted on April 13, 2018 by Melanie Anne Phillips

The message of a story comes from context. It is context that eventually convinces Scrooge that his way of looking at the world is incorrect. Yet, before he was shown the bigger picture, his personal experience presented quite a different … Continue reading →

Posted in Message | Comments Off on Message and Context

The Story Mind (Part 3) – A Story Is An Argument

Posted on February 7, 2018 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the Book “Dramatica Unplugged“ By Melanie Anne Phillips, Co-creator of Dramatica So a tale is a simple linear path that the author promotes as being either a good or bad one to take, depending on the outcome. There’s a certain … Continue reading →

Posted in The Story Argument, The Story Mind, Writing Tip of the Day | Comments Off on The Story Mind (Part 3) – A Story Is An Argument

Introduction to Communication

Posted on August 13, 2017 by Melanie Anne Phillips

The process of communication requires at least two parties: the originator and the recipient. In addition, for communication to take place, the originator must be aware of the information or feelings he wishes to transmit, and the recipient must be … Continue reading →

Posted in Communication | Comments Off on Introduction to Communication

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 →

Posted in Message | Comments Off on The Four Throughlines in To Kill A Mockingbird

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 →

Posted in The Story Argument | Comments Off on A Story is an Argument

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 →

Posted in Communication, Dramatica Theory | Comments Off on Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 9 “Author’s Intent”

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 →

Posted in Communication, Social Narrative, Write Your Novel Step by Step | Comments Off on Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 8 “Communicating Through Symbols”

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 →

Posted in Dramatica Theory, Narrative Science, The Story Argument | Comments Off on Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 6 “The Scope of Dramatica”

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 →

Posted in Dramatica Theory, The Story Argument | Comments Off on Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 4 “What is a Grand Argument Story?”