Character Dismissals

Over the course of the story, your reader/audience has come to know your characters and to feel for them. The story doesn’t end when your characters and their relationships reach a climax. Rather, the reader/audience will want to know the aftermath – how it turned out for each character and each relationship. In addition, the audience needs a little time to say goodbye – to let the character walk off into the sunset or to mourn for them before the story ends.

This is in effect the conclusion, the wrap-up. After everything has happened to your characters, after the final showdown with their respective demons, what are they like? How have they changed? If a character began the story as a skeptic, does it now have faith? If they began the story full of hatred for a mother that abandoned them, have they now made revelations to the effect that she was forced to do this, and now they no longer hate? This is what you have to tell the audience, how their journeys changed them, have the resolved their problems, or not?

And in the end, this constitutes a large part of your story’s message. It is not enough to know if a story ends in success or failure, but also if the characters are better off emotionally or plagued with even greater demons, regardless of whether or not the goal was achieved.

You can show what happens to your characters directly, through a conversation by others about them, or even in a post-script on each that appears after the story is over or in the ending credits of a movie.

How you do this is limited only by your creative inspiration, but make sure you review each character and each relationship and provide at least a minimal dismissal for each.

Click to write your novel or screenplay step by step with StoryWeaver

Click to predict the perfect structure for your story with Dramatica

Story "Driver"

The 12 Essential QuestionsEvery Writer Should Answer

5. Story Driver: Action or Decision?

Some stories are driven by actions. Others are forced along by decisions. All stories have some degree of both. This question determines which one "triggers" the other, but does not determine the ratio between the two.

If actions that occur in your story determine the types of decisions that need to be made, choose Action.

If decisions or deliberations that happen in your story precipitate the actions that follow, choose Decision.

Story Driver: The mechanism by which the plot is moved forward.

Action or Decision describes how the story is driven forward. The question is: Do Actions precipitate Decisions or vice versa?

Every story revolves around a central issue, but that central issue only becomes a problem when an action or a decision sets events into motion. If an action gets things going, then many decisions may follow in response. If a decision kicks things off, then many actions may follow until that decision has been accommodated.

The Action/Decision relationship will repeat throughout the story. In an Action story, decisions will seem to resolve the problem until another action gets things going again. Decision stories work the same way. Actions will get everything in line until another decision breaks it all up again. Similarly, at the end of a story there will be an essential need for an action to be taken or a decision to be made. Both will occur, but one of them will be the roadblock that must be removed in order to enable the other.

Whether Actions or Decisions move your story forward, the Story Driver will be seen in the instigating and concluding events, forming bookends around the dramatics.

Examples of Action and Decision:

Main Character Style

The 12 Essential QuestionsEvery Writer Should Answer

4. Main Character Problem-Solving Style: Logical or Intuitive?

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

NOTE: A character's Problem-Solving Style need not match its Gender.

Problem-Solving Style: A differentiation between logical and intuitive problem-solving techniques.

Much of what we are as individuals is learned behavior. Yet, the basic operating system of the mind is cast biologically before birth as being more sensitive to space or time. We all have a sense of how things are arranged (space) and how things are going (time), but which one filters our thinking determines our Problem-Solving Style as being Logical or Intuitive respectively.
Logical Problem-Solving Style describes spatial thinkers who tend to use linear Problem solving as their method of choice. They set a specific Goal, determine the steps necessary to achieve that Goal, then embark on the effort to accomplish those steps.

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

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

Main Character Approach

The 12 Essential QuestionsEvery Writer Should Answer

3. Main Character Approach: Do-er or Be-er?

Some of the characters you create as an author will be Do-ers who try to accomplish their purposes through activities (by doing things). Other characters are Be-ers who try to accomplish their purposes by working it out internally (by being a certain way). When it comes to the Main Character, this choice of Do-er or Be-er will have a large impact on how he approaches the Story's problem. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems externally, choose Do-er. If you want your Main Character to prefer to solve problems through internal work, choose Be-er.

Approach: the kind of techniques a character uses to solve problems, which favor either mental or physical effort.

By temperament, Main Characters (like each of us) have a preferential method of approaching Problems. Some would rather adapt their environment to themselves through action, others would rather adapt their environment to themselves through strength of character, charisma, and influence. There is nothing intrinsically right or wrong with either Approach, yet it does affect how one will respond to Problems. Choosing "Do-er" or "Be-er" does not prevent a Main Character from using either Approach, but merely defines the way he is likely to first Approach a Problem, using the other method only if the first one fails.

Examples of Do-er characters are John McClane (played by Bruce Willis) in Die Hard or Harry Callahan (Clint Eastwood) in Dirty Harry. Rookie FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) in The Silence of the Lambs also responds instinctively to events by taking action, which is why her supervisor believes she will make a good FBI agent when she graduates from training.
An example of a Be-er character with an intrinsic approach to problem-solving by deliberating is Frank Horrigan (played by Clint Eastwood) in the film In the Line of Fire.

Attorney Ned Racine (played by William Hurt) in Body Heat is also a Be-er. He seems impulsive in matters of love but deliberates about his options before agreeing to help sexy Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) inherit her husband's fortune.

A Be-er can seem like a victim in a story where actions precede decisions. In a story influenced by decisions, however, Be-ers are often the mastermind or supervisor behind the scenes, putting restraints on characters who are Do-ers. In a TV cop show like Law & Order, a Be-er might be the Chief of Police or District Attorney rather than an undercover Detective or a Assistant District Attorney whose job is to prosecute criminals in court.

Many famous movie pairs contain both a Be-er and a Do-er, such as Butch and Sundance (played by Paul Newman and Robert Redford) in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the title characters of Thelma & Louise (Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon) or Billy Ray Valentine and Louis Winthorpe III (Eddie Murphy and Dan Ackroyd) in Trading Places.

Examples of Do-ers and Be-ers

Main Character Growth

The 12 Essential QuestionsEvery Writer Should Answer

2. Main Character Growth: Stop or Start?

Over the course of your story, the Main Character will either grow out of something or grow into something. Authors show their audiences how to view this development of a Main Character by indicating the direction of Growth by the Main Character.

If the story concerns a Main Character who Changes, he will come to believe he is the cause of his own problems (that's why he eventually changes). If he grows out of an old attitude or approach (e.g. loses the chip on his shoulder), then he is a Stop character. If he grows into a new way of being (e.g. fills a hole in his heart), then he is a Start character.

If the story concerns a Main Character who Remains Steadfast, something in the world around him will appear to be the cause of his troubles. If he tries to hold out long enough for something to stop bothering him, then he is a Stop character. If he tries to hold out long enough for something to begin, then he is a Start character. If you want the emphasis in your story to be on the source of the troubles which has to stop, choose "Stop."

If you want to emphasize that the remedy to the problems has to begin, choose "Start."
Whether a Main Character eventually changes his nature or remains steadfast, he will still grow over the course of the story. This growth has a direction. Either he will grow into something (Start) or grow out of something (Stop).

As an example we can look to Scrooge from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Does Scrooge need to change because he is excessively miserly (Stop), or because he lacks generosity (Start)? In the Dickens' story it is clear that Scrooge's problems stem from his passive lack of compassion, not from his active greed. It is not that he is on the attack, but that he does not actively seek to help others. So, according to the way Charles Dickens told the story, Scrooge needs to Start being generous, rather than Stop being miserly.

A Change Main Character grows by adding a characteristic he lacks (Start) or by dropping a characteristic he already has (Stop). Either way, his make up is changed in nature.

A Steadfast Main Character's make up, in contrast, does not change in nature. He grows in his resolve to remain unchanged. He can grow by holding out against something that is increasingly bad while waiting for it to Stop. He can also grow by holding out for something in his environment to Start. Either way, the change appears somewhere in his environment instead of in him.

Examples of Stop and Start

Main Character Resolve

The 12 Essential QuestionsEvery Writer Should Answer

1. Main Character Resolve: Change or Steadfast?

The Main Character represents the audience's position in the story. Therefore, whether he changes or not has a huge impact on the audience's story experience and the message you are sending to it. Some Main Characters grow to the point of changing their nature or attitude regarding a central personal issue like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Others grow in their resolve, holding onto their nature or attitude against all obstacles like Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive.

Change can be good if the character is on the wrong track to begin with. It can also be bad if the character was on the right track. Similarly, remaining Steadfast is good if the character is on the right track, but bad if he is misguided or mistaken.

Think about the message you want to send to your audience, and whether the Main Character's path should represent the proper or improper way of dealing with the story's central issue. Then select a changing or steadfast Main Character accordingly.

Do you want your story to bring your audience to a point of change or to reinforce its current view? Oddly enough, choosing a steadfast Main Character may bring an audience to change and choosing a change character may influence the audience to remain steadfast. Why? It depends upon whether or not your audience shares the Main Character's point of view to begin with.
Suppose your audience and your Main Character do NOT agree in attitudes about the central issue of the story. Even so, the audience will still identify with the Main Character because he represents the audience's position in the story. So, if the Main Character grows in resolve to remain steadfast and succeeds, then the message to your audience is, "Change and adopt the Main Character's view if you wish to succeed in similar situations."

Clearly, since either change or steadfast can lead to either success or failure in a story, when you factor in where the audience stands a great number of different kinds of audience impact can be created by your choice. In answering this question, therefore, consider not only what you want your Main Character to do as an individual, but also how that influences your story's message and where your audience stands in regard to that issue to begin with.

Examples of Change & Steadfast Main Characters:

 

"Hero" is a Four Letter Word

Characters, Dramatica Style

Here's an 18 minute mp3 recording of some basic Dramatica character concepts for a program I never got around to completing. Thought I might as well share it with y'all. Hope you find it useful.

Characters, Dramatica Style

(Click to listen, right click to download)

Rising Tension in Character Relationships

Character relationships should come under strain over the course of your novel or screenplay so that tension in the relationship rises. To accomplish this, you need to create dramatic moments in which outside pressures put each relationship in an increasing vice-grip.

Conversely, overemphasizing tension might be detrimental, especially in particular genres. For example, in light comedy, action stories, and so on, relationship issues are not likely to be all that crucial or central. Nonetheless, relationship stress should still rise, just not to the same depth and degree. In short, keep an eye toward the overall mood you want for your story, and within that scope, bring tension to its maximum by the end of the third act.

Tension does not have to rise smoothly, but can lurch forward in fits and starts. ! The key is to mimic real life and the naturally uneven nature of the stress in our lives. Tension can rise slowly, then drop quickly in a momentary release, only to begin to rise again. Or, it can snap into place precipitously, only to gradually fade away. In fact, a single relationship might employ both of these techniques.

No matter how you get there, you will want to eventually arrive at a set of dramatic circumstances that brings each relationship to the maximum stress level. That is the point at which the relationship will stand or snap - the character climax of your story.

Characters' Changing Emotional Relationships

Perhaps the most complex relationships among characters are the emotional ones because they can grow to any degree in any direction AND because both characters don't have to feel the same way about each other!

For example, how many stories are written about "unrequited love" where one character is infatuated with the other, but the other is repulsed by them, yet in the end both may love each other, both hate each other, or they may have swapped positions, emotionally.

Another example is the younger brother who tags along with the older brother. To the younger, the older brother is his hero. To the older, the younger brother is a pest. Now, suppose the younger brother is attacked by a bully. The older brother may come to the rescue and defend his tag-along. But the moment the threat is gone and the younger brother looks up at his protector with glowing eyes, the older brother say, "Okay, get out of here and leave me alone." Emotional relationships change with the slightest breeze and change back with the least provocation.

Consider the emotional relationships among the characters in your novel or screenplay. Now, consider your plot and also changes in situational relationships, such as who is second in command or married to whom. Go over the emotional journey of each of your characters as individuals. Then, imagine how each emotional relationships might shift, change, and grow for each of the characters due to changes in their situational relationships with others.

It is a fair amount of work, but you will find that this development more than any other will enrich your characters and the passionate experience of your story.

Character Relationships Baselines

Relationships begin with a "baseline" and then evolve. You will need to establish how your characters feel about one another at the beginning of your story. Later, in as things unfold, you'll describe the growth of these emotional relationships over the course of the story.

Both characters need not be present to establish a relationship between them. You might your readers a look at one character's room where he keeps a score of framed pictures of the second character, his female co-worker, in a little shrine. Then, you describe the second character's room where there is but a single picture of the first character which has been made into a dart board. It is obviously well-used due to the great quantity of dart holes. There are three darts in it as another slams in to join it, thrown by the second character.

One character might write a story about the other for a newspaper or a school report. A photo album might show two people in a series of pictures over the years. In Citizen Kane, the relationship between Kane and his wife is established by a series of vignettes over the years in which the size of their dinner table grows, moving them farther and farther away from each other.

Of course, in real life most emotional relationships are not a single melody but a rich and complex symphony. You may want to develop a different specific means of revealing each aspect of a complex emotional relationship, or you might prefer to have a single illustration that reveals the complexity all at once.

Keep Your Protagonist Human

Characters have dramatic functions, but the reader or audience needs to identify with them as real people as well. A necessary but difficult task is to intertwine the personal and structural aspects of each character so that they blend seamlessly together and become interdependent in a unified person.

If your character is a protagonist, for example, what personal qualities or previous experiences have led them to become a protagonist, the Prime Mover in the effort to achieve the goal? Similary, if your character is wishy-washy, how does that affect their ability to function as a protagonist?

By integrating both the structural and personal elements in every character, each will seem to be driven by real motivations, enacted in a truly human manner.

The Core of Your Protagonist

The Protagonist is one of the most misunderstood characters in a story's structure. When creating your Protagonist, don't let him or her get bogged down with all kinds of additional dramatic jobs that may not be necessary for your particular story.

It is often assumed that this character is a typical "Hero" who is a good guy, the central character, and the Main Character. In fact, the Protagonist does not have to be any of these things. By definition, the Protagonist is the Prime Mover or Driver of the effort to achieve the goal. Beyond that, he, she, or it might be a bad guy (such as an anti-hero).

Being the Central character just means that character is the most prominent to the audience. For example, Fagin in "Oliver Twist" is perhaps the most prominent, but he is certainly not the Protagonist. So, a Protagonist may actually be less interesting than the Antagonist, or may actually be almost a background character.

In addition, the Protagonist is not always the Main Character, who could be any one of the characters in your story who represents the reader or audience position in the story.

So, the only attribute you should consider in selecting your structural Protagonist is whether this character is the one with the most initiative toward reaching the Goal.

Character's Personal Goals

Personal Goals are the motivating reasons your characters care about and/or participate in the effort to achieve or prevent the overall goal. In other words, they see the main story goal as a means to an end, not as an end itself.

Although a personal goal for each character is not absolutely essential, at some point your audience or readers are going to wonder what is driving each character to brave the trials and obstacles. If you haven't supplied a believable motivation, it will stand out as a story hole. e trials and obstacles. If you haven't supplied a believable motivation, it will stand out as a story hole.

How Male and Female Characters Think

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Comments...

Dear Melanie – I greatly enjoyed the Advanced Dramatica class last night. It is a testament to the power of your ideas that in my sleep-deprived state I could sit still for three hours and be quite riveted.

I had a comment on Male-Female mental sex that might be of some interest to you, though I suspect you may have been over this ground already.

For some time I have thought that there are two ways of knowing – 1) rule-based/logic, and 2) pattern matching. An example of rule-based would be "A=B and B=C ==> A=C"; an example of pattern matching would be a director knowing that the cast of a stage play is motivated to do good work because he’s worked with other successful casts.

Rule-based works well on many classes of problems (e.g., if you fire a rocket at such & such a trajectory it will land on Saturn). It allows you to support a conclusion by referring back to defined elements and their proven interactions. It fails to work when elements are not clearly distinct or interactions are complex. For instance, it seems unlikely that that anyone will ever be able to predict global weather based on number crunching of simple elements such as molecules, pressure and temperature.

To solve these more complex problems, pattern recognition is necessary. In other words, you discover that generally whenever it’s cloudy in Fiji and snowing in New York, Seattle is warm and dry. You don’t know why that is; you can’t "prove" it; yet it is a rule you can live by and therefore recognizing that pattern is adaptive.

So when I hear Male vs. Female mental sex, I frequently translate it to Rule-Based vs. Pattern Matching. This seems to explain all of the relationships simply and helps me avoid getting distracted by stereotyping one gender or the other. However, I do not yet know what to make of Chris’s comment that "the biggest difference between male & female mental sex is the way that time and space are perceived." So I look forward to hearing more on that at some opportunity.

Mark

My Reply...

Hi, Mark, and thanks for the note. I’m glad you are enjoying the class. I’ll try to make the next one a bit more boring, so you can catch up on your sleep!

As for male/female systems of perception, the linear (IF "a" THEN "b") and the pattern (WHEN "a" ALSO "b", as exemplified in the statement, "where there’s smoke, there’s fire") are both inherently male mental sex appreciations, because they are both spatial/binary/particulate. Even in your example of weather prediction by pattern, the "given" that is built into that perspective is that there is a difference between Fiji, New York, and Seattle. Female mental sex would find no such distinction.

You have correctly named two items in a quad of perspectives. The first one is linear, the second one is comparative. Here are the other two, by analogy: If linear sets the direction and pattern determines the speed, then the first FEMALE mental sex perspective would be like acceleration, and the second perspective would be CHANGES in acceleration.

In terms of another analogy, the first female mental sex perspective would be like watching the changing colors in a sunset. The second would experiencing changes in the rate at which the colors change.

Have you ever stepped outside on a blustery day with big puffy clouds that cause dappled patterns of shadow and light to move across the ground, from where you are all the way to the horizon?

Even if you don’t think about what causes the patterns (linear) and even if you don’t register the patterns directly at all, you still get an emotional sense of the "flavor" of the landscape as areas brighten and darken, and this "flavor" is due to the fact that the lightening and darkening is not linear, but accelerates, starting out slowly, then gradually increasing in speed until the final breakthrough of sun happens very quickly. That experience is like the FIRST of the female mental sex perceptions of the world, but female mental sex will experience EVERYTHING IN LIFE primarily from that perspective (or from the second female mental sex perspective.)

The second perspective can also be seen on that cloudy day. Do you know how it feels when the sun ALMOST peeks out but flirts with the clouds instead? So, it is accelerating toward appearing and then slows down, perhaps changes its mind, and heads deeper into the shadows with not only greater speed, but greater acceleration.

That constantly shifting flavor of the emotional experience as the RATE OF ACCELERATION changes is very close to the second female mental sex perspective.

Now, the point about male and female seeing Time and Space differently... Imagine that all four of these perceptions are available to both male and female mental sex individuals. But, the male mental sex begins in the linear, then seeks the pattern, then senses the acceleration (indicating the forces at work) and finally arrives at an awareness of the change in the forces through observing change in acceleration. In contrast, female mental sex would FIRST sense the changes in acceleration, then refine that to see the average acceleration (making acceleration appear temporarily constant), THEN see the patterns as being comprised of distinct units of shadow and light, and FINALLY see the linearity of progress from light to dark to light.

Each mental sex would see all four, but due to the ORDER or SEQUENCE in which the perceptions are experienced, the personal MEANING and therefore the VALUE and IMPORTANCE of both the entire scenario AND it’s components would come out differently.

Looking at SEQUENCE is a binary temporal view of the whole above process. Another way to look at it would be that male and female mental sex individuals give a different EMPHASIS to each of the four perspectives. That is a binary SPATIAL view of the process.

So, as you can see, even in my description of the differences, I have adopted a binary framework as a means of communication. Therein lies the real answer to you investigation: because the spatial and temporal (binary/holistic) frame of reference is built in to the brains of male or female mental sex people, no matter how much you look toward the opposite side, no matter how far you step back, you will always still have a point of view that is biased toward the binary or holistic on top of your perspective.

This is why male and female mental sex individuals will never be able to ever TRULY experience how the other variety sees and feels about life, but can only approximate it in terms of the spatial or temporal bias that forms a foundation of our very awareness.

Hope this give you cause for thought, and doesn’t keep you up all night!

Do-ers and Be-ers

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

Can a "do-er" change to a "be-er" over the course of the story (and vice <> versa). Also, I’m having a problem changing one character from be-er to do-er at my particular stage of story encoding (seems I’m locked in)

My Reply…

The choice of do-er or be-er describes the Main Character’s preference - not necessarily what circumstances allow him or her. So, although a character will maintain their preference throughout the story, they may be forced to act in quite the opposite way.

For example, a do-er in an Action story will be right at home, manipulating the environment which is just what is needed. But, a do-er in a Decision story will be like a fish out of water, always trying to take action to resolve obstacles when what is needed is internal work to set an example or adopt an attitude. Such a character will try to resolve things in his or her preferential way until, as a last resort he or she may give in and work at it in the other, uncomfortable way.

So, any character can respond either as a do-er or be-er at any point in the story, but it is important the audience know what the character’s preference is in order to understand the kinds of pressures the character is going through.

The Love Interest

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

Is the Emotion Archetype most often the Love Interest and also the Obstacle Character in a story?

My Reply…

That is perhaps the current convention in action pictures, but has not been the case in the past. In 40s films, for example, the Obstacle/Love interest is often the Guardian, or even the Reason archetype.

Perhaps the one thing that IS rather consistent is that the Love Interest (if there is one) is often the Obstacle, regardless of the objective role, archetypal or complex. Still, in Star Wars, Obi is the obstacle, but Leia is something of the Love Interest.

That is one reason that thinking about Heroes, Villains, and Love Interests is much too indelicate to describe what is really happening in stories. Though certain combinations may come in and out of Vogue (such as the anti-heroes of the late sixties and early seventies) thinking in conventional terms is contrary to coming up with unique combinations of one’s own that elevate a story as being not quite like anything else.

One final note: In "Aliens" the Archetypal role of Guardian is split between the Michael Biehn part and the Paul Burke part, each getting half of the Guardian characteristics and half of the Contagonist characteristics.. Biehn is Help from the Guardian, but Temptation ("Nuke them from orbit" - which will never make Ripley face her fear) from the Contagonist, whereas Burke is Hinder from the Contagonist but Conscience ("You gotta get back on the horse!" - which is just what she really needs to do) from the Guardian.

In short, there are no right or wrong combinations, just commonly used conventions which on the positive side are immediately recognizable by the audience, yet on the negative side are predictable and pedestrian.

Definitions of Dramatica terms used above:

Archetype:

Although designed to create much more rich and complex characters, Dramatica also defines eight archetypes, each of which represents a broad aspect of our own minds when attempting to solve a problem. These archetypes are: Protagonist (the drive toward the achievement of something positive), Antagonist (the drive toward the achievement of something negative), Guardian (our conscience), Contagonist (our temptation ), Reason (our intellect), Emotion (our feelings), Sidekick (our faith), Skeptic (our disbelief).

Subjective Characters: Main and Obstacle.

Dramatica divides characters into two types - those seen in terms of their dramatic functions (Objective Characters) and those providing the audience with a passionate involvement in the story (Subjective Characters). The Objective characters are most broadly identified as the eight archetypes listed above. The Subjective characters are primarily represented by the Main character and the Obstacle character.

The Main Character represents the audience position in the story, as if the story were happening to the audience members themselves. The Obstacle character has the most personal effect upon the Main Character, pressuring the Main Character to change his or her world view and see or do things differently. Just as the Protagonist and Antagonist objective archetypes clash over practical matters of achievement, the Main and Obstacle clash over personal matters that define who one really is and what one will become.

Though quite separate in concept, the functions of an Objective Character and the "involvement factor" of a Subjective Character are often combined in the same "player" in a story.

Conflict Can Limit Your Characters

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Many books on writing will tell you that a good story requires character conflict. In fact, this is far too limiting. Just as with real people, character can relate in ways other than by coming into conflict which are just as strong dramatically.

Dramatica defines four different kinds of relationships, each of which can be positive or negative in nature:

1. Dynamic

2. Companion

3. Dependent

4. Associative

1. Dynamic relationships are conflictual. Positive Dynamic relationships are like the "loyal opposition" where two sides butt heads, but synthesize a better solution because of the conflict. Negative Dynamic relationships occur when two sides butt heads until each is beaten into the ground.

2. Companion relationships involve the indirect impact one character has on another. Positive Companion relationships occur when there is beneficial "fall-out" or "spill-over" between the two sides. For example, a father might work at a factory where he can bring home scrap balsa wood that his son uses for making models. Negative companion relationships involve negative spill-over such as a room-mate who snores.

3. Dependent relationships describe the joint impact of the two sides. For example, positive Dependent relationships might bring Brain and Braun together so that they are stronger than the sum of their parts. A negative Dependent relationship might have a character saying, "I’m nothing without my other half."

4. Associative deals with the relationship of the individual to the group. Rather than being consistently positive or negative, the two varieties of this kind of relationship may be either - but in any given relationship one variety will be positive and the other negative. The Component variety sees characters as individuals. The Collective variety sees them as a group.

For example, two brothers might fight between themselves (Component), yet come to each others’ aid when threatened by a bully because they now see themselves as family (Collective).

If you limit yourself to exploring only the conflicting relationships, ¾ of the ways in which people actually relate will not appear in your characters. What’s worse, if you limit yourself to using only negative conflict, 7/8 of real relationships will be missing in your story.

By exploring all four kinds of relationships in both positive and negative modes, your characters will interact in a full, rich, and realistic manner.

Keep in mind: believable characters are not only built by developing each independently, but also by how they relate one to another!

Heroes & Villains

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

If you are writing with only Heroes and Villains, you are limiting yourself. A Hero is a Main Character who is also a Protagonist. A Villain is an Obstacle Character who is also an Antagonist.

What’s the difference between a Main Character and a Protagonist? The Main Character represents the audience position in the story: It is the character the audience most cares about, most empathizes with. The Protagonist is the character who drives the plot forward.

These two functions don’t have to be placed in the same character as they are in a Hero. In real life, we are not always running the show. Similarly in stories, the Main Character doesn’t have to always be the guy leading the charge. Separating the two functions opens up a wide variety of new audience experiences and creates characters that are less archetypal and formulaic.

Similarly, when we split a Villain into an Obstacle Character and an Antagonist, we open up opportunities, some of which bear directly on the nature and function of a Love Interest and the structure of a "Buddy Picture."

First, what is the difference between the Obstacle Character and the Antagonist? The Obstacle Character represents a point of view opposite that of the Main Character. Every Main Character will be driven by some central belief system around which the story’s philosophic argument revolves. This belief system might be an attitude, a way of doing things, or something as extensive as a specific "world view." The Obstacle Character represents the view that is diametrically opposed.

Over the course of the story, the Obstacle Character’s impact will bring the Main Character to a point of decision at which he or she must choose to stick with the old "tried and true" philosophy/approach or to adopt the alternative put forth by the Obstacle Character. In many stories, this moment results in a "Leap of Faith" in which the Main Character is forced to make a conscious decision to go with one view or the other at the critical moment. In other stories, the Main Character may gradually warm to the Obstacle Character’s view, but the audience is not sure if that warmth will hold when the chips are down. Only at the critical moment will the story demonstrate on which side of the fence the Main Character drops, not by conscious choice but by responding from the heart.

When a Hero battles a Villain, both the functional relationship of the Protagonist/Antagonist battle for supremacy in the plot and the personal relationship of the Main Character/Obstacle Character occur between the same two characters at the same time. In a sense, working with Heroes and Villains flattens these two relationships into a single relationship. This often confuses an audience, as they are often not sure which of the two relationships is being described by a particular moment between the two characters.

What’s more, it is easy for an author to leave holes in each kind of relationship because if something happens in one of the two, its dramatic momentum can carry the attention past a gap in the other. In fact, it is the foundation of a Melodrama for the audience to accept as a style that gaps in both relationships are acceptable, as long as the combined momentum of them both carries the attention on to the next point in either.

To avoid audience confusion and prevent your drama from disintegrating into a Melodrama, you may wish to split up either the Hero, the Villain, or both. When both are split, it allows for a complete separation of the functional relationship and the personal relationship, allowing for each to be fully developed by the author and experienced by the audience.

When only one character is split, the two relationships converge on the remaining character. So, we might have a story with a Hero (Main Character/Protagonist) who has a functional relationship with the Antagonist and a personal relationship with the Obstacle Character. This forms a "V" shaped pattern which is referred to as a Dramatica Triangle.

In another tip, we’ll explore the Dramatic Triangle and how it can be used to build "Love Interests" and for "Buddy Pictures."

Male vs. Female Problem Solving

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

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

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

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

Chris said, "Go ahead and get it, we'll wait."

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

Chris: "It'll only take a moment."

Me: "Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won't eat it anyway, and it probably won't reheat very well, and..."

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

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

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

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

Melanie thinks:

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

Melanie says:

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

Chris understands Melanie to mean:

I want to take the bread home.

The balance sheet:

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

Melanie says:

"Rats! I forgot to bring the bread!"

Chris says:

"Go ahead and get it, we'll wait."

The balance sheet:

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

Melanie thinks:

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

Melanie says:

"No, its not that important."

Chris says:

"It'll only take a moment."

The balance sheet:

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

Melanie says:

"Yes, but I have to go all the way back, and I probably won't eat it anyway, and it probably won't reheat very well, and..."

Chris says:

"Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me."

The balance sheet:

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

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

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

Making sense of each other:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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