Letters To Dramatica

Questions or comments about the Dramatica theory or software?
Email Melanie@storymind.com

 

A Writer Asks...

I have just recently purchased Dramitica Pro and had some q's i am hoping you can answer.

*Define your use of the word ILLUSTRATE in the various stages of story encoding

Melanie Replies...

"Illustrate" means to come up with any kind of symbol that is exemplery (or centers on or outlines or surrounds) each dramatica "appreciation" in a story form. So, for conceptual appreciations such as "goal" it would mean to come up with the specific nature of the story's goal that would fall within the category of say, "obtaining", if that had been the selection.

The encoding stage has nothing to do with the actual writing that will become a part of a screenplay, novel, or whatever. It has everything to do with visualizing the specific implementation of an appreciation by fleshing out the raw category into a tangible manifestation.

In the example above, if the goal were chosen as "obtaining" then encoding would be determining if the goal were finding the treasure, obtaining someone's love, obtaining a diploma - anything at all that is "obtaining" rather than, say, "becoming".

If we look at a storyform as a skeleton, encoding puts flesh and blood on it. The flesh is the nature of the structural appreciations, the blood is the nature of the dynamic appreciations, such as acts or scenes.

Still, the story is not in motion until we move on to Storyweaving. Here, the word "illustrate" takes on a different meaning. Now, instead of illustrating the Storyform, we have to illustrate the encoding!

Suppose the goal is to Obtain a treasure. Okay, how do you tell that to your audience? Do you come right out and say it in the first scene? Do you trick the audience into thinking the goal is something else and then let them in on the secret? Do you illustrate the goal by bringing it up in several different scenes in a story, of is it more like Hitchcock's McGuffin, which gets the chase started and then is never heard of again until the end of the story?

How you choose to do this comprises the process of "illustrating" in Storyweaving.

*Can a do-er change to a be-er over the course of the story (and vice > versa). Also, I'm having a problem changing one character from be-er to do-er at my particular stage of story encoding (seems I'm locked in)

The choice of do-er or be-er describes the Main Character's preference - not necessarily what circumstances allow them. For example, a do-er in a Decision story will be like a fish out of water, always trying to take action to resolve obstacles when what is needed is internal work to set an example or adopt an attitude. Such a character will try to resolve the obstacles in his or her preferential way until, as a last resort they may give in and work at it in the way he or she finds more uncomfortable.

So, any character can respond either way at any point in the story, but it is important the audience know what the character's preferential way of responding is, and that your plot is devised in such a way to force that character into the non-preferential way if that is how you want them to go.

*I'm finding similar (identical) questions in the story encoding stages i.e. story goal and OS concern. Why?

There are some appreciations which are second level. That is to say, they are appreciations of appreciations. Goal is such. Concern (in the Objective story) is descriptive of the broad category in which all of the objective characters' principal concerns can be found. For example, a Concern of Obtaining might have one character concerned with obtaining a diploma and another concerned with otaining a raise at work. In each case, "obtaining" describes their concerns, but the encoding is unique to each.

In contrast, Goal is the singly encoded concern SHARED by ALL of the objective characters. Some may be for it and some against, but all share an interest in that singular concern which is, by definition, the story's Goal. It doesn't have to be the prinicpal concern of all the characters, but the common concern.

In stories, it is possible to have any one of the four throughline's Concerns be the story Goal. This is a matter of which throughline the author wants to emphasize - where the author wants the most commentary as the story unfolds.

Note that if all the other characters are focused on the Main Character's concern, that begins to feel a lot like the Objective Concen, even though it is really the story Goal. Because of this complexity, we have not included that level of sophistication in the Dramatica software. We felt it was more important for writers to become familiar with the basics of this extensive new paradigm called Dramatica before layering on the details and nuance. So, in the software, Goal will ALWAYS be doubled up with the Objective Story Concern. Later, when our terminology becomes a little more second nature, future versions will likely include that kind of control.

*Can you skip over some of the story encoding questions to answer one's further down the list that you know or at least understand? Also, do you have to answer all the story encoding questions, or does Dramatica fill in the blanks at a certain point?

Because the Dramatica Story Engine is non-linear, it is more like a Rubik's Cube of Story Elements you can twist and turn by answering questions. The pattern you create is completely in your control, yet you may not be able to predict what is going to happen on the backside of the cube after a few moves until you look to see what's there.

As a result of this holistic approach to a model of story, you can answer the questions in any order and skip over any questions you would like. When you have answered enough, the cube "freezes" because you have made choices about your pattern on enough sides in enough detail that only one combination of pieces can do the job. That is your Storyform.

As for filling in the encoding, Dramatica will never do that. It can fill in the Storyforming to make sure the "cube" is accurate, but since any given appreciation can be encoded in an infinite number of ways, there is no way for Dramatica to draw on that potential without a database.

At the MIT Media Lab, they are working on building such a database. Someday, this might work in conjunction with the story structuring capacity of Dramatica, but for now, what MIT's Cray supercomputers need to do with gigabytes of databases for Storyencoding, Dramatica is able to do for Storyforming on your desktop with a basic, story-engine core that is only 27 kilobytes in size!.

*Should one just forge ahead even though he/she might not understand or agree with the choices made by dramatica?

One should just forge ahead when he/she does not understand, but not when he/she disagrees. Because using Dramatica for the first few times is a major learning process, chugging along without complete understanding keeps the learning process from bogging down. But if one disagrees with a choice from a perspective of understanding, then clearly the Storyform being created is not reflective of the story the author wants to tell.

This can occur because of two reasons: one, earlier choices which were made arbitrarily have now limited the remaining choices in such a way that something truly important. Two, the author is not being consistent in his/her view of the story and is trying to cram in something that doesn't fit with what is already chosen.

In the first scenario, simply start with different questions - the ones that are most important. In the second, make a choice as to which of two incompatible concepts is most important. In the end, your story will be more consistent and your message therefore more coherant.

*What is your definition of an intermediate writer in regards to the writers dreamkit? Should I have started with the dreamkit? I've written three screenplays, with numerous rewrites, not exactly what you call professional.What are the real differences between the two (beyond the standard reply of "less steps")?

Both the Writer's DreamKit and Dramatica Pro include the Dramatica Writing System. This system is an interactive program consisting of a book, worksheets, and a special path in the software which is designed for beginning writers, or writers beginning with Dramatica. It is designed to carry an author from concept to completion of a finished story in the form of a story sequence order treatment at scene resolution.

So, either product is ideal for beginning and intermediate writers. Once the basic concepts of Dramatica have become familiar, however, Dramatica Pro offers much more detail and many more dramatic appreciations for authors who wish to follow their own path in story creation using Dramatica's Story Engine directly.

*Hope this is the proper channel to get these q's answered.

Seems to be!

Thanks.

Welcome! :)

Melanie