Dramatica Weekend Workshop Syllabus

9 STORY RECEPTION

Definition of Reception:

Reception describes how a story’s impact is changed due to personality of the audience

Communication or Collaboration*

Audience as author

Author as audience

 

Who is your audience*

Writing for oneself

Writing for “the world”

Writing for a definable group

 

Modern Groups as Disposable Tribes

What binds a group*

The “captive” audience

Is it symbolic or nonsense*

 

Cultural specificity

Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story

Cyrano de Bergerac/Roxanne

 

Demographics

The ethnic audience

Political Correctness

Ethnicentricity

Ethnic portability

Age groups

Children’s stories

Men’s and Women’s stories

Mental Sex, Limit, and “Positioning”

Sub-cultures

 

Author’s Intent

 

Stated Agenda

Hidden Agenda

Educate

Bias

Persuade

Pander

Provoke

Incite

Manipulate

Propagandize

 

 

Reception of Character

Stereotypes vs. Archetypes

Known actor

Typecasting

* Video Clip: Typecasting: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.

Cross-typing

* Video Clip: Cross-typing: Arnold Schwarzenegger in Junior.

 

Reception of Theme

Favored standards of evaluation

Cultural blind spots

* Video Clip: Cultural blind spots: The Big Chill.

 

Reception of Plot

Favored archetypal plots

Newsworthy event - TV movies

* Video Clip: Newsworthy event: Alive.

 

Reception of Genre

Genre: a mixed bag

Sociopolitical taboos

* Video Clip: Sociopolitical taboos: Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?

 

Audience Expectations

“Generations”

* Video Clip: Audience expectations: Star Trek Generations.

 

Multi-story Works

Substories

Subplots et al

* Video Clip: Substories: Han Solo in Star Wars.

 

Parallel stories with collective impact

Parallel stories with independent impact

 

Propaganda

Thelma & Louise

* Video Clip: Propaganda: Thelma and Louise.

Closed and Open stories

* Video Clip: The meaning of “Rosebud”: Citizen Kane.

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Table of Contents

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

StoryWeaver Story Development Software

By far, our most popular product, outselling all of our other products combined!  StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process--from initial inspiration to completed novel or screenplay.  At just $29.95, StoryWeaver is affordable for any writer.  (Details)


Movie Magic Screenwriter

is one of two industry standard word processing screenplay formatters, the other being Final Draft.  Each of these programs offers a complete suite of screenwriting tools to make your next script a breeze to write.  (Details


Dramatica Pro

Unlike any other story development product, Dramatica Pro uses a patented Story Engine to interactively help you build a structure, find and fix dramatica holes and inconsistencies.  (Details)


20 Hour Writing Course on CD ROM

This intense program features 20 hours of video documenting the entire college-level course in creative writing given by Melanie Anne Phillips, creator of StoryWeaver and co-creator of Dramatica.  Just $19.95  (Details)

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