Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose ‘plot lamination methodology’ for planning and analyzing of storytelling. The story contents with a certain volume of narrative might have several important characters. Most of the characters have meaningful influences on the context of the story through their choices and actions as they go through dynamic changes to construct and deconstruct relationships. The plot lamination methodology is the result of an attempt to look at the process from the ‘strategic’ point of view by focusing on the fact that the main characters with supplementary nature contribute to the independent formation of subplot based on the main plot driven by the protagonist. Regardless of how they live their own unique and autonomous life in the narrative, the main characters hold a relatively subordinate position within the centripetal force of the main plot. Their journeys tend to expand/emphasize/divide up the process of the main plot’s ‘persuasion via causality,’ and also individualize into the functions of emotional sympathy (pathos), moral, ethical perspective (ethos), and rational logic (logos). As such, the subplots of main characters are laminated according to these three functional traits, which could become multi-layered through second or third laminations, depending on the number and roles of other characters. If the plot lamination methodology is further developed through follow-up studies, it will open up the possibilities of the strategic design (planning) and aesthetic criticism (analysis) regarding the procedure of conjugation /branching of subplot and/from the main plot.