[alicebot-general] Dramatica: A New Theory of Story

[Chris Lofting]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: alicebot-general-bounces at list.alicebot.org [mailto:alicebot-general-
> bounces at list.alicebot.org] On Behalf Of Dirk Scheuring
> Sent: Tuesday, 30 May 2006 12:52 AM
> To: Alicebot and AIML General Discussion
> Subject: Re: [alicebot-general] Dramatica: A New Theory of Story
> 
> Helio Perroni Filho wrote:
> 
> > While looking for references on Reiss' 16 motives, I
> > stumbled on this online book:
> >
> > Dramatica: A New Theory of Story
> > http://storymind.com/dramatica/dramatica_theory_book/table.html
> >
> > I just found it and had no time to give it a read, but
> > it seems a thorough reference on building stories, and
> > incidentally, fictional characters.
> 
> There's a Wikipedia entry [1] which summarizes Dramatica's underlying
> theory of the Grand Argument Story. I've been using it for nearly 10 years
> now; it works for me. Once you've analyzed your story, or your character,
> into a Dramatica storyform, you know it's computable, which is great if
> you plan to deliver it via an interactive program (e.g., a bot). Contrary
> to what some people believe, it doesn't do "plot/character/story
> generation" of any sort - it only aids in analzing, structuring, and
> refining stories and characters provided by the writer. It's a complex
> system, though; it took me several years of working in it to get any good.
> 
> Dirk
> 

A recent discovery in IDM and applicable here is that if you take the
dichotomies and form a dimension of 64 categories, sorted from most
differentiating to most integrating, each category will have a 'spectrum'
describing all of its properties/methods by the use of analogy to all of the
other categories. The ability to do this is due to the 'entanglement' of all
categories being a property of self-referencing.

For the character 'types' in Dramatica you focus on the eight basics ordered
something like this:

Protagonist,contagonist,guardian,antagonist,skeptic, emotion, reason,
sidekick

(the sidekick being the most integrating in that it sticks to the
protagonist, the most differentiating, like glue and so forms a pair)

Recurse these to give a 64-category sequence and so all of the categories
are  described WITHIN each. At this level of resolution you have a set of
categories isomorphic to other like-categories and you can extract each
category's spectrum that includes a generic 'purpose' and so particular
nature.

Chris.