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Great question. I think I like the idea of the "you" perspective for the MC. Would help keep the "impact" thing straight in my mind. Anxious to see what Chris says.

Thanks Chris. I did understand that is a Type and the other a Variation. But the idea of looking at the other items in the quad to help hone in on the meaning (in context) is something I (stupidly) didn't think of!

Jeff

Chris et al, I find the Dramatica definitions of Instinct and Impulsive Responses to be so similar that I'm having trouble distinguishing them. In fact in Peter Shaffer's analysis of "Amadeus" on the dramatica.com website he uses them almost interchangeably. Overall Story Signpost 2 as it ...

Hopefully Chris will chime in here and provide his wizened advice. :) But subplots generally do NOT have a Grand Argument, because then they would be competing with the OS's Grand Argument. I would also argue that in Mockingbird the SS story "reflects", if you will, the OS -- the story of ...

I know what you mean. You push something on one end and something falls out of the other end. However, I think it is in the storyweaving where the solutions lie. I just read a section of "Dramatica for Screenwriters" today where he points out that you can stand things on their head. He use...

Hi Teresa, Leonides02 is right, Dramatica helps you design a story structure, it does not include a word processor. I use PageFour, because it provides me a way to organize all my notes and ideas separately from my writing in the way I want (and it saves everything as RTF files, while can be opened ...

Most of the characters in "To Kill a Mockingbird" are complex. Boo is the Impact Character, although this relationship is very subtle, since Boo is not physically present until the end of the story. Remember that the Protagonist in the story is Atticus, not Scout -- she is the Main Charact...

Thanks! But I've since decided it should be spelled "hoaxacity."

Sounds like a terrific idea in any case. I don't think it's the IC's steadfastness that necessarily moves the MC to change, anyway, it's the counter-argument, which the IC represents in the story (according the Dramatica theory any character can make the counter-argument, by the way, but it is the I...

Kat, I did join that group but never get any mail from it. I think it's defunct...

Chris, I have set up several Yahoo ML groups for various interests, and would be happy to do this when the time comes.

Jeff

From the book: Main Character Resolve describes the relationship between the MC and the IC. The impact of the IC is what forces the MC to even consider changing. If the MC eventually does change, it is the result of the IC's affect on the MC's perspective. I remember that elsewhere in the book it al...

Thanks to both of you, I agree.

Ain't that the truth! The storyforming part of this theory is so rigorous and was such an epiphany (for me) where story structure is concerned. The storyweaving part is much scarier. I have found the book "Dramatica for Screenwriters" to be a great help in getting past this. The section &q...

The one line that really brought out the laughs was this, in reference to some fragments of an ancient magical treatise that had recently been discovered: The fragments are now at the Institute of Magical History in Oslo. (There were many raised eyebrows when London declined to take them, but the Mi...

Hi Teresa,

the example and type-cast files are all way down in the Dramatica folder in your program files (if you're on Windows). I'm not sure where they would be on the Mac but presumably also wherever your Dramatica folder is.

Jeff

This isn't really a Dramatica question, but I can't think of a better place to pose it. I am working on a fantasy novel (wizards, that kind of thing). I wrote an "author's introduction", which is itself complete fiction, introducing the story as if it were real history and providing some b...

The character building screen is for your 8 major roles: Protagonist, Antagonist, Contagonist, etc. Unless all 28 characters are intended to play some part of those structural roles, you should limit the character building screen to just your major characters. That said, it is possible for multiple ...

Interesting point. But given this: The Protagonist represents our Initiative, the motivation to change the status quo. The Antagonist embodies our Reticence to change the status quo. ... couldn't one also argue that the Grinch is the one trying to change the status quo, and the Whos are trying to ke...

Remember that Antagonist and Guardian are different structural roles. I'm currently working on a story that does a very similar thing. What I'm doing is splitting the Guardian and Antagonist characteristics between two characters. This allows me to create some mystery around who is right/wrong.