Category Archives: The Dramatica Chart

Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 10 “When to Use Dramatica”

Posted on September 30, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book, Dramatica: A New Theory of Story For some authors, applying Dramatica at the beginning of a creative project might be inhibiting. Many writers prefer to explore their subject, moving in whatever direction their muse leads them … Continue reading →

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The Dramatica Structural Model

Posted on November 1, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Here’s an article I wrote about fifteen years ago that described the reason for and functioning of the Dramatica Table of Story Elements.  Though our understandings have refined over the years, the underlying concepts remain unchanged. The Model of Dramatica … Continue reading →

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Examples of Story “Concerns”

Posted on July 25, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

In previous classes, we’ve looked at how to zero in on the nature of your story’s central driving problem or issue at the most broad stroke level by seeing it as being an external state or process (situation or activity) … Continue reading →

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Motivations, Methodologies, Evaluations and Purposes

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Every story has a mind of its own, as if it were a single chcaracter, a single person.  The Dramatica theory of story structure includes a chart, sort of a “periodic table,” that maps out four different levels of consideration … Continue reading →

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Levels of the Story Mind

Posted on July 17, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

The mind of your story, as with our own minds, can be seen to have four levels of consideration which fall into four topic categories describing the kind of thing that is being considered. For any topic, the mind considers … Continue reading →

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Dramatic Quads & Dramatic Pairs

Posted on June 22, 2012 by Sheldon

In each quad of Elements, we find not only Dynamic (diagonal) Pairs, but horizontal and vertical pairs as well. Horizontal Elements are called Companion Pairs, and vertical Elements are Dependent Pairs. Each kind of pair describes a different kind of … Continue reading →

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Indy… Why does the floor move?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

A Dramatica user recently noticed that Elements (the smallest, most detailed story points in Dramatica) are in different arrangements at the bottom of each of the four Dormains.   In other words, he was wondering why the “floor” moved.  (Click here … Continue reading →

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Story Structure – Part 4 (Video)

Posted on March 26, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

In this episode I describe “The Dramatica Chart” – a periodic table of story elements which presents the building blocks of story structure, organized into families. Link to the video: http://storymindguru.com/dramatica-unplugged/4%20The%20Dramatica%20Chart.htm .

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The Dramatica Chart

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Dramatica Unplugged Home

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Definitive Scientific Article on Dramatica Theory

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Here is a link to the definitive explanation of the Dramatica theory (in PDF) from 1993, that explains all of the key concepts in text and graphics, including descriptions of non-story uses of the psychological model and the functioning of … Continue reading →

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