Sometimes it’s nice to take the basic concepts behind Dramatica and bend them ever so slightly - just to get a different perspective on what is really going on in your story. You’re not changing how those concepts work, just the way you approach them. In doing so, you’ll find different questions to ask yourself about your story.

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I’ve decided to bring an end to my Story Project idea. Why? Well, two reasons.

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The Dramatica Theory Tip of the Month for February 2007 concerns using Dramatica to write children’s stories. Having used the theory to write three short stories and two screenplays for children, I’ve got a word or two to add.

Chris’s tip for this month (well, technically last month since today is March 1!) has some great [...]

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So back to the Story Project.
If you remember, last we off with the simple logline:
A hitman suffers a mid-life crisis in the middle of a snowbound Las Vegas.
Already I hate the idea. Completely unoriginal and devoid of substance. Who would ever pay to see a movie like this? There’s simply nothing to it.
Let’s see if we [...]

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Day 2 of the Story Project.
After the initial idea, I like to get a sense of where my Storyform might be in the Dramatica Chart of Elements. For those of you who don’t have it memorized (like me), you can click this link to download the Dramatica Table of Story Elements (PDF).
I’ll often just [...]

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After several days of going back and forth in my head, I’ve decided to try something out here. I’m going to document how I use Dramatica to take a story from the initial idea to the final screenplay. Now, whether or not it will be an outstanding screenplay is not up to me [...]

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Turns out my brother might’ve been right about Deadwood.
This weekend I picked up Deadwood: Stories of the Black Hills written by the series creator, David Milch. I’ve only read the first couple of pages, but it seems to be a book all about the making of said series. It should be known that I absolutely [...]

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At the User Group Meeting last night, Chris was giving some helpful advice (as always) on what to do if you’re having trouble writing your Main Character’s throughline.
The problem with writing the Main Character (a problem i’ve written about before here) is that often, because it is the first-person perspective, you’ll end up basically writing yourself [...]

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For the longest time, I have always been the type of writer who likes everything spelled out in advance - mostly with the help of Dramatica. But lately I’ve been reconsidering this approach.

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I discovered a fantastic book about generating story ideas out last night. If you’re like me and suffer from major writer’s block - you can’t figure out what you want or need to write about - then this book might help you out.

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