tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9816497823937143472024-03-14T00:51:38.241-07:00Writing Tips from Storymind.comWritten by Melanie Anne PhillipsMelanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comBlogger547125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-36270455062566652092016-08-07T07:02:00.000-07:002016-08-07T07:02:07.090-07:00The Master Storyteller Method of Story Development<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/msm" href="http://storymind.com/msm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="Master Storyteller" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1206" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Master-Storyteller-135x150.jpg" height="150" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Master-Storyteller-135x150.jpg" style="color: #444444; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 4px 24px 12px 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="135" /></a>The <a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/msm" href="http://storymind.com/msm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;">Master Storyteller Method</a> has four parts:</div>
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Part One: Create A Story World</div>
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What is a story world? Think: the world of Harry Potter or the Star Wars universe. Whether you are planning a single story or a whole series, creating a diverse and detailed story world will enrich and inform each story you draw from it.</div>
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Part Two: Draw Out Your Storyline</div>
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While a story world describes the environment, situation, and issues that will define your story, it is not a story itself. Drawing on this material, you will create a storyline for your Main Character / Protagonist that will begin with something that upsets the status quo, follows a quest (both personal and logistic) and concludes with a choice that will determine success or failure.</div>
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Part Three: Incorporate Story Points</div>
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Though your storyline may make sense and feel as it it touches all the bases, often a number of important story points may be missing, hidden behind the passion of your storytelling and vision. Here you will refer to a complete list of essential story points ranging from the goal of the protagonist to the issue at the heart of the story’s moral dilemma to ensure that every crucial dramatic element is not only included, but fully integrated into the natural flow of your story.</div>
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Part Four: Refine Your Structure</div>
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Even if you have every essential story point represented, it does not necessarily mean that they are all working together toward the same dramatic purpose. In this part of the Master Storyteller Method, you’ll plot your story points against a unique structural template to determine where some of your dramatic elements may be working against each other or where holes and inconsistencies in your structure may exist. You’ll have the opportunity to choose which story points you’d like to adjust to make your story more structurally sound and which you wish to leave as they are because they work so well as is at a passionate level.</div>
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By the time you have completed the Master Story Method, your story will be passionately expressive and structurally sound. Your characters will be compelling, your plot riveting, your them involving, and your genre not quite like any other.</div>
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<a href="http://storymind.com/msm/">Try the Master Storyteller Method today - it's free!</a></div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-83451202679025208902016-08-05T07:12:00.001-07:002016-08-05T07:14:50.656-07:00The War Between Creativity and Structure<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m8ypKzypA7A/V6SbsXoZgtI/AAAAAAABLQs/BcagJO86uzc5Sdn0m1LfZ03NYzNCwwLyQCLcB/s1600/Master%2BStoryteller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-m8ypKzypA7A/V6SbsXoZgtI/AAAAAAABLQs/BcagJO86uzc5Sdn0m1LfZ03NYzNCwwLyQCLcB/s200/Master%2BStoryteller.jpg" width="180" /></a></div>
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Perhaps the greatest hurdle in writing is the attempt to bring structure to a story without putting your Muse in a straight jacket.<br />
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Often structure is brought into the picture too soon, clamping your passion into an iron maiden that pierces it more deeply with every turn of a structural screw until it bleeds out entirely.<br />
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In contrast, writing with purposeless abandon creates a jellyfish of a story: an amorphous blob of subject matter with no spine, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.<br />
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The <a href="http://storymind.com/msm/index.html">Master Storyteller Method</a> was designed to bring passion and structure together seamlessly, at the right place and the right time in the story development process.<br />
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When first starting to write, our ideas usually come fast and furious. Many of them are little snippets: a notion for a line of dialog, a location in which some action will take place, the basic concept for a character, or perhaps a plot twist.<br />
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Sometimes, we begin with no more than a period of history or a topic or an ethical message that we’d like to explore in our book or screenplay, and the more we think about it, the more ideas we get.<br />
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Like the pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, each story concept is separate, and what's more, we haven't seen the picture on the box so we don't even know that we're trying to build.<br />
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What we are doing at this stage is developing a Story World - basically a realm of our interests or subject matter that is all of the same basic topic or genre, but really isn’t a story yet.<br />
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As the story world becomes more complete, we begin to get a sense of the story we want to tell. In fact, a single Story World can give birth to many different stories, such as with Harry Potter, Anne Rice’s Vampire Saga, and the Star Wars Universe.<br />
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The Master Storyteller Method provides techniques developing your story's world and discovering who's in it, what happens to them, and what it all means.<br />
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Your story world is like a map of the material you'd like to explore. Your story will be the specific path you take across it. Think of your Story World as a beautiful unspoiled landscape, untouched by the hand of man. You are a pioneer who is the first to see that gorgeous valley and your mind envisions a glorious city to be built there that works in harmony with the environment and provides an orderly life for its inhabitants.<br />
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You would not do well to have come with a predetermined “most efficient” city plan with all the streets and locations laid out with complete disregard to the terrain - to simply be stamped onto the land. Rather, you should look at the lay of the land and determine where a road can go straight and where it must go around a hill or a stand of trees to retain and even maximize the beauty of the scenic route.<br />
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Sometimes, alas, a tunnel must be drilled through a hill as it is the only way to get to a view, or a roadbed cleared through the trees so you can see the forest for them. But more often than not, if the landscape of your story is the guiding organizing property and the structure conforms to it, it will be a far finer city experience in the end.<br />
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The Master Storyteller Method gently creates a freeform structure: a means of organizing your story world that is both free and has form.<br />
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Eventually, you will have platted out your story city so that all the most impressive landmarks are left unaltered and there is an unbroken pathway that will convey your reader from one to the next until the sum total of your purpose in telling the story can be seen an appreciated.<br />
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But before you pave those roads and commit to construction, you'll want to be sure you have made all the best choices and that no better alternatives have emerged during your efforts to refine and revise your city plan. What you need is an objective way of double-checking that all the traffic will move smoothly, that the unexpected twists and turns in the road have a reason to be laid out that way and that no roads come up short or run into dead ends.<br />
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The Master Storyteller Method employs an interactive spot-check for all essential structural points and a guide against which you can compare your story-plan to see where and how far you may have diverged from a consistent structure.<br />
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Keep in mind that no structure has to be perfect in a finished work. Still, you'll want your structure to be as sound as possible without undermining the very concepts that drew you to want to write this particular story in the first place.<br />
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In the end, it is a judgment call for the author as to whether drifting off structure does too much harm or is okay in any given case.<br />
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The main point is that that no one reads a book or goes to a movie to experience a perfect structure but rather to have their passions ignited. So if it comes to a choice between an exciting thing and a structural thing, go with the excitement whenever you can, but be sure never to break structure completely or your readers or audience will not be able to cross that gap and will cease to follow you on your journey.<br />
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A self-guided version of the Master Storyteller Method is available for free on this web site. Just follow the steps provided, or jump right into the sections where your story could use the most help.<br />
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A customized version of the Master Storyteller Method is available in which Melanie Anne Phillips will discuss your story and your vision for thirty minutes of consulting time by phone, Skype or email, then create a step by step guide to help you get the most out of the method. Cost: $100<br />
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A personalized approach to the Master Storyteller Method provides live guidance and feedback from Melanie Anne Phillips whenever you need it including complete support through the entire process. Cost: $100 / hour<br />
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<a href="http://storymind.com/msm/index.html">Visit the Master Storyteller Method Web Site</a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-80828677563857409322016-04-14T09:19:00.001-07:002016-04-14T09:19:00.274-07:00WRITING SOFTWARE SALE - By Special Arrangement!<div style="text-align: center;">
WRITING SOFTWARE SALE - By Special Arrangement!</div>
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By special arrangement with Write Brothers, Storymind is pleased to announce a limited time sale of Write Brothers writing software including Dramatica Pro, Dramatica Story Expert, Movie Magic Screenwriter, and Outline 4D. - Click the link below for details!<br />
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Just enter <b>Coupon Code</b> <b>WRITEBROS</b> when you order to receive the lowest prices we have ever offered on Write Brothers products - SO LOW we can't publish them here. Before you purchase, you'll see your special price after entering the coupon code.<br />
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<a href="http://app.streamsend.com/ss/1/KkVO/go1126nt43">Click for Sale Details or to Order...</a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-63186513628208937842016-04-07T19:13:00.002-07:002016-04-07T19:13:15.052-07:00Does your story suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder?<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="3jhqd" data-offset-key="a8su3-0-0" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">
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<span data-offset-key="a8su3-0-0" style="line-height: 1.5;">Does your story suffer from "Multiple Personality Disorder?"</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9hif5-0-0" style="line-height: 1.5;">Find out in this short article that gets to the heart of your story's identity.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="b4rbr-0-0" style="line-height: 1.5;"><a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/content/49.htm" href="http://storymind.com/content/49.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;">Psychoanalyze Your Story!</a></span></div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-16598322402177168312016-03-30T07:37:00.001-07:002016-03-30T07:37:07.432-07:00Does Dramatica Support Multiple Protagonists?<div class="" data-block="true" data-editor="9ofta" data-offset-key="a3bnm-0-0" style="color: #141823; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<span data-offset-key="a3bnm-0-0">A writer recently asked, do the Dramatica software and theory support multiple protagonists (several people trying to achieve the goal for themselves)?</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="evv91-0-0">First, the short answer is yes, Dramatica supports that.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dkq0u-0-0">But there’s more.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="9369c-0-0">Here’s the long answer (bear with me here as the following should really open up some new ways of looking at story structure for you).</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="6vgve-0-0">Why does structure exist in fiction and where did it come from? In real life, when people are drawn toward a point of common interest - be it by forming a club or organization or just by competing for the same thing, they quickly adopt roles - they self-organize unconsciously. What are these roles and where do they come from? We each have mental tools with which to assess the current situation, determine a potential improved situation, and to devise a plan to change what is to what we’d like better. That’s narrative’s core. It is what the individual does. We each have, for example, our ability to reason and a sense of skepticism. But in a group, like a company or a political organization, we specialize, each adopting just one of those tools as our job. And so, someone emerges as the voice of reason, another as the resident skeptic. This helps the group see deeper into the area of common concern than if everyone was each trying to do all the jobs like general practitioners.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="dngb6-0-0">Fiction is our attempt to understand these roles and how they interact with one another. It is our attempt to understand the best approach to take, of all those that might be considered, in order to achieve our desired goals. It is advice on how to best fulfill our obligation to ourselves in our personal narratives when they come into conflict with our group narratives. For 30,000 years we have told stories to provide guidance in life, and, through trial and error, the elements of those stories, such as the archetypal roles representing the roles we take in groups, became encoded as the conventions of story structure.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ahg6b-0-0">Because each of the roles in a group represents an aspect or facet of our individual minds, these conventions of story structure provide a map of how our individual minds work, as well as our “group minds.” When we developed Dramatica, we were the first to recognize that the structure of story modeled the human mind and the group mind. Armed with that understanding, we mapped out these conventions of structure from a psychological point of view and learned such things as the following:</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="cc72-0-0">Some stories have a single goal with a protagonist and an antagonist. Other stories have single goals but have many people trying to achieve and/or prevent achievement of the goal. But only one of these people is a protagonist and one is an antagonist. Each of the others, though seeking the goal, operates as one of the other roles, such as reason or skepticism.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="3kntb-0-0">So, it would be redundant to have “multiple protagonists” as they would all be trying to prove whether that same human quality is the best way to solve the problem. Protagonist represents our initiative - the motivation to instigate change. A better structured story would have one person who starts the quest, and others who join in to get there first. Then, each of the others could illustrate whether those other traits are the best ones to use and that would be the story’s message.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="7a6nd-0-0">A good example that comes to mind are the characters in the old comedy “The Great Race” with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon. Though Tony is the protagonist because he comes up with the idea of the Great Race and Jack is the antagonist because he is the long-time chief competitor to Tony, many people join the race, each seeking to win, and they represent the other archetypal roles in how they try to do it.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="ej7f0-0-0">In summary, I would say that you would do better not to think of all those attempting to achieve the goal as protagonists, but as representing other human traits than “initiative,” which is what defines the actual protagonist. And from that point of view, Dramatica only allows one protagonist, but can have as many characters as you like trying to achieve the goal.</span></div>
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<span data-offset-key="doka9-0-0">Learn more about narrative structure and Dramatica at http://storymind.com/dramatica/</span></div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-66940798323291062942016-03-14T08:02:00.002-07:002016-03-14T08:02:51.017-07:00The 8 Archetypal Characters<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rdP_d2tRCbs/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rdP_d2tRCbs?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
<br />Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-74731632731471707942016-03-05T06:09:00.001-08:002016-03-05T06:11:46.154-08:00How to Build Perfectly Structured Characters!<div style="border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
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<span style="color: #743399;"><span style="float: left; height: auto; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-right: 24px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%;"><img alt="ws_structuredcharacters-500_medium" class="alignleft wp-image-1172 size-medium" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ws_structuredcharacters-500_medium-300x300.jpg" height="200" style="border: none; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; margin: 4px 24px 12px 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="200" /></span></span>Join Melanie Anne Phillips, co-creator of Dramatica, for a full-day character creation seminar/workshop at The Writer’s Store in Burbank on March 12, 2016.</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-735807084862152632016-02-22T13:56:00.001-08:002016-02-22T13:56:58.853-08:00Free Story Structure Video ProgramFree on our web site:<br />
<br />
Our entire 12 hour 113 part program on story structure in streaming video!<br />
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<a href="http://storymind.com/page455.htm">Watch Now</a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-80751864086404547532016-02-04T07:12:00.001-08:002016-02-04T07:12:02.108-08:00How to Beat Writer's Block...After twenty five years as a teacher of creative writing, I finally discovered the cure for writer's block. I call it the Idea Spinner Method.<br />
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It worked so well for me, I turned it into a software tool to make it even easier to use.<br />
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Here's a quick video demo that's pretty cool, if I do say so myself!<br />
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Idea Spinner BEATS WRITER'S BLOCK or your money back. It 's just $19.95. That simple. Watch...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-37719163044073809392016-02-02T07:43:00.001-08:002016-02-02T07:43:20.718-08:00Have your characters write their own life storiesHave your characters write their own life stories<br />
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For your characters to be compelling, your readers will need to think of them as real people, not just dramatic functionaries or collections of traits.<br />
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To help make this happen, have each of your characters write a short one-page autobiographical piece about themselves in their own words, describing their childhoods, backgrounds, activities, interests, attitudes, relationships, pet peeves and outlooks on life.<br />
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Try to write these in the unique voice of each character and from their point of view. Don’t write about them; let them write about themselves.<br />
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This will give you the experience of what it is like to see the world through each character’s eyes, which will help you empathize with their motivations and thereby make it easier for you to write your novel in such a way that your readers can step into your characters’ shoes.<br />
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<a href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm">Writing Tip of the Day</a>Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-33617872084745617902016-02-01T18:16:00.001-08:002016-02-01T18:16:47.231-08:00The Reason of Age<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
The Reason of Age</div>
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How old your characters are couches them in a lot of preconceptions about how they’ll act, what their experience base is, and how formidable or capable they may be at the tasks that are thrust upon them in your story and even how they will relate to one another.</div>
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Many authors, especially those working on their first novel, tend to create characters who are all about the same age as the author.</div>
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This makes some sense insofar as a person can best write about that with which they are most familiar. The drawback is that anyone in your potential readership who falls outside your age range won’t find anyone in your novel to whom they can easily relate. So, unless you are specifically creating your novel for a particular consistent age range, try to mix it up a bit and at least sprinkle your cast with folks noticeably older and younger than yourself.</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-58881281102639415872016-02-01T18:15:00.001-08:002016-02-01T18:15:34.645-08:00The Reason of Age<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
The Reason of Age</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
How old your characters are couches them in a lot of preconceptions about how they’ll act, what their experience base is, and how formidable or capable they may be at the tasks that are thrust upon them in your story and even how they will relate to one another.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
Many authors, especially those working on their first novel, tend to create characters who are all about the same age as the author.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
This makes some sense insofar as a person can best write about that with which they are most familiar. The drawback is that anyone in your potential readership who falls outside your age range won’t find anyone in your novel to whom they can easily relate. So, unless you are specifically creating your novel for a particular consistent age range, try to mix it up a bit and at least sprinkle your cast with folks noticeably older and younger than yourself.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm" href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;">Writing Tip of the Day</a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-64142016508613798702016-01-29T08:46:00.001-08:002016-01-29T08:46:26.583-08:00Use Nicknames to Enrich Your CharactersUse Nicknames to Enrich Your Characters<br />
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Nicknames are wonderful dramatic devices because they can work with the character’s apparent physical nature or personality, work against it for humiliating or comedic effect, play into the plot by telegraphing the activities in which the character will engage, create irony, or provide mystery by hinting at information or a back-story for the character that led to its nickname but has not yet been divulged to the readers.Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-22930845307940763112016-01-28T10:06:00.000-08:002016-01-28T10:06:03.260-08:00Avoid the Genre TrapAvoid the Genre Trap<br /><br />Too many beginning writers see genres as checklists of elements and progressions they must touch, like checkpoints in a race. But a genre is not a box in which to write. It is a grab bag from which to pull only those components you are truly excited to include in your story. Every story has a unique personality, you build it chapter by chapter or scene by scene with every genre choice you make. By drawing on aspects of many different genres and combining those pieces together, you can fashion an experience for your readers or audience unlike any other.<br /><br /><span style="color: #2962ff;"><a href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm">Writing Tip of the Day</a></span>Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-85026506250423767772016-01-25T06:35:00.001-08:002016-01-25T06:35:54.175-08:00Be your own critic without being criticalBe your own critic without being critical<br />
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Here’s how: Write something. Do it now. Now look at it not as an author, but as a reader or audience and ask questions about it. For example, I write, "It was dawn in the small western town." Now I ask: 1. What time of year was it? 2. What state? 3. Is it a ghost town? 4. How many people live there? 5. Is everything all right in the town? 6. What year is it. Then let your Muse come up with as many answers for each question as possible. Example: 6. What year is it? A. 1885 B. Present Day C. 2050 D. After the apocalypse. Then repeat: D. After the Apocalypse. 1. What kind of apocalypse? 2. How many people died? 3. How long ago was the disaster, and so on. By alternating between critical analysis and creative Musings, you will quickly work out details about your story's world, who's in it, what happens to them and what it all means.<br />
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<a href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm">Writing Tip of the Day</a>Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-88950808208199345102016-01-18T07:49:00.003-08:002016-01-18T07:49:16.815-08:00Let your Muse run wildLet your Muse run wild
The easiest way to give yourself writer's block is to bridle your Muse by trying to come up with ideas. Your Muse is always coming up with ideas - just not the ones you want. If you try to limit the kind of material you will accept from her, she'll shut up entirely. So let your Muse run free. When she gives you an hysterical moment with a polka-dot elephant while writing a serious death scene, consider including it, perhaps as an hallucination. Give it a try, it might liven up your death scene! And after you've written it, if it doesn't work, then save it in a file for later use. It may seem like a waste of time, but your Muse will know she has been treated with respect, and will likely now give you just the idea you need.
<a href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm">Writing Tip of the Day</a>Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-24740789349556646652016-01-17T08:11:00.001-08:002016-01-17T08:11:45.295-08:00Be a Story Weaver - NOT a Story Mechanic!Writing Tip of the Day:
Be a Story Weaver - NOT a Story Mechanic!
Structure is important but not at the expense of passion. No one reads a book or goes to a movie to experience a great structure. Authors come to a story to express their passions and readers and audience members come to ignite their own. While structure is the carrier wave upon which passion is transmitted, without the passion, it's just noise. Conversely, passion without structure can be full of sound and fury yet signifying nothing. So find the proper balance. Let passion be your captain and structure be your guide.
<a href="http://storymind.com/page559.htm">Writing Tip of the Day</a>Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-43130520837921462302016-01-15T07:09:00.001-08:002016-01-15T07:09:16.470-08:00Write from your Passionate Self<div style="border: 0px; color: #444444; font-family: 'Open Sans', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 1.714285714rem; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Write from your passionate self</div>
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We all wear a mask to protect us from hurt in the world. It also blocks the light of our vision. As children, we quickly learn which behaviors are praised and which are punished. We learn to act other than we really feel to maximize our experience. In time,we buy into that mask, believing it is who we really are. But the mask evens out the peaks and troughs of our passion, leaving us afraid to explore the depths of our passion and reveal our true selves in words. To speak with a clarion voice, you must shatter the mask, discover your actual self, and thrust it into the world.</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-41286307882562217172014-10-09T07:59:00.001-07:002014-10-09T07:59:32.675-07:00"Write Your Novel Step by Step" - Free online book!<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
My complete book, Write Your Novel Step by Step, is now available for free on the Storymind web site.</div>
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Click the picture to start reading!</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/page31.htm" href="http://storymind.com/page31.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="Write Your Novel Step By Step (shadow)" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-473" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Write-Your-Novel-Step-By-Step-shadow.png" height="320" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Write-Your-Novel-Step-By-Step-shadow.png" style="clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 100%;" width="220" /></a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-82695797744491143412014-10-06T09:34:00.001-07:002014-10-06T09:34:30.472-07:0050 Sure-Fire Storytelling Tricks! Free Online Book<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
My book, 50 Sure-Fire Storytelling Tricks!, is now available free on the Storymind.com web site, as well as in paperback and for Kindle.</div>
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Click the picture to read it online for free!</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/articles/page18.htm" href="http://storymind.com/articles/page18.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="Storytelling" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-974" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Storytelling.jpg" height="790" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Storytelling.jpg" style="clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 100%;" width="524" /></a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-51677653456824083132014-10-02T09:04:00.001-07:002014-10-02T09:04:50.111-07:00Visit Our Main Writers Web Site!<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
For hundreds more free articles, streaming videos, audio programs and downloads for writers, visit our main writers web site at <a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com" href="http://storymind.com/" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;">Storymind.com</a>:</div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com" href="http://storymind.com/" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="cropped-title_banner1.jpg" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-110" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cropped-title_banner1.jpg" height="259" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/cropped-title_banner1.jpg" style="clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 100%;" width="940" /></a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-39383756461282767562014-10-01T08:12:00.001-07:002014-10-01T08:12:52.548-07:00Write Your Novel Step by Step (25) "Who's Your Main Character?"<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
Of all your cast, there is one very special player: the Main Character. Your Main Character is the one your story seems to be about – the one with whom your readers most identify – in short, the single most important character in your novel.</div>
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You probably already know who your Main Character is. If, so, you’ll find this step opens opportunities to avoid stereotyping him or her. If you haven’t yet selected your Main Character, this step will help you choose one from your cast list.</div>
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First, your Main Character is not necessarily your protagonist. While the protagonist is the prime mover of the effort to achieve the story goal, the Main Character is the one who grapples with an inner dilemma, personal issue or has some aspect of his or her belief system come under attack.</div>
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Most writers combine these two functions into a single player (a hero) who is both protagonist <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">and</em> Main Character in order to position their readers right at the heart of the action, as in the Harry Potter series.</div>
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Still, there are good reasons for not always blending the two. In the book and movie <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">To Kill A Mockingbird</em>, the protagonist is Atticus – a southern lawyer trying to acquit a young black man wrongly accused of rape. That is the basic plot of the story.</div>
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But the Main Character is Atticus’ young daughter, Scout. While the overall story is about the trial, that is really just a background to Scout’s experiences as we see prejudice through her eyes – a child’s eyes.</div>
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In this way, the author (Dee Harper) distances us from the incorruptible Atticus so that we do not feel all self-righteous. And, by making Scout effectively prejudiced against Boo Radley (the scary “boogie man” who lives down the street), we see how easily we can all become prejudiced by fearing what we really know nothing about.</div>
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In the end, Boo turns out to be Scout’s secret protector, and the story’s message about both the evils and ease of prejudice is made.</div>
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Your story may be best suited to center around a typical hero, especially if it is an action story or physical journey story. But if you are writing more of an exploration novel in which the plot unfolds as a background against which a personal journey of self-discovery or a resolution of personal demons is told, then separating your Main Character from the protagonist (and the heart of the action) may serve you better.</div>
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Armed with this understanding, review the cast you have chosen for your novel. If you have already selected a Main Character, see if they are a hero who is also the protagonist, driving the action. If so, consider splitting those functions into two players to see if it might enhance your story for your readers. If you have already set up a separate Main Character and protagonist, consider combining them into a hero, to see if that might streamline your story.</div>
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If you have not yet chosen a Main Character and/or a protagonist, review your cast list to see if one player would best do both jobs or if one would better drive the plot and the other would better carry the message.</div>
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When you have made your choices, write a brief paragraph about your Main Character and/or protagonist to explain how those two functions are satisfied by your chosen character or characters.</div>
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<em style="border: none; color: #444444; line-height: 1.5;">This article is one of the 200 interactive steps in</em></h2>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="wp040b08b3_06" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-714" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wp040b08b3_06.png" height="51" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wp040b08b3_06.png" style="clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 100%;" width="550" /></a><span data-mce-style="color: #993300;" style="color: #993300; line-height: 1.5;">Step by Step Story Development Software</span></h2>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="wpc9342079_06" class="alignleft wp-image-715 size-full" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wpc9342079_06.png" height="168" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wpc9342079_06.png" style="color: #444444; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 4px 24px 12px 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="169" /></a>Build your Story's World, who's in it, what happens to them and what it all means with StoryWeaver! With over 200 interactive Story Cards, StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process - from concept to completion.</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-50770304100384479052014-09-30T10:48:00.003-07:002014-09-30T10:48:25.504-07:00Dramatica Theory (Annotated) Part 10 "When to Use Dramatica"<div data-mce-style="text-align: center;" style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px; text-align: center;">
Excerpted from the book,<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;"> Dramatica: A New Theory of Story</em></div>
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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 until they eventually establish an intent. In this case, the storytelling comes before the structure. After the first draft is completed, such an author can look back at what he has created with the new understanding he has arrived at by the end. Often, much of the work will no longer fit the story as the author now sees it. By telling Dramatica what he now intends, Dramatica will be able to indicate which parts of the existing draft are appropriate, which are not, and what may be needed that is currently missing. In this way, the creative process is both free and fulfilling, with Dramatica serving as analyst and collaborator.</div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Annotation</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Now this passage in the original theory book is just the tip of the iceberg. In the twenty some-odd years since we wrote this, I've discovered a whole bucket of insights and practical tips that can really leverage Dramatica (both the theory and the software) to far greater power in their application.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Speaking of Dramatica software, this is one of the few passages in the theory book that references it when it says, "By telling Dramatica" and "Dramatica will be able," which clearly are not speaking of the theory by itself.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">While I'm on this topic, let me hold forth a bit about the relationship between theory and software so we can clarify that issue, be done with that, and move on. First of all, the theory is a conceptual construct that accurately describes the function of the forces that make up narrative. In other words, the theory really sees narrative as a collection of dynamics that are interrelated, rather than seeing narrative as a structure made up of story points.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">"What about the Dramatica Chart?" you might ask. "That's made up of all kinds of structural points including some called 'elements' - you can't get any more structural than that." Well, now, that's not exactly true. It's how it appears, to be sure, but that not really what it is. (Notice how I'm diverging farther and farther away from practical tips here, but I promise: I'll get to those down near the bottom of what now appears to be one freaking huge annotation....</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Every item in the Dramatica Chart (AKA the Dramatica Table of Story Elements) is actually a process, treated as an object. WTF? Okay - imagine you make a list of chores for the day that includes washing the dishes, paying the bills, and going shopping. Each of those is really a process, isn't it? But on the list, they are all treated as things: chores. By thinking of a complex process at a thing, the complexity kind of melts away so that you can begin to see how one "thing" relates to another.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">The Dramatica Chart is, essentially, a map of how all the processes that make up narrative relate to one another. By treating them as objects, we can see those relationships more easily (and some of them are so subtle that you can't see them at all until you create a chart in that manner and get rid of all the complexity).</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Now for the software... We took all these relationships among narrative processes that we found and discovered they had a pattern - think the DNA of story. Every story has its own genome or perhaps "memnome" (playing off the word "meme" which is like a gene or cultural awareness). But, they all use the same bases and there is an underlying deep structure to the way they are assembled. (In DNA it is a double helix, in Dramatica it is actually a quad helix, which is why the "objects" in the Dramatica Chart are arranged in quads.)</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">So, we described this model of structure mathematically. We realized that the way these elements could go together could be described by algorithms and these algorithms became a computer implementation of the model of DNA of narrative that is the story engine in Dramatica software. Everything else in the software - the tools, features, interface and questions - are all just ways of accessing that algorithmic model.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">The idea is to treat the model like a big piece of marble. Michelangelo said, he just chipped away anything that didn't look like what he was trying to portray and what was left was the image he was going for. That's how you use Dramatica: answer the questions so it sculpts the model to gradually look more and more like what you have in mind for your story. Eventually, you'll enter enough information about your mental image, that the model with all its DNA-style algorithms can determine that the unseen in-between impact of all your choices on each other can pre-determine what other potential choices must be if they aren't to work against or undermine what you've already said you want to do narratively. In plain language. The more information you put into the model about your story, the more you limit what your other options are, without working against yourself dramatically. Simple as that.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">You can see this at work in the story engine feature in the software. Every time you make a choice, the number of other options is reduced. In Dramatica Story Expert there is a feature that shows all the choices you explicitly make in blue, and when enough information is input that other choices can be made by the model, these implied choices show up in red. Interestingly, it never take more than about twelve explicit choices to know enough about your story to generate more than seventy other implied choices. Pretty weird, huh? But accurate as great-grandpa and his spittoon.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Now back to the title of this original section in the theory book, "When to Use Dramatica." Well, to use Dramatica you really need to know what your story is about before you start. Oh, you can use it without a clue, but then every choice you make is rather arbitrary. Of course, you might go into the process with no story idea at all and then answer questions like, "Is your overall story about a situation, activity, attitude or manner of thinking," and that might actually help you gravitate toward one kind of a story rather than another. And, as you continue answering such questions as "Is your Main Character a Do-er or a Be-er" then you build up elements of the framework of a story, just like in 3D printing until you have a complete structure. It won't have any subject matter yet - it will just be a bunch of girders and pulleys. So, you'll then follow through the storytelling section of the software to describe what kind of subject matter in your story is going to fulfill each of those structural requirements. For some folks, that's the best way to go.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">But for me, and writers like me, I'm more like ol' Michelangelo. I want to know what I'm trying to get at first, then use Dramatica to chip away at that block of Muse-provided marble until I can see the structure at the heart of the story I want to tell. Doing it this way, I already have all my subject matter and a story concept in mind. Dramatica then becomes a way of finding the dramatic center of all that material, the way you might find the geographic center of a country. It brings clarity and gives you a pivot point around which to build and balance your story.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">That, in fact, is why I created StoryWeaver after co-creating Dramatica: to provide tool for generating ideas, zeroing in on subject matter. In short, to come up with people I'd like to write about before they became character, events before it became a plot, a message before it became a theme, and an atmosphere before it became a genre. Then (after using StoryWeaver to work out my story's world) - then I go to Dramatica to X-ray the damn thing and see what kind of structural skeleton its got.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">So when to use Dramatica (software)? If you already know what your story is and how its structured, what do you need software for? If you need inspiration, use StoryWeaver. If you need structural grounding and guidance, use Dramatica.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">When to use Dramatica (theory)? The theory is an understanding. It doesn't generate creative motivation. But, if you know it, the underlying concepts will open new doors to explore creatively and will almost subliminally guide your efforts so that the more theory you know, the more your stories will seem to be complete, make sense, not drive, and have consistency of outlook and consistency of impact.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">And if you use the Dramatica software at least once every few months, you'll find that our writerly instincts are constantly drifting off true and being warped by new life experiences and old justifications. Dramatica points to the proper lane on the freeway that will get you there - the corridor of clear thinking. It doesn't regiment your Muse but keeps it from running off a cliff like the vast majority of lemming-like writers out there who follow formulas right behind the writer in front until they end up in a broken heap at the bottom of what might have been the best story they ever told.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">--Melanie Anne Phillips</em></div>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;">Write your novel or screenplay step by step with StoryWeaver...</a></div>
Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-57829236263034572512014-09-29T07:52:00.000-07:002014-09-29T07:52:12.193-07:00Write Your Novel Step by Step (24) "Selecting Your Cast"<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
Congratulations! Over the last few steps you’ve learned a tremendous amount of information about your characters’ attributes, self-image, outlook, and personal issues.</div>
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With all the work you’ve done, you probably have more characters than you need or want. Still, by keeping them around, you have had the opportunity to inject new blood into old stereotypes. As a result, your potential cast represents a healthy mix of interesting people.</div>
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The task at hand is to pare down this list by selecting only those characters you really want or actually need in your story.</div>
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To begin, make three categories, either as columns on a page or piles of index cards: one for obvious rejects, one for <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">maybes</em>, and one for the characters you are absolutely certain you want in your novel.</div>
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Put into the <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Keeper</em> pile every character that is essential to your plot, contributes extraordinary passion, or is just so original and intriguing you can wait to write about them.</div>
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In the <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Not Sure</em> pile, place all the characters who have some function (though they aren’t the only one who could perform it), have some passionate contribution (but it seems more peripheral than central), or are mildly interesting but not all-consuming fascinating.</div>
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In the <em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">No Way! </em>Pile, place all the characters who don’t have a function, don’t contribute to the passionate side of your story and rub you the wrong way.</div>
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After distributing all your characters into these three categories, leaf through the “maybe” category, character by character, to see if any of them would fit will and without redundancy in the cast you’ve already selected.</div>
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If any would uniquely bring something worthwhile to your story that couldn’t be contributed by a keeper character, add them to your cast for now. If they would not, add them to the rejects.</div>
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Finally, look through the rejects for any individual attributes that you are sorry to see go – character traits you’d like to explore in your novel, even if you are sure you don’t want the whole character.</div>
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If there are any, distribute those attributes among your chosen characters as long as they don’t conflict with or lessen their existing quality and power. In this way, you will infuse your cast with the most potent elements possible.</div>
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You now have your initial cast of characters for your novel. In the actual writing to come, you may determine that certain characters are not playing out as well as expected. At that time, you can always cut them from your cast and redistribute any desirable attributes among your other characters.</div>
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Or, you may discover there are some essential jobs left undone, and you’ll need to create one or more additional characters to fill that gap.</div>
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But, for now, you have finally arrived at your initial cast – the folks who will populate your story’s world, drive the action, consider the issues, and involve your readers.</div>
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In the next step, we’ll explore the nature of your Main Character before turning our attention to your story’s theme.</div>
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<em style="border: none; color: #444444; line-height: 1.5;">This article is one of the 200 interactive steps in</em></h2>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="wp040b08b3_06" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-714" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wp040b08b3_06.png" height="51" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wp040b08b3_06.png" style="clear: both; color: #444444; display: block; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 0px auto 12px; max-width: 100%;" width="550" /></a><span data-mce-style="color: #993300;" style="color: #993300; line-height: 1.5;">Step by Step Story Development Software</span></h2>
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<a data-mce-href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" href="http://storymind.com/storyweaver.htm" style="color: #743399; line-height: 1.5;"><img alt="wpc9342079_06" class="alignleft wp-image-715 size-full" data-mce-src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wpc9342079_06.png" height="168" src="http://storymind.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/wpc9342079_06.png" style="color: #444444; display: inline; float: left; height: auto; line-height: 1.5; margin: 4px 24px 12px 0px; max-width: 100%;" width="169" /></a>Build your Story's World, who's in it, what happens to them and what it all means with StoryWeaver! With over 200 interactive Story Cards, StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process - from concept to completion.</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-981649782393714347.post-62691234361519289722014-09-26T14:55:00.001-07:002014-09-26T14:55:35.452-07:00Never Be Stuck for a Plot Again!<div style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Bitstream Charter', serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.5; margin-bottom: 24px;">
A writer asked today:</div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Dear Melanie,</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Could you please tell me where can I find some material on western genre plot building.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Let me make it much clearer. I have a character Marshal, A saloon girl, Rancher, Preacher, Blacksmith and bartender along with 4 outlaw gang and 1 leader og the outlaw gang.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">What I am trying to find is a story of events that can occur within this small town. Which direction can I take to find some events to get me to page 75.</em></div>
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<em style="border: none; line-height: 1.5;">Darryl</em></div>
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My reply:</div>
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Hi, Darryl</div>
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Here’s a link to my article, The Creative Two-Step, that uses that example to begin to develop characters in an old Western Town: http://storymind.com/content/41.htm</div>
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This technique can also be used equally well for plot events.</div>
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The idea is to switch back and forth between analytical mode and creative mode by asking specific questions about your emerging story, then answering them in as many creative ways as you can. Then, you repeat the process by asking questions about each of the answers and then answering THOSE questions. In short order, you end up with hundreds of plot points.</div>
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Example:</div>
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Question:</div>
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How does the Marshall first find out about the gang’s activities?</div>
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Answers:</div>
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1. The gang rides into town hootin’ and hollarin’</div>
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2. He is told about the situation, right after he accepts the job and pins on the badge.</div>
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3. He saw a newspaper account of the town’s gang problem and came there on his own to get the job to clean up the gang.</div>
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4. The gang sends a telegram to the marshall’s home to let him know they are in town shaking it down.</div>
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Okay, that’s the first step - analytical (the first question), followed by the second creative step (all the potential answers).</div>
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Then you repeat, asking as many questions as you can think of about each answer. I’ll just do one as an example.</div>
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Answer 3: He saw a newspaper account of the town’s gang problem and came there on his own to get the job to clean up the gang.</div>
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Questions:</div>
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1. Where was he when he saw the newspaper?</div>
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2. Has he done this kind of thing before?</div>
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3. Why does he want to interfere?</div>
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4. What makes him think he is qualified to do anything about the problem?</div>
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5. Does he notify the town’s mayor or governing body before he shows up?</div>
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Then, you repeat the second “creative” step and provide answers.</div>
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Example:</div>
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Question 2. Has he done this kind of thing before?</div>
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Answers:</div>
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1. Yes, he is independently wealthy and does this all the time as a hobby.</div>
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2. Yes, one time. His family was killed when he was a child and in his first adventure, he read a newspaper account of a child who was made an orphan due to a gang’s violence in a town in the East. He brought the gang to justice and found a foster home for the child. It was so fulfilling, his ordinary job has been miserable since, and this new article has made him realize he needs to step forward to give his live meaning.</div>
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I could go on and on, but you get the idea.</div>
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Now, through this exercise, what events have we created for our story? Perhaps these:</div>
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1. A scene showing the Marshall as a young boy when his family was killed (by who and how and where can all be figured out using the Creative Two-Step).</div>
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2. A scene showing the Marshall see the first article and decide to get involved.</div>
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3. Several scene, perhaps in a montage or in a scrapbook of how that first adventure went.</div>
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4. A scene of him encountering this new newspaper article and how it affects him.</div>
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5. A scene of him quitting his job (how much he needs the money, what kind of job, and so on can be created using the two-step)</div>
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6. A scene of him arriving at the town.</div>
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7. How he gets the job (again, use the two-step to come up with ideas for this)</div>
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8. His first encounter with the gang (casual, antagonistic, high or low tension, anybody get hurt?, did the gang know he was the Marshall when they first encounter?)</div>
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Okay, again, I could go on and on and so could you. Just use the ol’ two-step method and then stand back, see all the ideas you’ve generated and create a plot sequence from all the notions like I just did above.</div>
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The details in each scene can be created using the very same method, once you have the main plot line sequence.</div>
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Melanie</div>
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Melanie Anne Phillipshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16735842106224804235noreply@blogger.com