Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips

A Tale is a Statement

A Tale is a Statement

There are two forces that converged to create story structure as we know it today. 　One was an attempt to document our motivations and behaviors, the other is to affect motivations and behavior.

In the first case, storytellers simply noted what they saw, both within their own hearts and minds and in society – both individuals and groups. 　When they did, the underlying conventions of story structure emerged as truisms that delineated the basic drives and thought processes we all share in common. 　Any story that missed one had a hole. 　Any story that inaccurately portrayed one had an inconsistency. 　And we see these same problems today when someone says “The plot had a hole big enough to drive a truck through,” or “Why did they do that? 　Nobody in his right mind would do that!”

In the second case, storytellers have an agenda: to change the way people think and/or act. 　To this end, the telling of stories evolved into two forms. 　The first of these is the Tale, which is a linear form of communication. 　Tales begin with one situation and state of mind, then follow the characters through a series of events that leads to another situation and state of mind. 　The message of a tale is “If you follow this path, you’ll end up better off (or worse off) than if you didn’t take the journey.

Tales, like fairy tales, are often cautionary tales, meaning that they describe a set of behaviors that will lead to something bad. 　Message being: don’t take this course in life or you will seriously regret it. 　This is the most simple form of reader/audience manipulation. 　As long as the series of events is unbroken by logical gaps and makes sense AND the emotional/thought processes of the characters follow a real, human linearity, then the reader/audience is likely to buy into the message (unless they have experience to the contrary).

But, if the reader/audience does have contrary experience, then they may reject the author’s contention and argue that other paths exist that might be even better (or worse) than the one proposed. 　To counter that rebuttal to his or her tale statement, an author would need to argue the point by proving (to reader/audience satisfaction) that the rebuttal is not as accurate as the original statement. 　The steps necessary to make that argument lead us into a different form of manipulation communication, the story, which we will cover in the next lesson.

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Introducing the Story Mind

About this video…

This is the first episode of a 113 part program I originally recorded in 1999 as a webcast, when such events were cutting edge, technologically.  All these years later, it remains my best and most complete description of the Dramatica Theory of Story Structure and covers all key concepts and how to apply them to your novel, screenplay or any form of expression in fiction.

Though our understanding of the nuances and ramifications of the theory have grown in time, all the essential notions have remained unchanged, and are just as valuable and useful today as when I sat in front of my massive CRT monitor and shared them with my internet audience from my living room.

With this short glimpse into the past to set the stage, here is a textual exploration of the material covered in this first episode, informed by fifteen additional years of exploration and familiarity with the theory.

Introducing the Story Mind

When we write a story, it takes on a personality of its own, as if it were a real person in its own right.  There is a reason for this.  Every character represents a different aspect of our own minds, so when they all come together in a story, it begins to act like us, influenced by all those conflicting facets that determine our overall motivation and behavior.

From a theory stand point it is a bit more complicated than that.  Each of us has the same basic attributes: reason, skepticism and conscience, for example.  We use them all to try and solve problems and maximize happiness in our everyday lives.  When we come together in a group toward a common purpose, we gradually self- organize until one person emerges as the voice of reason, another as the skeptic, and another as the conscience of the group.

This is just good survival strategy because if each of use becomes a specialist, collectively the group will be able to see the problem (and potential solutions) far more clearly than if everyone sat around doing all the same jobs as general practitioners.

As it turns out, since member of a group come to play the role of just one part of ourselves, the group as a whole becomes something of a fractal mind – a larger version of what goes on in our own head and hearts.

Our breakthrough that led to the Dramatica theory was a Eureka moment in which we realized stories weren’t just about people trying to accomplish something, but that the full complement of characters created a greater mind – a Story Mind that had just as much of a personality as any individual.

That, of course, is a gross simplification appropriate to this introduction.  In truth, it took us three solid years of full-time effort (from 1991 to 1994) to take that insight, use it as a filter through which to examine the conventions of story structure and then document and clarify all of the aspects of human psychology they illuminated.

The end result was a conceptual model not only of story structure, but of the human mind itself.  By 1994, we had converted our model into equations and algorithms that described the relationships among human thought processes, and implemented them in software as a Story Engine that became the Dramatica line of story development products.

Very complex, to be sure!  But the important element is the simple understanding that in real life,people come together in groups and self-organize as a larger model of the mind in which each plays a role, and that the conventions of story structure reflect this in the individual characters and, collectively, in the overall personality of the story itself.

You can view all 113 episodes of this original program for just $19.95

Click here to view nine sample videos for free

Dramatica Theory vs. Practical Application

My response to a Dramatica consultant who lamented the gap between the theoretical concepts of our narrative model and its practical application:

Yeah, its tough to get a handle on this stuff, mainly because there’s a big difference between the model and the results it produces. The model is as far away from narrative or even psychology as you can get. It’s physics, really. That’s pretty far afield from writing story. The next level down from understanding how and why the model works is to understand how to use it and its results for narrative (or real world) analysis. That is the realm of the Dramatica consultant. Why it works isn’t important and how it was created is even less important than that. But, to know what each of the story points really means, how it differs from its brothers, and how to apply it in a practical way in the construction and deconstruction of stories is where the value is for almost everyone except those few nerds who must know the why and wherefore, including myself in that socially inept, detail worshiping gang of misfits.

Deep Dive into Narrative Theory (with a half-twist)

What’s my day job? I just got this question from a Dramatica user, and my answer follows…

A Dramatica user asked:

The layout of the archetypal characters are the same in Situation and Manipulation, but different in Activity and Attitude. In attitude the dynamic pairs are all in the same quads, which makes the archetypes in that domain both dynamic and dependent. In all the others, they are dynamic, but dependent with others. In Situation and Manipulation this is the same relationship, but in Activity it is different. I’m just now noticing, so I am not even sure what it means yet. It’s like I have spent three years in math and finally see the pattern of quadratic equations. 😉

My reply:

I wish I could give you an easy answer, but the fact is, the arrangement of the elements on the bottom level was the single most complex part of the design of the structural part of the model. Reason being, it is where the helical pattern of the lateral iterations of the non-linear equations that define each position in the model temporally, intersect with the linear breakdown of the psychological processes from the top to the bottom into increasing detail and granularity, even while drifting off “true” spatially. This creates an interference pattern at the interface between space and time along the continuum, essentially the same kind of organized anarchy you find at the event horizon of a black hole. Light bends, time distorts, space is warped and matter simultaneously exists and does not exist. Think of it as Schrodinger’s purgatory.

In terms of the psychology of story, all four element levels are really the same thing, seen from the four different points of view of the four classes and distorted by the four levels of detail. But, at that level, you are so far around the progression of the quad of your thinking, that you are almost standing behind yourself looking at the back of your left ear. And so the helices break down as well as the linearity. That’s why no level of familiarity with TKAD or with the iterations will allow the pattern to be seen. It is only by calculating the impact of those two systems on one another (though in normal psychology they never interact any more than the inside and outside of a black hole) that the actual pattern can be discerned, which, to the “normal” eye will appear chaotic in normal negative space/time.

Make of it what you will, but it is God’s own truth.

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How to Reform the Pattern of Pain

Here’s a little tip from narrative psychology theory you can use in everyday life:

When pressure is put upon the heart, the mind, it is like pumping up pressure in any closed vessel – it heats up, in this case with psychological energy. And that energy softens the pre-existing shape of the heart/mind so that is can conform to the shape of the pressures, and thereby avoid further pain.

When the pain stops, the pressure stops, and like any closed vessel in which the pressure is released, it cools quickly, freezing the heart/mind into this new pattern, which will continue to sustain unending, even if the original source of the pain is gone.

Only by warming that pattern up, a small bit at a time, in a safe setting and under your own control can you soften the shape within you that you wish to change and gradually siphon off the pain as you re-mold it into a pattern of peace and self-acceptance.

–Melanie Anne Phillips

Write Your Novel Step by Step (25) “Who’s Your Main Character?”

Of all your cast, there is one very special player: the Main Character. Your Main Character is the one your story seems to be about – the one with whom your readers most identify – in short, the single most important character in your novel.

You probably already know who your Main Character is. If, so, you’ll find this step opens opportunities to avoid stereotyping him or her. If you haven’t yet selected your Main Character, this step will help you choose one from your cast list.

First, your Main Character is not necessarily your protagonist. While the protagonist is the prime mover of the effort to achieve the story goal, the Main Character is the one who grapples with an inner dilemma, personal issue or has some aspect of his or her belief system come under attack.

Most writers combine these two functions into a single player (a hero) who is both protagonist and Main Character in order to position their readers right at the heart of the action, as in the Harry Potter series.

Still, there are good reasons for not always blending the two. In the book and movie To Kill A Mockingbird, the protagonist is Atticus – a southern lawyer trying to acquit a young black man wrongly accused of rape. That is the basic plot of the story.

But the Main Character is Atticus’ young daughter, Scout. While the overall story is about the trial, that is really just a background to Scout’s experiences as we see prejudice through her eyes – a child’s eyes.

In this way, the author (Dee Harper) distances us from the incorruptible Atticus so that we do not feel all self-righteous. And, by making Scout effectively prejudiced against Boo Radley (the scary “boogie man” who lives down the street), we see how easily we can all become prejudiced by fearing what we really know nothing about.

In the end, Boo turns out to be Scout’s secret protector, and the story’s message about both the evils and ease of prejudice is made.

Your story may be best suited to center around a typical hero, especially if it is an action story or physical journey story. But if you are writing more of an exploration novel in which the plot unfolds as a background against which a personal journey of self-discovery or a resolution of personal demons is told, then separating your Main Character from the protagonist (and the heart of the action) may serve you better.

Armed with this understanding, review the cast you have chosen for your novel. If you have already selected a Main Character, see if they are a hero who is also the protagonist, driving the action. If so, consider splitting those functions into two players to see if it might enhance your story for your readers. If you have already set up a separate Main Character and protagonist, consider combining them into a hero, to see if that might streamline your story.

If you have not yet chosen a Main Character and/or a protagonist, review your cast list to see if one player would best do both jobs or if one would better drive the plot and the other would better carry the message.

When you have made your choices, write a brief paragraph about your Main Character and/or protagonist to explain how those two functions are satisfied by your chosen character or characters.

This article is one of the 200 interactive steps in

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