Mephisto Supersonic Plot Computer

If you have read Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain, you might recall mention of a device called the Mephisto Supersonic Plot Computer (MSPC). Swain discounts the MSPC as being a waste of money and time. However, I see Dramatica as being a functioning version of the MSPC that even goes so far as to incorporate a large number of Swain’s concepts into its code. I see it almost like a child that says, “Dad, you were wrong about me. Look what I can do.”

After reading both books (Dramatica: A Theory of Story and Techniques of the Selling Writer), I realized that I saw a number of correlations between Swain’s observations and Dramatica’s equation. For me, it is as if both theories function as required reading for the other.

Even without going back and searching both texts (because they are both over 100,000 words), I can rattle off a list of complementary or similar concepts:

  • Timelock; Optionlock vs. Chronometrical Time; Emotional Time

  • Focal Character; Viewpoint Character; Hero vs. Protagonist; MC; Hero

  • State of Mind; State of Affairs vs. Mind; Universe

  • Internal Motivations; External Motivations vs. Psychology; Physics

  • Internal Reactions; External Reactions vs. Mind; Universe

  • Cause and Effect vs. Actions (Physics and Psychology) and Situations (Universe and Mind)

I am quite certain that I could go on and on. I’m pretty sure that everything that Swain says is applicable and identifiable within the world of Dramatica Theory. I’d be interested if someone could find something in Swain’s book that they feel contradicts Dramatica and then I’d like to see if I could fit it into the Dramatica concept.

I had recently read a post about PRCO. I still haven’t consumed PRCO completely nor has it percolated into a form that makes complete sense to me yet. There was some talk about the rule that a scene should end in disaster, but the general consensus of this rule was that it was folly. However, I’d point out that Swain – although he extolled the virtue of disaster – did talk about the potential for disaster as well. His general point seemed to be that disaster was easier for the novice writer to implement as compared to potential disaster.

For me, I feel the most confident with theories when I can see the connections and relationships with other concepts. For example, in Swain’s books, I was glad to see him apply components of Sergei Eisenstein’s Montage theory within the world of novels. He also directly compared POV and scope with various cinemaphotography concepts in filmmaking. My understanding of the world is often a question of relationship as much as it is about logic. I’d love to see a 3D model of a Dramatica Storyform. Is that even possible?

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You don’t happen have page numbers to those two sections do you?

Here’s the quote referencing Eisenstein:

Order does make a difference. Show a gun, then a coffin, then tears, and you put your focus on heartbreak. If coffin comes first, then tears, then gun, the issue may be vengeance.

Dwight Swain. Techniques of the Selling Writer (Kindle Locations 446-447). University of Oklahoma Press. Kindle Edition.

What is interesting to note about that is the order that many different aspects of Dramatica can be played and how that can allow you to create a completely different story based on ideas of montage, beause montage is about order and content.

Here’s one of the quotes referencing filmmaking:

In the same way, you can begin on either motivating stimulus or character reaction; on the search for a goal or on the struggle to attain it. You can start with the big picture and move to the small, in the manner of the motion picture’s familiar long-shot, medium-shot, close-up pattern. Or, you can reverse the process . . . begin with the close-up, the significant detail, and then pull back to view the broader frame of reference that is the detail’s setting.

Dwight Swain. Techniques of the Selling Writer (Kindle Locations 2505-2507). University of Oklahoma Press. Kindle Edition.

He often talks about connotation vs denotation. Montage is directly related to these ideas. I really enjoy his delvings into this subject (which are scattered about in his book). I would label some of what he is talking about as crafty and efficient vividness through subconscious stereotypes that we all have. That’s authorial manipulation at its simplest, but finest. He briefly talks about montage here:

Link enough such details into an impressionistic montage and there’s virtually no limit as to how much ground you can make a sentence cover:

Fog and smog and soot-streaked snow. Steaming summer nights in New Orleans; the parched miles going across Wyoming. He knew them all, in the months that followed; knew them, and ignored them, because there was no room in him for anything but hate.

Dwight Swain. Techniques of the Selling Writer (Kindle Locations 1925-1928). University of Oklahoma Press. Kindle Edition.

Bear in mind, the references in Swain’s book to these different storytelling mediums are often uncredited and done without acknowledgment of the source. For me, understanding something is about making connections with what I already know. So, when I read Swain or Dramatica, I notice all these different things that I’ve seen before. It is all about the web of connections. That helps me become comfortable with concepts.

Before I decided to write a novel, I had no idea that many of the ideas in acting, screenwriting, and filmmaking are exceptionally similar to ideas found in noveling. For me, a little shot of dopamine is released every time I realize that I already know, theoretically at least, what I have to do.

Even though he doesn’t directly spell it out, you can see that Swain would agree that four Throughlines exists as Dramatica points out. He talks about it, but indirectly. With enough time, I could run through his book and identify times that he is talking specifically about each of the Throughlines.

Maybe not the IC Throughline, but he does talk about something else that is directly related and that probably fits without the idea of an IC (or at least the specter of an IC).

Anyway, sorry I don’t have the page numbers. Hopefully, this helps.

Caveat Emptor: I am just a fool. No information here is any attempt whatsoever to suggest mastery of Dramatica or life in general. Consume at your own risk.

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That’s wonderful, thank you, Fred/Muse (what do you go by?) I’m much the same make connections between all the things I know. I’ve always loved Swain’s book, and for a long-ass time it was the only one I would recommend to people learning to write. Since you don’t have page numbers…chapters maybe? I’m using a hard copy, so no search function.

I really like Swain too. I think it has to do with his prose. I grew up in Arkansas. He’s from Oklahoma. I think it makes him accessible to me…

The quote referencing the gun, coffin, and tears is in chapter two. It is preceded by the question “How does the reader see all this?”

The next quote about camera shots is in chapter six. But be warned, I think he mentions these terms throughout the book.

Montage is in chapter four but closer to the beginning of chapter five. There’s another mention of it elsewhere, but more to describe the failure of a book that had no MC.

Swain mentions a novice writer by the name of Fred Friggenhemier in the beginning of his book and uses him as a reference a number of times after. My name isn’t Fred. I just thought it was an interesting pseudonym/pen name. You can call me J.D.

I’d like to point out one more thing. Most modern filmmakers think of montage primarily as a device used to manipulate time and space. That is to say, it shows time passing or distance traveled. However, I’d contend that the Eisensteinian concept of montage is really at the base of modern storytelling in an understated way. It is such a given that it is often discounted as not worth exploration. In reality, the entire story is a complex montage.

In the first half of chapter three (I think):

What will your focal character notice about this scene? To what specific fragment will he react… to a very considerable degree, your readers will draw their conclusions as to the meaning of the focal character’s reaction on the basis of context—that is, the stimulus or motivation that provokes it.

Just as in montage, two images – stimulus and reaction units (shots in filmmaking) – create a third mental image with the audience through emotional interpretation. The similarity between authorial intent and the highly personal image of the audience is driven by storytelling skill. In other words, a truly skillful author can drive and predict the internal image that is most often created in the audience’s mind.

This is related to the idea of showing and not telling. Swain (and most gurus of noveling, filmmaking, etc.) advocate that storytelling should be visual. The stimulus is objective (although you can manipulate the context via scope). The reaction is subjective (in terms of character and POV). And the audience’s conclusion is receptive (maybe I’ll find a better word than this eventually). Effective storytelling has the appearance of being unobtrusive and hands-off – despite being the opposite.

One of my favorite quotes from Swain’s book:

Art conceals art, in writing as elsewhere. The skill of a skilled writer tricks you into thinking that there is no skill.

Swain goes on and talks about basic montage ideas. If I make a three-second shot of an actor looking off into the distance without any emotion choice on his part, then I place another shot next to it (either in front or behind) – I create the potential for different evaluations of the actor’s emotion. If the objective shot is soup, he is hungry; if the objective shot is a beautiful woman, he is enamored.

As an actor, often times you hear that talent is in the choice. I think the reality of that statement is that bold choice can create a friction between the audience’s expectation and the reality contained in the story.

This is based on where the actor chooses to drive the focus. In this case, the actor drives the audience’s mental image more than the objective image and away from their expectations. Although bold, the actor’s choice will be acceptable or not acceptable to the audience dependent upon if it allows them the chance to make peace with their expectation and the actor-driven reality.

Conversely, a skillful actor must also be subtle because being bold all the time would be monotonous. Inaction and subtlety are choices and these two choices require boldness to embrace.

I see a correlation between this and varying levels of tension, the longevity of tension, and the release of tension created in a novel. I’d say this relates directly to PRCO. I think PRCO – as I briefly read about it – felt too clinical and equational for me to immediately grasp, but as it percolates – I’m able to come to peace with its manner of explanation and my understanding.

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Thanks for pointing out the bridges between Swain and Dramatica. Makes me want to reread his fantastic book.