Why Dramatica Is Different From Other Story Paradigms
by Chris Huntley

PART 1—March 22, 2006

I have spent nearly sixteen years avoiding reading anything of substance by competing (Hollywood) story theorists such as Syd Field, John Truby, Christopher Vogler, and the granddaddy of them all, Robert McKee.  I didn't want to "corrupt" my development of Dramatica and so I avoided direct interaction with competing theories.  Plus, I really dislike reading non-fiction even though I write a lot of it.  Hey, no one's perfect.

I recently decided to come down from my high tower (or up from my grotto) to see how other story paradigms worked.  I figured my understanding of Dramatica was mature enough that I don't have to worry about "contaminating" it by exposure to the competing theories.  OK, I've been a bit of a story theory snob (it goes with the territory), but I'm trying to get beyond it.  I felt that it was past time that I figured out how other story theories are similar and dissimilar to Dramatica, why they are different (assuming they are), and what those similarities and differences mean.

I'm still early on in the process. 

I watched Syd Field's video, "Screenwriting Workshop."  It's well made for a talking head instructional video though the opening music is cheesy and dorky.  Syd comes across as warm and authoritative.  He gives good writing advice. 

I watched the Michael Hauge (Writing Screenplays That Sell) and Christopher Vogler (The Writer's Journey) DVD, "The Hero's 2 Journeys."  The production values of this DVD were fair.  Having these two story guys working together was very interesting.  Their story paradigms appear to be very different but are surprisingly compatible.  Both Hauge and Vogler are good speakers and communicators.

My initial response to what all three of these guys have to say is that they assume your story has a Main Character who Changes and is also the Protagonist in a story with a happy ending (Success/Good).  Lip service was given to the idea of Steadfast main character.  Their structural elements were somewhat rigid and overly specific.  I had to assume that there is more to their understanding of story than covered in the videos or DVDs, so I decided to dig further.  I chose to start with Christopher Vogler's book, "The Writer's Journey" (2nd Edition).

Though this is not meant to be a book review of "The Writer's Journey," I would like to make a few comments about it.  First off, it is well written.  Chris Vogler has an engaging writing style and strong command of the English language.  He goes out of his way to give credit where due and provides appropriate caveats for exceptions and rules.  It seems honest, direct, and sincere.  And, it goes into greater depth than the DVD (no surprise there).  The greatest area of expansion over the DVD is discussion of his character archetypes.

I was surprised that many of Vogler's observations about character and the hero's journey "felt" right.  Specifically, Vogler discussed the "meaning" of certain archetypes or events in the story and how they correlate to "meaning" in the real world.  So much of it sounded good and useful, but I also saw all the conditions where those observations didn't hold up-places where too many assumptions are made, such as the nature of a Hero.  Vogler bends over backwards to illustrate exceptions to the Hero definition.  So many that they seem to void any sense of "rules" to go by.  But that's not what really bothered me.

What bugged me was that there seemed to be some "Truth" to his observations about character and plot.  These truths didn't contradict Dramatica so much as suggest deficiencies in the Dramatica theory.  How could they both be right?

It wasn't until I was talking this over with someone that I had an "aha" moment of clarity.  I related how Vogler talked about what elements in a story meant.    That's when it clicked.

An early axiom determined in the development of the Dramatica theory was this:  If you look for Meaning, you cannot Predict.  If you look for Prediction, you cannot find meaning.  In other words, you can try to find meaning in a work OR you can predict how to put it together—but not at the same time from within the same context.  Why?  The short answer is that we use one as the given in order to evaluate the other.  When looking for meaning, we assume a particular story structure.  When looking for structure, we assume a particular meaning (author's intent).  It's tied to the same reason we can see light as particles and waves, just not at the same time within a single context.  One aspect defines the basis for the others.  Story structure provides the basis for seeing meaning in the story.  Meaning provides the basis for understanding and manipulating structure in a story.

In other words, meaning is tied to the audience's experience of the story while structure is tied to the author's perspective of the story.  The audience perspective allows a synthesis of the underlying story elements to discover its "meaning."  The author's perspective assumes a given meaning (author's intent) to manipulate the arrangement of the story's structure and dynamics.  It's all a matter of context. 

One major difference between Dramatica and more traditional story theories (based on my limited exposure) 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.

• Many other story theories work 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.

In retrospect this seems like a "duh."  I've known that many story gurus developed their ideas from examining lots and lots of stories.  I've known that Dramatica WASN'T created that way-we developed the theory by identifying the underlying story rules and elements existing in all stories.  All it took was recognizing the difference in perspective (audience vs. author) and the difference in intent (meaning vs. prediction).

My new understanding of the differences in how Dramatica looks at story differently than others gave me an insight into something we call, "the Dramatica effect."  In a nutshell, the Dramatica effect is an "aha" moment that many writers have approximately two weeks after exposure to Dramatica's "Twelve Essential Questions."  These are the eight story dynamics questions and identifying the Overall Story's Domain, Concern, Issue, and Problem.  If a writer's exposure to these concepts is more than cursory, the effect is likely to hit him two weeks later.  Suddenly the writer "gets" Dramatica in some fundamental way that escaped him earlier.

My insight into the "Dramatica effect" possibly explains what the effect is.  I think that the "aha" comes from a writer going from seeing story from the subjective, audience perspective in which he has been trained to the more objective author's perspective offered by Dramatica.  It's probably less a "switch" than a broadening of his horizons.  It's a brief glimpse into the possibilities that Dramatica offers.

I've yet to choose the next guru's book to read but I look forward to it-whatever it is.  This experiment in broadening my horizons has already been valuable.

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