Aristotle said every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. But what makes a good story?

This article examines software that promises to help you craft better stories. To evaluate this software, it's necessary to consider the underlying theories of storytelling embedded in these programs. We'll also consider how well the software functions, since a program based on sound principles of storytelling that's impossible to use is hardly worth the trouble or the money.

The major problem everyone faces when evaluating storytelling software is that there is no unifying theory of storytelling. Aristotle set down principles for drama that were accepted as sound until the late 19th century. The introduction of motion pictures launched new waves of thought about storytelling that are still being debated.

Many books have been written advancing various theories of storytelling. The latest wave of storytelling theory began with Syd Field. His book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting was the first to be adopted as a Hollywood Bible, and it remains a bestseller. Field took Aristotle's three act structure and embellished it by suggesting that there are turning points (he calls them "plot points") at the juncture of each act and in the middle of the second act. Field sets out simple rules for structure and leaves lots of room for interpretation.

Robert McKee was the next theorist on the scene. He advocates the three-act structure and enhances it further by overlaying a "classic" five-part narrative structure. McKee defines these as "inciting incident, progressive complications, crisis, climax, and resolution."

John Truby developed another approach to "classic" narrative structure. He broke it down into seven basic steps of human action: problem/need, the situation affecting the hero and what's missing within the hero; desire, or what the hero wants in the story; opponent, the character competing for the same goal as the hero; plan, how the hero will overcome the opponent and succeed; battle, the final conflict that decides who gets the goal; self revelation, the fundamental understanding the hero gains about him or herself which fulfills the need; and the new equilibrium, the world back to normal with the hero at a higher or lower point. To enable people to put his theory into practice, Truby created a 22-step "Building Block" method of writing.

By now you're probably wondering "What is 'classic' structure?" It's the structure based on anthropologist Joseph Campbell's work. Campbell analyzed the mythology of various cultures and elucidated universal themes in his 1940s book The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Thirty years later, a young filmmaker named George Lucas read it and used the concept of a hero's journey to write Star Wars. Campbell's text, never intended as a guide for filmmakers, launched Lucas's career into the stratosphere.

The success of Star Wars renewed interest in storytelling theory and transformed Hollywood forever. By the mid-eighties, Field, McKee, Truby, Seger, and others were advancing their ideas about storytelling on the lecture circuit and in books. The decade also marked the arrival of the first storytelling software programs and of Bill Moyers' PBS series with Joseph Campbell, which made Campbell a celebrity in the last years of his life.

Christopher Vogler, a story analyst, created a method of evaluating screenplays using the 12 steps Campbell described. Vogler's book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, published in 1993, became very popular in Hollywood. The Writer's Journey is refreshing because Vogler spells out his theory in a concise, thoughtful, non-dogmatic manner. It's a clear guide. The theory's failing, which Vogler freely admits and Hollywood ignores, is that the Hero's journey represents only the male perspective. For a woman's perspective, Vogler suggests reading Maureen Murdock's book The Heroine's Journey: Woman's Quest for Wholeness.

An entirely new theory of story, developed by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley, also arrived in 1993 in the form of a computer program called Dramatica. Their theory is a radical departure from more traditional approaches. Dramatica's central assertion is that every "complete story" is a model of the mind's problem-solving process, which is described as the "Story Mind." Dramatica divides everything into "pairs" or "quads." There are four "throughlines" or perspectives that can be expressed in a story. Story structure is divided into four classes. Each class is broken down into four subclasses, which are in turn subdivided again and then again. Dramatica invents or redefines a vocabulary for writers to use to discuss everything from plot to character to setting. It's a grand theory of story but is it valid?

The authors' credentials rest on their development of Dramatica theory. They-like Field, McKee, and Truby-have written no critically acclaimed plays, novels, or films to add weight to their words. This is irrelevant if critical investigation substantiates their ideas. Yet the authors' broader claims "that behind Dramatica is a whole new understanding of the mind's problem solving and justification processes . . . (which) form the basis of a theory of psychology called Mental Relativity" leave Dramatica's soundness open to question.

That's the current landscape of storytelling theory. The challenge for anyone who wants to master the craft is that every competing theory arrives with its own language and definitions. Don't assume even the simplest of words (e.g., "protagonist") will have the identical meaning within these different frameworks. None are infallible; all remain in circulation. And all claim to provide answers to the question, "How can I craft compelling stories, time after time, that will appeal to audiences the world over?"

Source: Robert M. Goodman's WGA article titled "What's the Story".