breaking down the art of storytelling

The move is over and now I've finally got full time access to my Dramatica notebooks. Scanned through the first one and found a really interesting observation. This one is from a weekend workshop I took way back in October of 1998. Melanie Anne Phillips, the other co-creator of the theory, was the instructor. I have pages and pages of notes from the workshop, but unfortunately, not much of it is comprehensible 7 years later. (If you've ever listened to a tape or taken a class from Melanie then you know how fast she can talk when she gets going!)

This is what I jotted down in my notebook:

The Structure of Storytelling

As with a lot of things in Dramatica, “making up stories” can be seen as a state and as a process.  From the state perspective you have the structure of your story.  From top to bottom on the chart above you have Character, Plot, Theme, and Genre.  In creating a story these things are constant - you know, what you want to get across - how you want the audience to feel and think.

From the perspective of process you have the art of StoryTelling.  Again, from top to bottom you have StoryForming, StoryEncoding, StoryWeaving, and StoryReception.  And yes, I did say art, because even though Dramatica breaks down writing into these four precise movements, there is still an art to how the author proceeds through them.  How you do these four things determines how you’re going to give the story to your audience.

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About the Author

Jim Hull is clearly fanatical when it comes to great storytelling. When he's not analyzing films or reading great books on his Kindle, Jim prefers to spend his time fulfilling his obligations as a character animator.  Read more ⇒

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This article was filed under Story Theory: The articles in this section examine the theoretical concepts behind stories and storytelling. A significant emphasis is placed on the Dramatica theory of story as it currently is the most accurate model available.


Concepts discussed in this article include: story encoding, story reception, story weaving, storyforming.

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