it all started with a napkin

June 1, 2005

Today we talked about the first concepts of Dramatica. For some reason, I have always been fascinated with how this theory was created and what were the first steps. My favorite posts on Melanie’s website are always the ones about the development that she and Chris went through over a decade ago.

Those who know Dramatica quad theory know that it is based on four concepts: Knowledge, Ability, Thought and Desire. These match the real world concepts of Mass, Space, Energy and Time. When they were in the early stages of development they originally had four different terms: Can, Need, Want and Should. As you can see these are very similar to KTAD - only they’re one step away - basically a justification away from neutral.

An easier way to think about it (easier for writers) is to think of Can’t, Needn’t, Don’t Want, Shouldn’t. When you hear someone use these terms, chances are they’re justifying something. When you say you Can’t fulfill a promise, or you don’t Need to finish your work, or you Don’t Want to call a friend, or you Shouldn’t eat meat, you’re justifying. And so are your characters.

Can, Need, Want, and Should are still there in the model. If you check out your Dramatica Table of Elements and look at the quad marked “Conceiving” under “Psychology” you’ll see Permission (Can), Need, Deficiency (Want), and Expediency (Should).

Chris also said that every quad in the model is setup with these four terms in mind (KTAD) - only, as you can probably tell, they’re not always in the same spot. The typical setup is like the quad marked Understanding - clockwise - KATD. But as you can tell under Conceiving, clockwise it’s AKDT.

The reason it’s different is because of the way certain contexts modify the way we see things. It has to do with “twists,” and “flips” and “rotates.” I’ll have to search through Melanie’s site to find the link to what is what.

Update: Found it - Dramatica Dynamic Model