With all due respect I'm not trying to exert a "new theory" on anyone.
As I said, everyone's terminology is different. Whenever I pick up a writing book, or attend a workshop, or just speak casually to other writers, I find I always have to take a moment to adjust to their vocabulary. In some cases two people will use the exact same term to describe two very different things. And I can easily cite published writers that have done this. I can't help that. I can only try to clarify the vocabulary for my own edification.
The terms I used above are fairly commonplace in dramatic structure. I can't say I necessarily learned them as a "writer". But picked them (and others) up during various stages of my career as a means to communicate effectively with directors, designers, actors, etc. They've also proven very beneficial when I'm writing - so I can understand what it is those people will be looking for when reading/analyzing my scripts.
All of that said, I believe that a story can be summed up in a number of different ways. Each of which can co-exist, independently of the others, within that same story. The OP's themes are structured as thesis statements. So I guess I was only trying to make sure the OP was comparing the same things.
And yes, I'm new here. It doesn't mean I am new to writing. Nor does it mean that I don't know what I'm talking about. Again, it's not my intention to push my philosophies on anyone. I'm here to learn more, and hopefully provide my own unique insight into discussions. As far as what I post here, people can use what they find beneficial and discard the rest.
I'm certainly not looking to start a fight and obviously, whatever works for anybody works for them and I'd never suggest that, if a certain approach or way of thinking about a story or approach to telling a story is working for you, that you should do something different.
But if you want to have a conversation with other writers about writing, in order to do that effectively, we have to have a shared technical language for doing that.
You're certainly correct when you say that there are a number of different approaches both to telling stories and to analyzing story structure. You can take the same story and analyze it as a three act structure, a four act structure, or a five act structure -- and you can break it down either way.
In the same way, you can build a story in three acts, four acts, or five acts.
But I'm afraid that you're simply mistaken when you suggest that a number of the terms that you use are "commonplace" in dramatic structure.
"Thesis" is a term that's generally used in a non-fiction context. That is, if I were writing a paper on Catholicism and Shakespeare, it would have a thesis -- some point that my paper was trying to demonstrate.
That is, in the realm of non-fiction, the "thesis" is the equivalent of what a "theme" is in the realm of narrative fiction. It is the underlying idea that the work is attempting to demonstrate.
So to say that a narrative work has both a "thesis" and a "theme" as two separate and distinct things, simply doesn't convey (at least to me) a coherent idea.
Nor is it a term that I, at least, have used in mainstream dramaturgy in relation to theme.
So I'm not suggesting that you shouldn't use it, or that it's somehow forbidden, nor that I'm arguing with you about it.
I'm just telling you that whatever your experience is with this particular usage, and whatever usage you're familiar with, and with a number of the other terms you've used and whatever your particular experience might be -- it is very much outside of the mainstream of common screenwriting and film making.
I can tell you this because I've been working (and am still working) inside that mainstream for well over twenty years and if I haven't heard an expression used in twenty years of professional writing and working with development execs and producers, chances are, it's not commonly used.
So it's fine to use those terms and there's nothing wrong if using them allows you (and others) to think about writing in a different and potentially useful way.
All it means is that you need to explain how you're using those terms -- what exactly they mean, and how it helps you to think about structure and story.
Because, of course, I'm always up to learn something new too.
NMS
