Instant Dramatica
Musings from Armando Saldaņa
Mora
South Park Revisited
"Gonna go to South Park gonna leave my woes behind..."
Reading my own postage on Dramanalysing (I too love the term!) South Park I feel I need
to clarify something:
What I'm stating is that the whole Main Character throughline is reduced in this show
to a cartoon depiction of a rock singer reciting just six verses... And that's it!
How can this work as a Main character throughline?
Because Les Claypool (singer of the band "Primus" and Main Character in
question) has a history of dark-satirical-critical songs about the American southern
workers and their culture and environment. And that's what the show is all about.
So, Les Claypool backstory is so well known (I repeat, to the focused viewer, the
dark-satirical-critical viewer, the Primus fan) that it instantly becomes a Main Character
view of the show.
To give a less obscure example of how this weaving technique works, let's suppose that
we're about to watch a film about the virtues of eating red meat, and in the first seconds
appears our Presenter: Paul McCartney himself!
His only words could be: (Cockney accent) "Hello, I'm Paul McCartney, what you're
about to see is a film about the virtues of eating animal flesh. Enjoy."
Bam! In a second you have a complete Main Character view. It won't matter if the film
sings hallelujahs to eating animal protein. Paul McCartney vision is already there. A
figure so well known, with an attitude so clear about the film subject matter can't be
ignored. You'll have to identify with him just because is so much well known than the
views of the featured film.
Detached Main characters like that tend to be steadfast, because we can't see their
reactions when the story is completely exposed. But we can temper their views in terms of
Outcome and Judgement. So the Main Character remained steadfast, but the meat eaters had
such a huge success in the film that Paul looses.
There's another point: maybe you hate Paul McCartney guts to begin with, maybe you were
a Creedence or Rolling Stones fan and can bear the sight of Macca. Then the Main Character
doesn't have a chance to redeem himself, and the whole movie you'll be rooting for the guy
with the steak knife, just because you didn't agree with the Main Character famous
backstory.
I mean, the detached Main Character technique is a dangerous one (even if you don't
depend on the past history of a famous rock star) but it shows another way of weaving our
beloved throughlines.
|
Index of Dramatica Theory
Materials
Storymind.com is pleased to present this collection of materials about the Dramatica
Theory of Story. We hope you find it both useful and through-provoking.
This information is divided into three sections:
The Dramatica Theory
A complete exploration of the theory in every detail
Historic Documents
The development of Dramatica from the beginning
Speculations
Dramatica applied to psychology, physics, religion and more
The
Dramatica Theory
Dramatica
Theory Book Online
Free online edition of the 400+ page book, Dramatica: A
New theory of Story, in which Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley
originally
documented their work.
Dramatica
Dictionary
Official definitions of all terms in the
Dramatica theory and software.
Dramatica
Writing Tips
Useful and informative articles on how to
approach and employ both the Dramatica Theory and Software.
Constructive
Criticisms
Practical illustrations of how applying the
Dramatica theory could have made some well-known successful story's
even better!
Dramatica
Q & A
Answers to questions from users of the Dramatica
Theory and Software.
Instant
Dramatica
Even more directly practical essays on using
Dramatica for real-world writing situations and problems provided by
noted screenwriter Armando Saldaņa Mora.
Historic
Documents
Dramatica
- The Lost Theory Book
Early attempts to document the theory, including
many unfinished conjectures and false starts.
Dramatica
Development Archives
Early documents created during the development
of the foundations of Dramatica. Often later discarded, they
show the roots of the thinking that ultimately evolved into the theory
as it stands today.
Speculations
Deep
Theory
Transcript of a class on the outer fringes of
Dramatica Theory I taught as part of a now-defunct Dramatica
Certification course.
Dramatica
Math
A mathematician takes a stab at describing the
Dramatica model in terms of dimensional distortions.
Mental
Relativity
An exploration of the theory of psychology
modeling which grew out of the development of Dramatica.
Dramatica
I Ching
Several of our users have noticed a similarity
between the character grid in Dramatica and the elements of the
traditional I Ching. Though unintentional, perhaps all models
that look deeply into the mind will resemble each other.
Our
Most Popular Products
|
|
|
