Dramatica's Character Archetypes

Some of you may have heard of Dramatica, but for those unfamiliar with it, Dramatica is a (rather comprehensive) theory about storytelling--what a story needs, to be most successful. One of the things that sets Dramatica apart from other approaches, is that Dramatica looks at the story as a representation of an argument within the human mind. The story itself represents how our minds solve problems.

Might sound a little strange when you first hear the concept, but it's rather impressive. In order for a story to feel satisfyingly "complete," it must include all points and parts that we would naturally consider when trying to solve a problem.

When it comes to characters, these parts are divided into several archetypes.

Archetypes (in this context) are recurring characters that you can trace way back into myths, and many of them are instantly recognizable to audiences (such as, say, the wise, old mentor figure). Dramatica has its own categories, but each perspective needs to be included for the story's argument to feel complete. If one of these character functions is missing from your story, the book may feel . . . unfulfilling.

So with that said, I'd like to share these with you today, along with some methods to help take them to the next level in your story.

The first two listed are the most recognizable. The others you've probably seen many times, even if you didn't realize it.

Protagonist

The protagonist is the primary driver of the story, the person who is putting in the most effort to reach the story's goal or reconcile the story problem.

Action Characteristic: Pursues the goal. The traditional Protagonist is the driver of the story: the one who forces the action.

Decision Characteristic: Urges the other characters to consider the necessity of achieving the goal.

Antagonist

The antagonist is directly opposed to the protagonist's efforts. It may be that the protagonist has a goal and plan, and the antagonist comes along and tries to thwart it, but it can also work the other way, and start with the antagonist. The antagonist has a goal and plan, and the protagonist comes along and tries to thwart it. Whatever the case, their goals are direct opposites, so they are in a sort of tug-of-war.

Action Characteristic: The Antagonist physically tries to prevent or avoid the successful achievement of the goal by the Protagonist.

Decision Characteristic: The Antagonist urges the other characters to reconsider the attempt to achieve the goal.

Reason

The reason character is "calm, collected, and cool, perhaps even cold." In the overall story argument, this character makes decisions based only on logic. They are very organized and calculated. In fact, maybe so much so that they seem to lack humanity. As a result, they may hurt others unknowingly and have difficulty finding support for their well-thought plans. This leads to their logic sometimes being wasted.

Action Characteristic: This character is very calm or controlled in its actions.

Decision Characteristic: It makes its decisions on the basis of logic, never letting emotion get in the way of a rational course.

Emotion

Just as the protagonist and antagonist counterbalance each other, the emotion character counterbalances the reason character. They aren't enemies necessarily, or good vs. evil necessarily, but just opposites, with neither actually being "better" than the other (though they will likely be in conflict). In real life, we need both reason and emotion to make smart decisions, which is why we need both in the story--it mimics what happens in our own minds.

The emotion character is quick to show and act on emotion. They may get angry or sad easily, but they are also empathetic. They make choices based on the heart. Typically, they will be frenetic and disorganized, and sometimes lash out. Because of this, they may waste their energy by going in "so many directions that [they end] up running in circles and getting nowhere."

Action Characteristic: The Emotional character is frenzied or uncontrolled in its actions.

Decision Characteristic: It responds with its feelings with disregard for practicality.

Sidekick

The sidekick character represents confidence. They are very loyal and supportive, usually to the protagonist, but they may be paired with someone else, like the antagonist, or even just be attached to an idea. The point is that they represent those qualities in the story argument or in our own minds. They are completely faithful to who or what they believe in.

Action Characteristic: The Sidekick supports, playing a kind of cheering section.

Decision Characteristic: It is almost gullible in the extent of its faith—in the goal, in the Protagonist, in success, etc.

Skeptic

Opposing that, we have the skeptic, who is just what it sounds. The skeptic's job is to question and cast doubt. "Where the Sidekick has faith, the Skeptic disbelieves; where the Sidekick supports, the Skeptic opposes." Whatever is presented in the story, they will probably be against it. In our own minds, skepticism helps us foresee potential failures, while in contrast, confidence helps us see potential successes.

Action Characteristic: The Skeptic opposes—everything.

Decision Characteristic: It disbelieves everything, doubting courses of action, sincerity, truth—whatever.

Guardian

This is a very familiar archetype. The guardian character is the mentor character. This character offers wisdom and direction. They help the protagonist overcome the obstacles in their path and guide them towards the proper way to success (the moral way). In our story arguments and in our own minds, the guardian represents the conscience.

Action Characteristic: The Guardian is a helper who aids the efforts to achieve the story goal.

Decision Characteristic: It represents conscience in the mind, based upon the Author’s view of morality.

Contagonist

This is a term coined by Dramatica for the character opposite of the guardian. Where the guardian seeks to morally guide the protagonist toward success, the contagonist seeks to tempt them by luring them away from it. The guardian speeds up the journey to success, but the contagonist slows it. This might be done by placing obstacles in the protagonist's way and/or heckling them. Or it might be done by enticing them toward a different path.

The contagonist functions a little differently than the antagonist though. The antagonist seeks to completely defeat the protagonist in the overall problem, but the contagonist intends to delay or divert the protagonist.

Contagonists are usually attached to the antagonist, but they can also be attached to other people or ideas. Together, the guardian and the contagonist represent the conflict in our own minds between our conscience for doing what is right and our temptations for instant gratification.

Action Characteristic: The Contagonist hinders the efforts to achieve the story goal.

Decision Characteristic: It represents temptation to take the wrong course or approach.

***

Including each of these archetypes means fully representing the arguments in our own minds; it means having a "complete" argument in the story. We have all aspects of that human experience and their oppositions.

Protagonist vs. Antagonist

Reason vs. Emotion

Sidekick vs. Skeptic

Guardian vs. Contagonist

Keep in mind that you can mix and match who these characters are connected to. Typically we think of a sidekick being connected to the protagonist, but you can attach them to someone else. The contagonist is usually the antagonist's second-in-command, but you can attach them to the protagonist--maybe as a younger sibling or a lover.

Creating Complex Characters

With all that said, if you have a cast of characters who match all the archetypes exactly, you can run into simplistic or flat characters. Dramatica explains that one way to make characters complex is to mix and match their functions. The point of the archetypal characters isn't that you need a separate character for each function, but rather, you want to make sure each function is manifested in the cast.

Complex characters often come from contradictions and inconsistencies (thank you for validating my opinions on that Dramatica). A character who is a skeptic sidekick is complex--how can someone be both faithful and faithless? Well, exploring that gap is where complexity resides. Maybe they have always been the sidekick, but are now becoming skeptical of their friend's plans. Smashing together opposite functions also increases conflict within the character. A character who is functioning as both a sidekick and skeptic is going to be having some inner turmoil. Likewise, a guardian who is a skeptic is interesting. Or a protagonist who is driven primarily by emotion, and therefore makes rash decisions or illogical ones (something they may need to work on in their character arc) is interesting. Or maybe a guardian turns out to be the antagonist.

You can also play around with the action and decision elements to an extent. You can have a character who makes decisions based on feelings but is still very calm and controlled, for example.

When you understand the archetypal functions, you can make meaningful decisions on how to distribute them into your cast of characters, while also making sure every aspect of the argument is met.

Drivers and Passengers

To take this a step further, Dramatica explains that some archetypes are drivers of the story and others are passengers, or rather, like back-seat drivers, influencing and telling the drivers what to do.

Drivers

Protagonist vs. Antagonist
Guardian vs. Contagonist

The drivers' interactions thrust the plot directly forward, in major ways. "Whatever the object of their efforts, Protagonist will be trying to achieve it, Antagonist will be trying to prevent its achievement, Guardian will act to aid the achievement, and Contagonist will act to hinder (although Guardian and Contagonist may not be directly concerned with the goal itself or even each other)."

Remember, this is not based on how these characters see themselves and the story, but rather how the audience sees them affecting the story.

Passengers

Reason vs. Emotion
Sidekick vs. Skeptic

The passengers influence their drivers. This is Hermione and Ron influencing Harry. Peeta and Gale influencing Katniss. They aren't the main drivers, but they are the back-seat drivers shouting directions. "If not for the Drivers, the Passengers would not even be involved with the problem."

The Four Dimensions 

Above, you'll notice I included the "actions" and "decisions" each archetype has. This makes up their motivations.

But this is only one character dimension. Dramatica breaks each archetype into four dimensions:

- Motivation
- Purpose
- Evaluation
- Methodology

You can also create complex characters by mixing and matching these dimensions. For example, you may have a guardian who is motivated to help, but his methodology is inaction. How do you help by being inactive? You might wonder. But perhaps it's helpful because the guardian was being an enabler, and by being inactive, he ensures he is not. Or perhaps by getting involved, he will create more problems--draw in more opposing forces. Therefore not acting is actually helping.

The protagonist is usually proactive, but perhaps instead her methodology is protection. Maybe she doesn't necessarily want to overthrow the antagonist, she just wants to survive and protect her loved ones. This is exactly Katniss Everdeen. Sure, she changes as the story progresses, but that is part of her character arc. For most of the series, her method is survival.

This can all get more complex, and surprisingly, you can actually read the entire Dramatica book online for free.

Here is the chapter on characters, if you want to study these concepts in more depth. Otherwise, just remember this: Include all the archetypal functions to create a balanced cast and story.

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Obligatory Scenes and Conventions

Today I want to talk about Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱 These are things that often writers, particularly new writers, don't like . . . all that much.

Why?

Because they are . . .

Obligatory Scenes and Conventions™️ 😱

Okay, they aren't all that bad for all of us . . . but some of us go out of our way to avoid them because they feel so contrived, and it ends up just hurting our book 🙄 (#guilty).

So what are obligatory scenes and conventions?

They are the stuff, the elements, that are "obligatory" for your genre.

Meaning, if I'm writing a romance, I need to write a first kiss scene. If I'm writing a murder mystery, I need to write about the discovered body at the beginning. If I'm writing a superhero origin story, I need to show how the superhero got his or her powers. And if I'm retelling Sherlock Holmes, I better have his deductive reasoning in it.

In some genres, the conventions are really obvious:

Others are a lot less noticeable.

But every genre has them.

Shawn Coyne, an editor with over 25 years of experience, has noted that many writers he works with try to avoid writing obligatory scenes. They feel they are stupid or even "cheesy." Writers may try to leave them out in order to write something "fresh" and "original."

But this is sort of like saying you are going to be "fresh" and "original" by ignoring the "Show, don't Tell" rule, and instead "tell" your whole novel. In fact, it's like saying you will be "fresh" and "original" by disregarding any writing rule.

In reality, it isn't ignoring the rules that makes you great, it's understanding and respecting them, and then knowing when to break them. Ignorance rarely, rarely, rarely (I used it three times, so I hope I get the point across) leads to "fresh" and "original" content. In fact, ignorance most often leads to poor content.

And yet writers often want to try to leave out the "rules" of their genre. Sometimes it's not because they want to be original, but because they want to be surprising. But this doesn't work.

Why? Because the most surprising things are surprising because of conventions.

What's more "surprising," a story where you don't have any grasp or idea of where it is going, or a story where you think you know where it is going before it twists a different way?

The most satisfying surprises come not from disregarding conventions, but from flipping, twisting, or inverting them. From breaking them.

In order to create true surprises, the audience must have some kind of expectation. We need to understand and respect the conventions, first.

It's like that with every rule in the arts.

You have to know the rule inside and out before you can break it.

One of the most important aspects of writing surprises is that the surprise isn't a disappointment. If you ignore the obligatory conventions instead of respect them, you are more likely to disappoint. After all, the reason your audience is drawn to your genre in the first place is because of the conventions. Surprises usually work better when they are more than what the audience expects, and they almost never work if they are less than what the audience expects. But I don't want to spend too much time on surprises--if you want to know more about them, check out my post "5 Types of Surprises."

For some of us writers, obligatory scenes and conventions can be a little annoying. A few months ago, I saw a romance writer lament on social media something along the lines of, "Just HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?!" After writing several romance books, it can be hard to think of new ways to portray it.

But while originality doesn't usually come from ignoring the conventions, it can come from respecting them.

HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?

As you struggle to write it a brand new way, you may well breathe some originality into the story. Because again, what makes something feel satisfyingly original often isn't something that has no relation to any conventions, but rather something that bends, twists, and properly breaks conventions.

In order for something to feel "fresh" and "original," the audience has to have some kind of expectation--formed from what they've seen before.

As you respect and bend obligatory scenes and conventions in satisfying ways, your target audience, immersed in their chosen genre and surprised over a sense of originality, may not even notice them for what they are.

For example, in a typical fantasy story, at some point, the protagonist must face some sort of hellish creature or entity. In old stories, this is your traditional dragon. Usually this creature is in the earth or underground, or at least comes from somewhere deep and remote or secluded. In old stories, this is related to tunnels or caves, a sort of symbol of hell, which is "beneath" or "downward"--the underworld.

If you look at some of the most famous fantasy stories, you'll see this convention respected in some way.

In Harry Potter

Book 1: Harry and Ron defeat a troll that came from deep under the castle, Harry faces Voldemort (who is more of a spiritual entity at this point) deep in the forest, and then again deep down, through the trapdoor (not to mention facing the Devil's Snare and Fluffy on the way).

Book 2: Harry defeats a giant serpent in the Chamber of Secrets, which is located under the lake, deep under the school, and the snake has been getting around using the plumbing as tunnels. (Not to mention all the spiders in the forest.)

Book 3: Harry goes through a tunnel to the Shrieking Shack, a "haunted" place, where he encounters a werewolf, and then later is deep in the Forbidden Forest trying to fight off Dementors.

Book 4: In a secluded graveyard, he faces Voldemort, who appears almost more of a hellish creature with red eyes and slits for a nose, than a human.

Book 5: Deep down, in the lowest level of the Ministry of Magic, Harry faces the "fringes" of magic--floating brains, a death chamber, time itself, and then Voldemort's possession. Sure, Death Eaters are human, but even a name like that suggests something hellish.

Book 6: Harry and Dumbledore go deep into a cave where inferi from deep under the water attack them.

Book 7: Harry goes deep into Gringotts--one of the deepest chambers--to retrieve a Horcrux, but must watch for (and then rides) a literal dragon.

Have you ever noticed how often he goes into the "underworld" and faces a hellish entity? I hadn't really put it together until preparing this post. The only one I think might be a little iffy is book five, as much of the elements of the Department of Mysteries aren't living things, and those that are, are human. But the department is full of things that seem hellish--the Death Chamber with the mysterious veil, the brains that attack Ron, the time room with the bell-jar that changes a person slowly into a baby, over and over again.

In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, we have Smaug, a literal dragon, literally deep in a mountain.

In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo must traverse through tunnels, where he encounters Shelob, a giant spider.

Right now I'm rewatching FMA:Brotherhood, and even in that story, the heroes face animal/human chimeras and artificially-made humans in tunnels under cities or in abandoned laboratories near a prison. Hellish creatures linked to a kind of underworld.

Look at all the different ways this convention is met in all these stories.

I once had a person say to me--why do all fantasy stories have to have a real or figurative "dragon" in them?

Well, because that's a convention of the typical fantasy story. It's like asking why every romance has to have a first kiss scene.

Sure, you can probably find some that don't have these things, but usually the best stories of the genre include some kind of rendition of it, even if it's so twisted or subtle that no one realizes it until they are analyzing.

Do you always need to meet the exact expectations? Of course not. Remember, we work with the understanding of conventions to create satisfying surprises and original ideas. Maybe the dragon turns out to be an ally. Heck, maybe he turns out to be a human (Voyage of the Dawn Treader). The underworld doesn't have to be a recess in the earth. It can be a forest, a graveyard, a secret government laboratory.

Even if we aren't fully aware of all the conventions of our genres, often we will intuitively know that such an element needs to be added--simply because we have consumed so many stories of the genre. In one of the earliest drafts of my fantasy book, I felt that I needed to add some kind of monster; it just felt "right" and like it would make the story more . . . "complete." Did I know that such a thing was a convention of fantasy at the time? Sorta, but not really. I just knew it would be a more satisfying story.

See, but what we don't want to do when this arises is go, "Uugh, but no, I can't do that--so many fantasy stories already have monsters! I don't want to be the same as them; I want to be original (wink wink), so I'll make sure to avoid putting in anything that could be interpreted as a monster at all."

This is ignorance, not invention.

(And trust me, in my early days, I did this a lot! (and have paid for it.))

Which is one of the reasons I'm doing this post.

If you respond that way to obligatory scenes and conventions, you will probably pay for it. The story might not feel "right" or "complete," regardless of how much work you put into everything else.

HOW many ways can you write a first kiss?

Now that's invention.

And you need to be inventive about it. Otherwise the story will feel just like "so many fantasy stories." Otherwise it will feel cliche. How do you make the scenes and conventions unique in your story? Well, look at how even each of the Harry Potter books does it differently.

How do you make that dead body scene in the opening different than any other?

How do you make that saloon scene in a Western different than any other?

How do you make the hero-at-the-mercy-of-the-villain scene in your thriller different than any other?

You have to respect the convention as you twist it into something new.

Obligatory scenes and conventions aren't our enemies; they're our friends.

We all know the buddy stories where two characters start out hating each other and realize they needed each other all along.

For some of us, that's how our relationship with conventions go.

And often the key element to making a relationship work, is respect.

Note: Don't forget to enter the advent calendar for writers--all of the prizes have been revealed, and you can now go on the website and enter all of them, including mine, which is a first chapter edit. 😊  They will be open until the 19th!

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The Struggle is Real: Make Your Protagonist Suffer for Success!

Lately I've been thinking about stories where the protagonist doesn't really struggle. You don't see this in published works very much, but it crops up in unpublished fiction from time to time.

Sure, these stories may have conflict, maybe even tension. And so the writer might even think that the story does have struggle in it. But it doesn't have real struggle. Instead, conflicts are resolved with little to no suffering or sacrifice from the protagonist.

Heck, maybe even the conflict isn't resolved the first or second time, and yet, the story still lacks the struggle. That can happen.

Say you have a conflict that your character is trying to resolve, and he tries to resolve it three different ways, and the third way works--that doesn't necessarily mean he really struggled. It might only mean he only tried three different things.

But struggle is real.

Even people who are good people, with good successful lives, have struggles. Earlier this year, we had to put down our beloved family dog. She was sixteen. Maggie was one of the best, kindest dogs I ever met. She didn't do anything wrong. We gave her a good life. But guess what? She still struggled.

Rich people struggle. Famous people struggle. Loved people struggle. We sometimes perceive that if we just obtain X, we won't have to suffer and sacrifice and struggle, but the reality is, even good things can have their own negative problems attached to them. For example, I once heard a child of a rich and famous celebrity say he struggled making friends, because a lot of people wanted to pretend to be his friend to get to his dad. I'm not saying that some people don't suffer worse, they do; but everyone suffers.

Mozart struggled composing his next great symphony, despite being a master. Jesus Christ struggled at the end of his mortal ministry, despite being perfect (whether or not you believe it was true, it's still part of the story told). Lin-Manuel Miranda struggled to be taken seriously when working on Hamilton. Even if we become successful business owners, we have to deal with pressure and make continued sacrifices.

Sorry to tell you that even highly successful people like Mozart struggle.

So when I read a story where a protagonist doesn't struggle, I can't help but think, life just isn't like that. It's not realistic. Now, I'm not saying everything is doom and gloom all the time. But guys, even when I'm pursuing something I love more than anything (writing), it's still hard! There are negative consequences to positive actions. It's just the way life works. Everything, and I mean everything, is a give and take. Problems and obstacles never go away.

And having a good life and being a good person does take work and effort. It doesn't just happen. You have to make it happen. And that requires sacrifice.

And yet, even with all this stated, there will be some writers who don't want to make their characters struggle. They enjoy the characters and just want to write a nice story.

Look, I'm not saying you need to smother them by overwhelming them. But in order for them to learn and grow, or to illustrate the theme, you need to have them struggle in something.

Don't forget the power of contrasting in storytelling.

The greater the struggle.

The more powerful the reward.

It's often the contrast that makes stories meaningful, whether that's a Christmas Hallmark movie where the protagonist is struggling with a choice between a big city job and small town love, or Frodo Baggins near Mount Doom struggling with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders (and darkness within). If your character isn't struggling with something, then overcoming problems won't feel as earned. The story's climax and falling action will never be fully satisfying.

Sometimes writers are afraid to give their protagonists hard things. They just don't want to take the character there. Or they just want to show how wonderful and amazing this character is. That this character is just that good.

But it's not the innocent, inexperienced person that is most beautiful and amazing. It's the person who can still be good despite life's hardships, or, perhaps, because of them. Those are the kind of people we want to root for (generally speaking of course).

Not people who have it so easy, that they never suffer--that's not real life. The real world is unfair.

Sometimes we don't layer on the struggle because we are afraid of rendering it--maybe we are afraid we can't render it. Or maybe we just don't want to.

With writing, if that is our reason for not doing something, then we are going to have problems. You need to learn to render it.

Even if your character is a good person doing good things with good outcomes, ask yourself: What are some of the negative consequences they will have to face for doing X?  What personal sacrifices do they have to make to accomplish whatever good thing they want to do?

If you look at famous story structures, they almost always speak to the protagonist's struggle. And in many stories, this struggle will reach its most intense moment at plot point two, when it seems everything is lost . . . until the protagonist makes the biggest sacrifice yet. From there, the protagonist will be tested yet again during the climax, to prove they have fully overcome the difficulty.

Everything costs something.

For an effective story, make sure your protagonist is struggling for success.

***

Last week I mentioned an advent calendar for writers that I'm participating in. (We are giving away $2,600 in prizes). And today is my day! 😍 Click the little window on the webpage to see what you can win from me 🥰

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Advent Calendar for Writers! (Over $2600 in Prizes!)

This time of year, it’s always wonderful to look back and feel good about the progress we’ve made. Whether we took small steps forward or big ones, each one steers us toward our writing goals. So, celebrate your hard work and feel good about what you’ve accomplished! 

And guess what? We want to help you celebrate! 

Have you heard of the Advent Calendar for Writers? It’s a show-stopper event put on by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi at Writers Helping Writers, and just like those chocolate-filled calendars, you open a “window” each day and find an incredible prize to be won. 

This is no small giveaway, either: this Advent Calendar has over $2600 in prizes (including something from me!)

Visit Writers Helping Writers between December 1^st and December 14^th and open the Advent Calendar window to reveal that day’s giveaway. Enter and while you’re at it, why not be a good writing buddy and let some writer friends know so they can enter too!

Once a giveaway is live, you can enter right up until December 19^th so make sure to hit all 14 giveaways. We would love to see one of you win something special for yourself—good luck! 

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Scene vs. Sequence vs. Act

If you are like me, you've probably heard the terms "scene," and "act," and maybe even "sequence" at least a dozen (if not a hundred) times without anyone explaining what they actually are. For most of my writerly life, I've heard about the 3-Act Structure, without anyone explaining to me what an act actually is. Sure, they may tell me what story parts go in which one, what happens, but they don't tell me what it actually is. Like, why is that stuff an act? What makes this a scene? And what is a sequence? 🤦‍♀️

So with this post, I'm hoping to help others with that, explaining what these things are, structurally, after all, they are structural terms.

(Though, as I've acknowledged before, much of story structure can get down to how you decide to slice and dice it, and people use different terminology, making writing terms ambiguous, which doesn't help.)

Scene

If you don't have an exact understanding of what a scene is, you probably at least have a vague one, thanks to the scene selection menu on movies or the high school play you saw being rehearsed in the auditorium as a teenager.

A scene is usually defined as a unit of action that takes place in a single location and continuous time. When the location changes, or the time jumps, or in some cases (particularly in plays) when a new set of characters enters the location, it's a new scene.

In Guardians of the Galaxy, the opening scene is when Peter is a kid and his mom is lying in a hospital bed dying from cancer, and it ends as he runs outside and is abducted.

Then we jump to 26 years later on a different planet--a new scene.

Seems simple enough, right?

But here's the thing, for a scene to work structurally, it actually needs to do more than that. The scene is a structural unit, perhaps even more so than a setting unit (time or place), but often, people only define it using setting terms, like we have so far.

In reality, a scene follows the same basic structure of the overall story.

And it typically breaks down in similar ways (or usually should).

Open with a hook
Establish the setup (where and when we are and what characters are in the scene)
Have a rising action with complications
Hit a climax
Have a falling action or denouement

You can even break this down further and get more detailed, but for simplicity's sake, I'll leave that there (and save the advanced stuff for my online course).

Now, the "climax" is also known as a turning point or plot turn (or even plot point). It changes the direction of the story. It was going one direction, and then wham! it's going a new different direction. The most obvious, simplistic way to look at this, is that it turns us from rising action to falling action. But if you prefer to just think of it as the climax, that's fine too.

The difference here is that in a scene, the "climax" is going to be smaller and less impactful than that of the whole story. Smaller unit, means smaller turn.

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How to Add Dimension to Your Story's Theme

A lot of writers believe you cannot intentionally write to a theme. I completely disagree. And I'm suspicious that those who say that, just don't understand how to write to theme intentionally. They claim that if you do, you'll just become preachy. Sure, that can absolutely happen, but it only happens when you don't understand how theme actually works in a story.

You see, for a theme statement to be powerful, it needs to have opposition. Who cares if the tortoise in "The Tortoise and the Hare" wins, if he isn't racing the hare to begin with? No one. The thematic statement ("It's better to move forward at a steady pace than go so fast we burn ourselves out") is only powerful because we see it paired up with its opposite (the hare).

Often it's helpful to breakdown how theme functions, like I did in this article. But here is a quick recap.

Every story has a thematic statement.

A thematic statement is essentially the teaching of a story. So for the Good Samaritan, the thematic statement is, "We should love, be kind to, and serve everyone."

The Little Red Hen: If you don't contribute or work, you don't get the rewards of those efforts.

The Ant and the Grasshopper: If all we do is have fun and entertain ourselves, we won't be prepared for difficult times.

Harry Potter: Love is the most powerful force in the world

On a broader scope, we have a theme topic. The subject or topic about which something is taught. It's the concept, without the teaching attached. It's what the theme or story is "about," in an abstract sense.

Here are the theme topics of those stories:

The Little Red Hen: Contribution and work

The Ant and the Grasshopper: Preparation

Harry Potter: Love

In a strong story, the theme topic will be explored during the narrative, through plot or character or both. The story will ask (directly or indirectly) questions about the theme topic. This can happen through main characters and main plots, or side characters and subplots, or all of the above.

Often, in most stories, the protagonist's character arc starts an a false or inaccurate idea about the theme topic and ends on the true thematic statement. Example: Harry starts unloved and powerless, living in a cupboard. By the end, he's surrounded by supporters, and he's willing to sacrifice himself (the ultimate manifestation of love) to pave the way for Voldemort's defeat. 

Between the false thematic statement and the true thematic statement is the struggle that leads to transformation, or at least, demonstrates a point. 

Sounds great, right? But what do we put there? After all, that transition part of the story will take up most of the story, and so far, we only have black and white: false thematic statement vs. true thematic statement. I mentioned that the theme topic needs to be questioned and explored. And by the climax, it needs to be proven. Do we just reiterate the same false statement and true statement over and over?

Life is rarely so black and white. It's more complex.

To get ideas, it's helpful to give your theme topic more dimension.

Luckily, Robert McKee (who I've been re-studying, as you may have noticed) has a method that will help you do just that. He doesn't technically relate this to the term "theme," but he relates it to what he calls a story's "value," but I consider that concept nearly the same thing as "theme topic." (He's just coming at it from a different angle.) So, I'm going to show how it applies to theme.

I'll be honest, this was hard for me to wrap my head around, at first. But over time, the idea has become clearer to me.

So here is how this goes, from my perspective, in relation to theme (I've altered it slightly).

First, identify the theme topic of your story.

Then identify its opposite. Its contradiction.

From there, you have what he calls the "contrary." It's not really the theme topic's exact opposite, but it's not the theme topic either. It's contrary to the theme topic. It's not the thing, but it's not the direct contradiction of the thing. It's different, in some way.

Then we take it a step further. We look for something more negative than the negative. What is worse than the opposite? What is a step more extreme? McKee calls this the "negation of the negation."

 Let's fill this in with the theme topic of love, so you can see how this works.

The opposite of love is hate. Simple. But then it gets more complex. What is contrary to love? It's not the same, but it is not a direct opposite either.

 Indifference isn't love, but it's not really hate either. It's in between.

What is worse than hate? What is a step more negative? Or more extreme? What is the negation of the negation?

As McKee explains, it's one thing to be hated and to know it. But to actually be hated by those who you think love you? People who want to pretend they care about you, but actually wish and do you ill? Now that gives me shivers.

It's important to know that it's okay to come up with variations. Real life is complex, so there can be multiple answers. This is just an exercise to help give dimension to your theme topic.

For example, another negation of negation could be this:

If you think about it, hating yourself is even worse than hating other people, in some ways. You are always with yourself. You can never get away. Now that sounds like living H-E-double-hockey-sticks. And also, if you can't love yourself, you can't love other people, or at least, not as well.

When I was learning this method, I was super confused by how to come up with the negation of the negation. Part of it is because I've never had to practice that. I mean, who has? (I also altered these charts a little from McKee's version, to try to make it clearer.) Luckily, he literally gives over a dozen examples, and here is what I've learned to look for in a negation of negation:

- Deception. Something being bad is one thing. Something that's truly bad pretending to be good is even scarier.

- Self-damning. Having to work against a damning force is one thing. When you are damning yourself and don't see it or can't get out of it, you're screwed.

-  Grotesque or More Extreme. It's bad to murder people. To murder people then eat them? Bleegh, that seems too unnatural to even mention in this post! It's bad to torture people. But to torture children? Not even the scuzziest criminals will let that slide.

Here are some other examples.

Theme topic: Truth

If you are believing your own lies? Well, you're never going to get to truth.

Theme topic: Freedom

 What do you mean North Koreans are enslaved? They love their country!

Theme topic: Justice

Sure, we all need to obey the law. But some of us can change the law whenever we want.

Now, I want to acknowledge that in some stories, the theme topic may be an inherently "negative" value. Maybe the true theme topic isn't justice, but injustice. In cases like that, I think it's still probably best to start with the "positive" value.

If you are still confused, no worries. I had to think and play with this for several days until I got it down. And don't forget, you can have variations, or perhaps, even more than one answer.

In a future book I want to write, I'm pretty sure the theme topic is going to be "control." Here is how my chart looks.

Responsibility is similar to control, but not the same. If you are responsible for something or someone, that doesn't necessarily mean you have full control over it. So I put it for the contrary.

What's worse than things being out of your control?

You being out of your control. What if you lose control of your own actions? Or your own thought patterns?

Alternatively, I also came up with this variation.

Authority is similar to responsibility, but not exactly the same thing. Maybe I want that value to be my contrary. Heck, or maybe I want to explore both concepts.

And likewise, what's also scary is when you have perceived control. We all want to believe we have some control over our own lives. What if in reality, you thought you did, but you didn't? And all your choices were actually meaningless, or perhaps worse, someone else was being your puppet master the whole time? Maybe I want to explore both of those alongside a lack of self-control. Maybe I want to explore all those values. After all, this is just an exercise to help me come up with them.

And if I wanted to take this further, I could look at a secondary theme topic to generate ideas. Most novels have more than one theme. Love is the primary theme of Harry Potter, but choice is a secondary theme.

A secondary theme I see emerging with my future book is sacrifice. So I might brainstorm this.

Interestingly, I can look at how these play into the values of control. If people are self-indulgent, they lack self-control. If someone has authority or responsibility over something, they may need to make sacrifices or compromises. Or maybe someone thinks they are controlling an outcome by making a sacrifice, but in reality, something higher up is in control, rendering the sacrifice meaningless--now that's painful.

Once you've brainstormed four slots of your theme topic, you have plenty of dimension to explore, plenty of hard questions to ask, during the middle/struggle/transition part, which makes up most of the story. (And this may be doubly true if you incorporated a secondary theme topic.)

So how do we get that into the actual text?

Well, like I said before, through plot and character. It will be the main plot and main characters, but can also be subplots and side characters.

I recently saw The Little Mermaid musical, which varies a bit from the movie, but is similar enough. So I'm going to use it as an example.

The theme topic of The Little Mermaid is belonging. From the beginning, Ariel feels drawn to the surface, in fact, she's already convinced she belongs up there.

Here is what our chart might look like.

But despite aching to live on the surface, Ariel begins stuck under the sea, where her desires leave her isolated and alienated from her own kind, even her own family. She starts in a state contrary to the thematic statement.

In order to feel isolated--like you don't belong--you have to be around people who don't understand you. Cue Triton, who despite being her only parent and favoring Ariel above his other daughters, understands her least of all the characters. This brings in father and daughter conflict that escalates through the first act.

But other characters tolerate Ariel and/or her fascinations with humans. Sure, she has friends, but none of them are her own species. Sure, others understand that she likes human things, but they don't share her need to be a part of them. Even her sisters, who dislike her, ultimately tolerate her to some extent. But toleration, even when well meaning, is ultimately weaker than belonging. Flounder says too much; Sebastian betrays her collection.

What about the negation of the negation? What about when people feel they are elite? Supreme over others? They don't want to belong to something. They want to rule over something. Ursula fits that. She preys on unfortunate souls. In the musical, she sings about how she killed all her sisters to try to get the throne. She is the negation of the negation.

And the plot moves through all these characters. As Ariel feels like she belongs with Eric, those who tolerate, alienate, and want to rule over her, all react in their appropriate ways, creating more conflict. As the story progresses, Ariel moves permanently into the positive value. She belongs on the surface, with Eric.

On Halloween, I watched Signs with my family. I know some people hate that movie (*cough cough* Blake Snyder from Save the Cat *cough*), but we love it! Afterwards, I made a theme topic chart of it.

The protagonist, Graham, used to have faith, but at the start of the story, he's faithless. By the end of the story, his faith is restored. In between faith and faithless fits agnostic. It's neither fully one or the other. While no one character embodies that value, it's still explored and questioned near the midpoint of the story (interesting, since it's a great transitional state to be in, smack in the middle of the story), in a conversation between Graham and Merril.

What's the negation of the negation? Well, not having faith is one thing, but when you don't have faith in yourself, you're screwed. How can you do anything if you don't believe at least a little you can? Graham hits this point when he doesn't believe any of them will survive the night. He doesn't have hope or faith in anything anymore. Not even himself or his loved ones. Notice this is around plot point 2, which is technically the "Dark Night of the Soul" moment for protagonists.

Unlike The Little Mermaid, in Signs, separate characters don't embody each value, but by the end of the movie, we've encountered all four as the plot unfolds.

Often in the plot, the values will escalate. We might go from the topic, to the contrary, to the contradictory, to the negation of the negation, before finishing back on the topic.

Coco does this well.

Theme topic: Remembrance

Remembering someone on the Day of the Dead is intentional.

Indifference is when you recall them, but don't really care about them.

Forgetting is when you unintentionally don't remember someone.

And intentional erasure is when you want someone to be forgotten.

At the beginning of the movie, the family is all getting ready to remember their ancestors for the Day of the Dead. But drawn to music, Miguel is indifferent to this, even when they try to explain it to him.

He ends up in the land of the dead, where, at the midpoint, he learns that there is a second death, one that happens when the living no longer remember you. This is a real death, and why Hector, in part, is frantic about being remembered by the living.

As the story moves toward plot point two, we learn that Ernesto de la Cruz is doing the worst of the worst--he's intentional trying to erase Hector from history!

By the time Miguel returns home, all of the values have been reconciled back to the first. He is no longer indifferent. He keeps Coco from forgetting her father. And within a year, everyone knows the truth about Hector's role in history.

Interestingly, all of this is foreshadowed through the characters before the inciting incident.

It's important to note that you do not have to go in that escalating order to write a powerful story. Lots of successful stories don't.

The point is to hit and explore different values of your theme topic. When you do that, the true thematic statement will shine all the brighter. A lot of people forget to consider the negation of the negation, which is really, the end of the line, the worst of the worst, and including it can really strengthen a story. Remember, it's the struggle and transformation that make the it powerful.

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Accidentally Undercutting Tension (and How to Stop)

Tension and conflict are two different things. And before I get into this writing problem I encounter from time to time, I need to make sure we are all on the same page.

Conflict: This is when problems are happening.

Tension: This is the potential for problems to happen.

In a lot of ways, tension is actually more powerful than conflict, because the anticipation draws the audience in--the worry or fear that something might happen. Jumpy, scary movies are great at dishing out the tension. A character moves slowly through a dark area and the music and camera angles ramp up tension to the point that we are clawing into our seats or pulling our blankets up to our eyes.

It's entirely possible to have tension without conflict, and conflict without tension. For more on tension vs. conflict, check out my post on it.

Every once in a while, I run into a manuscript that is undercutting tension, accidentally. And sometimes that manuscript is even my own.

I sometimes feel like tension is one of the lifebloods of a powerful story. Without it, it's harder for the audience to get invested, it's harder for readers to turn the pages, it's harder for the story to be powerful. All good stories need some tension.

But sometimes as writers, we undercut the tension in our own story and zap it out of existence, on accident.

For example, we might have one character afraid that something bad is going to happen to them tomorrow, and this creates tension. What if something bad does happen tomorrow? But just after we build up the tension on the page, we have another character come in and explain why that bad thing won't ever happen tomorrow, and the first character believes it. The tension is suddenly gone.

In a passage, it might read something like this. (And this is just a quick, rough example to illustrate the point.)

Timmy rocked back and forth on his seat at the dinner table. Tomorrow was the first day of school, and he felt sure that Jacob, the schoolyard bully, would want to knock the living daylights out of him; Timmy had put a spider in Jacob's desk at the end of last year, and Jacob had found it just before the final bell. With the whole summer break, Jacob had to have figured out it was Timmy.

Jacob had fists like bricks, and Timmy could already imagine the mean, boar-like look Jacob got in his eyes whenever he was about to wallop someone. Timmy had hoped to register for the science fair this year, but after tomorrow, he'd be lucky if he could register for the next grade. He was doomed.

"You haven't touched any of your food." His mom had walked back into the kitchen to check on him. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Mom . . . what if Jacob beats me up tomorrow?" Timmy managed to ask.

"That won't happen," Mom said.

"Why not?"

"Because Jacob moved at the beginning of summer, remember? You never have to worry about him again."

Timmy immediately relaxed. That's right. Jacob had moved. How could he have forgotten? Timmy felt silly for having gotten all worked up over nothing.

He ate a spoonful of mashed potatoes.


This passage seems rather harmless, right? And certainly it would be fine in some stories. But imagine it was the only tension related to the first day of school--which is still pages and pages away. There is nothing else in the text that Timmy hopes or fears for, for the first day of school. So we don't really feel any tension, from now until then, so we don't really feel invested in reading about his first day. We cut off the tension too early. Even if Jacob did move, it may have been better for Timmy to not realize that until he was in recess--as long as there was something else to hope or fear about soon after that. We undercut the story's tension.

The tension was cut off too early.

vs.

Tension ends just before new tension.

Another way this is a problem, is if the writer does this sort of thing over and over again. Builds up tension, and then cuts it down to nothing, or nearly nothing, soon after. Eventually, whenever tension arises, the audience will subconsciously assume nothing significant will actually come of it . . . which will eventually result in them not even feeling the tension the writer is trying to put on the page.

Here the writer is undercutting tension over and over again. (And too early.)

Tension doesn't have to lead to conflict all the time, but it should lead to something significant much of the time. Otherwise it feels like "false tension"--just a trick the writer is using to try to make the audience afraid over nothing. And if it never leads to any conflict, then it's going to lose its impact.

Some people in the writing world believe that tension should always lead to conflict, but if you have that perspective, you really miss out on great tension opportunities, and juicy hooks.

Just because the tension doesn't always lead to a conflict doesn't mean you undercut it. The tension might lead to a surprising outcome, twist, or revelation. It might lead to a different, bigger conflict.

Sometimes the tension might lead to nothing substantial, but if that's the case, there must be other forms of tension also in play, or a new one that comes right after.

So imagine that Timmy is afraid of Jacob beating him up, clear until he arrives at the playground and realizes Jacob has moved. For a moment, he might be relieved . . . until he remembers that he was so nervous about Jacob, that he didn't pay attention to anything the teacher said, and, since he will now be living another day--even making it to the next grade--he's going to totally bomb his language arts homework, which his mom will not be happy about.

(This is the same as the second diagram, but I put it in twice for your convenience)

There, the tension carried us to the schoolyard where it ended, but we now have something new to worry about.

Other times, you might have multiple threads of tension to play with. Maybe in the text, Timmy wasn't only afraid of Jacob beating him up, but also worried about making a good first impression with the teacher, or that none of his friends will be in class, or that he will look stupid because he has to wear his old clothes, shoes, and use an old backpack. That gives us four threads of tension to work with, and if we don't cut any of them off prior, all four of them will pull us into his first day of school. But, if we do cut one of them ahead of time, say his mom reminding him Jacob moved, we still have three other threads of tension in play.

Four threads of tension in play

One thread cuts early, but we still have three threads to carry the story

I'll be honest, this is a concept that is kind of difficult to explain in a blog post (I hope the diagrams help), and it's definitely more advanced, but I'd rather take a stab at explaining it than not explain it at all, because if writers consistently unintentionally undercut tension, their story won't work, but most people won't be able to pinpoint or explain to them exactly why it doesn't work.

Story with lots of undercut tension

Cutting off tension is not always bad. That's why I used the word "accidentally" and "undercutting" in the headline. Remember diagram two? It's okay as long as other significant tension is present in the story, or we get to new tension soon. This is why I argue that not all tension needs to lead to something significant. When you embrace that idea, you can find all kinds of awesome tension that will have readers drooling to turn the next page. Besides, this happens in real life. How often do you worry about something that turns out to be nothing? I used to do this all the time. You just need to deliver on the tension a lot of the time.

But remember this important caveat: The more buildup you have of that tension thread, the more likely it needs to lead to something significant. It either needs to lead to the predicted conflict, or a different one that is just as strong or stronger than the predicted. At the very least, there has to be something much bigger and much more significant at its end. Otherwise, it will feel anticlimactic. And audiences rarely like that.

With all this talk of tension, you might feel like you need to have your characters worrying, fearing, and hoping all over the page all the time. It's possible to go overboard in the wrong kind of story. Not all tension needs to take center stage in a scene. For example, if the scene is super entertaining, you may not need a ton of tension (though in that case, I'd consider the concept of "tension" to function in a different way than the plot-focused definition I'm using for this post, but let's not get into that). You don't need to saturate the text all the time (unless of course, that's the kind of story you are telling).

The point is, you don't want to accidentally undercut the tension, weakening the story. And when you understand how that works, you will be less likely to do it.

Also, a lot of the tension needs to have significant stakes--that's why it creates tension. If it doesn't have significant stakes, we may not feel tension, unless we just feel for the character's wellbeing.

For example, you might have a child character who imagines getting sent to prison for lying to a teacher. Well, we all know that's not going to happen. So does it really carry tension? Well, if we care about and feel close to the child character, it may still carry some tension.

In some cases, just the fact the character feels a certain way or views things through a particular lens is enough. But you still need some significant stakes to make the story work. (Confused yet?)

Watch out for characterization too. I once wrote a viewpoint character that was very easygoing and optimistic. But almost every time I wrote a scene for him, he undercut the tension. In some stories, like stories with really epic stakes, you can still make that work, but for my story, it was ruining his scenes. So I had to tweak him.

And if you read this post and feel utterly confused, do not fret. It's pretty complicated to explain. And loads of writers write successful stories without thinking about any of these things. But, as I always say, it can be really helpful to be aware of.

Related Posts
Tension vs. Conflict (Hint: They aren't the Same Thing)
Look Forward, not Back, to Pull the Reader In
5 Tricks that Help with Hooks
How to Write Stakes in Storytelling
Reeling Readers in via Curiosity

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