How to work with the Dramatica uninitiated

#1

I recently worked as a dramaturgy in a small stage play production in Korea.

When I got in there and read the script, it was a real haphazard mess. No subjective throughlines, inconsistent OS.

So I actually had to write up a brand new script using Dramatica and they loved it.
However, they decide to make their own tweak and botched some story points. I tried to communicate their mistakes, but they didn’t really understand. It’s understandable because people in Korea have no idea what Dramatica is. (I’ve actually wrote some articles explaining key concepts of Dramatica in Korean to fix this.)

Anyone else collaborated with people without knowledge of Dramatica?

Would there be any way to communicate structural components?

#2

Generally, when I’m working with editing clients, I try to keep all of the Dramatica machinery in my head and use generic language for the issues I’m seeing. The only one I really struggle with is the Influence Character; for such a critical character in the structure of the story, it’s a shame they show up so little in other story theories. That being said, if they have an Influence Character, I think it’s easy enough to say, “I think this character is more important than you’re giving them credit” or “I think you should put more emphasis on the relationship between X and Y.” Stuff like that.

Another option is to just let minor Dramatica peccadillos go and let the story breathe its own way. If they don’t have a Sidekick, or if the Driver from Act 2 to Act 3 is a bit bumpy, that might not be worth getting worked up over. (That being said, I assume you’re talking about major structural/character deficiencies here. :wink: )

Other than that, I’m not sure. I understand the difficulty of, e.g. trying to explain that the Protagonist drives the plot, not the MC, or trying to explain the reasoning behind our 4-Act structure as opposed to Aristotle’s 3-Act one. (Don’t even get me started on that one. :rolling_eyes: ) Only recourse I see is to do a quick Dramatica 101 explanation (“Okay, see how at every major point in the story, the character makes a big decision, but then here he takes an action instead? Don’t you think that’s inconsistent?”) and hope they accept you know what you’re doing. :confounded:

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#3

I think the most important things are:

  • The 4 throughlines being present
  • Each having their 1 focus per act touched on at least once (e.g. Universe - The Present, The Future etc.)
  • The OS theme lining up with what Dramatica suggests
  • The driver types being consistent (e.g. Action or Decision)

I think everything else is just depends on how much logical and thematic consistency you want your story to have

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#4

I’ve also struggled with explaining the IC without spewing out a whole bunch of Dramatica jargon. If dealing with a non-Dramatica user, I refer to it as a ‘Mirror Character’ – a character that handles a similar issue in a very different way to the Main Character. For some reason, the word ‘influence’ seems to be the thing that confuses many people. They take it to be a ‘good influence’/‘bad influence’ black-and-white thing, which just results in a character that constantly offers up unsubtle and terrible variations on “HEY MC, YOU SHOULD DO THIS!” Mirror is an inaccurate term regarding what the IC actually does, but it’s a fairly simple starting point for the uninitiated.

I try not to overwhelm clients or collaborators with my Dramatica stuff unless they explicitly ask (I rarely bring it up with new clients). For non-users, I find it easier to approach it in a simple, big picture ‘holistic’ contextual kind of way, connecting a story point to everything around it. For the dynamics, this is pretty easy to get across. But for the actual story points, it’s about referring to why it’s needed in the context of everything around it, rather than offering a linear explanation of what’s needed. Tricky to do, but it works.

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#5

Figure out how they understand story and tweak everything you know into their understanding. It takes a lot of mental gymnastics on your part, but eventually–once they see that you always provide positive and productive notes, they’ll start to open to you…

…and then you can unleash the Story Prerequisites of the Preconscious!

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