The Art of Storytelling -- Stage Four: Story Reception

What do you have in mind?

Few authors write stories without at least considering what it will be like to read the story or see it onstage or screen. As soon as this becomes a concern, we have crossed the line into Story Reception theory. Suddenly, we have more to consider than our story's message. We now must try to predict how that message is received.

One of the first questions then becomes, how do we want it to be received? And from this, we ask, what am I hoping to achieve with my audience? We may wish to educate our audience, or we may simply want to bias them. Perhaps we are out to persuade our audience to adopt a point of view, or simply to pander to an existing point of view. We might provoke our audience, forcing them to consider some topic or incite them to take action about a topic. We could openly manipulate them with their informed consent, or secretly propagandize them, changing their outlook without their knowledge.

No matter what our author's intent, it is shaped not only by who we are, but also by the audience we are trying to reach.

Who are you talking to?

You are reading this book because you want to use the Dramatica theory or software to help you record something you are thinking about or feeling. For whatever reasons, you have decided you want to record something of yourself in a communicable form.

A primary question then becomes: To whom do you intend to communicate? You might simply wish to communicate to yourself. You may be documenting transient feelings that you wish to recall vividly in the future. Or you may want to capture the temporal ramblings of your chain of thought and then stand back to see what pattern it makes. Self-searching is often a primary objective of an author's endeavor.

Writing for Someone Else

What if you are writing not for yourself but to reach someone else? It might be that you hope to reach a single individual that can be done in a letter to a friend, parent, or child. You might be composing an anecdote or speech for a small or large group, or you could be creating an industrial film, designing a textbook, or fashioning a timeless work for all humanity.

In each case, the scope of your audience becomes more varied as its size increases. The opportunity to tailor your efforts to target your audience becomes less practical, and the symbols used to communicate your thoughts and feelings become more universal and simultaneously less specific.

The audience can thus range from writing for you to writing for the world. In addition, an author's labors are often geared toward a multiplicity of audiences, including both him and others as well. Knowing one's intended audience is essential to deciding form and format. It allows one to select a medium and embrace the kind of communication that is most appropriate--perhaps even a story.

Dramatica and Communication Theory

Exploring all avenues of communication is far beyond the scope of this early implementation of the Dramatica Theory. To be sure, Dramatica (as a model of the mind) has much to offer in many diverse areas. However, for the practical purposes, we cannot cover that much ground. Rather, we will briefly touch on major perspectives in the author/audience relationship that can also serve as templates for translation of the Grand Argument Story perspective into valuable tools for other forms of communication. In this manner, the usefulness of this specific software implementation can extend beyond its immediate purpose. (What does this say about OUR intended audience?)