Ever wonder why there are only 12 questions?

If everything in Dramatica is based around the quad - shouldn’t there be 16 questions?

There are only 12 questions because it is a justified view. It’s the only way you can have meaning. If you are going to make an argument (which Dramatica takes as a given when you are writing a Grand Argument Story) then you have to have a frame of reference. You have to have a bias and a place you stand on from which to appreciate everything else.

In Dramatica, particularly the software, the bias is of the Male Mental Sex, American perspective. This is the perspective that is not being reconsidered. Just like we have our own Self-Awareness, a story has one as well, the Audience Reception point. And further, just as we blend 2 items in a quad (Desire and Ability for Male, Knowledge and Ability for Female), the Dramatica perspective of a story blends 2 items as well.

Chris guesses that these 2 items would be the story’s Structure and the Story Points that appear on that structure. You can’t really see the Story Points separate from the Structure, even though they probably do exist in some bizarre pattern. But the way they are arranged in Dramatica is such that they are connected inseparably, so you can’t really understand one without the other.

So the four questions that are missing are the Genre questions. We have the four Character questions (Resolve, Growth, Approach, Mental Sex), we have the four Plot questions (Driver, Limit, Outcome, Judgment), and we have the four Theme questions (Throughline, Concern, Issue, and Problem).

There are four Genre-type questions in the theory, but because they are blended they don’t exactly work the same - mainly because they rely on the other 12 for their answers. These are the Audience Appreciations found at the bottom the Story Points Window - the Nature, Essence, Tendency and Reach. But again, they’re not wholly independent because you are getting that blended view. That’s where the Blind Spot (the frame of reference) is in the Dramatica model - where the viewer (or reader) is in a Dramatica story.

It’s a Blind Spot because you don’t question why you are writing a story - what’s your purpose? Well, because Dramatica assumes you are trying to make an argument (writing a Grand Argument Story) that is the purpose that is no longer being considered. If you didn’t have this frame of reference the story would have no meaning. (There is no meaning without context!). The purpose of Dramatica is to write Grand Argument Stories.

Character is all about Drive (the Motivations), Plot is all about the Methodologies, Theme is about the Evaluations, and Genre is all about the Purpose.

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