This article is excerpted from Dramatica Story Structuring Software. Some of the characters you create as an author will be Do-ers who try to accomplish their purposes through activities (by doing things). Other characters are Be-ers who try to accomplish their purposes by working it out internally (by being a certain way). When it comes […]
Excerpted from Dramatica Story Structuring Software: The Main Character represents the audience’s position in the story. Therefore, whether he changes or not has a huge impact on the audience’s story experience and the message you are sending to it. Some Main Characters grow to the point of changing their nature or attitude regarding a central […]
Consider the Main Character and the Influence Character who, it would seem at first blush, are as opposite as they can be in regard to some underlying philosophical perspective, world view, belief system or moral code. But in fact, they are not 180 degrees apart but 90 degrees from the point of view of one, and […]
By Melanie Anne Phillips For just about any story you read, you get a sense of who it revolves around – who is it really about? Who is the character whose shoes we stand in, through whose eyes and heart do we see and feel the story at the most passionate personal level? In Gone […]
By Melanie Anne Phillips Characters reflect real people in a purified or idealized state. And so, we can see in them qualities and traits that are hard to see within ourselves. One of the most difficult challenges we face every day are exemplified by characters in virtually every story – the inability to confidently understand […]
By Melanie Anne Phillips From a structural standpoint, characters are just cogs in the machine. They have a job to do in the story as a protagonist, antagonist or any one of the functional roles that must be filled for the story to make sense and move forward. But characters are much more than that! […]
By Melanie Anne Phillips This article is excerpted from some text I wrote in the Dramatica Story Structure Software. It describes an important difference between Main Characters who try to solve problems by doing things vs. those who are more internal and attempt to resolve difficulties by being a certain way. EXPLANATION: Some of the characters […]
By Melanie Anne Phillips A story begins when the Main Character has become stuck in the highest level of justification. Nobody gets there because they are stupid or mean. They get there because their unique life experience has brought them repeated exposures to what appear to be real connections between things like, “One bad apple spoils […]
A writer just asked, “Can I make my main character an Antagonist instead of the Protagonist?” My reply: The main character is the one through whose eyes the reader or audience experiences the story. It is the one around whom the personal issue or problem of the story seems to revolve. The main character is, […]
A villain is the dramatic antithesis of a hero, and therefore has the following four attributes: He is the Antagonist He is the Influence Character He is second in prominence to the Central Character He is a Bad Guy By our definitions for this article: The Antagonist is the Principal Impediment in the plot – […]
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