What is Dramatica? Dramatica is a theory of story that offers both writers and critics a clear view of what story structure is and how it works. Dramatica is also the inspiration behind the line of story development software products that bear its name. The central concept of the Dramatica theory is a notion called […]
What’s “Ability” have to do with story structure? In this article I’m going to talk about how the Dramatica Theory of Narrative Structure uses the term “ability” and how it applies not only to story structure and characters but to real people, real life and psychology as well. If you look in Dramatica’s “Periodic Table […]
A Dramatica student asks: In Dramatica theory, are all Objective Characters be-ers and all Subjective Characters do-ers? My reply: No, there is no assignment of be-er or do-er to objective characters at all. Objective Characters, such as the archetypes, are all defined by their functions only, when seen in terms of structure. Naturally, in storytelling, […]
Recently, an associate suggested a tie-in between cognitive modeling of cultural storytelling preferences and Dramatica that might, someday, provide guidelines for “writing the next Star Wars.” This, for me, opened the whole discussion regarding the relationship between story structure and storytelling – specifically in this case, between our Dramatica theory of narrative and cognitive modeling […]
by Chris Huntley I spent nearly sixteen years avoiding reading anything of substance by (Hollywood) story theorists such as Syd Field, John Truby, Christopher Vogler, Robert McKee and others. As co-creator of the Dramatica theory of story, I didn’t want to influence my development of Dramatica so I avoided direct interaction with competing theories. In […]
Analyzing and Predicting the Activities of Groups & Organizations By Melanie Anne Phillips Based on theories developed by Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley Introduction to Dramatica Theory and Applications The Dramatica Theory of Story is a model of the mind’s problem solving processes which has been successfully employed for seventeen years in the analysis […]
In this second article in the Dynamic Model series, I’m going to explore really intriguing problem – how particles can be transmuted into waves and vice versa. Why this important to writers and even more important to psychologists and social scientists may not be immediately apparent, so first I’ll outline its potential usefulness and also […]
This is the first in a series of articles I’ll be writing about a whole different way of looking at the Dramatica theory – in terms of dynamics, rather than structure. In fact, the dynamic model is a counterpart, not an alternative, to the existing structural model with which you may be familiar. As an […]
In an earlier post I described how the term “narrative space” refers to the breadth and depth of the subject matter from which you will develop a story. Like a cloud, the subject matter is just the raw material – a nebulous realm in which many story structures might be found. Think of a story […]
In the early 1990s we developed a new theory of narrative called Dramatica. Since it touched on the psychology of story structure, we believed that it might also be applied to the psychologies of real people as well as fictional ones. As background for this hypothesis, Dramatica theory holds that every story has a mind […]
You must be logged in to post a comment.