Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from the book,  Dramatica: A New Theory of Story For some authors, applying Dramatica at the beginning of a creative project might be inhibiting. Many writers prefer to explore their subject, moving in whatever direction their muse leads them until they eventually establish an intent. In this case, the storytelling comes before the structure. After the first draft is completed, such an author can look back at what he has created with the new understanding he has arrived at by the end. Often, much of the work will no longer fit the story as the author now sees it. By telling Dramatica what he now intends, Dramatica will be able to indicate which parts of the existing draft are appropriate, which are not, and what may be needed that is currently missing. In this way, the creative process is both free and fulfilling, with Dramatica serving as analyst and collaborator. Annotation Now this passage in the original theory book is just the tip of the iceberg.  In the ...

Congratulations! Over the last few steps you’ve learned a tremendous amount of information about your characters’ attributes, self-image, outlook, and personal issues. With all the work you’ve done, you probably have more characters than you need or want. Still, by keeping them around, you have had the opportunity to inject new blood into old stereotypes. As a result, your potential cast represents a healthy mix of interesting people. The task at hand is to pare down this list by selecting only those characters you really want or actually need in your story. To begin, make three categories, either as columns on a page or piles of index cards: one for obvious rejects, one for  maybes , and one for the characters you are absolutely certain you want in your novel. Put into the  Keeper  pile every character that is essential to your plot, contributes extraordinary passion, or is just so original and intriguing you can wait to write about them. In the  Not Sure...

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A writer asked today: Dear Melanie, Could you please tell me where can I find some material on western genre plot building. Let me make it much clearer. I have a character Marshal, A saloon girl, Rancher, Preacher, Blacksmith and bartender along with 4 outlaw gang and 1 leader og the outlaw gang. What I am trying to find is a story of events that can occur within this small town. Which direction can I take to find some events to get me to page 75. Darryl My reply: Hi, Darryl Here’s a link to my article, The Creative Two-Step, that uses that example to begin to develop characters in an old Western Town:  http://storymind.com/content/41.htm This technique can also be used equally well for plot events. The idea is to switch back and forth between analytical mode and creative mode by asking specific questions about your emerging story, then answering them in as many creative ways as you can. Then, you repeat the process by asking questions about each of the answers...

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Excerpted from the book,  Dramatica: A New Theory of Story Simply having a feeling or a point of view does not an author make. One becomes an author the moment one establishes an intent to communicate. Usually some intrigu- ing setting, dialog, or bit of action will spring to mind and along with it the desire to share it. Almost immediately, most authors leap ahead in their thinking to consider how the concept might best be presented to the audience. In other words, even before a com- plete story has come to mind most authors are already trying to figure out how to tell the parts they already have. As a result, many authors come to the writing process carrying a lot of baggage: favorite scenes, characters, or action, but no real idea how they are all going to fit to- gether. A common problem is that all of these wonderful inspirations often don't belong in the same story. Each may be a complete idea unto itself, but there is no greater meaning to the sum of the parts. To be a ...

Narrative isn't everything.  Many experiences in fiction and real life have no narrative at all.  While movies are often thought to be one of the most story-oriented media, here is a film clip that has no story, yet has tremendous meaning.  It was shot in San Francisco in 1906, just six days before the Great Earthquake.  Though there is no narrative, we cannot help but wonder what stories unfolded for the people we see just one week later. As a good writer's exercise, pick a person or two that you see in the clip and write a short article that might have been published in the newspaper a week after the quake about their experiences.

We all have personal issues – trouble with co-workers, family difficulties, unfulfilled hopes or dreams or a moral dilemma. Though it is not necessary, every character can benefit from having a personal issue with which it must grapple or a belief system that comes under attack. A moral dilemma, worldview or philosophy of life helps your characters come off as real people, rather than just functional players in the story. In addition, readers identify more easily with characters that have an internal struggle, and care about them more as well. Consider each of your potential cast members, one by one. Read their entire dossier so far consisting of their list of attributes, self-description and perspective on your story. If a belief system, personal code of behavior, philosophy, worldview, moral outlook or internal conflict is indicated, note it and write a few words about it in their dossier.  If a character has emotional issues regarding themselves, their world or the peop...

Excerpted from the book,  Dramatica: A New Theory of Story How can essential concepts be communicated? Certainly not in their pure, intuitive form directly from mind to mind. (Not yet, anyway!) To communicate a concept, an author must symbolize it, either in words, actions, juxtapositions, interactions — in some form or another. As soon as the concept is symbolized, however, it becomes culturally specific and therefore inaccessible to much of the rest of the world. Even within a specific culture, the different experiences of each member of an audi- ence will lead to a slightly different interpretation of the complex patterns represented by intricate symbols. On the other hand, it is the acceptance of common symbols of com- munication that defines a culture. For example, when we see a child fall and cry, we do not need to know what language he speaks or what culture he comes from in order to understand what has happened. If we observe the same event in a story, however...

Now that you know something about the personalities of your potential cast members, it is time to find out how they see your story. In this step, you’ll have each character write another paragraph from their point of view, but this time describing the basic plot of your story as it appear to them. This will make your story more realistic by helping you understand and describe how each character sees and feels about the events unfolding around them. Some characters may be integral to the plot. Others may simply be interesting folk who populate your story’s world. Be sure each character includes how they see their role (if any) in the events, or if they seem themselves as just an observer or bystander. If they  are  involved in the plot, outline the nature of their participation as they see it. Again, you don’t want to go into great detail at this time. What you want is just an idea of how your story looks through each character’s eyes. This will help you later on not o...

Now that you have mixed things up a bit with your potential characters, there is one last task to do before selecting which ones to hire for your novel: the audition! Each character is currently just a collection of traits – the parts with no sum. To know how each might play in your story, you need to get a more organic sense of them. In other words, you need to get to know them as people, not just as statistics. To do this, have each of your potential cast members write a short paragraph about himself or herself in their own words, describing them, their attitudes, outlooks on life and incorporating all the attributes you’ve assigned to them. Try to write these paragraphs in the unique  voice  of each character and from their point of view. Don’t write about them; let them write about themselves. This will give you the experience of what it is like to see the world through each character’s eyes, which will help you understand their motivations and also make it easi...

Excerpted from the book,  Dramatica: A New Theory of Story It has been argued that perhaps the symbols we use are what create concepts, and therefore no common understanding between cultures, races, or times is possible. Dramatica works because indeed there ARE common concepts: morality, for example. Morality, a common concept? Yes. Not everyone shares the same definition of morality, but every culture and individual understands some concept that means "morality" to them. In other words, the concept of "morality" may have many different meanings — depending on culture or experience — but they all qualify as different meanings of "morality." Thus there can be universally shared essential concepts even though they drift apart through various interpretations. It is through this framework of essential concepts that communication is possible. Annotation We wrote this section of the book right up front because we were getting a lot of "blow-back...

In the last step you made sure each of your potential characters had a vocation, name, gender, age and perhaps additional personal attributes. In this step we’re going to swap around some of those traits to make your list of potential characters even more original, interesting and memorable than before. Our creative minds tend to fall into the same patterns over and over again. As a result, our characters run the risk of becoming overused stereotypes. By exchanging traits, we can create characters that transcend our inspirational ruts and become far more interesting and memorable. Don’t feel pressured to alter the original collection of attributes you had assigned to any given character if you are truly happy and comfortable with it. Still, mixing things up a bit just to see what happens can’t hurt and just might just turn out to build an even more intriguing character. Task One: Swapping Jobs In this section rearrange your characters' jobs until you have created a new c...

Excerpted from the book,  Dramatica: A New Theory of Story With all these forms of communication, isn't Dramatica severely limited in addressing only the Grand Argument Story? No. The Grand Argument model described by Dra- matica functions to present all the ways a mind can look at an issue. As a result, all other forms of communication will be using the same pieces, just in different combina- tions, sequences, or portions. In our example, we indicated that the less we said, the more the audience could use its imagination. A Grand Argument Story says it all. Every point is made, even if hidden obscurely in the heart of an entertainment. Other forms of communication use "slices" of the model, chunks, or levels. Even if an author is un- aware of this, the fact that human minds share common essential concepts means that the author will be using concepts and patterns found in the Dramatica model. Annotation This section is pretty straight-forward.  All it says is that ...

In previous steps you've assigned ages, genders and vocations or roles to your characters.  Like real people, however, your characters will also have a wide range of other attributes, such as the religion to which they subscribe, special skills like horseback riding or a good singing voice, physical traits, such as being overweight, their race, abilities/disabilities or a nervous tick, mental attributes including IQ, savantism or autism, and hobbies or other interests like coin collecting or memorizing movie quotes. Most of these attributes will amount to no more than window dressing in your story, but some of them may ultimately affect its course, and key events in your plot and/or message may hinge on a few of them. There’s no  absolute  need at this point to add any of these to each character’s interview sheet – we’ll revisit this kind of material later in the development stage – so don’t go off into the woods on this one. Still, if any additional attributes com...