The Four Throughlines of a Grand Argument Story
by Katharine Elizabeth Monahan Huntley
There is a dearth of stories that fulfill us both intellectually and emotionally. Inherent to stories that do engage an audience are sound structure and dynamic storytelling. Dramatica, a relatively new narrative theory, expands upon current understanding of how engaging stories work.
Formulated apart from major theoretical paradigms, the Dramatica theory may prove compelling for its potential use in story creation and analysis (screenplays, teleplays, novels, short stories, and stage plays).
Created by writer/director Melanie Anne Phillips and film and television production software developer Chris Huntley, Dramatica offers a powerful solution to the problems of faulty stories and the absence of an accessible “reasoned account of the structure of the narrative, the elements of storytelling, their combination and articulation” (Chatman 15). Dramatica addresses all components of a story, from the underlying deep structure to an audience’s reception of its meaning.
As an exposition of the entire theory is beyond the scope of this article, the focus is confined to one basic aspect of the Dramatica theory’s foundation—the four throughlines of a grand argument story.
Grand Argument Story
The grand argument story is a specific type of work that is conceptually complete and emotionally and logically comprehensive. Qualities that substantiate a grand argument appear in the story’s structure (the underlying relationships between the parts of a story), dynamics (the moving, growing, or changing parts of a story), and the manner in which the grand argument is relayed through character, plot, theme, and genre.
In a grand argument story the author investigates all significant approaches to resolving the story’s specific problem, and provides the most appropriate solution to solve it. Characters, plot, theme, and genre are the different families of considerations intrinsic to the grand argument story. Characters enact the motivations. Plot documents the problem-solving methods. Theme examines values and their standards of measure. Finally, genre establishes the overall attitude that influences the characters, plot, and theme. By placing different emphases on character, plot, theme, and genre in the storytelling, the author communicates a certain message.
Four Throughlines
As in structuralism, Phillips and Huntley perceive a literary work as a construct “whose mechanisms could be classified and analysed like the object of any other science” (Eagleton 106). According to Chatman, the basis of structuralism is “that each narrative has two parts: a story (historie), the content or chain of events (actions, happenings), plus what may be called the existents (characters, items of setting); and a discourse (discours), that is, the expression, the means by which the content is communicated” (19-20). Chatman identifies the narrative’s “point of view” in the discourse, and further defines it as “the physical place or ideological situation or practical life-orientation to which narrative events stand in relation. . . . the perspective in terms of which the expression is made. The perspective and the expression need not be lodged in the same person” (153).
Phillips and Huntley concur; they declare further that in Dramatica there are four different kinds of points of view, called the four throughlines, that probe the issues presented over the course of the story. The significance of the four throughlines is they grant the opportunity for an audience to participate in the four points of view that comprise a grand argument.
Dramatica’s four throughlines are the overall story throughline, main character throughline, impact character throughline, and main vs. impact character story throughline. The overall story and main character throughlines are storytelling conventions comparable to the omniscient and first person points of view; the impact character and main vs. impact character story throughlines delve into two additional points of view.
The overall story throughline is the story’s objective, dispassionate viewpoint. It contains the action and events in which all the characters take part. An objective character is defined as a specific collection of dramatic characteristics that remain consistent throughout the overall story. Objective story characters may be archetypal, e.g., the classic protagonist and antagonist, or complex. Similar to “dramatis personae” (Propp 20), the simple arrangement of archetypal characters represents all the requisite functions of a complete grand argument story. Although archetypal characters may conflict with one another, this type of character does not experience conflict within itself. Archetypal characters may provide a form of storytelling shorthand. This is convenient for an author who wishes to emphasize plot or theme, or is limited in storytelling time and/or space. If not used for a clear purpose, however, a structurally simple character may not hold an audience’s interest. Nevertheless, a comprehension of archetypal characters informs and enhances one’s appreciation for complex characters. Complex characters more closely represent a real person because their internal elements can be at odds with one another.
The Dramatica conception of archetypal and complex characters can be compared to E. M. Forster’s discrimination between “flat” and “round” characters:
“A flat character . . . is built around “a single idea or
quality” and is presented without much individualizing detail,
and therefore can be fairly adequately described in a single
phrase or sentence. A round character is complex in temperament
and motivation and is represented with subtle particularity;
such a character therefore is as difficult to describe with any
adequacy as a person in real life, and like real persons, is
capable of surprising us (qtd. in Abrams 24).”
The main character is the character to whom the audience emotionally relates; the heart of the story is what is explored in the main character’s throughline. The main character may additionally fulfill the protagonist function in the objective story, for example, Catherine Sloper in Henry James’ Washington Square. As the main character Catherine is the emotional focus; the reader empathizes with Catherine’s personal issues. As the protagonist she is the prime mover of objective story’s action, the effort to make a suitable marriage.
An example of a main character that is not the protagonist is Scout in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The protagonist is instead her father, Atticus Finch. Atticus is defending a black man unjustly accused of rape; the entire town is involved in the story of his trial. The audience, however, is emotionally connected to Scout’s main character throughline as she attempts to understand prejudice and face her own preconceptions, particularly those of neighborhood bogeyman, Boo Radley.
The impact character, wittingly or unwittingly, has the most influence on the main character. Unlike the antagonist who is directly attempting to stop the protagonist, e.g., Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird, the impact character throughline offers an alternative approach to the main character’s. The impact character compels the main character to change or remain steadfast to their essential nature. In To Kill a Mockingbird, main character Scout’s impact character is Boo Radley, the character who ultimately obliges Scout to face her personal bias.
The story’s passionate exchange is articulated in the main vs. impact character story. The main vs. impact character story throughline examines what happens between the main and impact characters, fastening attention on the pressure that intensifies within the relationship until one ultimately defers to the other’s way of thinking.
A grand argument story is limited to stories balanced by the four throughlines. As a storytelling choice, however, an author may emphasize one or more throughlines over the other(s) to great effect. For example, the superb film Hilary and Jackie, adapted by Frank Cottrell Boyce and directed by Anand Tucker, centers on the main vs. impact character story relationship between two sisters, almost to the exclusion of the objective point of view, and to a lesser extent, the main and impact character points of view. An example of when only one point of view is problematic can be found in Bret Easton Ellis’ controversial novel American Psycho. The story imparts only the main character’s point of view; a larger context from which to derive meaning is absent.
Taken together, the four throughlines comprise the author’s argument to the audience. Whether or not the audience is in agreement depends upon the individual, however, as long as the argument is made completely and consistently, it cannot be dismissed on its own terms.
Conclusion
Dramatica is valuable to an author’s story where lack of structure is problematic. For original story creation, applying the fundamental concept of the four throughlines to a story aids in constructing sound structure, the foundation from which to build dynamic storytelling. For the purpose of analysis, this allows insight vital to understanding author’s intent. For the audience members, they can simultaneously experience all four points of view necessary for a Dramatica grand argument—an event that conveys a familiar context within which to find individual meaning in their own off-screen lives.
Works Cited
Abrams, M. H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. 6th ed. Orlando: Harcourt, 1993.
Chatman, Seymour. Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978.
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: U of MN P, 1983.
Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. New York: Vintage, 1991.
Hilary and Jackie. Dir. Anand Tucker. Screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce, 1998.
James, Henry. Washington Square. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982. (Washington Square first published in 1880)
Lee, H. To Kill a Mockingbird. London: Mandarin, 1960.
Phillips, Melanie A., and Chris Huntley. Dramatica: A New Theory of Story. 3rd ed. Burbank: Screenplay Systems, 1996.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Ed. Louis A. Wagner. 2nd. ed. Austin: U of Texas P, 1968.
