Introducing
the 55 Dramatic
Situations

“Gozzi maintained that there can be but thirty-six dramatic situations. Schiller took great pains to find more, but he was unable to find even so many as Gozzi.”

–GOETHE

In 1945 Georges Polti wrote a book titled Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations. It contained brief outlines of thirty-six situations found in literature that created conflict within stories. Since Polti allowed only approximately two pages for each situation, including long lists of plays, he left much to the imagination of the reader. Likewise, he did not include any concrete writing steps to implement these situations. It seems his focus was to categorize the situations, giving us a wonderful way to analyze stories already written.

While we are indebted to Polti for his work, there is a great void in it, for the writer, that needs to be filled. Hopefully this book will do just that, while also updating the examples for modern times. Polti opens his book with the above quote by Goethe, and for the last sixty years writers and professors have taken this quote as fact, as no one has been able to find any more situations to add to his work.

Are there only thirty-six situations? Today the answer is “Yes” and “No.”

How did I find more situations to add? Let’s start at the beginning. As I have stated in my previous book, 45 Master Characters, it has been a passion of mine to find and dissect the Feminine and Masculine Journeys. As a woman I wanted to write heroic female stories but found no model I could work with (the Joseph Campbell/Chris Vogler models are really for the Masculine Journey—which I know women can go on). There had to be another journey out there, a feminine one, that would emulate the female experience.

I then realized I would have to create a feminine model myself, or better yet uncover one that had been overlooked. Luckily I was successful and I outlined the Feminine and new Masculine Journeys in my book 45 Master Characters. (Note: Men can partake of the Feminine Journey and vice versa, so I don’t use the term feminine to mean only women.)

Through this experience I learned to look at literature, film, and creativity from a feminine as well as a masculine perspective, and a whole new world was opened up for me. There was a different side to everything—a yin to each yang—even in the world of writing.

So back to the question—are there only thirty-six dramatic situations? “Yes” and “No.” These thirty-six dramatic situations created by Polti may be the only tragic dramatic situations, but like everything else, these situations each have an opposite—two sides sharing the same common experience.

With my newfound perspective, I was able to see that the original thirty-six situations were very masculine and somewhat violent in nature as well as very plot driven. This isn’t bad or good, it’s just an observation.

With this in mind I decided to put on my “feminine glasses” and take another look at these situations. It became clear to me that there was a feminine, nonviolent, more character-driven side to each situation that hadn’t been explored.

For example, Madness—killing something—could very easily become Genius—creating something, and Flight—fleeing from punishment—could very easily become Pursuit—pursuing a reward. (Although Polti calls this situation Pursuit in his text, I felt Flight conveyed his description more closely so I switched the name here.)

The opportunities for Drama and Conflict are the same for both types of situations, even though one is not based on true tragedy. After all, it has always been the writer’s responsibility to find the Conflict in every scene whether it’s a happy scene or a tragic one.

Let’s strive not to use the words tragic and dramatic interchangeably as Goethe himself did when he referred to these situations.

The question is whether or not the writer can find the Conflict and Drama in a more uplifting story or not. This is a fun challenge, as we have become conditioned to believe that Conflict is all about tragedy, pain, and suffering. It is much easier to create Conflict in that way—but great literature does not just take the easy way out.

Conflict is defined as a state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests. Conflict may be a war, but it may also be a psychic struggle. It is the opposition between characters or forces in a work of fiction, and this opposition does not have to come from tragedy.

This definition of Conflict does not imply that there must be tragedy or violence in the narrative to have Conflict. Though it is fine to use them. I am not making a judgment here about tragedy; I’m just trying to expand the definition of the word to allow for different types of stories.

Western culture has defined literature a certain way, but once you move outside of western culture you will see there are many ways of writing. Aristotle’s Poetics is not the one and only writer’s bible—as great as it is. I realized this when I read the section on how women do not make great characters and shouldn’t be heroes. I read this while in the UCLA screenwriting thesis class; needless to say it didn’t help my confidence level as I was writing a heroic female lead!

Let’s keep our minds open to new ideas and new ways of writing—otherwise we will accomplish nothing but a rehash of what has already been done. And why not allow male heroes to explore their inner selves, too?

For those of you who adore Polti I would like to list the situations of his that I have combined in order to make the list as a whole much stronger. I could not ignore the numbers of Polti fans out there who insisted some of Polti’s situations overlapped way too much. (If you are unfamiliar with Polti’s work, don’t worry—you’ll be up to speed in a few chapters.) So I have chosen to combine:

• Abduction with Recovery of a Lost One, which is actually the positive side of Abduction—Reunion!

• Rivalry of Kinsman, Rivalry of Superior and Inferior, and Ambition into the situation titled Competition

• Murderous Adultery and Adultery into the situation titled Adultery

• Involuntary Crimes of Love and Crimes of Love into the situation titled Crimes of Love

• Slaying of a Kinsman Unrecognized and Necessity of Sacrificing a Loved One into the situation titled Slaying of Loved One

• Self Sacrifice for an Ideal, for Kindred, and for a Passion into a situation titled Self Sacrifice

• Obstacles to Love and Enemy Loved into a situation titled Obstacles to Love

• Mistaken Jealousy and Erroneous Judgment into a situation titled Mistaken Judgment

This leaves us with fifty-five situations. I have combined ten of Polti’s situations with his remaining twenty-six situations and added an additional twenty-eight situations of my own, which gives us a total of fifty-four situations. Then, to encourage creativity and honor cultural differences, I have added a fifty-fifth situation as a blank template for you to design your own situations.

As Georges Polti stated in 1945, “Since we now hold this thread (of thirty-six situations), let us unwind it.”

I would add, nearly sixty years after him, “Let us unwind this thread a little more, though not all the way, as someone in the distant future may have more to say in the matter …”