To many, the Dramatica concepts seem arbitrary and forced. At times the learning curve may seem detrimental towards the act of writing a unique story - a story from the heart. But if you think about it, our hearts can get in the way of our best intentions.
All meaning comes from context. Change the context and you change the meaning.
This line (from an early issue of Dramatica Storyforming1) should be a tagline on the box for Dramatica. Why? Because that is all the software was designed to do: keep the context, and therefore the meaning of your story, constant. That’s all there is to it.
At first Dramatica may seem like a taskmaster. You have to have an Impact Character. He or she has to have a relationship with the Main Character. Your Objective Story needs Costs and Dividends. You have to follow a Four Act Plot Progression. There are a lot of rules, and sometimes, especially when first diving into it, these rules seem forced and unnatural. At times they even feel “made up,” as if they’re some elaborate ruse designed to sell unnecessary software.
But the opposite is true: we need the software for one reason and one reason only: our minds are terrible at holding context.
Keep the context consistent and you’ll have a meaningful story
It’s a fact of nature that one of our greatest strengths as a species is our ability to shift context. Our ability to swiftly adapt and change the meaning of what we see has been a great ally in our quest to survive. But this ability can also be a detriment, especially in the course of writing a story.
Stories exist for one purpose: to give an audience meaning. If we’re constantly shifting the context around, how can an audience possibly synthesize the meaning? Remember: change the context, change the meaning. Unfortunately, this great survival skill has forced more than one attempt at a great story off the road of audience approval.
The Dramatica appreciations (all those confusing terms like Symptom, Response, Costs, Prerequisites) are simply there to keep the context of a story steady.
For instance, yesterday I wrote about the Story Limit in Speed and how breaking that limit led to great disappointment. That same issue of Storyforming went on to say:
The purpose of [a Story Limit] is to provide an audience with a way to gauge the limits (or scope) of a story. Since all meaning comes from context (change the context and you change the meaning), a story’s limit is one way an audience has to get a handle on the story’s meaning. It also acts as a way for an audience to tell when (or where) a story is completed. In this way, the limit provides an audience a way to measure the progress of a story AS IT EXPERIENCES IT. This is a very important point. If the audience is misled for a significant period of time as to what the scope of the story is, then all of its interpretation of the events get messed up.
So the Story Limit is not an arbitrary concept thrown in there to simply complicate the idea of “the ticking clock.” It’s not there to sell you software or to convince you into paying for weekend seminars. It’s there to communicate the meaning of your story. If you’re trying to provide an audience with meaning, then you need to clarify the scope of that argument.
And that’s why every other appreciation that you are presented with is important. They are there to keep the meaning of your story from wavering.
When you set out to write a story, you have something you’d like to say, something you want to get across, something that can only be said through the magic of storytelling. Sometimes you discover this through the course of writing, other times you know exactly what it is you want to say before you even boot up that laptop. It is with the latter that Dramatica shines. Once you “plug-in” that meaning, the software will keep you on the straight and narrow path towards ensuring audience comprehension.
Whether or not they’ll love it is entirely up to your own talent.
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5 responses so far ↓
1 Nigel // Jun 30, 2007 at 11:27 pm
I’ve spent a lot of time reading your post, and I want to do more than ask you to explain it more clearly, but I am confused.
I think my problem is the definition of context. You say change the context and you change the meaning, but from my reading of Dramatica it’s strength is that it provides meaning outside of context. By this I mean it talks of the possibility of creating a complete story form without first needing to have the usual elements of a story - locations, setting, place and so on. The story structure once created can be applied to many different worlds. Aren’t these worlds or symbols the context of the story? Of have I completely miss-understood the term context? Can you help?
One other thing which I’ve found very useful is a definition of ‘meaning’ which comes from Stephen King. He brought it up when describing the use of the writers visual imagination - rather than saying what does something mean, chose ‘what does it make me think of?’ I love the clarity this definition gives me by not having to translate the word ‘meaning’, but taking me straight to a thought process. Try it when looking at a film. When I see an image or a symbol, or an interesting camera angle, in a film (or devise one of my own) by simply exploring ‘what it makes me think of’ takes me out of literary theory and into a very solid world of creation.
2 Chris Huntley // Jul 2, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I think I can answer this one. In Dramatica, context is defined as that which surrounds something and gives it meaning. Another way of seeing context is as a frame of reference.
The context or frame of reference Dramatica provides surrounds the circumstances of the “problem/inequity” at the heart of your story. In order to explore a “problem” and argue how to and how not to resolve it in a story, an author must create a context within which that argument holds true.
Why is this necessary? It is needed because there are no inherent Truths (capital T) in the story world. In that place the author is God and makes or unmakes ALL THE RULES.
For example, take a moment to think of something you believe is absolute. Write down as many as you can think of in a minute.
Done? OK, now think of “contexts” within which those absolutes do not hold true. For example, I might say that I have to breathe is an absolute. Of course, that ASSUMES I want to live. If I don’t want to live then I don’t have to breathe. Change the context and things looks differently.
In Dramatica, an author makes all sorts of context choices to create a framework we call the storyform. The storyform is subject matter independent. You can examine ANYTHING with any storyform. The difference between storyforms is what you have to say ABOUT the subject matter.
For example, choosing a story outcome of success says something about the subject matter that is different than choosing failure. Limiting the scope of the story by limiting the amount of time available to resolve the problem (timelock) provides a different context within which to solve a problem with a limited number of options (optionlock).
Each storyforming choice you make builds the framework/context within which the subject matter of your story is explored. Each storyforming choice adds a layer of meaning to that exploration.
So, when you choose to create a success story, “what does it make you think of?”
– Chris
3 James Hull // Jul 2, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Nigel,
I was taking the weekend to try and think of some way of answering your question, but I think Chris just did it best.
For me, it was only once I fully understood the idea that without context there is no meaning that I was able to “let go” of Dramatica so to speak. In other words I stopped worrying about what all the terms meant and instead just accepted them as markers or reference points along a point of view (context).
The definition of meaning that Stephen King writes about sounds more like a great storytelling device (and is thus more conducive to creativity).
Dramatica is more like a context-holding machine - a super powerful tool that you can hold up to your eyes to look at a story.
4 Nigel // Jul 6, 2007 at 6:02 am
Chris, James - thanks so much for your help.
I’ve probably been spending longer studying Dramatica than I care to recall (OK, maybe 5 years) but I’ve stuck with it because in moments of clarity it does impress me as being right.
The fact that I find it difficult to understand is a completely separate issue, relating to how I (as a human being) merge context and meaning, and shift context, as a matter of course.
I’ll keep at it.
(by the way, I would have responded sooner but my Google RSS Reader doesn’t seem to update me when a comment is posted).
5 James Hull // Jul 6, 2007 at 10:57 am
Glad to help!
As far as notifying you, I haven’t set up an RSS feed specifically for Comments, so thats why you weren’t updated.
I did have a check box at the bottom of the comments that would notify you by email when a comment was posted to a specific thread. I just noticed that for some reason it’s gone now…I’ll have to look into that.
UPDATE: OK, got it reinstalled. Now, if there’s a post you’re interested in keeping up with, just click the box marked “Notify me of followup comments” and you will be emailed with someone posts something new.
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