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Writing Tips for Receive Our Writing Tips Newsletter by Email Structure of the Story Mind by Melanie Anne Phillips Everything you are about to read is wrong.
Why is it wrong? Partly
due to my own preconceptions, and partly due to pure ignorance. Of course, I can’t see my own preconceptions and
I know nothing about my ignorance, so to me all you are about to read is
right. Right or wrong, the concepts contained in this book
will absolutely cause you to think differently about what stories are
and how they work. If you
find something that makes sense to you, and (better yet) works, great!
If you disagree with anything put forth, you should ask yourself
why you don’t agree. That
one question alone may bring you to question you own conceptions and
knowledge, and may even point out preconceptions and areas of ignorance
as well. Before every class in story structure I always tell
my students never to buy into anything more than 97%.
No matter how all-encompassing an idea appears to be, if you
believe it 100%, you’ll never see a better idea that just might come
along. I believe this is
good advice even when looking at your own understanding, but I’m only
97% sure about that. Fact is, there is no “one right way” to look at
story structure. As Eastern
philosophy would have it, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the
Eternal Tao.” In other
words, the moment you think you completely understand something, the one
thing you can be sure of is that you’ve missed the point. The capital “T” Truth can never be known.
But we can get a sense of it.
By entertaining a variety of alternative explanations, we start
to see the edges of the bush all those different perspectives are
beating around. Through a
combination of study and intuition, we become more and more able to
chart a good course and avoid obstacles along the way.
And perhaps, by the end of our journey we’ll know how we should
have started it in the first place. So Dramatica is not the end-all system of story
structure. But it’s
pretty good! And along with
all the other good attempts at explaining the elusive Muse, it just may
help you glimpse the Truth. What is Dramatica? Dramatica is a new theory of story that offers both
writers and critics a clear view of what story structure is and how it
works. Dramatica is also
the inspiration behind the line of story development software products
that bear it's name. The central concept of the Dramatica theory is a
notion called the "Story Mind."
In a nutshell, this simply means that every story has a mind of
its own - its own personality; its own
psychology. A
story’s personality is developed by an author's style and subject
matter; its psychology is determined by the underlying dramatic
structure. This book describes all the key concepts of the
theory, how to use them to analyze the structure of any story and, more
importantly, how to apply them creatively in the construction of
stories. Some of the material may be challenging and
certainly much of it will be new. But
a little effort and determination on your part will be rewarded with a
new command of the tools of authorship that will open creative avenues
for all of your projects to come. The Story Mind As mentioned above, the Story Mind concept is at
the heart of Dramatica, and everything else about the theory grows out
of that If you don’t buy
into it, at least a little, then you’re not going to find much use for
the rest of this book. So
let’s take look into the Story Mind right off the bat to see if it is
worth your while to keep reading… Simply put, the Story Mind means that we can think
of a story as if it were a person.
The storytelling style and the subject matter determine the
story’s personality, and the underlying dramatic structure determines
its psychology. Now the personality of a story is a touchy-feely
thing, while the psychology is a nuts-and-bolts mechanical thing.
Let’s consider the personality part first, and then turn our
attention to the psychology. Like anyone you meet, a story has a personality.
And what makes up a personality?
Well, everything from the subject matter a person talks about to
their attitude toward life. Similarly,
a story might be about the Old West or Outer Space, and its attitude
could be somber, sneaky, lively, hilarious, or any combination of other
human qualities. Is this a useful perspective?
Can be. Many writers
get so wrapped up in the details of a story that they lose track of the
overview. For example, you
might spend all kinds of time working out the specifics of each
character’s personality yet have your story take a direction that is
completely out of character for its personality.
But if you step back every once and a while and think of the
story as a single person, you can really get a sense of whether or not
it is acting in character. Imagine that you have invited your story to dinner.
You have a pleasant conversation with it over the meal.
Of course, it is more like a monologue because your story does
all the talking - just as it will to your audience or reader. Your story is a practical joker, or a civil war
buff (genre), and it talks about what interests it.
It tells you a story about a problem with some endeavor (plot) in
which it was engaged. It
discusses the moral issues (theme) involved and its point of view on
them. It even divulges the
conflicting drives (characters) that motivated it while it tried to
resolve the difficulties. You want to ask yourself if it’s story makes
sense. If not, you need to
work on the logic of your story. Does
it feel right, as if the Story Mind is telling you everything, or does
it seem like it is holding something back?
If so, your story has holes that need filling.
And does your story hold your interest for two hours or more
while it delivers it’s monologue?
If not, it’s going to bore it’s captive audience in the
theater, or the reader of its report (your book), and you need to send
it back to finishing school for another draft. Again, authors get so wrapped up in the details
that they lose the big picture. But
by thinking of your story as a person, you can get a sense of the
overall attraction, believability, and humanity of your story before you
foist it off on an unsuspecting public. There’s much more we’ll have to say about the
personality of the Story Mind and how to leverage it to your advantage.
But, our purpose right now is just to see if this book might be
of use to you. So, let’s
examine the other side of the Story Mind concept - the story’s
psychology as represented in its structure. The Dramatica theory is primarily concerned with
the structure of a story. Everything
in that structure represents an aspect of the human mind, almost as if
the processes of the mind had been made tangible and projected out
externally for the audience to observe. Do you remember the model kit of the "Visible
Man?" It was a
12" human figure made out of clear plastic so you could see the
skeleton and all the organs on the inside.
Well that is how the Story Mind works.
it takes the processes of the human mind, and turns them into
characters, plot, theme, and genre, so we can study them in detail.
In this way, an author can provide understanding to an audience
of the best way to deal with problems.
And, of course, all of this is wrapped up and disguised in the
particular subject matter, style, and techniques of the storyteller. Now this makes it sound as if the real meat of a
story, the real people, places, events, and topics, are just window
dressing to distract the audience from the serious business of the
structure. But that's not
what we're saying here. In
fact, structure and storytelling work side by side, hand in hand, to
create an audience/reader experience that transcends the power of either
by itself. Therefore, structure and storytelling are neither
completely dependent upon each other, nor are they wholly independent.
One structure might be told in a myriad of ways, like West Side
Story and Romeo and Juliet. Similarly,
any given group of characters dealing with a particular realm of subject
matter might be wrapped around any number of different structures, like
weekly television series. But let's get back to the nature of the structure
itself and to the elements that make up the Story Mind.
If characters, plot, theme, and genre represent aspects of the
human mind made tangible, what are they? Characters represent the conflicting drives of our
own minds. For example, in
our own minds, our reason and our emotions are often at war with one
another. Sometimes what
makes the most sense doesn't feel right at all.
And conversely, what feels so right might not make any sense at
all. Then again, there are
times when both agree and what makes the most sense also feels right on. Reason and Emotion then, become two archetypal
characters in the Story Mind that illustrate that inner conflict that
rages within ourselves. And
in the structure of stories, just as in our minds, sometimes these two
basic attributes conflict, and other times they concur. Theme, on the other hand, illustrates our troubled
value standards. We are all
plagued with uncertainties regarding the right attitude to take, the
best qualities to emulate, and whether our principles should remain
fixed and constant or should bend in context to particular
circumstances. Plot compares the relative value of
the methods we might employ within our minds in our attempt to
press on through these conflicting points of view on the way toward a
mental consensus. And genre explores the overall attitude of the
Story Mind - the points of view we take as we watch the parade of our
own thoughts unfold, and the psychological foundation upon which our
personality is built. Naturally the theory goes into far more detail, but this brief overview should give you a good feel for what we mean by the Story Mind in the structural sense. Copyright Melanie Anne Phillips Download Melanie's Complete Writing Tip Book
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