A Talk on Dramatica

Here's the transcript of a talk on Dramatica I gave in 1997 - another archival discovery on some old back-ups of a long-ago computer that no longer exists...

LAAC Conference Room Transcript

A Meeting with Melanie Anne Phillips

February 23, 1997

Moderator

Today's meeting is a moderated interview with Melanie Anne Phillips. This is a private conference open only to members of Word Spinners' Ink and the Internet Chapter of Sisters in Crime.

Please join me in welcoming Melanie Anne Phillips. Melanie is co-developer of Dramatica, both an extensive theory of story structure and a popular line of software products that use those theories for story creation and development.

In addition to co-developing Dramatica, Melanie is the former Director of Research and Development at Screenplay Systems, Inc. Prior to her association with Screenplay Systems, she amassed some 200 credits in non-union film production, including the directing of two independent features, editing of features and larger budget industrials, and writing work for various productions ranging from features to television commercials.

Melanie, do you have any opening comments you would like to make before we start accepting questions?

Melanie

Well, greetings to everyone, and thank you all for driving so far to be at this conference! I hope you find it useful and interesting, and feel free to ask me anything (within reason!)

If you like, I can just jump in and talk about the theory and software...

Moderator

Melanie, we have two Dramatica owners in the Room. For those who aren't, can you summarize how Dramatica, the software, is intended to function as a story aid?

Melanie

Sure, Mr. Moderator...

Most tools for creating stories mix up the story structure and the story telling. They are blended together, making for a good description of the finished story, but hard to use for creating one. So, the first thing the Dramatica software does is separate the two into completely different stages of story construction.

Now, this is not how authors normally operate. We come up with a bit of dialog, a setting, a piece of action or a favorite concept, and off we go without even considering if it is structure or
storytelling technique.

So, in that respect, Dramatica takes a bit of getting used to, but when you consider that West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet have almost the same structure but completely different storytelling, then you can see the advantage in the writing stage to separate them.

Now, if you are looking just at structure alone, it is a very bare-bones affair There is none of the flavor of the story, but just a raw skeleton. For example, we might say that structurally, the goal of a story is "Obtaining" something. But Obtaining WHAT? The WHAT would be the storytelling. It might be to Obtain a diploma, someone's love, the stolen treasure, etc. But in each case, the structure is about Obtaining.

It is this underlying deep structure that determines the "mind set" of a story. For example, a story with a goal of "Obtaining" would be structurally different from a story with a goal of "Becoming" something. But either of these could be expressed in an infinite number of ways through storytelling.

Now, the Dramatica software says, instead of looking at a story as a series of events that leads from one point to another, look at stories more like a sphere made up of interconnected storypoints. In fact, to make sense, story must be three dimensional, rather than simply linear. In this way, you can wrap around an idea and explore it fully.

If you take the linear approach, you have a "tale" rather than a story, which is not bad, but just more simple. A tale says that this event led to the next and the next and ended here. It
works as long as the chain is unbroken in both logic and feeling.

A Tale is just a "statement". But a Story is an "argument". A story must show context, and examine the issue from all sides, rather than just one. If a point of view is left out, it becomes a plot hole, an inconsistent character, or a warped theme.

The Dramatica software has in its memory, a model of the storypoints that make up the sphere of an argument, as if it were one of Bucky Fuller's geodesic domes. This model is much like a Rubik's cube... It has specific pieces that must show up in every story, but they can be arranged in a myriad of ways and still remain a viable cube or a viable story argument.

By making choice about how dramatic items should come into conjunction to create
potential, an author uses Dramatica to arrange the story's structure while
always maintaining a valid story argument.

Moderator

Thanks, Melanie. THAT gets off and running.

Nancy

Melanie, can you explain the differences between Archetypal and complex characters for us?

Melanie

Sure. In a nut shell, all characters, be they Archetypal or Complex represent different elements of the drama that must appear in all stories. In a sense, these Elements can be arranged in something of a Periodic Table of Story Elements. When you put all of the elements that fall in the same family into a single character, you have created an Archetype. When you distribute elements from the same family in different characters, they become Complex.

In either case, the same dramatic functions must be performed, but it is just a question of who is going to do it. The advantage to archetypal characters is that the audience will assume
archetypal unless told otherwise by the author.

So, rather than having to illustrate each element separately, you can illustrate only the family the archetype belongs to, and the audience will assume the rest, giving you more media real estate for other things, like special effects or theme. The disadvantage is that the archetypes are so evenly constructed internally, there are no surprises there..

Nancy

You wouldn't want conflicting elements in the same character, would you? I mean, would you want a skeptic or also sometimes functioned as a sidekick? Wouldn't those be mutually exclusive, or would they?

Melanie

Well, there are some elements that mix to create sparks, and others that work more like oil and water. In Dramatica, we have charted out the Periodic Table of Story Elements to help us determine which characteristics will successfully go together and which won't.

In Dramatica, families of elements fall into "Quads", such as "Pro-action, Re-action, Inaction, and Protection". The point of the whole quad is to illustrate how, in this particular story, these different approaches fare against the story's problem. A rule of thumb it, that no single character should contain more than one element from the same quad.

It is important to note that this does not prevent internal conflict. Dramatica separates characters into two types: Objective and Subjective. Objective characters are like - suppose a general is watching a battle from a hill and sees the soldiers down below. He can't tell who is who as individuals because he is so removed from the situation. But he can identify them by function. He'll see the horse soldier and the cook and the guy leading the charge. To fulfill their "story function" each character has a job, or jobs. The jobs need to be consistent with one another to make any kind of sense.

But, if the audience swoops down and occupies the shoes of one of the soldiers on the field, we get a second kind of character - the Subjective character, who represents a point of view, rather than a function. Note that a single "player" on the field can function as an Objective character and also represent a point of view.

The Subjective aspect is where you see the pathos of inner conflict and changing attitudes. The Objective aspect is where the structural integrity of the argument is maintained in a logistic sense.

So, in this manner, a "Hero" is a Protagonist (objectively) who is also the Main Character (subjectively), but there is no reason why the audience cannot be positioned elsewhere. We may want our audience to see things from the water boy's position rather than from the quarterback's.

rick

Hi, Melanie . . . we also have a couple Collaborator owners on board here today, and the debate has been mildly ranging for a couple months now about the pros and cons of both. Your opinions, if you're familiar with Collaborator?

Also you may want to comment on the differences between Dramatica and Dramatica Writer's Dream Kit, and what you really get for the extra money in the full Dramatica system.

Melanie

Okay, this is a multi-part question. Collaborator, and the two version of Dramatica. Here goes...

I know the Collaborator creators. Sadly, once of them recently passed on. Collaborator bases its approach on Aristotle's "Poetics". It asks a series of questions that are really good ones every author should know about a story. It also provides tools for organizing material in a storytelling sense.

Where it differs from Dramatica, is that although it is a useful organizational tool, it doesn't tell the author anything the author has not told it. In contrast, Dramatica's "Story Engine" is not a data base, but a "live" model of the relationships among dramatic elements. That is the real value of the software and what sets it apart from anything else. As an author answers questions about the story, the story engine begins to "predict" other dramatic items that must also be present as a result of those choices.

In fact, with as few as 12 questions (the 12 essential questions) Dramatica can predict a complete dramatic argument. Now, I know that is a way out statement, but here is why it works...

Some choices about a story have only marginal impact on the structure, others have wide ranging impact. You can approach Dramatica's sphere or Story Engine in any order through the
dramatic items. For authors who like to sculpt their stories, they can choose more nuanced
dramatics to play with, and slowly build up a complete structure.

But for those who know what they want and wish to get right to the point, they can answer the 12 essential questions and have enough broad influence to have predicted all else that must follow.

So, although Collaborator is very good in making sure you cover your bases and in making you think, Dramatica is more like a knowledgeable critic who will make suggestions and notice when you leave something out or put it in the wrong place.

The difference between DreamKit and Pro is simply how many dramatic story points the engine gives you to work with. The both have the same engine, but Pro accesses more story points than DreamKit, making it more complex, and more powerful.

And of course, Pro costs more than twice as much as DreamKit!

rick

That answers a lot . . . I never really thought Dramatica and Collaborator were mutually exclusive, and I've been using Collaborator successfully as a thought organizer. The only other concern/question I have about Dramatica is what appears to be a relatively high learning curve. This learning curve has elicited a somewhat negative response with some reviewers of the software. Would you care to comment?

Melanie

Well, nobody ever said story structure was a simple thing. When you see it as a flexible structure, it becomes both simply yet complex in its variety. Dramatica was not built to make writing easier, but to make it harder, by forcing the author to address ALL the issues that can undermine a solid structure.

Because of its range and depth, to understand all the elements at work requires a LOT of study. But, none of us learned to ride a bike or use a word processor in a snap. Believe me, if we could make it less extensive and still have it be as accurate, we would, but the human mind is not that simple an affair, and stories must fill the human mind.

Leila

I went through several storyforms before I narrowed things down to one that seemed to work. In the final storyform (which I approached through the Story Engine from the middle out), Dramatica automatically assigned a Purpose characteristic to both my Main and Obstacle characters. How common is this, and why didn't it happen with the preceding storyforms I tried?

Also, according to the "Quad" structure, my MC's Purpose fell under Skeptic, and my OC's Purpose fell under Emotion. Does this make sense, and will it work?

Melanie

Well, I'll need a little more information here. Also, the answer may be a little too specific for the general audience, but here is a bit of info that might help...

For those who don't know, Dramatica sees all complete Objective characters as having four aspects: Motivations, Methodologies, Purposes, and Means of Evaluation.

Each of these four aspects will have its own set of elements. But, which elements fall in which set is not always the same, as it depends upon other dramatic choices.

When you are creating a dramatic structure, there are two special characters that rise above simply being functions. One is the Main Character, representing the audience position in the story, and the other is the Obstacle Character, representing an alternative paradigm to the Main Character's belief system.

One of the things that connects the Objective and Subjective stories dramatically, is that the issues over which Main and Obstacle diverge are elements which form the heart of their personal issues and also appear in the Objective story overall.

So, when you create a storyform (structure), it will include in it the Main and Obstacle Character's personal problems. Since those problems show up in the Objective story, the
Main and Obstacle characters must represent those issues in the overall plot as well.

And that is why you will find that certain elements in building your characters are already assigned to your Main and Obstacle. Hope this clarifies
it.

sweeney

Two questions:

1) How does Dramatica compare to StoryLine Pro?

2) A while back you spoke of a three dimensional matrix of plot points that form a sphere. What are these plot points and how does Dramatica help the writer merge them into a story?

Melanie

Tom, here's the answer to question one...

I also know John Truby (creator of StoryLine Pro), as all us story folk hang out at the same conventions! StoryLine Pro is based on John's classes in story structure. His approach is not so much an overall theory, but a series of really useful tips - templates, if you will, that form the foundations of successful story structures. His templates combine both the story structure and the storytelling to an extent, so that you efficiently create both at the same time. This is much more the manner in which writer's normally work, rather than Dramatica's approach to separate the two.

The advantage to John's system (StoryLine) is that it gives you a solid road map. All you need to do is follow one of the templates and you will arrive at a well structured story. The disadvantage is that if you want to do something even a bit off the path, there is no accommodation for that, and no way to predict what kind of dramatic impact that will have on your overall story.

So, I suggest using StoryLine for telling those specific kinds of stories, and using Dramatica for stories that diverge from the beaten path. Dramatica will be harder to use, but offer more opportunity for doing something different.

Now, for the answer to question 2 - Dramatica story points, what are they and how Dramatica helps writers merge them into stories...

There are over sixty story points in the current Dramatica software. Why this number? It depends on how "refined" you make the framework around your story as to how many "joints" you need where dramatics intersect.

The current version of the software is designed for creating the amount of detail needed in a story of novel or screenplay length. These story points (called "appreciations" in Dramatica) include elements of Theme, Genre, Character, and Plot. To name some, there will the story Goal, Requirements, PreConditions, and PreRequisites. There will be the Main Character Domain (where the point of view resides). There will be dynamic appreciations such as "Does the Main character CHANGE or REMAIN STEADFAST in his or her belief system by the end of the story?"

You will encounter the Thematic RANGE and COUNTERPOINT, a choice of TIMELOCK or OPTIONLOCK to draw the story to a conclusion. There are many more, of course, but you get the idea. Now to merge them into a story, first you take the raw appreciation in your structure, such as the example - a goal of "Obtaining", and flesh it out into a real story item in storytelling.

To assist you in this, Dramatica has given each story point its own window in the software with a series of buttons to help. The buttons bring up examples of short dramatic scenarios using each story point. Another button shows you any well-known stories which have been analyzed and use that same story point the same way.

There is a button for the theory behind why that story point even exists, and another usage button to show how to employ it. Overall, there are literally thousands of examples and help scenarios, for these items. Finally, to merge them into the linear progression of your story, there is the StoryGuide, which will take you through the whole process of turning a holistic structural model of your story into a progressive linear pathway, much like unraveling a ball of twine into a long string. Hope this answers your question.

MaryO

Melanie, this has been terrific. But could you explain more about which elements
are in DreamKit and which are reserved for Pro?

Melanie

Sure! First of all, they both have the same engine running the software. Pro just "taps" it at more points. They also both have the exact same StoryGuide book and path, so new users can
get right into it. Pro has additional appreciations and more examples.

Some of these appreciations unique to Pro are:

The CATALYST that gets each throughline moving when it bogs down. The INHIBITOR
that slows things up. These two work like an accelerator and brake pedal on your
story's plot.

There is the Main Character's UNIQUE ABILITY which makes them uniquely able to
solve the story's problem - if they make the right choice!

Balancing that is the Main Character's CRITICAL FLAW which always screws them
up, just when they almost get things solved.

In addition, DreamKit allows only for character Motivations, and not the other three aspects.

Also, PRO dynamically determines the kinds of relationships which will exist among your characters.

There are a few other bells and whistles to Pro. but I would say that DreamKit
has everything you need for the average novel or screenplay, Pro is more geared
toward heavy character oriented stories or those with complex plots.

Moderator

Melanie, on behalf of everyone, thank you very much for taking time to be with
us today. It was an informative session.

Melanie

And thank you, Ed et al, it has been loads of fun!

Nancy

Melanie, this has been wonderful! I appreciate so much your taking the time to come here. I'd just like to say here that I've learned more about story structure using Dramatica for the last two months than I have in the last 5 or 6 years of reading books about writing, taking writing classes and workshops, and writing.

Let me echo that sentiment. I'm *still* learning. It's tough work, but every time a door opens, it leads not to a room, but to an entirely new corridor. It's really, really, helpful. And bless you for putting up the worksheets. I'd already typed them into Winword, but having them on the website is terrific for those who haven't!

Let me also lead a long, sustained round of applause for the creator of this conference center and our moderator today. Thank you, Ed. We're much richer because you're with us!

Introducing Characters in Act One

Some stories introduce characters as people and then let the reader/audience discover their roles and relationships afterward. This tends to help an audience identify with the characters.

Other stories put roles first, so that we know about the person by their function and/or job, then get closer to them as the act progresses. This tends to make the reader/audience pigeon-hole the characters by stereotype, and then draw them into learning more about the actual people behind the masks.

Finally, there are stories that introduce character relationships, either situational, structural, or emotional, at the beginning. This causes the audience to see the problems among the characters but not take sides as strongly until they can learn about the people on each side of the relationship, and the roles that constrain them.

Of course, you do not have to treat these introductions equally for all characters and relationships. For example, you might introduce on character as a person, then introduce their relationship with another character, then divulge the constraints the other character is under due to role, then revel the other character as a person.

This approach would initially cast sympathy (or derision) at the first character, temper it by showing a relationship with which he or she must contend, then temper that relationship by showing the constraints of the other character, and finally humanize that other character so a true objective balance can be formed by the reader/audience.

Don't forget that first impressions stick in our minds, and it is much easier to judge someone initially than to change that judgment later. Use this trait of audiences to quickly identify important characters up front, or to put their complete situations later, thereby forcing the reader/audience to reconsider its attitudes, and thereby learn and grow.

No matter what approach you take, you have the opportunity to weave a complex experience for your reader/audience, blending factual, logistic information about your characters with the reader/audience emotional experience in discovering this information.

Using Dramatica for Short Stories

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks

Hi, I bought Dramatica in January and have been having a great deal of fun with it. I’m probably a bit dangerous, give me hammer and everything becomes a nail, etc. Do you talk to Dramatica users? I hope so. I’ve talked to a video producer about Dramatica and he immediately wondered if it could help with a 10 minute story. Any suggestions? On a broader scale, it has occurred to me that meaning and ‘story’ are inseparable. Everything that ‘means’ something fits into a story of some sort. Have you explored this aspect of story?

Thanks

My Reply…

Sure, Dramatica can be used for short stories. The key is, every story must be complete WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE ARGUMENT. So, to have a complete short story, one must have a balanced, but smaller scope.

In Dramatica this is done one of two ways. Either you limit your depth or breadth. If you limit depth, you might tell a story that only examines issues down to the Type level, for example, in the chart of Story Elements. In this way, the more nuanced exploration of Variations and Elements is left un-explored, and the scope of the argument is reduced.

Even though the Elements are what normally create characters, there is no reason why Types or Variations cannot be the basis for characters. So, you might have a Doing character, a Becoming character, or a Progress character, for example. The key is, once a level of the chart is assigned as the Character level, all of the dramatic appreciations (concepts) in that level must be explored as Characters.

In a sense, when you limit depth, you simple don’t explore one or more aspects of a story: Character, Plot, Theme, or Genre. This keeps the argument smaller so that it occupies less media real estate.

The other method, limiting breadth, keeps all four aspects of a story but narrows the point of view. Rather than examining all four throughlines (Main Character, Obstacle Character, Objective Story, Subjective Story) one or more is cut out. In this manner, you might have a single point of view, such as Main Character, but explore it in full depth through Character, Plot, Theme, and Genre.

This will also create a much shorter story, depending upon how many throughlines you explore. A rule of thumb is that you would want one, two, or all four throughlines. Why? Because a single throughline provides a perspective. Two throughlines provide a conflict. But three seems to be one conflict and another superfluous throughline that bounces off nothing. Of course, if that third point of view is important to you, use it, but be sure you telegraph to your audience not to expect conflict from this direction, but only another angle or take on the meaning of the story.

Finally, you can combine both techniques and limit both depth and breadth. In this case, you might have only a Main Character point of view and explore that only in terms of the Types. This will heavily cut down on the three dimensional scope of the argument as mapped out in the structural chart.

So, you have a lot of latitude as to which parts of a Grand Argument Story you wish to explore in a shorter story. The key is that you must let your audience know in some fashion not to expect a Grand Argument Story, and avoid including elements outside the scope of the argument you really want to make. Otherwise, if they see a few other elements creep in, they will demand that you make your point there as well, for they will not give you anything that is not within your scope, unless you fully develop it.

Also, to know which dramatic elements go together in a shorter story, you must still develop a complete story form for the entire Grand Argument Story, even though you don’t intend to tell it all. This is because any limited point of view does not stand alone, but is dependent upon all other points of view to which it is, in a larger sense, connected.

You don’t need to DEVELOP these other parts of the larger story, but you will need to include them in your storyform to make sure the piece you are presenting is consistent with a greater reality.

Since writing a short story is, in a sense, cutting vertical and/or horizontal layers out of the larger Grand Argument Story, in Dramatica we refer to this process as "Slicing and Dicing".

How to Tell if your Story’s Structure (Storyform) is Right

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

My question is: how do you know when you’ve got your story’s structure (storyform) right?

I Reply...

There is no right or wrong storyform. The Dramatica software makes sure that every storyform is a dramatically valid one. In fact, you could conceivably calculate out all the different storyforms that can be created (32,768) and print them out, and just arbitrarily pick one.

So, why is a storyform "right" for a particular story, but not another? It has to do with what you, as author, are trying to say to your audience. What is the story you have in mind? Which storyform accurately reflects that?

A storyform is just the skeleton or framework of a story, so it is often difficult to determine which one is "proper" for a story you have in mind. What you are thinking of already has a lot of the story telling done: characters, scenarios, plot devices. All of these are a combination of the underlying structure and the manner in which it is expressed by your creative style and inspirations.

So, how can we determine when we have arrived at the best storyform to act as a pattern for our story? By feel. You need to "feel" that the words that crop up as Story Goal, or Main Character Domain express what you have in mind, both logistically and emotionally, for your audience. To do this, you must truly understand what is meant by Main Character Domain, or any of the other dramatic "appreciations" provided by the Story Engine. Also, you must develop an empathy with the words that fill those appreciations, such as Universe, or Psychology.

Getting to know the terminology in Dramatica is the hardest part! The reason it is hard is that our language tends to create lots of words to deal with common concepts, and hardly any to deal with less up front notions. For a story to be complete, ALL essential considerations need to be addressed to prevent holes. So, in the areas in which our culture does not focus, there are few (and sometimes no existing) words to do the job. This means that there will be appreciations and the words that fill them that are easily understood, and a whole range of other terms that are progressively more obscure. But, to have a feel for which storyform is "right" requires becoming familiar with all of these terms. The more you are comfortable with, the stronger your sense of which storyform is best will be. Your choices in creating a storyform will become more precise and meaningful, and the end product will better reflect what you had in mind.

It seems like even the examples you give in the documentation could go other ways just by changing the verbs used in describing them. For example, the story I’m working on is a mystery. The characters are trying to decipher the clues that will help them discover the identity of the mystery person so they can help her. What I can’t decide is: are they concerned with doing (helping someone), obtaining (the answer to the clues), or learning (the identity)? And then I wonder if I’m in the wrong domain—solving a mystery is an external activity, but maybe the mystery itself is an external situation. Is there a general blueprint for mystery stories?

The "mystery" is a genre of story. Some genres describe settings, like "westerns". Others describe character relationships, such as "buddy pictures", or "love stories". A mystery can either describe characters who are trying to figure something out, as in the old "Columbo" series, where the audience knew who the killer was from the very start, or they can be mysteries to the characters AND the audience, such as most Agatha Christie stories, or the Sherlock Holmes stories. A few mysteries have the characters knowing the score, but the audience being in the dark. The one combination that is NOT a mystery is when both characters and audience know the facts up front.

This difference in focus prevents there from being a single, typical "mystery" storyform. If the mystery part resides with the audience, then it comes from the storytelling, not the storyform. If the mystery is at least partly with the characters, then it becomes part of the storyform as well.

The "Types" you mentioned above, Learning, Understanding, Doing, and Obtaining, are all from the Physics "class" and describe activities. This does not make them any more appropriate to a mystery than any of the Types in the other three "classes". For example, in the Universe Class are the Types, Past, Present, Progress, and Future. If one were writing a mystery about finding the killer of a school boy twenty years ago before he can repeat his crime on the twentieth anniversary, these types might best describe the chase.

In fact, all sixteen Types (four from each class) will show up in EVERY storyform. The difference is: from what point of view are they explored? The Main Character Domain will be the Class that contains the Types that best describe what the Main Character is involved in or concerned with. The Objective Story Domain will be the Class that contains the Types that best describe what ALL the characters of the story are jointly involved in or concerned with. So, in creating a storyform that is "right", you will need to consider which set of Types you want your characters to explore, which are right for your Main Character, your Obstacle Character, and your Subjective Story.

Think about the kinds of things you want each of these four areas to explore, or examine. Think about the kinds of scenes that might be created that revolve around these Types of Concerns. That can go a long way to determining how to make your selections that will lead to a storyform that fits your desires as an author.

What Does Dramatica Mean by the Word Illustrate?

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

I have just recently purchased Dramatica Pro and have a question I hope you can answer....

*Define your use of the word ILLUSTRATE in the various stages of story encoding

I Reply...

"Illustrate" means to come up a real world event or scenario that fulfills a dramatic function in your story.

The encoding stage of story creation has nothing to do with the actual writing that will become a part of a screenplay, novel, or whatever. It has everything to do with conceptualizing the specific implementation of an aspect of your story’s deep dramatic structure by fleshing out the raw idea into a tangible manifestation.

For example, if the goal of your story were to OBTAIN something, that describes the generic nature of the goal from a deep structure standpoint. This kind of information can help make other structural choices for our story, such as the kinds of requirements which might be needed to achieve a goal of OBTAINING, or perhaps help us choose the kind of character who might get caught up in such a goal.

Still, we can’t simply write a story in which we say, "The goal is to OBTAIN." We must turn that raw structural concept into a real world item. For example, a goal of OBTAINING might be encoded or ILLUSTRATED as finding a treasure, obtaining someone’s love, obtaining a diploma - anything at all that is "obtaining" rather than, say, "becoming". In this manner, the deep structure becomes the heart and soul of the symbols through which you tell your story. In other words, illustrating story points based on deep structure ensures that the audience will feel an overall sense and logic to what they are seeing. Simply, the story will hang together.

If we look at a storyform as a skeleton, encoding puts flesh and blood on it by ILLUSTRATING each bone and joint. The flesh is the nature of the structural appreciations, the blood is the nature of the dynamic appreciations, such as acts or scenes.

Still, this story/body is not in motion until we incorporate Storyweaving. Storyweaving is a lot like the meaning of exposition. It is the process of doling out your encoded deep structure to the audience. Here, the word "illustrate" takes on a different meaning. Now, instead of illustrating the structure, we have to illustrate the encoding!

For example, suppose the raw structural goal in your story is to Obtain. Further suppose that the goal to Obtain is encoded as Obtaining a treasure. Okay, now how do you tell that to your audience? Do you come right out and say it in the first scene? Do you trick the audience into thinking the goal is something else and then let them in on the secret? Do you illustrate the goal by bringing it up in several different scenes in a story, of is it more like Hitchcock’s McGuffin, getting the chase started and then never being heard of again until the end of the story? Making these choices is the process of storyweaving, and the choices you make are another form of "illustration".

The Dangers of Micromanaging Your Story

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Dramatica user wrote:

I love the theory. It works. I want it to help me figure out the ending to my pot-boiler.

To do that, I have to figure out more about the relationships between fatal flaw, the shift involved in the four-act variation-level plot sequences from the plot sequence reports, and the overall theme of the story (the three-act plot sequence variations).

Theme, character, and plot must play out in a precise order to integrate at a precise moment of enlightenment for the audience and Main Character, all with a maximum of dramatic tension and release. At least if I want a best seller!!

I replied:

First of all, using Dramatica to that degree is micromanaging your story from a logistic approach. Best sellers are not created because they have a perfect structure, but because they grip the human heart

Audiences will not only forgive, but may not even care if a structure is flawed, as long as the story is gripping. How can you have a gripping story with a bad structure? An actor has to say his lines, but HOW he says them carries the passion. A writer drops exposition in a story, but HOW it comes out builds the intrigue. In short, the story structure is nothing more than the blueprint for a story, the plans for a sports car, but it is not the experience of standing in front of a Frank Lloyd Wright building or driving a Lotus.

If the porch is two inches to the left or the headlights aren’t quite focused on the road, the edifice or vehicle will not perform quite as well. But if it carries the fire of the hearth or the rhythm of the road, then it will captivate and excel nonetheless.

Of course there comes a point where some structural considerations are so huge that a blunder at that level will cause the building to fall or the car to crash. But that level is far above the degree of detail you are seeking to employ.

Still, it is true that Dramatica’s Story Engine can actually predict the order in which events ought to occur in scenes and which characters should be involved in those events. In fact, it DOES predict this. But, you can’t get that information out of the software because we suppressed it.

Why would we do such a thing? Because the level of detail it provides is so "fine" that it gets lost in the storytelling, just like quiet sounds used to get lost in the background noise of an old LP record. The more detailed your structure becomes, the more you are wasting your time - past a certain point.

We picked a "cut off point" for the degree of detail provided by Dramatica. How did we pick that point? By determining the greatest degree of detail we felt an author could explore in any area and still cram all the information into an average novel or feature movie. But, that detail could only be explored if enough storytelling attention were paid to it. Even at the level of detail provided, one could not pay extra attention to more than a few areas before the available "media real estate" is exhausted.

One could not possibly include all of the detail generated by Dramatica as it is, without created a 1200 page book or a mini-series. So, once we reached the "trilogy/television event" level of detail, we suppressed the rest as not only superfluous, but counter-productive. That much detail would just distract writers from the bigger picture, rob them of the passion, and make Dramatica even more complex than it already is.

As writers of fiction, we are usually not out to describe the mechanisms of life dispassionately in excruciating detail. We are out to express the passion of the human heart in bold strokes and subtle nuance. The problems we encounter occur when our author’s hearts meander and the logistic sense of our story is lost.

Stories must have a "heart line" and a "head line" because the audience has a heart and a mind. In a university, the priority is the mind, and the heart comes along for the ride. In fiction, the priority is the heart, and the mind has nothing more than veto power. Only if the head line is violated in such a gross manner that the mind pulls the heart out of the story is there a problem. But anything short of that is fine.

And in fact, the heart and the head often don’t see eye to eye. In such cases, the heart must take precedence. If there is every a choice between something that will make better structural sense at the expense of audience involvement or will captivate the audience but at the expense of the passion - choose the passion!!!

My vision of the Dramatica software is not as a checklist or series of check points which must be met. Rather, I see there being two primary camps of writers - the Structuralists who seek to work out all the details before they write, and the Inspriationists who seek to follow the muse, then find and refine the structure in the story they discovered along the way. And Dramatica is designed to help both.

As a Structuralist (which your comments lead me to assume you are, though I may be misreading) you will want the whole path laid out in front of you, and then to follow that path in your storytelling.

Again, you write how you are searching for an ending for your story, and say:

To do that, I have to figure out more about the relationships between fatal flaw, the shift involved in the four-act variation-level plot sequences from the plot sequence reports, and the overall theme of the story (the three-act plot sequence variations).

In my opinion, you are building you story like you would build an android, rather than hiring an actor.

Where’s the passion in how you describe what you need to conclude your story, what you have to "figure out?"

My suggestions? Step back a bit... Look at the beach, not the grains of sand. Does you story end in Success or Failure? Does the Main Character resolve his or her personal issues or not (Good or Bad)? Does your story brought to a climax by a Timelock or an Optionlock? Is your story driven (and concluded) by Action or Decision?

These basic dynamic questions provide the framework for the feel of the ending of your story and kinds of forces that will be at work. Knowing the signposts and journeys tell you exactly what kinds of subject matter will be dealt with in each of the four throughlines at the end of the story. Armed with that much information, the ending should be clear.

The one exception to this is if one is trying to write a plot-oriented story where the logistic interconnections among detailed plot events unfold a conspiracy or a mystery, for example. Sad to say in such a case Dramatica is pretty much useless.

A clever plot is a storytelling overlay of logistics on top of the underlying structure. It is not the structure itself. It does not even grow out of the structure, other than that the subject matter and points of view reflect the story points.

So, ending a story is easy in terms of the feel of the outcome by using the dynamics and signpost/journey system. But working out the conclusion of a plot from a storytelling standpoint is amazingly hard.

A good software program for doing such a thing is Plots Unlimited. It contains a database of thousands of plot pieces, ready made dramatic scenarios that can be stacked together like dominos to create a linear plot with twists, deceptions, red herrings, and surprising conclusions.

Its one limitation is that these pre-fab pieces don’t deal with the story’s structure, but only with the storytelling nature of plot, and is therefore limited to the number of pieces in the database.

In contrast, Dramatica can’t do that at all, because it is not a storytelling generator, but a structure generator. Dramatica will tell you the subject matter and how it will be seen, you might then use Plots Unlimited to select storytelling segments that reflect those structural imperatives.

I feel that a lot of the frustration that comes to Dramatica users is that they have a misconception about what Dramatica is supposed to be doing for them. They feel that they should end up with something like, "We find Joe in school. His teacher asks him for his homework and Joe says "My dog ate it.""

This is the kind of material you might get from Plots Unlimited, but since you piece the parts together, they may make sense logistically, yet create nothing meaningful structurally.

Dramatica will NOT provide that kind of output or guidance. Dramatica will tell you, "Main Character Signpost One: Learning. Main Character thematic conflict: Truth vs. Falsehood."

Dramatica ensures that all mental considerations regarding the central issues of the story are full explored in the one context that will create a unified perspective on the issues by the end of the story. But, trying to squeeze the storytelling material out of the structure leads to getting lost in software and ultimately becoming frustrated.

For example, you use the term "fatal flaw" and want to discover its relationship to "the shift involved in the four-act variation-level plot sequences from the plot sequence reports, and the overall theme of the story (the three-act plot sequence variations). "

"Fatal Flaw" isn’t a Dramatica term at all. There is the Main Character’s problem, there is the Main Character’s Critical Flaw, and several other dramatics that might be what you mean. But the real question is, how do you want the ending of your story to feel?

Logistically, Journey 3 in each of the four throughlines will tell you what is going on subject matter-wise in each of the four key forces that converge on the ending. The dynamics will tell you how the climax is forced and the feel of the outcome. The four Signposts will tell you what subject matter is touched on in each of the four throughlines in the denouement. ANYTHING that you write in the plot will work fine structurally, as long as it falls within those structural guidelines.

Then, if you want to bring your Main Character’s Critical flaw into play, you can drop it in anywhere you want. Have them overcome it and then be able to save the day. Or have them save the day and then discover that as a result, they have overcome their Critical Flaw. But Critical Flaw is not sequential at all.

Progressive Plot Appreciations are sequential (the signposts and journeys). The Plot Sequence report describes the order in which the Types are repeatedly cycled through as the story progresses, and what thematic shadings come into play. Anything else is a static story point which is true for the overall story and can be peppered in anywhere you want it. A good rule of thumb is to include each static story point at least once per act so that it can be appreciated in all the major different contexts of the story’s points of view.

So, for example, you’d want your Main Character’s Critical Flaw to appear once in each act to "prove" that it doesn’t matter what the context, the Main Character is really and truly screwed up by this.

It is also a good rule of thumb to bring a story point into play (which is part of what we mean by "illustrate") in the throughline to which it pertains. So, if you have a scene with the Main Character or even ABOUT the Main Character though he or she is not actually present, that is where you want to play the "Main Character Critical Flaw Card."

Story points like "Goal" and "Forewarnings" apply to the whole story, so may easily be played in scenes pertaining to any of the four throughlines.

Well, I’d like to go on further with more specific information, but time grows short. This little note just took an hour an a half to write, and that is 90 minutes I won’t be able to spend on recording the material from my UCLA class on CD! Everything is a trade-off when you work for yourself!

In any event, and (as you say) with all due respect, I might suggest you step back from the details a bit, don’t try to find the Nth degree of interconnectivity among logistic structural considerations. Reconnect with the passion, take in the overview, don’t try to get Dramatica to suggest the storytelling aspects of your plot, and focus on the elements of the ending of your story that excite you about it as your own first and best audience, as every author truly is with his or her own work.

Do Dramatica’s Specific Questions Limit Story Richness?

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

Dramatica requires authors to make specific decisions about their story. In contrast, most great artists prefer to keep things ambiguous so that the audience is left with a richer experience. Doesn’t this indicate a limitation of Dramatica?

I Reply…

According to Webster, "ambiguous" means, "having more than one meaning":. By this definition, Dramatica would agree that ambiguity is a hallmark of great art. Please note that "ambiguous" does NOT mean "unclear", "cloudy", nor "obscure". Most artists do not desire to create a work that holds no meaning because no one can figure it out. If the audience doesn’t get ANY feeling from the piece, then why create it in the first place? However, if the audience experiences CONFLICTING feelings, we have not only moved it, but created a potential within it that forces it to address an issue of interest to us as authors. The audience is forced to consider all sides of the issue logistically and/or emotionally. We, as authors, have then accomplished our intent.

If the point of "great" art is to create multiple meanings, then first we must build single meanings. Next, we combine them together - some on this side of the fence, some on the other. In this way, we temper the "emotional argument" of the work so that it falls somewhere in the range between one-sided and evenly balanced, thereby creating an overall ambiguous meaning. This is one of the concepts upon which Dramatica is based.

The choices an author makes in working with Dramatica have been designed to represent these essential or "elemental" meanings that can be combined to create more complex meanings. This is not unlike the periodic table of elements in chemistry. Similar to the scientific chart, in stories there are "families" of emotions. Some react together, some do not. And just like elements, they all have individual identities. Lead is very stable. Gold is chemically inert. Both are malleable. One is dull, the other shiny. Both are heavy. But place Hydrogen and Oxygen together and they will quickly form water, which has properties that don’t resemble either parent. Sometimes catalysts are needed and other times inhibitors will slow down reactions. Both "catalysts" and "inhibitors" can be found in the terminology of Dramatica, and these story equivalents provide much the same function.

The questions asked of authors in Dramatica that have the greatest impact on a story (and therefore limit out more alternatives) were placed so as to come right up front in the software where the new user can see them before anything else. They are designed to let the new user become familiar with Dramatica concepts while having some powerful tools to use right off the bat. But there are HUNDREDS of other much more subtle, sophisticated and complex questions later like "Subjective Story Catalyst" and "Objective Story Inhibitor". Experienced alchemists (authors) who understand these concepts, even intuitively, can jump right in and create magic. For the novice, like the Sorcerer’s apprentice, he or she will need to work up to that level of sophistication.

Just as with the great masters, it is not only in their subject matter that we appreciate their work, but in the nature of the brushstrokes as well. The brushstrokes are the storytelling, the creative, intuitive, organic part of communication. Although Dramatica offers some insights into this part of the creative process, it is specifically designed to focus on the exploration of the rational or emotional topic of a work and provide a "periodic table of story elements" from which to fashion complex and, yes, "ambiguous" meanings.

Why would a master storyteller have an interest in such a program? Because not all works by a great master are great masterworks. It is not that intuition fails or skills diminish, but that each of us carries our own biases, givens and preconceptions to the creative process. If our purpose is simply to document these, then there is no need for Dramatica. But if our intent is to impact our audience in ways we can predict, then Dramatica is an extremely valuable tool for creating both complex and ambiguous meanings.

Can You Skip Questions in Dramatica?

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

Can you skip over some of the story encoding questions to answer one’s further down the list that you know or at least understand? Also, do you have to answer all the story encoding questions, or does Dramatica fill in the blanks at a certain point?

My Reply…

Because the Dramatica Story Engine is non-linear, it is more like a Rubik’s Cube of Story Elements you can twist and turn by answering questions. The pattern you create is completely in your control, yet you may not be able to predict what is going to happen on the backside of the cube after a few moves until you look to see what’s there.

As a result of this holistic approach to a model of story, you can answer the questions in any order and skip over any questions you would like. As you answer questions, Dramatica fills in the answers to other questions you have already chosen by your previous answers in a round about way. When you have answered enough questions, the cube "freezes" because you have made enough choices about your pattern that only one combination of pieces can do the job. That is your Storyform.

As for filling in the encoding (storytelling), Dramatica will never do that. It can fill in the Storyforming to make sure the "cube" is accurate, but since any given dramatic appreciation (story point) can be encoded in an infinite number of ways, there is no way for Dramatica to draw on that potential without a huge database. In fact, Dramatica is not driven by database at all, but by a Story Engine which is based on the relationships among essential dramatic elements.

In contrast, at the MIT Media Lab, they have worked toward building such a mammoth database, effectively trying to create viable story structures with the electronic equivalent of one million monkeys pounding on one million typewriters. Looking to the future, someday this approach might come to work in conjunction with the story structuring capacity of Dramatica, but for now, what MIT’s Cray supercomputer models need gigabytes of databases to do for Storyencoding (storytelling), Dramatica is able to do for Storyforming (structure) on your desktop with its revolutionary Story Engine core that is actually only 27 kilobytes in size! (Keep in mind, a Rubik’s Cube has only 27 pieces, but creates forty trillion trillion combinations!)

Where to Start: Story Engine, Theme Browser, Query System

by Melanie Anne Phillips

creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Many people are confused about where to go in the Dramatica software to create a story. There are a number of choices from the Main Desktop, but which one should be used FIRST?

Actually, it’s just a matter of personal preference. You see, the Dramatica software is built around a single story engine that keeps track of the dramatic relationships among your characters, plot, theme, and genre. All the different ways of creating a story that the software offers are just different ways to tap into the same engine. In fact, whatever work you do in one area automatically shows up in all the other areas as well.

Three popular areas in the software for constructing a storyform are the Story Engine, Theme Browser, and Query System. The Story Engine you get to from the Main Desktop, is NOT the same story engine that runs the software - they just share the same name. Why? Because the Story Engine area taps into the underlying story engine most directly.

The Story Engine area lists a number key story points and then asks you to select the thematic content of each story point through the use of pull-down menus. In a sense, the Story Engine is telling you that every story has the same "empty" story points, such as Goal, Main Character Problem, and Outcome. But, the thematic nature of each differs from story to story. For example, the Goal in one story might be Obtaining something, while in another story the Goal is Becoming something. Both have a Goal, but each with a different thematic nature or content.

While some authors prefer to develop a story by adding thematics to a raw structure, others prefer to choose their subject matter first, and THEN figure out how it works structurally. This is why the Theme Browser was created.

Rather than listing story points and asking you to choose the thematics for each, the Theme Browser lists the thematics (subject matter) and asks you to choose where it shows up in the structure (as which story point.). So, in the Theme Browser and author can scan through all kinds of subject matter, picking out the topics he or she wishes to explore in a story and THEN determine where it shows up.

For example, an author might want to explore the nature of possessing things, and pick Obtaining on the Theme Browser as the subject matter. Then, by using the pop-up menus, he or she could select Obtaining as the Goal, the Requirement, or even the Signpost (main topic) of Act 1.

So, the Story Engine says, "Here are all the key story points. Choose the thematic subject matter each will explore," whereas the Theme Browser says, "Here is all the thematic subject matter. Choose the story point which will explore each topic."

Finally, Dramatica offers the Query System as a third way of constructing a storyform. The Query System was designed to provide extensive help to the author while making choices about story structure.

The Query System is actually divided into two areas: the Query System proper, available through its own button on the Main Desktop, and the StoryGuide, also available through a button on the desktop.

The Query System is just a collection of different question paths that focus on different areas of a story, such as the Main Character, or the plot. Each question provides either a fill-in area for such things as the story’s title or the Main Character’s name, but more importantly provides questions that are much the same as choosing an item in the Story Engine or the Theme Browser. To re-iterate, the choices made in the Query System simply go to the same background story engine at the heart of the software.

The Query System allows an author to concentrate on one facet of his or her story and work there, then skip to another and continue. For example, the Main Character might be the most important element of a story to a given author. This author could first work in the Main Character Query System path until satisfied, then move on to the second area of interest, which might be the Obstacle Character, Plot, or Theme. There’s even an "All Storyforming Questions" path for authors who want to see everything in a long list and jump from one question to any other while storyforming.

The StoryGuide path is really just another question path in the Query System. The big difference is that the StoryGuide has been specifically designed for first time users.

The StoryGuide comes in two lengths: a 50 question path which usually takes 3 or 4 hours to complete, and a 200 question path, which usually takes 3 or 4 weeks! As with all other areas of the Dramatica software, any work you do in one path automatically shows up in the other as well. So, you can start with one, then change your mind and go to the other, or just jump back and forth among ANY of the question paths whenever the mood strikes you.

The StoryGuide path pulls key questions from all the other Query System paths, then presents them in an order that requires the least possible explanation of the Dramatica theory of story in order to create a storyform.

Because it has been designed to be the quickest, most painless way to a story structure for a new user, the StoryGuide button on the Main Desktop is in the upper left corner for prominence, and is labeled, "Start Here!"

In summary, there is a single story engine at the heart of the Dramatica software that keeps track of the relationships among your characters, plot, and theme. No matter how or where you enter the information and make dramatic choices, it all goes to the same central engine.

Of the three main areas in which one can make dramatic choices, the Story Engine is designed for the experienced structuralist, the Theme Browser is designed for the experienced intuitive writer, and the StoryGuide is designed for new users to ease them into the software and theory with the quickest results.

Dramatica Tid Bit:

Although the Dramatica software program is over 7 meg in size, the story engine at the heart of the software is a series of complex interrelated algorithms taking up only 28K of space! This story engine is so revolutionary it was awarded United States patent number 5,734,916.

Just as a Rubik’s cube has just 27 moving pieces, yet creates 40,000,000,000,000,000 combinations, the patented Dramatica story engine has is only 28K in size, yet generates 32,768 completely different dramatic storyforms.

What is the best way for a new user to approach Dramatica?

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

First and foremost, Dramatica is a theory of story. The software serves to implement aspects of the theory in a handy and practical manner. Personally, I feel that a writer using Dramatica solely to create a blueprint for a story is missing a big part of the power of the theory.

As one becomes more and more familiar with aspects of the theory, these new concepts begin to take hold in a writer’s mind at a subconscious level - right where his or her creativity springs forth. In a sense, the theory explanations become subliminal patterns of thought in the author’s mind that fine tune his or her writer’s instincts, help him or her avoid holes in the story’s logic and feeling, and offer a way around writer’s blocks.

The Dramatica software can be thought of as "training wheels" in the craft of writing. When one is up to speed, the wheels can come off. Unlike riding a bike, however, one DOES forget how, in the craft of writing. This occurs because every day we assume new and different givens, become accustomed and conditioned to new ideas and environments, and as a result we lose touch with how others might view our work. If our intent is to communicate and to move our audience to feel specifically what we have in mind for their hearts, we must hone our skills in getting the message across. That’s where the Dramatica software comes in.

Both Dramatica Writer’s DreamKit and Dramatica Pro come with a special question path called the StoryGuide. This path is designed to get new users up to speed with the theory while creating a complete scene order or chapter order treatment for a story along the way. Buy using the StoryGuide, the new user can put the theory to work immediately and get to know the software at the same time. Once this path has been taken the first time, most writers will want to chart their own path through Dramatica, tailoring their use of the software tool to match their personal writing styles.

The way I use the software myself is as a periodic tune-up. I like to write the first draft of a work without using the software. Then, I go into the software and fill in all the storytelling information first. Next, I go to the Storyforming section, click the "storytelling" button and make my Storyforming choices based on what I read on the screen of my own storytelling.

I don’t go through the lists in order, but rather start with the dramatic items of most importance to me in this particular story. That way, when I finally get down to storytelling I’ve done that doesn’t fit ANY of the available Storyforming choices, it is usually not a pet concept, and I can alter my storytelling approach to fit the overall argument of my story.

Finally, when I have arrived at a complete Storyform and brought my storytelling into line, I add any additional storytelling for Storyforming items I had not addressed in my first draft. I then print out the "kitchen sink" report for a record of my ENTIRE Storyform, and use that as a reference while I write.

During the original writing process and the re-writing process then, I don’t actually use Dramatica at all. I prefer to follow my instincts, once they know where they are going. For the first draft, I don’t want to be hindered by analysis, no matter how accurate the feedback may be. Then, between drafts, I want to hear what Dramatica has to say. And finally, during the re-write, I again want to go with my now-refined instincts, and only refer to the "kitchen sink" report when I am at a loss. In this manner, I retain the immediacy and serendipity of my work, and still take advantage of the unique insights provided by Dramatica, which keeps my work honest for the audience.

The StoryGuide system was designed to familiarize novice writers with many useful concepts in the Dramatica theory that should have an immediate positive impact on their skills. It is my hope that once a writer’s creative feet are wet, he or she will wade out a little farther toward the deep water, leave the floats behind and take the plunge into his or her own inspirations. When one feels the currents pulling one out to sea, however, that is when Dramatica can throw out a life preserver and help you find your way back to shore.

Well, I wax poetic. Sorry! Just my Muse pulling me around by the nose.

About Dramatica’s Learning Curve...

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

A Writer Asks...

I’m finishing up a review of Dramatica Pro and had a quick question I was hoping you could answer for me:

What words of wisdom would you have for writers who want to use Dramatica Pro, but do not have a lot of self-discipline to master the learning curve?

My Reply...

First, keep in mind that writing is a craft in which one is always learning. Every time you pick up a new trick, tip, or technique, your writing improves, even if you haven’t fully grasped the larger understanding. So, the real objective is not to "master" the craft of writing, but to keep your writing skills growing by continually learning new approaches.

Second, keep in mind that Dramatica is both a new theory of story and a line of software products which implement the theory. As a result, new Dramatica users have two different things to learn at the same time.

In terms of the theory, unless you are more interested in being a theorist than a writer, don’t bother trying to understand the whole shebang. The Dramatica theory is HUGE, COMPLEX, and utterly OVERWHELMING. But... it is made up of thousands of simple pieces, each of which provides a truly useful trick, tip, or technique.

For example, just one little part of the theory says that a traditional "hero" is really made up of two parts: the character driving the story AND the character with whom the audience identifies. When you realize that these two functions can be put into two separate characters it opens up a whole new realm of creative possibilities.

You no longer have to make the Protagonist your Main Character, but might choose to tell your story through the eyes of someone to the side of the main action. A good example of this is "To Kill a Mockingbird" in which the Protagonist (Atticus -the Gregory Peck part in the movie) is driving the story forward, yet the audience most closely identifies with his young daughter, Scout. It is really Scout’s story.

Every little part of the Dramatica theory you learn adds to your creative options. So, when approaching the Dramatica theory, look at is as a wealth of useful concepts for writing which one can mine for years without exhausting the supply of new insights, techniques, and ideas. And unless you would rather be a theorist than a writer, don’t worry about trying to master the whole durn thing.

When considering the software, however, a completely different situation arises. Rather than simply picking up interesting concepts, the intent here is to use the software as a tool to fashion the underlying dramatic structure for your story.

The Dramatica software is built around a "Story Engine" which is a "model" of dramatic relationships. In order to use the Story Engine as a tool, one must learn how to run it.

As with any skilful endeavor, it takes time to master. Think of the first time you rode a bike, drove a care, learned to type: each of these skills took time to develop. Why commit the self-discipline necessary to master these skills? Because of the the belief that once the work is done, one will be able to do things that were simply not possible before.

Imagine if you could be sure that your dramatic structure was sound before you ever wrote a word. Or, imagine if you could write a first draft based on inspiration, then use a Story Engine to "check" your dramatic relationships, tell you what isn’t working, what’s missing, and what needs to be done to make it right. That’s what the Dramatic software promises.

But why should you believe? After all, that is a bold claim. The reason to believe brings us back to the Dramatica theory. Read the book. (It is available FREE on the world wide web through The Official Dramatica Theory Web Site at Storymind.com and also comes free with Dramatica Pro.) Try out some of the concepts you can use right away. And, if you find some useful new tools, perhaps you may determine it is worth your while to invest some time in developing the skills necessary to run Dramatica’s Story Engine. It is my belief that authors willing to apply that effort will find that the Dramatica software can take them to whole new creative levels.

Dramatica for Structural vs. Intuitive Writers

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

There are structuralist writers and intuitive writers. The Dramatica software can be used by both, but in a completely different way.

The software almost insists that you storyform first, then encode. This is fine for a structuralist who wants to draft the blueprints before raising the building. But, it works against the intuitive writer who wants to mold a lump of clay into a meaningful form.

If you are an intuitive writer, encode FIRST and then storyform.

Here’s how to do it:

Open Dramatica with a new file and go directly to the Story Points Window (available through the main Dramatica Desktop) The Story Points Window provides a tabular list of all the story points Dramatica "tracks."

Even without storyforming, these story points provide a rather complete shopping list of the key dramatic elements of any fully developed story.

Scroll down the list and you’ll notice the story points are grouped into categories like "Main Character," or "Central Plot Points," for example.

As an intuitive writer, select the category that is most meaningful to you. Scan through the list of story points in that category and pick the one that is most important or meaningful to you. It might be the Main Character’s Critical Flaw or the Story Goal, for example. (Don’t use the Plot Type Order areas though. In another post, I’ll describe how writers who want to develop the plot progression might first approach the software).

By double clicking on the empty column on the far right of the window, you will bring up a screen where you can describe each story point. So, if we double clicked on Story Goal, we see a question at the top asking us to "Illustrate how the central "objective" of the Objective Story (Goal) concerns an unchosen item {an unchosen item}. You can pretty much ignore that or any of the other questions at the top of a story point description window.

Instead, just describe how you see your story’s Goal. "My story is about a guy who wants to be President."

Go through the entire list of story points, filling in any of them with the subject matter you want to explore in your story. If you don’t know what to put in for a particular story point, leave it blank for now. When you have gone through all story points once, go back and re-consider the blank ones. You may be surprised to find that by virtue of the process of answering the story points you could, you may have already generated ideas you can now enter in the ones you left blank before. Just going through the list helps you marshal your thoughts!

When you have filled in every story point that brought something to mind, read over the whole list. See what you have had to say about your story. See if it feels like what you had in mind, or perhaps even brings the overall big picture into greater clarity than ever. In fact, you may even find that by taking the wider, all-encompassing view, you are now ready to fill in a few more story point descriptions!

When you are finally finished, even if some story points are left blank, you could probably sit down and start writing a fairly complete story. Still, there would be some holes, and it is also likely there would be some story points that really didn’t seem to work with some of the others. That is why it is NOW time to storyform!

What we want to do is to "find" the structure that most closely describes what we have written, then clarify or fine-tune our encoding to become more structurally sound. To do this, open up the Dramatica Query System (also available from the main Dramatica desktop).

At the top left of the Query System Window is a little pop-up menu that shows the word "Home." When you click on the menu, a list of different question paths appears. Go down a little more than halfway into the list and select an item called "Storyforming—Complete." This will bring up a list of all the storyforming questions the software has to offer.

Skim over the list to see what questions it has to offer. Then, zero in on the one question that overall it the single most important story point to you, passionately. You see, Dramatica has no preference among story points - any one is just as important as any other. But as an intuitive writer, there are going to be certain aspects of your story’s structure that are vastly more interesting or crucial to your message.

So, pick the most important story point to you, then open its question window by selecting it from the list. Now you’ll notice there is a row of "HelpView" buttons running from left to right across the middle of each question screen. One near the middle is labeled "Storytelling." If you click that button, then the encoding you already did for that story point in the Story Points Window will show up in the bottom half of the question window.

If we opened Story Goal as the most important story point then, as described in our earlier example, our words, "My story is about a guy who wants to be President." will show up. To find the structure closest to that story point, we look at the list of available structural choices.

If Story Goal was the first story point we decided to structure, then we would have 16 different descriptive words from which to choose. Among these would be the words, "Obtaining" and "Being." By referring to the storytelling (encoding) we already wrote, we may decide that our story is about a guy who wants to Obtain the office of president, or alternatively it might be about a guy who wants to Be presidential.

Do you remember the story "Dave" about a man asked to impersonate an ailing president? In that case, the Goal is not Obtaining, but Being. By thinking about the implications of each choice, we are forced to refine what we had in mind, to find the structure closest to our nebulous intent.

We continue to answer questions in the Storyforming Complete list in the order of next greatest importance. Eventually (due to Dramatica’s Story Engine) we may encounter a question for which all the available word choices don’t seem to fit. This is an indication that our storytelling has structural inconsistencies. In other words, structurally, some of what we wanted to talk about in our story doesn’t fit in dramatically with other areas.

If you want to strengthen your structure, then you simply choose the word that is most acceptable and then adjust your storytelling on that point to match that choice. Because you started with the story points that were most important to you, by the time you reach a question with choices that don’t match, it will probably be so far down your list of importance that you don’t mind adjusting the storytelling.

But, if you are really in love with that particular storytelling item, you can simply ignore the structure and go with what excites you as an intuitive writer. An audience is not looking for a perfect structure - they are looking for a fulfilling story experience. Therefore, they are likely to overlook a few inconsistencies if the storytelling is moving. A truly poor structure, however, can distract the audience from that experience.

Some story points are more impactful to the overall meaning of the story. And, some storytelling that is not consistent may still be close, or may be really off the mark. The key is to recognize the relative value of accuracy vs. passion when the two diverge. And that is a judgment call every author must make for himself or herself.

Either way, you will eventually reach a complete storyform structure which will then "predict" the kind of subject matter which ought to occur in every story point including the story points for which had not done any storytelling. You can then use this structural guideline to fill in the missing storytelling. You can do this by returning to the Story Points Window and reviewing what you had previously written, the structural items which the storyform has now associated with that storytelling, and the structural items suggested for the story points you haven’t yet storytold. With all this information on which to draw, it should help you find the inspiration you need to fill in those remaining story points.

Finally, as an intuitive writer you won’t likely want to use the storyform, or even your own story encoding as a guideline for writing. Rather, you’ll probably want to use that information to understand your story, then put it aside and write from the heart, now that you have that sound background.

When you have completed a draft, it will likely have drifted again from a sound structure. You won’t have noticed it while writing, but as your point of view and interests shifted during the writing process you may have gotten a bit off course.

To bring things back into structural focus, return to the software and go through the process again, but this time with a brand new file from scratch. Instead of describing what you intend to do, this time you need to analyze what you have already done.

Fill in the storytelling you actually did, then answer the storyforming questions based on what you actually wrote. Again, you may find inconsistencies in which case you are faced with the same choice: adjust the storytelling or keep it with the awareness it isn’t structurally on the mark.

Repeat this process as many times as necessary to hone your story into just the structurally sound, passionately strong work you wanted it to be.

The Creative Way to Use Dramatica

by Melanie Anne Phillips
creator StoryWeaver, co-creator Dramatica

Many people get discouraged when they first try to create a story structure in Dramatica. This is because the software directs you to work out your structure first, THEN develop it into a real story. But there is a MUCH easier way….

Located on the Main Dramatica Desktop is a button labeled, "Query System." When you press it, you’ll be taken to a screen that presents several different buttons, each of which is labeled as a different aspect of the story creation process, such as Character Storyforming or Plot Storyweaving. When you push one, you are taken to a list of story questions pertinent to the aspect you selected. IGNORE THE BUTTONS!!!

Instead, go to the top left portion of the screen and use the pull-down menu to see a list of many other question lists. One of them, near the bottom, is called All Storytelling. Select this choice from the menu. (Don’t select the All StoryFORMING item by mistake!)

The All Storytelling choice brings up a list of every storytelling question available in the Dramatica software.

Now, why did you do this? Well, if you approach Dramatica from any of the normal, easily accessible areas, you are presented with STRUCTURAL questions that you MUST answer before doing any storytelling at all. The StoryFORMING structural questions are multiple choice, and ask you such things as: "Which of the following items best describes your story’s Goal: Obtaining, Becoming, Understanding…"

Answering a question like that before you even know what your story is about is next to impossible! But by going to the All StoryTELLING list first instead, you will be presented with questions such as, "Describe your story’s Goal." You don’t have any choices to make, just a space to fill in whatever thoughts you may have about your Goal. So, you might enter for example, "My Story’s Goal is that Joe wants to be president."

Jump around in the All Storytelling list by clicking on any question you feel like answering, in any order you like. Even without Dramatica’s Story Engine feeding you choices, you’ll find the list of questions so complete and cogent that your story almost develops itself. Well, not really, but it sure makes you think and fill in gaps.

NOW… Once you have answered all the questions you care to, THEN you go to the All StoryFORMING list by selecting it from the pull-down menu. Select a question you have already answered in storyTELLING and click on the Storytelling HelpView button (in the middle of the screen between the top box and the bottom box) and the storytelling you did will show up in the bottom box!

You can now refer to your original concepts when making the structural choice in storyFORMING. In our example, suppose you go to the Goal Storyforming question. When you click on the Storytelling HelpView button, your words, "My Story’s Goal is that Joe wants to be president," appear in the bottom box so you can refer to them while you are making your choice (Obtaining, Becoming, Understanding) in the top area.

In our example, you would look over the list of choices and ask yourself such questions as, "Does Joe want to OBTAIN the office of the presidency or BECOME presidential?" By having your own words in front of you, the storyFORMING choices now help you focus your intent, rather than making you work with logistic choices far removed from the creative process.

If you choose Obtaining, the story will be about trying to rise through the party, win the nomination, and then the election. If you choose Becoming, the story will be about trying to grow to become presidential (as in the movie "Dave").

For help in making your choices, use the HelpView buttons. To do this, first select an item you think best sums up what you have written. Then, click on the Definition, Context, and Stories HelpView buttons to see if that choice matches. If it is perfect, go on to the next question. If not, try other choices until you find the one that best fits the description you wrote.

It is important to begin your Storyforming with the questions that are most important to you. This is because Dramatica’s Story Engine will be working in the background, limiting future choices to be compatible with what you have already chosen. So, by starting with the story points you are most "married" to, you will get all of the key elements into your story that you wanted before you run into dramatic inconsistencies.

What’s a dramatic inconsistency? Well, authors usually come to a story with lots of little pieces that deal with the same subject matter. But just because they all have to do with the same topic doesn’t mean they all fit in the same story! The process of structuring a story is working out which pieces fit together and which need to be discarded.

As you work down the list of questions you filled in for Storytelling, you may eventually find that none of the Storyforming choices remaining come close to describing your words. In that case, you have two options:

Change your words.

Ignore the dramatic inconsistency.

If the Storytelling you did is not really important to you, then you’ll want to return to the Storytelling question list and revise your words to match one of the available dramatic choices. But if your Storytelling IS important, then you may decide to ignore the dramatic inconsistency and leave it in anyway.

Why would you want to create a story with flawed dramatics? Stories are half Structure (meaning) and half Storytelling (audience experience). Sometimes a poor song well played sounds better than a great song poorly played. Only you can determine if the inconsistency is so dramatically wrenching as to derail the audience, or if the Storytelling is so compelling that its power far outweighs a minor dramatic flaw.

Finally, even when you have answered the Storyforming choices for all the Storytelling questions you described, you may still not have arrived at a single Storyform. At this point, you also have two options:

Go back to the Storytelling questions and describe more of them, inspired by what you have now developed for your story

Stay in the Storyforming questions and answer them directly without doing any Storytelling for them first.

In the first case, you should go to the next most important question and work down you list of priorities. Then, go back to Storyforming and proceed as before. Do this as many times as you need in order to finally arrive at a single Storyform structure.

In the second case, go to the most important unanswered Storyforming question remaining and make your choice. Work down your list of Storyforming questions until you arrive at a single Storyform.

(Keep in mind that you can make multiple selections on some items and let Dramatica’s Story Engine narrow those choices, perhaps even pick a single item, based on your continuing input with other questions.)

Eventually, you will have arrived at a single Storyform. At this point, there will be many Story Points determined by Dramatica’s Story Engine which do not yet have any Storytelling. Now it is time to return to the Storytelling areas of the software and fill them in, based on what you have already written.

(It should be noted that you can also fill in your Storytelling choices in the Story Points window as well as in the All Storytelling question list.)

In summary, rather than first approaching a sterile process of story structuring that leaves you cold, uninspired, and frustrated, you can go first to storytelling and express all of your interests and passions, letting them form the basis for your story structuring later. This works even better if you have already jotted down some notes or written a treatment or even a first draft.