Now that I’m retired, some of my posts will be short text pieces with no pictures (like this one) that provide sound-bite style glimpses into the working of narrative structure, both in fiction and in the real world – all based on the theory of narrative structure developed by my partner and myself thirty years ago. Our associate named it the Dramatica theory, and it later became the basis for the Dramatica software used by hundreds of thousands of writers around the world.

So, here’s the first sound-bite about narrative structure. Prepare to have your mind blown, one post at a time.

Narrative structure is not an artificial construct. It is a map of human psychology. The structure of every story is the psychology of the story itself, as if it were a super-character of which all the other characters are facets. Structure is the psychology of this Story Mind and Storytelling develops its personality.

And, narrative is the very same map or pattern that describes how we all function as facets of the many Story Minds in our own lives, group minds large and small, such as our family, our department at work, a club we belong to, fellow fans of a sports team or television show, our state in the nation, our sense of belonging to our nation, in short: any organization gathered together toward a common purpose – any group that develops an identity.

These words are golden. Mark them, learn them, look for the next short blurb as this 68 year old retired narrative theorist shares the greatest insights I’ve discovered in more than a third of a century of cracking the narrative code.

As we shall see… Dramatica is the real Future History. How’s that for a Foundation?