The workshop was led by Chris Huntley and attended by approximately 9 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. Notes are courtesy of Steve Lang.

The Thematic Argument

What moves Theme forward is the Thematic Argument.

Q: Why an argument?

A: Because unless the audience shares the author's bias on the story's issues, it will not accept a blanket statement that the author's proposed way of dealing with a particular problem is the best.

The audience really does want to be convinced - it wants to learn something useful in real life while being entertained at the same time.

But, unless an author can successfully make an emotional argument supporting his bias through his Theme, he will not be able to change the heart of his audience.

Premise and the Thematic Argument

One of the most familiar attempts to describe the nature of the thematic argument relies on a concept called the premise. A one-line thematic description of your story.

• A premise usually takes this form: Some activity or character trait leads to a particular result or conclusion.
• An example of this would be Greed leads to Self-Destruction.
• A premise can be very useful in describing what a thematic argument is about in a nutshell, but provides very little information about how that argument will proceed.
• It's hard to really write a story from a PREMISE in this form. You kind of know where it may go, but nothing very clear.

Premise construction: Inequity leads to Result

• The "Inequity" is described by the thematic argument (which will get into in a moment).
• The "leads to" process is described by the plot progression.
• The "Result" is a combination of the Story Outcome and the Story Judgment.

In regard to the example above, there are many ways in which greed might lead to self-destruction.

But the PREMISE in this form doesn't state the WHO part of it. Who's result? Whose inequity? Mine, yours, everyone's?

In addition, each of the four throughlines has its own view of the thematic nature of the problem, so each one needs its own thematic argument.

The traditional premise looks at a story's Theme from one point of view only.

If greed leads to self-destruction, is this a problem for everyone, just for the Main Character, just the Obstacle Character, or does it perhaps describe the nature and outcome of the relationship between Main and Obstacle?

We simply don't have enough information to determine that. As a result, the traditional premise is fine for summing up a story, but does little to help an author create a thematic argument.

Dramatica's view of a thematic argument begins not with a conflict - the thematic conflict.

Q: Topics such as Greed, Love, Hate, etc.- why aren't they on the Dramatica chart?

A: Because those are subject matter -- those don't contain any context for determining the meaning of it (is it good? ,bad?, etc.)

So let's take Greed as an example. You can use Morality vs. Self-Interest, or perhaps Attraction/ Repulsion. These better define the nature of your INEQUITY.

Each of the throughlines has its own thematic conflict, although one may be more emphasized than the others and seem to stand out because of that.

Let's go through the process of creating a thematic argument.

• First, let's pick an inequity.

Undiscovered Talent

Non-acceptance by public

Old breakup/ New startup

Creature comforts/ Morals

We're going to pick one, and explore it very thoroughly-

Untalented Wannabe wins-

• Next, determine what "kind" of inequity it will be -- what is its domain? Situation? Activity? Manipulation? Fixed Attitude?

Examples of each-

SITUATION- A musician somehow gets on a band, but he's no good. Or a son of a rock star.

ACTIVITY- Rising group, but the drummer isn't very good and this gets exposed.

FIXED ATTITUDE- Convinced he's important, Convinced that talent doesn't matter, Fixated on fame.

MANIPULATION- Charismatic , Psychotic

We chose ACTIVITY -- Rising group, but the drummer isn't very good and this gets exposed.

• Now let's determine the throughline we want to explore in this example -- I, YOU, WE, THEY (MC, IC, MC/IC, OS).

"I'm an untalented wannabe."

"You're an untalented wannabe."

"We're untalented wannabes."

"They're untalented wannabes."

MC wins: "I'm an untalented wannabe."

• Now let's pick a quad of thematic Variations that is found within that domain.

We voted on Skill, wisdom, enlightenment, experience (the Doing quad)

WISDOM	SKILL
EXPERIENCE	ENLIGHTENMENT

• Now let's pick one of the two dynamic pairs to be the thematic conflict.

We picked Skill vs. Experience

• Now let's pick one of the two variations in the thematic conflict to be the thematic focus. The other will automatically be labeled the thematic counterpoint.

Thematic focus: SKILL

Thematic counterpoint: Experience

• Now let's come up with an example that illustrates how the thematic focus (Skill) might be seen to have a positive or advantageous effect on the inequity.

A Lack of skill is a crowd pleaser

Lack of skill leads him to choose better profession

Better he plays, the more gigs they get

• Come up with an example that illustrates how the thematic counterpoint (Experience) might be seen to have a positive or advantageous effect on the inequity.

More experience drives more practice

More experience/practice, better performance

More experience, learns to compensate in showmanship

• Now let's come up with an example that illustrates how the thematic focus (Skill) might be seen to have a negative or disadvantageous effect on the inequity.

Lack of skill hurts the band

Overskill (overwork) in accounting, hurts performance in band.

Charisma and popularity leads to jealousy in band.

• Come up with an example that illustrates how the thematic counterpoint (Experience) might be seen to have a negative or disadvantageous effect on the inequity.

Overexperienced, resistant to playing new arrangements.

Inexperience with equipment, loses control.

So now we have plusses and minuses on both sides of the THEMATIC CONFLICT.

Because this is the MC THROUGHLINE, this is going to personally involve the MC (who we'll call Dennis).

The question now becomes, which is more advantageous or disadvantageous, the thematic focus of the thematic counterpoint? Basically, which one is better in the CONTEXT of our STORY?

Actually, we have three decisions to make.

Q: On the whole, is the thematic focus generally advantageous or disadvantageous?

Skill is advantageous in our story.

Q: On the whole, is the thematic counterpoint generally advantageous or disadvantageous?

Experience is advantageous in our story.

Q: In comparison to one another, is the thematic focus generally more advantageous or more disadvantageous than the thematic counterpoint?

We decide that SKILL, or DEALING with SKILL is more advantageous than Experience.

So basically, we're going to be saying that there's going to be a balance between skill and experience, and both will help in dealing with the INEQUITY, but SKILL is definitely preferred.

Now how are we going to SHOW these things?

We need to create a context in which we can see these things.

We have a built-in context within our QUAD.- WISDOM and ENLIGHTENMENT. We are going to use these as yardsticks to show our thematic argument.

So, how do we use those variations to evaluate the thematic conflict?

We use those variations to determine WHY the focus and counterpoint are advantageous or disadvantageous.

Let's go back to our example illustrations.

• In the context of the other variations, explain why the thematic focus is advantageous or disadvantageous as it concerns the inequity.

Let's take 'lack of skils is crowd pleaser', and wrap it around some form of WISDOM or ENLIGHTENMENT.

The band is about to fire the drummer, but a promoter tells them no, they should keep Dennis because he helps, it's more wise to keep him.

• In the context of the other variations, explain why the thematic counterpoint is advantageous or disadvantageous as it concerns the inequity.

• In relationship to each other, determine which is more advantageous and which more disadvantageous as it concerns the inequity -- the thematic focus or the thematic counterpoint

THE THEMATIC ARGUMENT

If you expand your illustrations to show each combination of the variations within the thematic quad, you can then show how all of the pieces fit in relationship to one another and to the inequity.

There are a total of six combinations:

• two dynamic pairs (diagonal)
• two companion pairs (horizontal)
• two dependent pairs (vertical)

The exploration of these six combinations

SKILL vs. EXPERIENCE in this case shows which way the seesaw falls, and WISDOM and ENLIGHTENMENT shows how large the seesaw is.

Let's try another quad.

Let's use:

RATIONALIZATION	COMMITMENT
RESPONSIBILITY	OBLIGATION

We'll pick COMMITMENT vs. RESPONSIBILITY.

• Let's decide COMMITMENT PLUS
• RESPONSIBILITY NEGATIVE
• So COMMITMENT is more advantageous.

Let's now show COMMITMENT in a positive light in terms of RATIONALIZATION- (Fit in our PSYCHOLOGY example from before- Dennis the charismatic drummer)

Commitment- Dennis sacrifices for the band. Show that's advantageous- His excuse for this is that the band will have a large positive impact on the world.

We could show that COMMITMENT is disadvantageous in terms of OBLIGATION-

His commitment to the band is interfering with his personal obligation to his family.

Although we've decided that COMMITMENT is advantageous, we can show it positive w/ regards to RATIONALIZATION, but negative in terms of OBLIGATION, to make it more complex.

We can also make them slight plus/minus, or huge ones.

Let's make an example for RESPONSIBILITY a huge negative in terms of RATIONALIZATION.-

Dennis RATIONALIZES his failure as a musician due to his RESPONSIBILITY to his family.