From Dramatica Unplugged

The following is excerpted from a class on story structure presented by co-creator of the Dramatica theory of story, Melanie Anne Phillips, signed on as Dramatica:

Dramatica : First off, let’s separate the Dramatica theory from the Dramatica software. The Dramatica theory has been in development for over 15 years, the software implements the theory. This class focuses on the theory, though I will answer questions about the software you may have. The Dramatica theory is not a theory of screenplay, but a theory of story. As such, it can be used equally well for novels, plays, song ballads AND screenplays.

The central concept of the theory is called The Story Mind. This means that Dramatica sees every complete story as an analogy to a single mind, trying to deal with a particular inequity. In fact, stories are an analogy to the mind’s problem solving process. With me so far?

Dan Steele : yes

RDCvr : Yes

Dramatica : Is this boring, or an okay rate of information for you?

RDCvr : good.

Dan Steele : I can take it in as fast as you wish to deliver it.

Dramatica : Great! Here goes… stop me if you have questions… The theory sees Character, Plot, Theme, and Genre as being the thoughts of the Story Mind, made tangible, so we can look at our own mental processes from the outside, more objectively. Characters are the motivations of this Story Mind. Plot is the problem solving methods the Story Mind uses. Theme is the standard of values the Story Mind uses to determine what is favorable or unfavorable. And Genre describes the nature of the Mind itself: what kind of mind is it?

We think the Story Mind came into being as follows: First of all, no one would ever sit around trying to create an analogy of the mind. Rather, the first stories were simply statements that a particular path led to a particular outcome. In and of itself, this statement (or what Dramatica calls a “tale”) is great for that one particular situation that it describes. But what about extending that?

Suppose we as authors want to say that what happened in our tale was true for all such similar situations? Well, our audience might not buy that kind of blanket statement. They would question us and ask, “what about THIS particular case”, or “what about THAT case”? If we were telling our story “live” in front of the audience, we could counter each rebuttal to our blanket statement one by one. If our argument were well thought out, we would eventually address the concerns of everyone in the audience so that they would buy into what we were saying.

However, when we record our story, either as written words, or a screenplay or book, we are not there to counter the rebuttals to the blanket statements we might make. So, we have to incorporate all possible counters to all possible rebuttals in regard to the point we are making, right in the body of the work itself. This way, any issue anyone in our audience might take with us is covered already and dealt with. This is what makes a story complete: That the central issue of the story is seen from all essential logical and emotional points of view.

When we create a work of that nature, it is not a statement or tale, but a full argument. And that is how Dramatica defines a story. Since all the ways anyone might look at the issue have been incorporated, Since all the ways anyone might look at that particular issue are incorporated, the story actually maps out all the perspectives and considerations ANY mind might take on the issue. This is what creates the analogy of the mind.

Dan Steele : bacl – AOL just booted me off

Dramatica : No problem, Dan! 🙂

Dan Steele : wait

Dramatica : Yes?

Dan Steele : obviously you cannot give in the story all possible outcomes of an event.

Dramatica : True, outcome is the author’s bias on the issue.

Dan Steele : do you perhaps mean that the story maps out the end result of all perspectives?

Dramatica : The author chooses which outcome out of the infinite number will occur in HIS story. But the road that leads to that outcome must be fully described.

Dan Steele : oh, so at the story level all the outcomes exist, but at the presentation level one is selected by the author to be shown.

Dramatica : Absolutely correct. If a path is not taken that is an obvious alternative, the audience will cry, “foul” and you will have a plot hole. In other words, all the possible considerations along this path must be addressed, to make a complete argument. Now, even after making the argument, the audience may discount your concept and reject it out of hand, but they cannot argue with the internal logic of your message or claim that the characters are not consistent.

Okay, that’s the first concept out of several hundred. How we doing?

Dan Steele : okay so far

RDCvr : hanging in

Dan Steele : Obviously you have to condense things a lot, but okay so far.

Dramatica : Alright, lets take this concept of the Story Mind, and see what it does for us as authors. Let’s take this mind and hold it out in front of us. Kind of like a visible mind. We have two views of that mind: One view is from the outside looking in. This is the Objective view of the mind. Its kind of like a general on a hill watching a battle., You care about the outcome and the pain of your troops, but you are not personally involved in the action.

But there is a second view of the Story Mind that we share with the audience. That is the Subjective view. It is as if we take the Story Mind and make it our own, so we think its thoughts and feel its emotions. This is more like the view of the soldier in the trenches. He can’t see the whole battle like the general on the hill, but he is much more personally involved with the guy coming at him with the bayonet! This is the view through the eyes of the Main Character of the story. The audience sees through their eyes and feels through their heart. The other character coming at him, by the way, is what we call the Obstacle Character. Any questions on this part?

RDCvr : I’m okay.

Dan Steele : No,no questions.

From the Dramatica Class Transcripts

From the StoryWeaving Seminar

As with people, your story’s mind has different aspects. These are represented in your Genre, Theme, Plot, and Characters. Genre is the overall personality of the Story Mind. Theme represents its troubled value standards. Plot describes the methods the Story Mind uses as it tries to work out its problems. Characters are the conflicting drives of the Story Mind.

Genre

To an audience, every story has a distinct personality, as if it were a person rather than a work of fiction. When we first encounter a person or a story, we tend to classify it in broad categories. For stories, we call the category into which we place its overall personality its Genre.

These categories reflect whatever attributes strike us as the most notable. With people this might be their profession, interests, attitudes, style, or manner of expression, for example. With stories this might be their setting, subject matter, point of view, atmosphere, or storytelling.

We might initially classify someone as a star-crossed lover, a cowboy, or a practical joker who likes to scare people. Similarly, we might categorize a story as a Romance, a Western, or a Horror story.

As with the people we meet, some stories are memorable and others we forget as soon as they are gone. Some are the life of the party, but get stale rather quickly. Some initially strike us as dull, but become familiar to the point we look forward to seeing them again. This is all due to what someone has to say and how they go about saying it.

The more time we spend with specific stories or people the less we see them as generalized types and the more we see the traits that define them as individuals. So, although we might initially label a story as a particular Genre, we ultimately come to find that every story has its own unique personality that sets it apart from all others in that Genre, in at least a few notable respects.

Theme

Everyone has value standards, and the Story Mind has them as well. Some people are pig-headed and see issues as cut and dried. Others are wishy-washy and flip-flop on the issues. The most sophisticated people and stories see the pros and cons of both sides of a moral argument and present their conclusions in shades of gray, rather than in simple black & white. All these outlooks can be reflected in the Story Mind.

No matter what approach or which specific value is explored, the key structural point about value standards is that they are all comprised of two parts: the issues and one’s attitude toward them. It is not enough to only have a subject (abortion, gay rights, or greed) for that says nothing about whether they are good, bad, or somewhere in between. Similarly, attitudes (I hate, I believe in, or I don’t approve of) are meaningless until they are applied to something.

An attitude is essentially a point of view. The issue is the object under observation. When an author determines what he wants to look at it and from where he wants it to be seen, he creates perspective. It is this perspective that comprises a large part of the story’s message.

Still, simply stating one’s attitudes toward the issues does little to convince someone else to see things the same way. Unless the author’s message is preaching to the audience’s choir, he’s going to need to convince them to share his attitude. To do this, he will need to make a thematic argument over the course of the story which will slowly dislodge the audience from their previously held beliefs and reposition them so that they adopt the author’s beliefs by the time the story is over.

Plot

Novice authors often assume the order in which events transpire in a story is the order in which they are revealed to the audience, but these are not necessarily the same. Through exposition, an author unfolds the story, dropping bits and pieces that the audience rearranges until the true meaning of the story becomes clear. This technique involves the audience as an active participant in the story rather than simply being a passive observer. It also reflects the way people go about solving their own problems.

When people try to work out ways of dealing with their problems they tend to identify and organize the pieces before they assemble them into a plan of action. So, they often jump around the timeline, filling in the different steps in their plan out of sequence as they gather additional information and draw new conclusions.

In the Story Mind, both of these attributes are represented as well. We refer to the internal logic of the story – the order in which the events in the problem solving approach actually occurred – as the Plot. The order in which the Story Mind deals with the events as it develops its problem solving plan is called Storyweaving.

If an author blends these two aspects together, it is very easy miss holes in the internal logic because they are glossed over by smooth exposition. By separating them, an author gains complete control of the progression of the story as well as the audience’s progressive experience

Characters

If Characters represent the conflicting drives in our own minds yet they each have a personal point of view, where is out sense of self represented in the Story Mind? After all, every real person has a unique point of view that defines his or her own self-awareness.

In fact, there is one special character in a story that represents the Story Mind’s identity. This character, the Main Character, functions as the audience position in the story. He, she or it is the eye of the story – the story’s ego.

In an earlier tip I described how we might look at characters by their dramatic function, as seen from the perspective of a General on a hill. But what if we zoomed down and stood in the shoes of just one of those characters, we would have a much more personal view of the story from the inside looking out.

But which character should be our Main Character? Most often authors select the Protagonist to represent the audience position in the story. This creates the stereotypical Hero who both drives the plot forward and also provides the personal view of the audience. There is nothing wrong with this arrangement but it limits the audience to always experiencing what the quarterback feels, never the linemen or the water boy.

In real life we are more often one of the supporting characters in an endeavor than we are the leader of the effort. If you have always made your Protagonist the Main Character, you have been limiting your possibilities.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica

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 briefly into the nature of communication between an author and an audience.

When an author tells a tale, he simply describes a series of events that both makes sense and feels right. As long as there are no breaks in the logic and no mis-steps in the emotional progression, the structure of the tale is sound.

Now, from a structural standpoint, it really doesn’t matter what the tale is about, who the characters are, or how it turns out. The tale is just a truthful or fictional journey that starts in one situation, travels a straight or twisting path, and ends in another situation.

The meaning of a tale amounts to a statement that if you start from “here,” and take “this” path, you’ll end up “here.” The message of a tale is that a particular path is a good or bad one, depending on whether the ending point is better or worse than the point of departure.

This structure is easily seen in the vast majority of familiar fairy “tales.” Tales have been used since the first storytellers practiced their craft. In fact, many of the best selling novels and most popular motion pictures of our own time are simple tales, expertly told.

In a structural sense, tales have power in that they can encourage or discourage audience members from taking particular actions in real life. The drawback of a tale is that it speaks only in regard to that specific path.

But in fact, there are many paths that might be taken from a given point of departure. Suppose an author wants to address those as well, to cover all the alternatives. What if the author wants to say that rather than being just a good or bad path, a particular course of action the best or worst path of all that might have been taken?

Now the author is no longer making a simple statement, but a “blanket” statement. Such a blanket statement provides no “proof” that the path in question is the best or worst, it simply says so. Of course, an audience is not likely to be moved to accept such a bold claim, regardless of how well the tale is told.

In the early days of storytelling, an author related the tale to his audience in person. Should he aspire to wield more power over his audience and elevate his tale to become a blanket statement, the audience would no doubt cry, “Foul!” and demand that he prove it. Someone in the audience might bring up an alternative path that hadn’t been included in the tale.

The author might then counter that rebuttal to his blanket statement by describing how the path proposed by the audience was either not as good or better (depending on his desired message) than the path he did include.

One by one, he could disperse any challenges to his tale until he either exhausted the opposition or was overcome by an alternative he couldn’t dismiss.

But as soon as stories began to be recorded in media such as song ballads, epic poems, novels, stage plays, screenplays, teleplays, and so on, the author was no longer present to defend his blanket statements.

As a result, some authors opted to stick with simple tales of good and bad, but others pushed the blanket statement tale forward until the art form evolved into the “story.”

A story is a much more sophisticated form of communication than a tale, and is in fact a revolutionary leap forward in the ability of an author to make a point. Simply put, when creating a story, and author starts with a tale of good or bad, expands it to a blanket statement of best or worst, and then includes all the reasonable alternatives to the path he is promoting to preclude any counters to his message. In other words, while a tale is a statement, a story becomes an argument.

Now this puts a huge burden of proof on an author. Not only does he have to make his own point, but he has to prove (within reason) that all opposing points are less valid. Of course, this requires than an author anticipate any objections an audience might raise to his blanket statement. To do this, he must look at the situation described in his story and examine it from every angle anyone might happen to take in regard to that issue.

By incorporating all reasonable (and valid emotional) points of view regarding the story’s message in the structure of the story itself, the author has not only defended his argument, but has also included all the points of view the human mind would normally take in examining that central issue. In effect, the structure of the story now represents the whole range of considerations a person would make if fully exploring that issue.

In essence, the structure of the story as a whole now represents a map of the mind’s problem solving processes, and (without any intent on the part of the author) has become a Story Mind.

And so, the Story Mind concept is not really all that radical. It is simply a short hand way of describing that all sides of a story must be explored to satisfy an audience. And, and if this is done, the structure of the story takes on the nature of a single character.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica

The Story Mind is a way of looking at a story as if all the characters were facets of a larger personality, the mind of the Story itself.

To illustrate, imagine that you stepped back from your story far enough that you could no longer identify your characters as individuals. Instead, like a general on a hill watching a battle, you could only see each character by his function:

There’s the guy leading the charge – that’s the Protagonist. His opponent is the Antagonist. There’s the strategist, working out the battle plan – he’s the Reason archetype. One soldier is shouting at the pathos and carnage – he’s the Emotion archetype.

The structure of stories deals with what makes sense in the big picture. But characters aren’t aware of that overview. Just like us, they can only see what is around them and try to make the best decisions based on that limited view. And so characters must also be real people as well, with real drives and real concerns.

Characters, therefore, really have two completely different jobs: They must act according to their own drives and desires and also play a part in the larger mosaic of the story as a whole. The trick is to create a story in which these two purposes work together, not against each other.

As individuals, each character must be fully developed as complete human beings. As cogs in the Great Machine, they must each fulfill a function. So, when we develop our characters we need to stand in their shoes, make them real people, and express ourselves passionately through each of their points of view. But when we develop our story’s structure, we must ensure that each character fulfills his, her, or its dramatic purpose in the story at large.

It is that larger purpose that we call the Story Mind. As previously described, the Story Mind is like a Super Character that generates the personality of the overall story itself, as if it were a single, thinking, feeling, person. So, in addition to being complete people, each of our characters also represents a different aspect or facet of a greater character, the Story Mind.

For example, the Reason archetype represents the use of our intellect. The Emotion archetype illustrates the impact of our feelings. Individually as complete characters, they each employ both Reason and Emotion in regard to their own personal issues. But when it comes to the central issue of the story – the message issue that is the essence of what the overall story is about – then one of these two Characters will attempt to deal with that issue solely from a position of Reason and the other solely from the position of Emotion.

This is why we, the audience, see characters simultaneously as real people and also by their dramatic functions, such as Protagonist and Antagonist. Regarding their own concerns, characters are well rounded. Regarding the overall concern of the story as a whole, they are single-minded. Collectively, they describe the conflicting motivations or drives of the Story Mind.

But characters are only part of the story. As we shall see in tips to come, Plot, Theme, and Genre are represented in the Story Mind as well. For now, suffice it to say that the Story Mind is the character of the story itself.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica

One of the unique concepts that sets Dramatica apart from all other theories is the assertion that every complete story is a model of the mind’s problem solving process. This Story Mind does not work like a computer, performing one operation after another until the solution is obtained. Rather, it works more holistically, like our own minds, bringing many conflicting considerations to bear on the issue. It is the author’s argument as to the relative value of these considerations in solving a particular problem that gives a story its meaning.

To make his case, an author must examine all significant approaches to resolving the story’s specific problem. If a part of the argument is left out, the story will have holes. If the argument is not made in an even-handed fashion, the story will have inconsistencies.

Characters, Plot, Theme, and Genre are the different families of considerations in the Story Mind made tangible, so audience members can see them at work and gain insight into their own methods of solving problems. Characters represent the motivations of the Story Mind (which often work at cross purposes and come into conflict). Plot documents the problem solving methods employed by the Story Mind. Theme examines the relative worth of the Story Mind’s value standards. Genre establishes the Story Mind’s overall attitude, which casts a bias or background on all other considerations. When a story is fully developed, the model of the Story Mind is complete.

From the Dramatica Theory Book

What is the Story Mind? Dramatica says that “Every complete story is an analogy to a single mind trying to deal with an inequity.” Now that’s very scientific, but what does it really mean? It means that characters, theme, plot and genre are not just people with value standards doing things in an overall setting – rather, character, theme, plot and genre are different families of thought that go on in our own minds, mad tangible, incarnate as character, thematic arguments and plot points.

So a story is as if an author took the mechanism of our minds, made it tangible and put it out there for us to look at so we could examine the problem solving process. Rather than having to be involved in it subjectively, we are told by the author that he or she has the benefit of insight or experience, and that even though it may feel one way to us on the inside, there is a more objective understanding of how we should proceed.

In fact, the Main Character represents the reader/audience position in the story. It represents our own position in our own heads. We know who we are at any given time. In regard to any given issue, we know where we stand.

In essence then, the Story Mind concepts says, “Think of a story as if it were a person.” There’s only one Main Character in a story because there’s only one “I” in our own minds. Further, we all have the same emotional and logical considerations, and each of these must appear as characters in a story for it to feel complete as well. If any parts are missing, the story’s argument will feel incomplete.

Dramatica also says that this Story Mind system came into being as a natural by-product of the process of communication. If you want to state that the approach you are promoting in your story is either the best or worst of all that might be tried, that you have to actually show all the other approaches that might reasonably be taken and illustrate why they aren’t as powerful as yours.

When you create a story argument that has no holes, then you have included all the ways a human mind might consider to solve a problem. In effect, you have created a model of the mind’s problem solving process – a Story Mind.

No one set out to build this model directly. But through centuries of trial and error in storytelling, conventions were developed that worked because they built an analogy to the psychology of the mind.

Every once in a while, stand back from your story. It is so easy for an author to get so lost in the details of making all the parts work that he or she loses sight of the big picture – the overall impact of the story as a whole.

Take time to examine whether your story has a sound psychology that makes it feel like a functional person, that there are no wanky inconsistencies, and that the personality of the story itself is both human and interesting as well.