There is a significant difference between stories and tales. A tale is merely a statement; a linear progression from one event to the next culminating in one singular outcome. It can be thrown out immediately and disregarded as a one-time occurrence primarily because it has relatively little to stand on. A story, however, offers much more to an audience member.

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The Will Smith blockbuster I Am Legend was an undeniable box office success. Having set the record for the highest grossing December opening ever ($77.2 mil.), it is safe to say that audiences everywhere loved the film. Yet there were many who were left feeling cold and empty with the rather incongruous ending. Why was there this sudden tangible shift in the narrative during the last 10 minutes? It wasn’t until the recent release of an alternate version of the film on DVD that those who were left bewildered in the theaters finally found the ending they had hoped for.

So why was one version so much more emotionally fulfilling than the other?

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You’ve heard it a million times and by now you’ve committed it to memory: screenplays are structure. It’s what brought you to this site and what you hope to learn more about. Clever dialogue, fancy locales, witty prose, all of it pales in importance when put up against the backbone of a truly great story.

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It’s not an easy thing adapting a short story into a workable screenplay. Some writers find themselves at a loss trying to transmogrify 20-30 pages into a two hour movie; others have no problem finding the material necessary to fill in the blanks and come out with a wonderfully meaningful story. Unfortunately it seems that Frank Darabont was more the former when it came to adapting Stephen King’s short story The Mist for the big screen. With bold confidence he managed to take a delightfully scary story and turn it into a disturbing piece of propaganda.

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While some parts of the Dramatica model seem to make sense, there are still portions of it that can make you wonder, “Why the heck was it set up this way?” It almost seems counter-productive towards the process of writing great fiction. In this article, Melanie Anne Phillips, one of the co-creators of the theory, goes on to explain why certain choices were made to bring this revolutionary story theory to light.

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Some stories take forever to get started; others capture you from page one. What is it about some stories that just force you to stay attentive, eagerly anticipating some sort of resolution? The answer, I think, lies within the concept of the fully explored argument.

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There is nothing worse than a movie that tries to provide some meaningful moment at the last second. Often times it feels like these heavy-handed messages are just a panicked reaction to an empty story. If you do it right, the events in your story and the order in which they appear in should provide an audience all the meaning they’ll ever need.

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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.

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