Scientific Endeavors

Narrative Science

Most of my adult life has been spent in the pursuit of an understanding of narrative and its affect on psychology, sociology, and our perception of the physical universe.  Since 1991 it has been my full-time career.

At that time, my creative partner, Chris Huntley, and I began an intensive effort to document the elements of story structure and then to build a dynamic model of the functioning of narrative as a system of fiction.

The first result of our work was a book entitled Dramatica – A New Theory of Story.that outlined, in 350 pages a completely new model of narrative much as Crick and Watson described a model of DNA.

The most practical result of our work was a  predictive Story Engine that could sequence the genome of any given narrative and project its course and content.  This became the basis of  a popular line of software products, also called Dramatica,  that enabled authors to find holes and inconsistencies in their narratives could suggest the best way to fill and fix them.

Ultimately, we were called upon by a variety of United States intelligence agencies to use our model to understand the motivations driving terrorist organizations and unfriendly nations, and to project their likely future behavior in a variety of what-if scenarios and alternative futures.

Click on Dramatica – How We Did It for a memoir of the early days of discovering the unknown, and use the links below to delve deeply into the nature and essence of narrative both in fiction and the real world.

Links to collections of my work on narrative

Storymind

My primary web site for information related to Dramatica, including hundreds of articles on Creative Writing and Narrative Science.

Storymind on YouTube

Scores of hour documenting the Dramatica theory and advancing beyond it into all realms of narrative science in the real world.

The Storymind Writers’ Library

This site presents the best of my essential essays on Creative Writing, Story Development, Story Structure, and Narrative Science.

Dramaticapedia

This site provides an extensive collection of articles and videos focused specifically on Dramatica and its narrative implications