36 Dramatic Situations

 

    In pursuit of a possible narrative, my research brought me across a very interesting concept in the realm of storytelling- George Polti's 36 Dramatic Situations. George Polti was a 19th-century writer primarily known for writing a book detailing the concept, that every narrative follows one of 36 archetypes with variants based on the physical content of the story. As hard as it may seem to accept that "all stories are the same," researching this topic blew my mind once I started looking into it. 

    While the list of dramatic situations is too long to list, I forced myself to do research and read every single one of the archetypes, and it ended up showing me primarily what I didn't want in a story before showing me what I might want. For example, I knew that I didn't want to make a story about adultery, love, or the crimes of a loved one, as I feel I'm too young to understand love enough to make an entire narrative based around it. Also, I feel like making any adventure-type story about supplication or deliverance is not something that could be fit in a mere five minutes. I could be wrong on that, but it seems like a hassle to think about fitting it into such a small amount of time.

    Despite the post I made last week about tonality, I am slightly being pulled once again toward darker subject matters. Reading specific situations like abduction, madness, and ambition. I have ideas I will update you guys on later, and this concept of 36 dramatic situations helped me begin fine tuning my ideas. Thanks George.