How and Why Dramatica is Different from
Robert McKee's book,"Story"
by Chris Huntley

For the sake of convenience, I have pulled information from the article, "How and Why Dramatica is Different from Five Other Story Paradigms," to compare Dramatica only with Robert McKee's book "Story." Please read that article to see the full explanations and comparisons to other story paradigms (click here).

I've divided the results into four major topics of comparison: Story Throughlines; Hero, Protagonist, and Main Character; Character Growth and Resolve; and Plot Structure. I've also included an overview of the source materials, some initial observations, and a summary at the end.

RESOURCE MATERIALS

The following describes my research for Robert McKee's work.

• ROBERT McKEE: I read Robert McKee's book, “Story.” It's a good book with lots of great story examples. His “Chinatown” example of writing from the inside out is brilliant (pp 154-176) and shows his writing technique to its best advantage. There is no question that McKee loves story, knows film and theatre intimately, writes well, understands screenwriting as a specialized form, and has a lifetime of experience to back up his writing advice. In many ways, “Story” is inspirational. I recommend reading this book, especially if you are a screenwriter.

• DRAMATICA: I used, “Dramatica: A New Theory of Story,” Special Tenth Anniversary Edition, by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley (Write Brothers, 2004) as my source for most of the Dramatica material. As co-author of the book and co-creator of the Dramatica theory of story, I was familiar with the material already.

INITIAL OBSERVATIONS

Though the five non-Dramatica story paradigms I studied are different in their specifics, I was surprised to find that they each more or less fit into one of two broad categories.

• The first category I call the post-Aristotelian story paradigm. This category finds its roots in the work of Lajos Egri (The Art of Dramatic Writing!) who significantly expanded the function of Character in story beyond Aristotle's Poetics.

• The second category I call The Hero's Journey story paradigm and finds its roots in adaptations of Joseph Campbell's work (Hero with a Thousand Faces).

Robert McKee falls into the first category.

One major difference between Dramatica and more traditional story theories seems to be this:

• Dramatica works with story from the objective author's view that allows writers to clearly manipulate elements of a story's structure. From this author's perspective, it is difficult to find the meaning of specific author's choices.

• Robert McKee's "Story" works with story from the subjective audience's view that allows writers to see the meaning of flow and elements of the story. From this audience's perspective, it is difficult to predict which story elements are essential and how they should go together.

Robert McKee approaches story from the audience's perspective whereas Dramatica approaches it from the author's perspective. McKee speaks of author and audience but always with an eye on the story's meaning—a view only available to someone looking at story from the inside. This view is great for understanding audience reception but limited when trying to fix story structure problems.

So the question was how this difference in perspective manifested itself in understanding the nature of Story.

STORY THROUGHLINES

A key concept in Dramatica is that all complete stories have four separate but interrelated storylines that are present from the beginning to the end of the story called Throughlines. This differs from Robert McKee who describes two essential storylines.

In simplified terms: McKee describes two throughlines blended together—collectively called the The Quest and the Central Plot.

McKee's two throughlines correlate to two of Dramatica's four throughlines:

• The Overall Story Throughline (the objective, “big picture” thread) closely resembles McKee's Central Plot.

• The Main Character Throughline (the character through whose eyes the audience experiences the story) closely resembles McKee's The Quest.

The two Dramatica throughlines not clearly defined, not deemed essential, or just plain absent in the other story paradigms are:

• The Impact Character Throughline—The character whose alternative perspective forces the Main Character to address his personal issues.

• The Main Character vs. Impact Character (MC/IC) Throughline—The relationship between the main and impact characters that counters the objectivity of the Overall Story throughline by adding a passionate, subjective perspective.

It is inaccurate to say these two throughlines are altogether absent from the other story paradigms. McKee's “Quest” is really a blend of what Dramatica calls the Overall Story throughline and the Main Character throughline. McKee calls the Overall Story the protagonist's Quest for his conscious desire, and the Main Character throughline as the protagonist's Quest for his unconscious desire. He sees relationship throughlines (e.g. romances) as non-essential subplots separate from the Quest/Central Plot. So, like the other paradigms, McKee sees two threads of a single Central Plot, not four. BUT—McKee is aware that there are at least three areas in which a character finds conflict. He calls them Inner Conflicts, Personal Conflicts, and Extra-personal Conflicts.

Implied in McKee's three levels of conflict are the makings of three of the four throughlines. I say “implied” because the throughlines are neither deemed essential nor explicit. They are presented as a set of writer's tools available to create conflict for his characters. The Inner Conflicts are those associated with Dramatica's Main Character throughline. The Extra-personal Conflicts are those associate with Dramatica's Overall Story throughline. The Personal Conflicts are a strange blend of Dramatica's Impact Character throughline and Main Character vs. Impact Character relationship throughline. McKee lumps friends, family, and lovers in the Personal Conflicts level and describes them by their relationship to the Innermost Self. He obviously recognizes the importance of the MC/IC Relationship throughline but can't seem to separate it from the Main Character (I) perspective. His writer's instincts are on target, he just doesn't describe how they all fit together objectively. That's the disadvantage of analyzing and creating stories from the audience's perspective.

Stories without an Impact Character throughline and Main Character vs. Impact Character relationship throughline feel incomplete for a number of reasons:

• It is the Impact Character that forces the Main Character to address his personal issues. The Impact Character represents an alternative way to resolve the Main Character's problems and as long as it is around the Main Character cannot ignore it. So, to get the Main Character to deal with his personal problems, the Impact Character needs to be present (in some form or another) for the entire story. No Impact Character throughline—no realistic Main Character growth.

• The Main Character vs. Impact Character (MC/IC) relationship throughline provides the “passionate” perspective in the story. Whether the relationship is romantic, professional, familial, or otherwise, the conflicts in the relationship provide an emotional connection for the audience. Without the MC/IC throughline, the story lacks heart.

As a theory of Story, Dramatica offers an explanation for why a story has four throughlines and not one, two, three, five, seven, or any other number. (For a full discussion of this topic, click here to read it in the full article.)

Complete stories provide an author and audience all four perspectives within the single context of the story. They give us something we cannot get in real life. And THAT's one of the reasons why audiences can watch or listen to a story over and over. Even after the storytelling has gone stale, stories give the audience an experience it cannot have in real life.

HERO, PROTAGONIST, AND MAIN CHARACTER

This brings me to another way in which Dramatica is different from other story paradigms. McKee calls the principle character in a story the Protagonist.

“The PROTAGONIST has the will and capacity to pursue the object of his conscious and/or unconscious desire to the end of the line, to the human limit established by setting and genre.”

Dramatica separates the concept of the character who leads the efforts to achieve the Story Goal (protagonist), from that of the character through whose eyes the audience experiences the story on a personal level (Main Character).

• The Protagonist is one of many Objective Characters in the Overall Story throughline. The OS characters are defined by their function in the Overall Story throughline. For example, an archetypal protagonist represents the motivation to pursue and consider the goal and problems. Other Objective Characters in the Overall Story throughline include archetypes such as the antagonist, the sidekick, the skeptic, and others.

• The Main Character is a Subjective Character and gives the audience a personal view inside the story. It is through the Main Character's perspective that the audience gets the first person (I), “This is what it's like to have personal problems” experience. The other principle Subjective Character is the Impact Character who consciously or unconsciously challenges the Main Character's world view by offering an alternative way of seeing or doing things.

One advantage to separating the Main Character from the Protagonist is to be able to work with the Main Character and Overall Story throughlines separately. (For an example, click here to read the full explanation in the full article.)

CHARACTER GROWTH AND RESOLVE

Character change is a major element of most story paradigms.

Robert McKee sees change as an essential part of a protagonist [Main Character]: “Character Arc—The finest writing not only reveals true character, but arcs or changes that inner nature, for better or worse, over the course of the telling.” [Story, p 104]

Dramatica treats character change a bit differently. For one thing, Dramatica makes a distinction between a Main Character's personal growth and his resolve. Here's the distinction between growth and resolve:

• Character Growth: In order for a character to change or remain steadfast, a character needs to be able to distinguish between the source of conflict and its symptomatic effects. The character is “blinded” from seeing both by either being too close or too far from the problem. The character growth brings the character to the point where all options are visible to the character. Character growth is akin to a “character arc.”

• Character Resolve: Once a character has grown, it can stay the course (remain steadfast) or radically alter its perspective (change). Character Resolve is not a value judgment, nor is it a description of what could or should have happened. Identifying a character's resolve is simply determining whether the character's perspective is fundamentally the same or different.

Robert McKee's paradigm equally emphasizes main character growth (i.e. Character Arc) and a main character resolve. Though McKee's descriptions of the forces that drive a character's growth seem more sophisticated than Field's, he ends up in the same place: a Change Main Character. There is either no room for steadfast main characters in his paradigm or they exist outside its boundaries. Either way, I could not find references to steadfast main characters in Robert McKee's “Story.”

Many great stories involve characters that remain steadfast against all efforts to change them. Moreover, the fact that they “stay the course” is an essential component of each story's message. Imagine Job in the Old Testament of the Bible telling God he's had too much and is throwing in the towel, or Dr. Richard Kimble in "The Fugitive" giving up his search for the one-armed man and heading off to Bermuda. Both might work as stories but their meaning would be changed considerably. To tell the stories successfully, each would be constructed differently from the originals so that the character growth naturally led to the new character resolve.

How is a main character's growth affected by the character's resolve?

The answer is simple and significant:

• Change Main Character Growth: A change main character comes to the story with pre-existing “baggage” in the form of justifications (inner walls) that blind the character to his personal problem. Whether you call the baggage the character's problem (Dramatica), or unconscious desire (McKee), the main character comes to the story “fully loaded” and ripe for change. Each act describes the tearing down of the justifications that hide the main character's personal problem from his direct awareness. Once the character has grown enough to see beyond the justifications and recognize the true nature of his personal problems can he then fundamentally alter his world view (change).

• Steadfast Main Character Growth: A steadfast main character generally starts off at the beginning of the story with everything in balance. An external force disrupts this balance and the main character responds by committing to a method of restoring balance. Each act describes the main character's efforts to reinforce his commitment as external forces grow and change. Once the character has reached the edge of his breaking point—when the limit of his efforts to reinforce his motivations match that of the maximum external pressure to alter course—he makes one last commitment and forms a justification that blinds him from his initial choice of action. In this way he remains steadfast in his resolve.

By allowing for Main Characters who change and Main Characters who remain steadfast, Dramatica opens up the story world to the other half not adequately explained by other paradigms. These include steadfast main characters such as Romeo in “Romeo and Juliet,” Jim Starke in “Rebel Without A Cause,” Jake Barnes in “The Sun Also Rises,” Clarice Starling in “Silence of the Lambs,” and Jake Gittes in “Chinatown.”

By separating character growth from character resolve, Dramatica lets you determine both where your character goes and how he gets there. This gives authors flexibility in forming their stories. It also better represents the choices we have in real life and therefore brings greater verisimilitude to an audience's story experience.

PLOT STRUCTURE

Plot structure is the temporal backbone of a story. Stories need plot structure to hold them together. Story paradigms need plot structure to explain how to create plots for stories and how to recognize and fix plot problems. I chose to focus on the one area each story paradigm manages to integrate (one way or another)—Act Structure.

Here's my plan of attack:

• Begin with a word about author and audience.
• Give a general overview of my findings about Plot.
• Show each system with some brief descriptions.
• Share some initial observations and comparisons.
• Evaluate Dramatica's comparative strengths and weaknesses.

A Word About Author and Audience & Overview

(Click here for an explanation of these topics.)

Plot Paradigm Illustrations

Example 1: Robert McKee's Central Plot and The Quest

McKee uses two different graphic examples to illustrate plot. The first is a simple linear timeline called the Central Plot.

Click illustration to enlarge

McKee's Central Plot is a modified three-act structure. It begins with an inciting incident, proceeds with progressive complications, and ends with a crisis, climax, and resolution. What is not shown is McKee's system of using beats to build scenes, scenes to build sequences, and sequences to build acts. His third act is slightly shorter than the last act in the four-act structure examples. The McKee second act picks up the extra time and is slightly longer than the combined middle acts of a four-act structure.

The second graphic McKee uses is called The Quest.

Click illustration to enlarge

The Quest describes the flow of conflict in a story. The + and —represent the positive and negative tug-of-war of conflict in the backstory before the inciting incident. The “spine” represents the “through-line” / timeline in the story. The conscious and unconscious desires describe the drive behind the external and internal journeys. The inner, personal, and extra-personal conflicts represent the types of pressure put to bear on the protagonist/main character as the story progresses. The conscious and unconscious objects of desire represent the journeys' goals.

Example 2: Dramatica's “Act Structure”

Click illustration to enlarge

Dramatica clearly uses a four-act structure. It starts with a setup of plot points and story dynamics and an inciting incident. It has regular turning points in the plot to indicate act breaks driven by the Story Driver, and ends with a crisis, climax, and resolution of plot points and story dynamics. It also explores four throughlines; two more than the other story paradigms. The Overall Story throughline is the rough equivalent of the outer journey found in other paradigms. The Main Character throughline is the counterpart to the inner journey. Dramatica counterpoints the Main Character throughline with the Impact Character throughline. Exploring the relationship between the Main and Impact Characters is done in the MC/IC Relationship throughline.

Initial Comparisons

Wow. My initial reaction after comparing these six plot paradigms was that Dramatica looked dry and complicated, while McKee's "Central Plot" seemed easier to digest. Even McKee's somewhat confusing illustration of The Quest (Story, p 197) seems less enigmatic than the Dramatica Act Structure illustration. As you might imagine, this was a little off-putting for me. I didn't expect the comparisons to show such a stark difference between the two paradigms.

There are three obvious reasons why McKee's system suggests an easier writing approach than Dramatica.

• The first is that it is simpler and therefore easier to follow.

• The second reason McKee's system seems more “writable” is that the labels used to describe their various plot points are more story-like than Dramatica's labels. In his "Central Plot," McKee uses words such as inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax, and resolution. The labels he uses in "The Quest," such as conscious desire, unconscious desire, and spine, are less simplistic. By comparison, Dramatica's Signposts, Journeys, and Story Driver sound only a little less writer friendly.

• The third reason Dramatica seems more difficult to write from is its complexity. Dramatica has four throughlines to worry about instead of one or two. It has sixteen Signposts—four for each throughline. The nature of each Signpost is determined by a “storyform.” Just knowing how Dramatica's structure is put together is not enough. In fact, it's unlikely a writer could create a story just by looking at Dramatica's act structure as shown in the illustration. More information seems necessary even to begin writing.

Is less plot structure better?

When it comes to identifying and fixing plot problems, “less” usually is not better. In fact, persistent plot problems are often more closely tied to plot elements an author has NOT considered than plot elements the author has reworked. Having more tools with which to evaluate and construct a story is more valuable in those instances. In this regard, Dramatica surpasses Robert McKee's "Story."

Dramatica's Comparative Strengths And Weaknesses
(Abbreviated)

The Dramatica act structure's single greatest strength is its comprehensiveness. It covers everything necessary to make your plot work well. It has over one hundred unique story points (not including recurring plot points or character interactions) with at least forty-four specifically plot-related. Dramatica's plot explores four separate but interconnected throughlines instead of the two described in Robert McKee's "Story."

Dramatica ties each plot point to the storyform. Storyforms describe the story's underlying structure and dynamics and the interconnections between Character, Theme, Genre, and Plot—in essence, the author's intent. This is a tremendous advantage because it gives an author an idea of how to explore his subject matter as it progresses act to act.

Robert McKee's "Story" only explicitly explores two of the four throughlines necessary for a complete act structure. Writers recognize the patterns found in Robert McKee's story paradigm and use them. Unfortunately, they also sense the “missing pieces.” Hours of writer's block may be associated with writers struggling to figure out the structural gaps in Robert McKee's "Story."

Dramatica's unique author's perspective on story gives it another advantage over The Hero's Journey. Dramatica makes a distinction between Plot, the order in which events happen, and Storyweaving, the order plot events are presented to an audience. (This partially explains the table-like format of the Dramatica Act Structure illustration.)

Storyweaving often masks problems in the plot. Separating plot from Storyweaving lets an author know what is really happening in the story as well as what seems to be happening. Robert McKee's "Story" doesn't make this distinction and suffers for it. Dramatica shows the writer how everything fits together and lets the writer determine how he wants to assemble the plot timeline.

The qualities that make Robert McKee's "Story" simple to understand makes it difficult to use for writing. Dramatica is more comprehensive. It is better suited to building stronger plots since it approaches story from the author's perspective. By separating plot and Storyweaving, Dramatica makes identifying plot problems easier. The Dramatica storyform connects the plot to character, theme, and genre better than any other system. Plus, the storyform indicates the nature of plot events without limiting subject matter. For these reasons I think Dramatica's Act Structure plot paradigm is the most capable system examined.

Summary And Conclusions

Exploring Robert McKee's story paradigm has been educational and eye opening. I've only scratched the surface but I feel I've learned a lot. Dramatica shares some common ground with The Hero's Journey but is different in approach and perspective.

Click here for full summary and conclusions.

As tools to understand and develop stories, Robert McKee's "Story" has its own relative strengths and weaknesses. Dramatica seems to cover more story territory and provide a clearer insight into a story's inner workings; it also appears complex and filled with specialized vocabulary. Robert McKee's "Story" uses more conversational terminology and feels more accessible. I believe that no single story paradigm holds all the answers. Each paradigm has its story development treasures to offer. I've dug up a few and explored them to a limited degree. I look forward to continuing my search by delving deeper into these story paradigms and investigating others.


REFERENCES

Huntley, C. N., & Phillips, M. A. (2004). Dramatica: A New Theory Of Story, Special 10th Anniversary Edition. Glendale, CA: Write Brothers, Inc.

McKee, R. (1997). Story: Substance, Structure, Style and The Principles of Screenwriting. New York: HarperCollins.