The workshop was led by Chris Huntley and attended by approximately thirty writers. The format was one in which Chris presented questions and collected responses from the workshop participants, then conclusions were drawn when possible. There were also handouts given and used during the course of the workshop.

This document is a rough approximation of the events and materials covered in the workshop. These notes were taken during the workshop by Steve Lang.

LET'S RECAP LAST WEEK

Broad definitions of story, genre, plot,

Dramatica Story= A complete Argument (this will be tonite's focus)

Meaning is a major component of both a regular 'story'and a Dramatica story.

Context is important when discussing meaning. Discussed more generally last week, today I have a more concrete definition for 'context'

So if you hold up a pen and ask "What does this mean?", you need to place it in some sort of context to answer that question (is that in the context of materials, function, color, etc.)

First we need to define ARGUMENT.

As defined in the dictionary:

Based on this definition, why might people listen to stories?

DRAMATICA definition of ARGUMENT:

Q: WHAT STARTS AN ARGUEMENT?

A: Conflict.

Q: Where does conflict come from?

A: Inequity- when there is a recognizable separation between something, there is the potential for conflict.

That wil be a major part in creating your story. If you need more energy, you need to create more inequity. If you need less, reduce or create less inequity.

Q: What creates INEQUITY?

A: Different points of view.

For example-

1 perspective- I want a car

2nd perspective- I don't have a car

The inequity is not one or the other, but the DIFFERENCE between the two.

For example, if I eliminated my desire for a car, then the inequity no longer exists (even if I still don't have a car).

What causes the difference? Different points of view. The points of view define the two poles of the inequity.

Q: How many points of view does it take to start an argument?

A: It takes at least 2 points of view to have an inequity.

Q: What are the 2 points of view of a story?

A: Author and audience

(not protagonist and antagonist, because those are inside the story)

Q: How does the interplay differ between a story and a debate?

A: Unlike a debate where both sides are active participants in the making of the argument, a story's author is responsible for making the entire argument and the audience is responsible for evaluating it.

Let's say the author and audience are already in agreement. Then what's the difference?

The author knows the story, the audience doesn't

Q: Is a writer the author or audience of a story?

A: Both- author when writing, audience when evaulating/ editing.

Q: Why is the distinction between a writer as author and a writer as audience important?

A: It's important because the writing tools and techniques may work in one context and not the other. Using writing tools or techniques in the inappropriate context can lead to poorly written stories. Using them in the appropriate context can solve story problems.

Q: What are some principal differences between the author and the audience?

First, what describes an AUTHOR?

Then, what is an IDEAL AUDIENCE?

So the author is the one who says what is true,what is wrong, what is up/ down, etc. The audience can't do that, so what can they do? They can't say what is good or bad, because that's what's within the story, and they are OUTSIDE.

The audience as interpreter can say "What this could be" or "This is what should be" in the story.

Ultimately, through the experience of reading/watching the story the audience is to seamlessly interpret the INTENT of the author, which basically equates to the MEANING of the story.

It's this iINTERPRETATION that dreally defines what the 'AUDIENCE' is.

Now, these defintions of AUTHOR and AUDIENCE don't really exist in the real world. Both are imperfect- an author may not do a good job of conveying his intentions, the audience may not be good at interpreting the story, the author could use symbols, etc. that the audience doesn't understand, etc.

SO as a writer, when do I use my AUTHOR tools, and when do I use my AUDIENCE tools?

As a writer, you have control over what goes happens in your story and the sequence in which it happens.

The audience has one important thing they control- MEANING or EXPERIENCE. So when wrting, you take the role of audience to determine those.

Don't do both AT THE SAME TIME- YOU CAN'T. As author, you determine what happens and when, that's it! Then after, jump to the other side and experience it as an AUDIENCE, forgetting how you put it together as an author.

This is a tricky thing to understand, -- you are taking two roles , but looking at the VERY SAME THING.

Now we're going to stop talking outside stories/ a story, and start talking about what's inside- what makes up a good story.

In Dramatica, a complete story is caled a 'GRAND ARGUMENT STORY'. This is what we're going to be talking about when we refer to STORY.

So what goes into a GRAND ARGUMENT STORY?

WHY DO YOU TELL STORIES?

It's important to understand your motive, because as a writer you are also AUDIENCE, and you need to fulfill your needs as one.

WHY do you chose to read/watch stories?

Many of these are the flip side of motivations to be a AUTHOR

What contexts do yo use to understand the world?

What perspectives are open to you, and when are they open to you? (we are looking at these, because these are the same tools you will use to write)

-The people in your life

Here are a couple of perspectives you may not have thought about-

Let's examine these four perspectives in terms of what it's like to be ourselves:

Now let's examine these four perspectives in terms of other people in our lives:

The meaning here is that the WORLD holds more than we can see at any single time from a single perspective.

BUT...a GRAND ARGUMENT STORY gives ALL of them to you. All 4 points of view should be explored in a fully argued story.

THEREFORE: One of the reasons we like to tell and read/, watch, or listen to stories is because they provide us with an experience that we cannot get in the "real" world. Stories give us all four perspectives on a single subject SIMULTANEOUSLY.

That's why we can watch a movie over and over, and still get something from it- because we get more from it than real life.

This is an important aspect of a GRAND ARGUMENT STORY, but it's also typically what stories have the most problems with- they are often missing one or more of these perspectives. Most stories have the I and THEY perspectives, but frequently leave out the YOU and/or THEY perspectives.

Let's take an example from a real movie. You can look at movie posters, and often get a sense of who are in the 4 perspectives. The posters don't always reflect the story accurately because of marketing choices, but movies with well constructed arguments tend to show the four throughlines in their advertising.

FILM EXAMPLE: Star War-

A good question- do the perspectives change during a movie?

The answer is actuallly NO- the representatives of those viewpoints can change, but the viewpoints always remain- they are larger than the actual individual characters. (Often the problem with discussing examples is that we automatically associate these terms with characters, but they are more than that).

Another way of calling the 4 viewpoints are:

In this quad of I/YOU/WE/THEY, we can pair them up into I/ YOU and WE/ THEY. These are called DYNAMIC PAIRS, and represent the greatest potential source of potential CONFLICT within a story.

However, in a lot of Hollywood star vehicles there seems to be a lot of simply I/THEY conflicts (interesting suggestion from attendee)

In Dramatica, dynamic pairs are represented graphically as diagonals.

NOW, HOW ARE THESE 4 POINTS OF VIEW MANIFESTED IN A STORY?

These are called the 4 THROUGHLINES of a STORY. Here they are:

Let's say we have our story. The author is on one side, and the audience is on the other. Within that story, we have the MEANING, and also the EXPRESSION of that meaning. This EXPRESSION will affect how the AUDIENCE perceives and interprets the STORY.

We can call the EXPRESSION part of it STORYTELLING, and call the MEANING of it the STORYFORM. These 2 together form our ARGUMENT- a writer needs to execute both to succeed.

Now let's relate the 4 perspectives with how we tell our STORY. The form of EXPRESSION or communication a writer uses in telling a story can be done 4 ways-

These are often called the writer's voices.

Combining these 3 forms with the 4 Throughlines will lead to some interesting combinations, ones that we normaly don't think about or use. What we basically are exploring is different ways of STORYTELLING to express our STORYFORM. Now let's do an exercise exploring these: