Category Archives: The Story Argument

The Four Story Domains

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

The subject matter of any story that describes the nature of the central problem falls into one of four domains – Universe (a fixed state), Mind (a mind set or attitude), Physics (an activity), or Psychology (a problematic chain of … Continue reading →

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The Four Story Throughlines

Posted on July 18, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

A story “throughline” is a bit different than a story “point of view.”  A point of view is an angle from which you wish your readers or audience to see the topics of your story.  But a throughline is the … Continue reading →

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Introduction to Theme

Posted on July 12, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Theme is perhaps the most powerful yet least understood aspect of story structure.  Theme is an “emotional argument” that strives to lead the reader or audience to feel about a topic as the author would have them feel. The reason … Continue reading →

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Subjective Characters and the Objective Story

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Sheldon

One of the most common mistakes made by authors of every level of experience is to create a problem for their Main Character that has nothing to do with the story at large. The reasoning behind this is not to … Continue reading →

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Why a Story Mind?

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Before asking any writer to invest his or her time in a concept as different as the Story Mind, it is only fair to provide an explanation of why such a thing should exist. To do this, let us look … Continue reading →

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A Story is a Argument

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Dramatica Unplugged Home Transcription of the soundtrack from this video: Dramatica Unplugged Class One: Introduction 1.3 A Story is an Argument A tale is nothing more than a statement. A statement that ‘this lead to this lead to that’ and … Continue reading →

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A Tale is a Statement

Posted on February 26, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Dramatica Unplugged Home Transcript of the soundtrack from this video: Dramatica Unplugged Class One: Introduction 1.2 A Tale is a Statement Imagine the very first storyteller, maybe a caveman sitting around a campfire. Perhaps the very first communication was not … Continue reading →

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