In psychology, Multiple Personality Disorder describes a person who has more than one complete personality. Typically, only one of those personalities will be active at any given time. This is because they usually share attributes, and so only one can have that attribute at any particular moment.

Stories can also suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder if more than one character represents a single attribute. In such a case, both should not be able to appear in the story at the same time. If they do, the audience feels that the story is fragmented, or more simply put, the story has developed a split-personality.

Dramatica sees a story as representing a single mind. Most writers have been taught that characters, plot, theme, and genre are people, doing things, illustrating value standards, in an overall setting and mood. In contrast, Dramatica sees characters, plot, theme, and genre as representing different “families of thought” which go on in the story mind as it grapples with a central problem.

Characters are the “drives” of the Story Mind, which often conflict as they do in real people. Plot describes the methods used by the Story Mind in an attempt to find a solution to its central problem. Theme represents the Story Mind’s conflicting value standards, which must be played out one against another to determine the best way of evaluating the problem. Genre describes the Story Mind’s overall personality.

Traditional story theory states that each character must be a complete person to be believable to an audience. But because the characters represent the independent drives of a single Story Mind, each is not really a complete person but is rather a facet of a complete mind. In fact, if you make each character complete, they will all be overlapping, and will give your story a split-personality.

It is in the story TELLING stage where characters take on the trappings of a complete person, not in the story STRUCTURE. Each character needs to be given traits and interests, which round out the character’s “presence,” making it feel like a real human being. But these trappings and traits are not part of the dramatic structure. They are just window dressing – clothes for the facets to wear so the audience can better relate to them on a personal level.

Think about the characters you have seen in successful stories. They might represent Reason, Emotion, Skepticism, or function as the Protagonist or Antagonist, for example. Each of these kinds of characters is an “archetype” because it contains a whole family of drives in one character. For example, a Protagonist may contain the drive to “pursue,” and also the drive to be a self-starter, “pro-action.” Because these drives work together in harmony, the character becomes archetypal.

The individual drives don’t have to be bundled in an archetype, however. In fact, each single drive might be assigned to a different character, creating a multitude of simple characters. Or, characters might get several drives but conflicting ones. These characters are more “complex” because their internal make-up is not completely consistent.

Regardless of how the drives (also called character “elements”) are assigned, each drive should appear in one and only one character. If not, your story may develop Multiple Personality Disorder and leave your audience unable to relate to the story as a whole.

Melanie Anne Phillips

In the classes I teach on story structure we often point to Clarice Starling (Jody Foster) in “Silence of the Lambs” as a great example of a Success/Bad story in which the goal (save the senator’s daughter from Buffalo Bill) is achieved, but the personal angst of not being able to save that spring lamb remains, as evidenced by Lecter’s final conversation with Starling over the phone in which he asks, “Are the lambs still screaming?” Her silence in response (plus the somber soundtrack music even though this he graduation from the academy) both indicate she is still holding on to that angst.

We usually leave it there, having served our purpose of illustrating what Success/Bad means. Sometimes we go on to say that the reason she is trying to save all these people today – the reason she got into law enforcement (besides the fact her father was a sheriff) was because she can’t let go of that one lamb she couldn’t save and keeps trying to make up for it.

But now I’m thinking that while that may be true in an objective sense, nobody would carry that weight in their heart and act out that way for those reasons alone. You’d see it, you’d understand it and move on.

Rather, I think the reason she does what she does is not to make up for that lamb but to avoid having to carry another similar sense of loss. So every extraordinary effort – even to the extent of putting herself at risk of death – is to keep from adding one more victim to the pain or failure she already carries.

It would seem, then, counter-intuitive to put oneself in a profession where the risk of failure in the exact same subject matter area as your angst. But consider – most of us need to pay penance when we feel we have screwed up. The risk of hurting herself emotionally even more by her choice of profession, therefore, is penance for the first lamb she lost, while the extra-human effort she puts into each case is the attempt to avoid adding another instance to the pain she already carries.

Pretty screwed up, really, but in actuality the only way a mind, a heart, can make up for failing another in a way that can’t be fixed is to try to help others in a similar way. But then the risk of failure is omnipresent, so we give up a life of our own to excel enough to avoid another failure.

It is a never ending cycle of emotional self-flagellation: trying to make up for the failure by putting oneself in the situation most likely to create a repeat, then devoting one’s life to trying to avoid the failure and thereby punishing oneself for the original failure. That’s how we think and how we feel.

Of course, the only way out of this vicious circle is to accept the original failure, call it a clean slate, and move on. But who can easily do that, and how?

The answer is that no one can easily do that – not by ourselves.  We need to be shown the way.  And that is the real purpose and power of stories, to show us the way – either by illustrating how to resolve our angst or by providing an example of what not to do.

And how do stories do this?  And how can we fashion such stories or perhaps even apply what we learn to our own lives?

Here’s a link to a few of my articles on overcoming angst in stories and ourselves:

The Process of Justification

—Melanie Anne Phillips

True of people; true of characters:

When hit with great personal grief, how many of us stop to think about how all those around us are coping – especially those whose approach to life is to keep it all inside?

By nature, we all stand at the apex of our perception, with all roads leading to ourselves. We look out from the center of our circle and think ourselves compassionate because we consider and feel for all that falls within it. We put ourselves in their shoes, but only to see how our circle looks from their point of view. But how often do we consider that others within our realm have circles of their own that extend beyond the borders of our own domain with other issues we simply do not see?

And just as true, those who care about us do not see the totality of what weighs upon us, but only that part of our lives that falls within their horizons as well. And so, when we hurt, when we feel wronged by life or by others, it is easily possible that those we care most about are not given the attention and compassion they need and deserve.

We try to be objective and determine that, in this case, the loss is closest to us, most painful to us, and though our friends and family may feel the loss as well, we are at ground zero. And this may be true. But what of the additional losses they face that fall outside our personal spotlight?

We may have the greatest sense of loss for this particular person or event, but they may have three times the number of losses occurring at the same time. And while this particular one is not as great for them, collectively they suffer even more and, perhaps, another loss that we cannot (or at least naturally do not) see is even greater than ours, in addition to many others as well that they are suffering that never enter our minds.

What is most unpleasant and difficult is when we ourselves are the cause or source of a loss for others that we did not originally perceive. The hardest thing to do is see oneself as the villain. The hardest position to reevaluate is the one on which you stand.

What if we, driven by grief, pull back from those we love so that they suffer not only the source of loss that pains us, but the loss of our love as well, albeit for a short but crucial time? And more – what if we, though a change in attitude, outlook, lifestyle or presentation have, in the name of growth and being true to one’s inner self, become a different person from their point of view, leaving them to morn the friend or mate or parent that was?

This we simply cannot see at the time. We make our choices to soothe the inner beast, to calm the seething cauldron of our angst. Yet in so doing, we may enrage the beast within other, fuel their own internal conflagration and, in the end, do far more harm to one or many of those for whom we care the most than the good we have struggled so hard to do for ourselves.

Age brings perspective and, with it, a greater sense of context. The young cannot be expected to rise to an an elevated grasp of life’s interconnections before they have travelled them one by one. And so, for those of use blessed with enough time on the planet to have the opportunity to stand beside ourselves and see behind the invisible walls that previously bound us, perhaps we can rise a little further, to appreciate not only how our losses may affect others, but how we may both contribute to or even be the cause of loss we have not previously seen.

What we do next, now graced with that extended panorama, determines who we are to ultimately be in this one life.

—Melanie Anne Phillips

Learn more about character psychology

This is the nature of the Main Character’s struggle in a story. He has either built up an understanding of how to try and solve problems that no longer fits, or he has built up an understanding of what causes problems that is no longer correct

The backstory builds one of these scenarios. A context is established that creates one kind of problem requiring a specific solution. The story begins with a context in which the main character’s established problem solving technique is no longer appropriate. The question then becomes whether the Main Character should change his method to conform to the new situation or remain steadfast in sticking to the old method until things get back to “normal.”

This creates the core of the story’s message, which is brought to a climax when the main character must make a leap of faith.

Excerpted from the free online book,

Dramatica: A New Theory of Story

By Melanie Anne Phillips

Perhaps the most fundamental error made by authors, whether novice or experienced, is that all their characters, male and female, tend to reflect the gender of the author. This is hardly surprising, since recent research clearly indicates that men and women use their brains in different ways. So how can an author overcome this gap to write characters of the opposite sex that are both accurate and believable to both genders?

To find out, let’s briefly explore the nature of male and female minds and provide techniques for crafting characters that ring true.

At first, it might seem that being male or female is an easily definable thing, and therefore easy to convey in one’s writing. But as we all know, the differences between the sexes have historically been a mysterious quality, easily felt, but in fact quite hard to define. This is largely because what makes a mind male or female is not just one thing, but also several.

First, let’s consider that gender itself has four principal components:

Anatomical Sex

Sexual Preference

Gender Identity

Mental Sex

Anatomical sex describes the physicality of a character – male or female. Now, we all know that people actually fall in a range – more or less hairy, wider or narrower hips, deeper or higher voice, and so on. So although there is a fairly clear dividing line between male and female anatomically, secondary sexual characteristics actually create a range of physicality between the two. Intentionally choosing these attributes for your characters can make them far less stereotypical as men and women.

Sexual Preferences may be for the same sex, the opposite sex, both, or neither. Although people usually define themselves as being straight, gay, bi, or disinterested, this is also not a fixed quality. Statistics shows, for example, that 1/3 of all men have a same-sex encounter at least once in their lives.

Although it often stirs up controversy to say so, in truth most people have at least the occasional passing attraction to the same sex, be it a very pretty boy or a “butch” woman.  This isn’t necessarily a physical response, but could be just an elevated sense of interest.

Consider the sexual preference of your characters not as a fixed choice of one thing or another, but as a fluid quality that may shift over time or in a particular exceptional context.

Gender Identity describes where one falls on the scale between masculine and feminine. This, of course, is also context dependent. For example, when one is in the woods, at home with one’s family, or being chewed out by the boss.

Gender Identity is not just how one feels or things of oneself, but also how one act’s, how one uses one’s voice, and how one wishes to be treated. Often, a male character may have gentle feelings but cover them up by overly masculine mannerisms. Or, a female character may be “all-business” in the workplace out of necessity, but wishes someone would treat her with softness and kindness.

Actually, Gender Identity is made up of how one acts or wishes to act, and how one is treated or wishes to be treated. How many times have we seen a character who is forced by others to play a role that is in conflict with his or her internal gender self-image? Gender Identity is where one can explore nuance in creating non-stereotypical characters.

Mental Sex is a rather new term.  It grows out of research the indicates there is, at some level, a hard-wired difference in the way the brains of men and women function.  This is far below the level of consciousness, and acts almost like a pre-bias or filter to how the world looks before the conscious mind even gets involved.

This is a complex subject, and not yet fully understood, but in narrative and in characters, it shows up in very specific ways.  Consider whether the mind of your character organizes its thinking more in a binary, linear, hierarchical manner,or in an analog, holistic, interconnected fashion.

Essentially, mental sex is the cast-in-stone foundation upon which all of our thinking and feeling are built, and it provides a subtle tilt or bias to the very fabric of our self-awareness.

Now, in creating characters of both sexes, consider that each of the four categories we just explored is not a simple choice between one thing or another, but a sliding scale (like Anatomical Sex) or a conglomerate of individual traits (like Gender Identity). Then, visualize that wherever a character falls in any one of those four categories places absolutely no limits on where he or she may fall in the other categories.

For example, you might have a character extremely representative of male anatomical sex, bi-sexual (but leaning toward a straight relationship at the moment), whose gender identity is rough and tumble (but yearns to be accepted for his sensitivity toward impressionistic paintings) who is practical all the time (except when it comes to sports cars).

Any combination goes. And that allows your characters of both sexes to avoid becoming stereotypes and opens up all kinds of opportunities to explore individual personalities,with all their quirks and and subtleties.

But there’s more.  Beyond all of these considerations is the cultural indoctrination we all receive that leads us to respond within social expectations appropriately to the role associated with our anatomical sex. These roles, while not necessarily rigid, are certainly less flexible than we are, and they include what is proper to wear, who speaks first, who opens the door or orders the wine, who has to pretend to be inept or skilled in regard to particular kinds of activities (regardless of real ability or lack there of in that area), the form of grammar one uses in constructing sentences, the words one is expected to use (“I’ll have a hamburger,” vs. “I’d like a hamburger”), and the demeanor allowable in social interaction with the same and the opposite sex, among many other qualities.

While these social expectations are in constant flux, sometimes more open and sometimes more restrictive, there is always the cultural code of the moment that gently messages each of us to function with more conformity than is reflective of our nature.  And since these social pressures change with time, one of the attributes identifying people of different ages are the gender-based roles that have set in place within them, gradually firming up into a pattern from birth until is becomes progressively second nature.

In the end, writing characters of the opposite sex requires a commitment to understand the difference among all these qualities, to identify which are inherent and those that are learned, and to accept that we are all made of the same clay, sculpted partly by ourselves and partly by an unseen hand.

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All too often in stories, relationships and interchanges between characters of different sexes come off stilted, unbelievable, or contrived. In fact, since the author is writing from the perspective of only one of the two sexes, characters of the opposite sex often play more as one sex’s view of the opposite sex, rather than as truly being a character OF the opposite sex. This is because the author is looking AT the opposite sex, not FROM its point of view.

By exploring the differences in how each sex sees the world, we can more easily create believable characters of both sexes. To that end, I offer the following incident.

I was at lunch with Chris (Co-creator of Dramatica) some time ago. I had ordered some garlic bread and could not finish it. I asked the waitress if she would put it in a box to take home, and she did. On the way past the cashier, I realized that I had forgotten to take the box from the table. I said, “Rats! I forgot the bread!”

Chris said, “Go ahead and get it, we’ll wait.”

I thought for a moment and said, “No, it’s not that important.” and started to walk out.

Chris: “It’ll only take a moment.”

Me: “Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won’t eat it anyway, and it probably won’t reheat very well, and…”

Chris then said in jest, “Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”

In fact, they really did sound like excuses to him. But to me, the reasons I had presented to him for not going back for the bread were not rationalizations, but actually legitimate concerns.

At the heart of this difference in perspective is the difference in the way female and male brains are “soft wired”. As a result, neither women nor men can see into the heart of the other without finding a lack of coherence.

Here is a line-by-line comparison of the steps leading from having too much bread to the differing interpretations of my response to forgetting the box.

Melanie thinks:

That’s good bread, but I’m full. I might take it home, but I’m not convinced it will reheat. Also, I’ve really eaten too many calories in the last few days, I’m two pounds over where I want to be and I have a hair appointment on Wednesday and a dinner date on the weekend with a new friend I want to impress, so maybe I shouldn’t eat anymore. The kids won’t want it, but I could give it to the dog, and if I get hungry myself, I’ll have it there (even though I shouldn’t eat it if I want to lose that two pounds!) So, I guess it’s better to take it than to leave it.

Melanie says:

“Waitress, can I have a box to take the bread home?”

Chris understands Melanie to mean:

I want to take the bread home.

The balance sheet:

To me there was only a tendency toward bringing the bread home, and barely enough to justify the effort. To Chris it was a binary decision: I wanted to bring it home or not.

Melanie says:

“Rats! I forgot to bring the bread!”

Chris says:

“Go ahead and get it, we’ll wait.”

The balance sheet:

I’m thinking, “How does this change the way I feel about the situation?” Chris is thinking, “How can she solve this problem.”

Melanie thinks:

Well, I really don’t want to be tempted by it, this unexpected turn makes it easier to lose the weight. If I go back I’ll be tempted or give it to the dog. If I don’t go back I won’t be tempted, which is good because I know I usually give in to such temptations. Of course, the dog loses out, but we just bought some special treats for the dog so she won’t miss what she wasn’t expecting. All in all, the effort of going around two corners while everyone waits just so I can get an extra doggie treat and lead myself into temptation isn’t worth it.

Melanie says:

“No, its not that important.”

Chris says:

“It’ll only take a moment.”

The balance sheet:

I’m thinking that since I was right on the edge of not wanting to take it in the first place, even this little extra necessary effort is enough inconvenience to make it not a positive thing but an irritation, so I’ll just drop it and not pay even the minor price. Chris is thinking that since I made up my mind to take the bread in the first place, how is it that this little inconvenience could change my mind 180 degrees. I must be lazy or embarrassed because I forgot it.

Melanie says:

“Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won’t eat it anyway, and it probably won’t reheat very well, and…”

Chris says:

“Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”

The balance sheet:

I’m trying to convey about a thousand petty concerns that went into my emotional assessment that it was no longer worth going back for. Chris just hears a bunch of trumped up reasons, none of which are sufficient to change one’s plans.

I operated according to an emotional tendency to bring the bread home that was just barely sufficient to generate even the slightest degree of motivation. Chris doesn’t naturally assume motivation has a degree, thinking that as a rule you’re either motivated or you are not.

The differences between the way women and men evaluate problems lead them to see justifications in the others methods.

Making sense of each other:

Now, what does all this mean? When men look at problems, they see a single item that is a specific irritation and seek to correct it. When they look at inequities, they see a number of problems interrelated. Women look at single problems the same way, but sense inequities from a completely emotional standpoint, measuring them on a sliding scale of tendencies to respond in certain ways.

Imagine an old balance scale – the kind they used to weigh gold. On one side, you put the desire to solve the problem. That has a specific weight. On the other side you have a whole bag of things that taken altogether outweigh the desire to solve the problem. But, you can’t fit the bag on the scale (which is the same as not being able to share your whole mind with a man) so you open the bag and start to haul out the reasons – biggest one’s first.

Well, it turns out the first reason by itself is much lighter that the desire to solve the problem, so it isn’t sufficient. You pull out the next one, which is even smaller, and together they aren’t enough to tip the scales. So, you keep pulling one more reason after another out of the bag until the man stops you saying, “Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.”

To the man, it becomes quickly obvious that there aren’t enough reasonably sized pieces in that bag to make the difference, and anything smaller than a certain point is inconsequential anyway, so what’s holding her back from solving the problem?

But the woman knows that there may be only a few big chunks, but the rest of the bag is full of sand. And all those little pieces together outweigh the desire to solve the problem. If she went ahead and solved it anyway, everything in that bag would suffer to some degree, and the overall result would be less happiness in her consciousness rather than more.

This is why it is so easy for one sex to manipulate the other: each isn’t looking at part of the picture that the other one sees. For a man to manipulate a woman, all he has to do is give her enough sand to keep the balance slightly on her side and then he can weigh her down with all kinds of negative big things because it still comes out positive overall. For a woman to manipulate a man, all she has to do is give him a few positive chunks and then fill his bag full of sand with the things she wants. He’ll never even notice.

Of course if you push too far from either side it tips the balance and all hell breaks loose. So for a more loving and compassionate approach, the key is not to get as much as you can, but to maximize the happiness of both with the smallest cost to each.

All too often, one sex will deny what the other sex once to gain leverage or to use compliance as a bargaining chip. That kind of adversarial relationship is doomed to keep both sides miserable, as long as it lasts.

But if each side gives to the other sex what is important to to the other but unimportant to themselves, they’ll make each other very happy at very little cost.

Every Main Character should have a Problem-Solving Style.  Whether your Main Character is a horse, a house, a person, or an alien, the audience will not be able to empathize with it unless that character possesses a Linear or Holistic mind.  If you want your Main Character to tend to look for linear solutions to his problems, choose Linear Problem-Solving Style.  If you want your Main Character to tend to look for holistic solutions to his problems, choose holistic problem-solving style.

THEORY:  Much of what we are as individuals is learned behavior.  Yet, the basic operating system of the mind is cast biologically before birth as being more sensitive to space or time.  We all have a sense of how things are arranged (space) and how things are going (time), but which one filters our thinking determines our Problem-Solving Style as being Linear or Holistic respectively.

Linear Problem-Solving Style describes spatial thinkers who tend to use linear problem solving as their method of choice.  They set a specific Goal, determine the steps necessary to achieve that Goal, then embark on the effort to accomplish those steps.

Holistic Problem-Solving Style describes temporal thinkers who tend to use holistic problem solving as their method of choice.  They get a sense of the way they want things to be, determine how things need to be balanced to bring about those changes, then make adjustments to create that balance.

To be sure, we can go a long way toward counter-balancing those sensitivities, yet underneath all our experience and training, the tendency to see things more in terms of space or time still remains.  In dealing with the psychology of Main Characters, it is essential to understand the foundation upon which their experience rests.

USAGE:  How can we illustrate the Problem-Solving Style of our Main Character?  The following point by point comparison provides some clues:

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  looks at motivations

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  looks at purposes

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  tries to see connections

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  tries to gather evidence

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  sets up conditions

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  sets up requirements

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  determines the leverage points that can restore balance

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  breaks a job into steps

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  seeks fulfillment

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  seeks satisfaction

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  concentrates on “Why” and “When”

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  concentrates on “How” and “What”

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  puts the issues in context

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  argues the issues

Holistic Problem-Solving Style:  tries to hold it all together

Linear Problem-Solving Style:  tries to pull it all together

Historically, more often than not, males characters are given a Linear problem solving approach.  Female characters are given a holistic problem solving style.  This matches traditional cultural expectations.  But, culture continues to evolve and these days, more and more often, gender and Problem-Solving Style are cross-matched compared to historical norms to create more interesting characters that reflect today’s expectations. 

For example, Ripley in Alien and Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs are Linear Problem-Solving Style characters.  Tom Wingo in The Prince of Tides and Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October are Holistic Problem-Solving Style characters.  In most episodes of The X Files, Scully (the female F.B.I. agent) uses a Linear Problem-Solving Style and Mulder (the male F.B.I. agent) uses a Holistic Problem-Solving Style, which was part of the series’ unusual feel for its time.

Note that Problem-Solving Style has nothing to do with a character’s sexual preferences or tendency toward being masculine or feminine.

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