Melanie Anne Phillips

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica As trite as it might seem, as yourself "What would a story be withouth characters?" The answer can help you get a grip on exactly what characters really do in a story, and therefore how to build them effectively. Although it is possible to write without the use of characters, it is not easy. Characters represent our drives, our essential human qualities. So a story without characters would be a story that did not describe or explore anything that might be considered a motivation. For most writers, such a story would not provide the opportunity to completely fulfill their own motivations for writing. For example, we might consider the following poem: Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. Are there characters in this short verse? Is the rain a character? To some readers the poem might be a simple invocation for the rain to leave. To other readers, the rain may seem to be stubborn, thoughtless, or incon...

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica Recently a writer asked: As I strive to understand the main character/obstacle character dynamics, I am left wondering where does the antagonist fit into this new theory of story? I believe I understand what you are getting at with the obstacle character, but it seems that something is missing...the antagonist! I see that the selection of antagonist is available as a character type, but I do not see where one plots out the antagonist storyline. Isn't the Main Character/Protagonist vs Antagonist storyline just as important? My Reply: The characters in a story represent the facets of our minds. That's why we call the structure of a story the Story Mind. Archetypes are our broad personality traits, while the Main Character represents our sense of self. The Obstacle (or Impact) character is that part of ourselves that plays "devil's advocate" when we are trying to determine if we want to change our m...

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , Co-creator Dramatica A writer asks: "My favorite creative writing book is 'Setting' by Jack Bickham. Use of setting as primary with characters, plot, theme, mood, etc derived from it and interacting with it seems of particular value in science fiction. Where would Deep Space 9 be without deep space and a space station! Setting is certainly the cauldron of my imagination. So how can I best approach things this way with Dramatica? Do you have any examples where setting has been created as a character? Can I have two antagonists, for example, one a person and the other a setting?" My Reply: In fact, the Antagonist in a story can be a person, place or thing – any entity that can fulfill the dramatic function of the Antagonist. First, look at the movie "Jaws." The Antagonist is the shark. The mayor is the Contagonist. Next consider the 1950s movie with Spencer Tracy and Robert Wagner called, "The Mountain....

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica Perhaps the most fundamental error made by authors, whether novice or experienced, is that all their characters, male and female, tend to reflect the gender of the author. This is hardly surprising, since recent research finally proves that men and women use their brains in different ways. So how can an author overcome this gap to write characters of the opposite sex that are both accurate and believable to their own gender? In this Dramatica Tip, we'll explore the nature of male and female minds and provide techniques for crafting characters that are true to their gender. At first, it might seem that being male or female is an easily definable thing, and therefore easy to convey in one's writing. But as we all know, the differences between the sexes have historically been a mysterious quality, easily felt, but in fact quite hard to define. This is because what makes a mind male or female is not just one thing,...

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica Does your Main Character Change or Remain Steadfast? A lot of writers think a character must Change in order to grow. This is simply not true. Characters can also grow in their Resolve. In that case, they Remain Steadfast as they must grow stronger in stronger in their beliefs in order to hold out against increasingly powerful obstacles. Regardless of whether your Main Character changes or not, how does he or she get there? Does your character simply flip a switch at the end of the story? Or does he or she grapple with and grieve over the issue right up to the moment of truth? In fact, there are a quite a number of different dramatic pathways by which a Main Character can arrive at the moment of truth. The more you have in your writer's bag of tricks, the more dramatic variety you can bring to your characters' journeys. Let's look at a few of your options.... 1. The Steady Freddy This kind of Main Characte...

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica Does your story suffer from "Multiple Personality Disorder"? In psychology, Multiple Personality Disorder describes a person who has more than one complete personality. Typically, only one of those personalities will be active at any given time. This is because they usually share attributes, and so only one can have that attribute at any particular moment. Stories can also suffer from Multiple Personality Disorder if more than one character represents a single attribute. In such a case, both should not be able to appear in the story at the same time. If they do, the audience feels that the story is fragmented, or more simply put, the story has developed a split-personality. Dramatica sees a story as representing a single mind. Most writers have been taught that characters, plot, theme, and genre are people, doing things, illustrating value standards, in an overall setting and mood. In contrast, Dramatica see...

Don't waste your will power on things you can't change. We all have a limited amount of mental energy to spend on denying ourselves things we want, even if we know they aren't good for us. If we squander that energy on things we can't change, we'll have none left for those things we actually can improve. Here's a step-by-step approach to getting the most bang from your mental buck. 1. Make a list of all those things about yourself you'd like to change. 2. Honestly determine how hard each is to change. Use a rating of 1 to 5. 1 is easy, 5 impossible. 3. Gauge how much mental mettle you have: Start by trying to change the easies thing. If you succeed, move on to the next and on again until your will-power gives in. (If you can't even hold out for the easiest thing, give up now and have a good life, rather than beating on your own dead horse.) 4. The more little things your will-power can change, the less of a drain on your mental energy. So, as your list ...

Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana has been promoted as the Republican response to Barak Obama. It is appropriate, then, that Jindal delivered the Republican response to last night's address to congress by Barak Obama. Though Jindal presented as intelligent, compassionate, bi-partisan and folksy (the Big Four qualities any presidential candidate must have) his content fell into the standard Republican format they have relied on since the election. Let's look at how that format is crafted, then put forth some ideas on how Jindal and the entire Republican party might change format to better capture the hearts and minds of the electorate. The format plays out as follows: 1. Proclaim how inspired we all are by the President's personal story. (We come to praise Caesar, not to bury him) 2. Describe how this indicates change has truly come to America. (It's different now, we're all different now, everybody's different now in the Republican party.) 3...

I liked this one just for the music

Found this on You Tube

Franklin Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Its not just a clever phrase. The stock market is currently at its natural baseline level, minus all the speculation. Retail sales for January for general merchandise are actually 1% higher than they were a year ago. That should be and probably will be the bottom of the economic downturn. Unless, of course, fear becomes too much of a factor. Left to its own devices, the economy will return to a slow, steady growth built solidly on actual productivity. But fear works on the economy in the exact opposite manner of speculation. If fear reaches a flash point, it can drive the market down fast, hard, and long - the opposite curve of the speculation bulge we just experienced. So, confidence is the game that must be played or our situation might turn down as long as it was recently up, which lasted roughly 12 years. And just as stocks are currently at their 12 year low, back to the "normal" level jus...

In Washington D.C. we have a two-party system. But it is no longer the Democrats and the Republicans. Rather, every election one becomes the Party In Power and the other takes on the role of the Obstructionist Party. Last time, the Democrats were the Obstructionists. This time around it is the Republicans. For example, the passage of the revised stimulus bill in the House of Representatives was certain. Yet no Republicans voted for its passage. The success of the stimulus is not nearly so dependent on the spending of money as it is on a perception that the government is turning the economy around. Only in this way will confidence permeate into the fabric of our socio -economic system and drive the engine of prosperity. The best way to instill confidence is to create a sense that our leaders are all committed to the plan of action that will be implemented. Yet, while professing through their spokesmen that the Republican Party wishes the president to succeed for the benefit of t...

Teresa and I have almost continuous philosophic discussions during every waking hour. At the end of many of them, we sum up the insights we discovered in a single zen-like phrase that captures the essence of our perceived enlightenment. Most recently, a mental exploration ended in the following phrase, which holds great meaning for us, perhaps none for you: "The rotten apple is food for the holy worm."

This is a chart of the Dow for the last 25 years. Note the steady line for the first half, then the slight steady rise. That rise is the beginning of the computer age when our actual productivity began to increase.. Note the large rise a few years later. This is when computers allowed speculation in an instant market that wasn't possible before. Note the first "crash" when that speculation bubble burst. That was the effect of the attack on 9-11. Note the next rise, based solely on speculation driven by the new ability of individuals to invest directly in the market with online brokerages . Note the current crash. The bottom of the current crash is at the same point as the bottom of the last crash. The new bottom is along a line you can draw from the point just before the first speculation. This line would be the natural linear growth of our productivity due to ongoing improvements in technology. It is not an unsustainable exponential curve, but a straight sustainable bo...

Pernicious Wrash

This evening, my daughter told me her fiance's company has told its employees their company will be "right sizing" in the next few weeks. I'd not heard the term before, but apparently it is the new slang for laying people off. The concept, I imagine, is that "down-sizing" (the old slang) made it sound like a company was shrinking, falling back, retiring from the field of economic battle. In contrast, "right-sizing" gives the impression that a company is getting correct, getting straight, lean, all-muscle, clean. All well and good for the company which sheds the onus of its failures in a maze of nomeclature. Not so good for the employees who have been shed. After all, if the comapny is now right, then the former employees were wrong. They are no longer seen as valuable assest the company was unable to retain, but as unhealthy, unnecessary weight that has been dropped during the corporate diet. The psychological burden of the company's troubles h...

This evening, my daughter told me her fiance's company has told its employees their company will be "right sizing" in the next few weeks. I'd not heard the term before, but apparently it is the new slang for laying people off. The concept, I imagine, is that "down-sizing" (the old slang) made it sound like a company was shrinking, falling back, retiring from the field of economic battle. In contrast, "right-sizing" gives the impression that a company is getting correct, getting straight, lean, all-muscle, clean. All well and good for the company which sheds the onus of its failures in a maze of nomeclature. Not so good for the employees who have been shed. After all, if the comapny is now right, then the former employees were wrong. They are no longer seen as valuable assest the company was unable to retain, but as unhealthy, unnecessary weight that has been dropped during the corporate diet. The psychological burden of the company's troubles h...

I just like trees, clouds, shadows and light. Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California 2006

Volcano, California, 2006

Taken 2006 in Volcano, California. There are no volcanoes anywhere near Volcano by the way. The discoverers mistakenly thought all the dark rock and boulders were lava.

Taken 2006, Volcano, California

2006

2006

2006

by Melanie Anne Phillips creator StoryWeaver , co-creator Dramatica A lot of books about writing describe the importance of a "Love Interest." Other books see a Love Interest as unnecessary and cliché. What does Dramatica Say? As with most dramatic concepts, Dramatica pulls away the storytelling to take a clear look at the underlying structure. A Love Interest has both storytelling and structural components. The storytelling side is what most people think of - A Love Interest is the character with whom the "hero" or "heroine" is in love. Simple! But what does that tell us about the kind of person the Love Interest is, or even what kind of relationship the two have between them? Not a whole lot! For example, the Love Interest might be the leader of the enemy camp, in which case he or she is the Antagonist! Or, the Love Interest might be the supportive, stay-in-the-background type, in which case he or she is the Sidekick. In both cases, the hero is in love w...