When Did the US Lose the Vietnam War? Here Are Some Dates.
If asked, “When did America lose the Vietnam War?” most respondents with some knowledge of the war would likely answer, “April 30, 1975.” That day, North Vietnamese Army tanks crashed through the gates of the Republic of Vietnam’s Presidential Palace in Saigon and celebrated a communist victory in the Second Indochina War (1955-1975). Certainly, that day was the end of the shooting war.
But when exactly did the U.S. and its allies lose their ability to win the war? When did defeat become inevitable in America’s efforts to preserve a democratic South Vietnam in the face of North Vietnam’s relentless, ruthless aggression? The answer to that question is key—determining when America lost reveals how and why the decades-long effort failed.
The “Usual Suspects”
If asked to pinpoint the date when the U.S. irretrievably lost the war, some historians would suggest the following “usual suspects”:
Nov. 2, 1963 – Those recognizing the importance of political leaders’ influence might single out the day when South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a coup. President John F. Kennedy knew of preparations for the coup and his administration supported the overthrow of Diem, who was assassinated in the process. Diem’s murder removed the struggling democracy’s “last, best hope,” as some have called Diem, the only leader whose charisma, popularity, willpower and effectiveness rivaled that of North Vietnamese communist leader Ho Chi Minh.
Nov. 22, 1963 – Some tout Kennedy’s assassination as the date the war was irretrievably lost because they believe he would have kept the U.S. out of Vietnam’s “quagmire” or have beaten the Viet Cong insurgency with U.S. Army Special Forces troops, the “Green Berets,” eschewing a massive buildup of conventional forces. However, those are conjectures rather than certainties.
Although the communist capture of Saigon on April 30, 1975, is the recognized end of the war, events on other days set in motion reactions that made defeat inevitable. One of those took place in November 1963, when South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown in a coup, shown here, and assassinated.
Democrat Kennedy politically could not afford to “lose Vietnam,” especially after another Democratic president, Harry S. Truman, was castigated as the one who “lost China” to Mao Zedong’s communists in 1949. Speculation that Kennedy would not have backed up South Vietnam with whatever U.S. military support was necessary to match Hanoi’s escalation ignores the reality of Cold War politics.
Aug. 1, 1964 – Many are convinced the U.S. lost due to a misguided military strategy that focused too much on overwhelming firepower in a futile conventional war to destroy the communist insurgency through attrition. They believe it would have been more effective to emphasize less brutal methods to win the “hearts and minds” of the South Vietnamese and weaken the Viet Cong’s influence in towns and villages. For people with that view, the fateful date might be the day that Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the leader most closely associated with the attrition strategy, assumed leadership of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, commanding all U.S. combat forces inside South Vietnam.
Aug. 2 and 4, 1964 – In the Gulf of Tonkin incident, North Vietnamese gunboats attacked a U.S. destroyer that suffered just one bullet hole. Two days later, two destroyers fired in the direction of signals that appeared to be emanating from approaching North Vietnamese vessels, but were not. These alleged “attacks” prompted an Aug. 7 joint congressional resolution authorizing President Lyndon B. Johnson “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” This gave Johnson permission to escalate the smoldering insurgency into a full-blown and—many historians have claimed—ultimately unwinnable war.
Defense Secretary Robert McNamara briefs the press on a purported attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964, following an Aug. 2 attack. The consequence was a congressional resolution that led to war.
March 8, 1965 – Those believing that the introduction of U.S. “boots on the ground” was the fatal mistake might champion the date when the 9th Marine Regiment, 9th Expeditionary Brigade, 3rd Marine Division, came ashore at Da Nang as America’s first combat troops in Vietnam. From that point, the U.S. was “all in” and the quagmire became inevitable, some would argue.
The Long View
Historians placing Vietnam within the context of the global Cold War might take a longer view that pushes a presumed foreordained U.S. failure further back in history. They might suggest these key historical mileposts:
June 1924 – Nguyen Sinh Cung (Ho Chi Minh’s birth name) was rebuffed in 1919 when he pleaded Vietnam’s case for independence from colonial ruler France at the Versailles peace conference after World War I. Shunned by Western powers, he became a committed communist. That month he attended the Fifth Congress of the Soviet- led Comintern (Communist International) in Moscow. Thereafter radicalized into much more than a “Vietnamese nationalist,” Ho Chi Minh cleverly manipulated Vietnamese popular support for independence to propel his single-minded effort to establish a communist Vietnam.
Sept. 22, 1940 – Imperial Japanese forces occupied Indochina, ruled then by the Nazi-backed Vichy France government. The Japanese invasion united competing Vietnamese factions of the resistance to French colonial rule into a solidified “nationalist” crusade. Japanese imperialism gave Ho Chi Minh the unifying spark he needed to build support for a prolonged resistance to defeat all foreign intervention.
Feb. 22, 1946 – The U.S. deputy chief of mission in Moscow, George F. Kennan, sent his “Long Telegram” to Washington explaining the roots and basis of Soviet expansionism, eventually prompting the April 7, 1950, National Security Council policy paper 68, establishing “containment of communism” as U.S. Cold War policy. This policy ensured that the U.S. would become involved in opposing the communist takeover of Vietnam.
In June 1924, Ho Chi Minh, on the floor, was a delegate at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International in Moscow. He became a committed communist.
May 7, 1954 – The humiliating defeat of French forces at Dien Bien Phu by Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh independence fighters led to an agreement, signed July 21 in Geneva, partitioning the former French colony into a communist-controlled North and a democratic South. Inevitably, the United States—committed to NSC 68’s global containment policy, recently demonstrated in the Korean War at the cost of over 36,000 American dead—stepped forward to replace French imperialists and to create and defend a Southeast Asian democracy.
All of the dates listed above are important Vietnam War milestones, but they are not the most significant. To understand why, it’s necessary to first address the enduring but egregiously wrong “popular wisdom” about the war.
What Popular Wisdom Gets Wrong
Historians who claim the U.S. lost the Vietnam War due to a failed warfighting strategy are correct. However, they are wrong if they claim Vietnam was lost because Westmoreland adopted a conventional war strategy rather than a revolutionary war/insurgency strategy.
The communists did not win through a classic revolutionary guerrilla war of national liberation in which South Vietnam’s government was toppled by a widespread popular insurgency of disaffected citizens overthrowing a hated regime. Instead, the Vietnam War was a brutal war of conquest mounted by communist North Vietnam to overthrow South Vietnam’s democratic (and admittedly imperfect) government, initially by guerrilla warfare tactics, but ultimately by a conventional warfare invasion strategy.
From 1954 through 1968, North Vietnam pursued a military strategy incorporating guerrilla war tactics. That effort failed miserably. As early as 1966, Hanoi was forced to replenish its South Vietnamese Viet Cong cadres with northerners brought down via the Ho Chi Minh Trail running through Laos and Cambodia. The communists’ early-1968 Tet Offensive, which relied heavily on Viet Cong forces, was a military failure with catastrophic VC losses. In many places the offensive’s losses virtually eradicated the VC “infrastructure,” eliminating local political and administrative “shadow government” personnel.
French and noncommunist Vietnamese prisoners are marched from Dien Bien Phu, where a May 7, 1954, defeat led to a divided Vietnam and U.S. military involvement.
Committed to winning a decades-long war, Hanoi’s leaders simply changed their overall strategy and turned to outright invasions using overpowering NVA conventional forces (infantry, armor, artillery) to conquer the South. With U.S. combat forces still fighting in support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, this new strategy also initially failed. During Easter weekend in 1972, the communists launched a widespread infantry-armor-artillery offensive that achieved early successes, but beleaguered ARVN forces, bolstered by overwhelming U.S. firepower, rallied to totally crush the invasion, inflicting 100,000 NVA casualties.
However, in 1975—after all American combat forces were withdrawn and the U.S. had dramatically reduced financial support for South Vietnam’s military—a similar-sized NVA conventional force executed essentially the same invasion strategy, but this time conquered South Vietnam that April.
For purely propaganda reasons, Hanoi cynically argued that its conquest was led by South Vietnamese VC insurgents—claiming its 1975 victory was the triumph of a “revolutionary war of national liberation,” even though depleted VC ranks between 1968 and 1975 were increasingly filled by North Vietnamese troops filtering south and operating from sanctuaries in officially “neutral” Laos and Cambodia. Additionally, the January 1973 Peace Accords allowed thousands of communist troops to remain inside South Vietnam’s borders, pre- positioned to participate in the final assault.
Marines, the first ground combat troops, landed March 8, 1965.
Facing overwhelming U.S./ARVN firepower throughout the war, North Vietnamese forces necessarily employed guerrilla tactics (including ambushes, hit-and- run attacks, sabotage, assassinations). To actually win the war, Hanoi abandoned its guerrilla strategy of fomenting insurgency and instead was compelled to turn to an invasion by conventional forces to overthrow the South Vietnamese government.
The North Vietnamese communist dictatorship was willing to pay any price in blood and treasure to ultimately conquer the Republic of South Vietnam. Significantly, Westmoreland, on the other hand, was never given the mission of winning the war , only of preventing the South Vietnamese from losing it—two profoundly different missions.
Contrary to popular wisdom, the war was lost due to a combination of failures in strategy, geographic ignorance and a lack of national will. Each of those three factors is associated with a date that marks a defining event inevitably leading to America’s defeat.
Strategy for Failure
Oct. 25, 1950 – America’s defeat in Vietnam was due to a fundamental error in judgment that has bedeviled military campaigns throughout history: refighting the last war. Political and military warriors leading American efforts in Vietnam based U.S. strategy on their last conflict: the 1950-53 Korea War.
America’s Vietnam War leaders were misled because of coincidental, superficial similarities. The Korean War was also fought in a divided Asian nation with a communist North, supported by China and the Soviet Union, attacking a democratic South backed by the U.S. Thus, American leaders assumed Vietnam was merely a rematch.
The date when the result of one president’s decision later compelled the U.S. to commit to a strategy doomed to fail in Vietnam was Oct. 25, 1950. On that day, in response to Truman’s fateful order a few weeks earlier to his theater commander in Korea, General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, to cross the 38th parallel dividing the two Koreas and invade North Korea, the first counterattacks against United Nations forces were launched by 300,000 Chinese troops.
President Harry S. Truman and his commander in Korea, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, talk in the back seat of a car on Wake Island on Oct. 18, 1950. Truman ordered MacArthur to invade North Korea, and in response China launched a counterattack.
Suddenly, due to Truman’s misjudgment, Americans were in a major war with Mao Zedong’s communist China. For the remainder of the three-year-long Korean War, U.S./U.N. forces fought bloody, costly battles before the fighting finally ended in a stalemate with a July 1953 armistice
A decade later U.S. leaders, profoundly influenced by their woeful experience in Korea, were determined not to repeat that mistake in a new anti-communist Asian war. Fear of another Chinese intervention set the parameters governing U.S. ground combat operations in Vietnam. Primarily intended to give China no possible excuse to replicate its Korean War incursion, American ground combat was restricted to actions solely within South Vietnam. North Vietnam would be off-limits for ground forces—or even the threat of them—throughout the war.
Those restrictions did not apply to U.S. air operations. North Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos and Cambodia were bombed extensively, although the Hanoi area and the key port at Haiphong were not targeted until late in the war when it was too late to be decisive.
Restricting the ground war to South Vietnamese territory meant U.S. military commanders could never win the war outright. They could only keep South Vietnam from losing it, if possible. This was the defining strategic element in the U.S. defeat: American forces were confined to the strategic defensive. Although U.S. and ARVN forces did conduct offensive operations within South Vietnam, the U.S. permanently surrendered the strategic initiative to North Vietnam, which could totally control the tempo of combat by sending troops and war materiel southward whenever it wanted.
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The result was a brutal, localized war of attrition that dragged on as long as both sides possessed the will to continue. Hanoi had the “weapons” it needed to continuing fight as long as it took to win: a ruthless disregard of heavy casualties and a tightly controlled population without the freedom to protest.
The Geography of Defeat
July 23, 1962 – Some critics of America’s strategy in Vietnam compare the failure there to successful campaigns against communist-led insurgencies elsewhere in Asia, most notably the British counterinsurgency victory in Malaysia (1948-60) and the defeat of the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines (1945-54). But victory over those insurgencies owed as much to the countries’ unique geographies as to innovative counterinsurgency tactics and strategy.
Malaya (today’s Malaysia) is nearly surrounded by water—the South China Sea and the Strait of Malacca. Only a narrow 65-mile-wide neck of land connects Malaya with Southeast Asia. The Philippines, an island nation, is surrounded by water—the Pacific Ocean and South China Sea. Government control over the sea and narrow land approaches helped those countries strangle their insurgencies. Their much-vaunted counterinsurgency strategies were essentially irrelevant as the insurrections died on the vine.
The South Vietnamese government, however, had only the South China Sea on its eastern/southern border as a buffer. It shared a long, highly vulnerable land border with Laos and Cambodia all along its western side—the Achilles’ heel of U.S.-South Vietnamese efforts to defeat the North Vietnamese invaders. The Viet Minh fighting the French and later NVA-Viet Cong forces attacking South Vietnam occupied remote jungles in eastern Laos and Cambodia. They used them as marshalling bases and access routes for funneling troops, ammunition and equipment from North Vietnam into all regions of the South.
Supplies for communist fighters in South Vietnam are moved on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which ran through Laos and Cambodia. Efforts to cut off the flow were hampered by the supposed “neutrality” of those two countries.
This intricate network of footpaths and dirt roads, called the Ho Chi Minh Trail system, was literally the communists’ “highway to victory.” If the Americans and South Vietnamese could stop the movement of troops and materiel down the trail, communist military operations in South Vietnam would be doomed. With the trail open, however, Hanoi could prolong the war as long as it wished, control its tempo and eventually win.
On July 23, 1962, that geographical “win” for North Vietnam was assured when Kennedy administration negotiators signed the International Treaty on the Neutrality of Laos with 13 other nations pledging “to respect” the “sovereignty, independence, neutrality, unity and territorial integrity” of Laos, which was in the midst of a communist insurrection. The other signatories included China, the Soviet Union, North Vietnam and South Vietnam.
Years before the treaty was signed, the NVA had occupied areas of eastern Laos and Cambodia. After the document was signed, the North Vietnamese expanded their control and further developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
More than any other event, the Laos treaty all but guaranteed that the U.S. would eventually lose the Vietnam War. Efforts to overcome the treaty mistake through major U.S./ARVN incursions into Cambodia in 1970 and Laos in 1971 were too little and years too late.
The Death of U.S. Will
July 1, 1973 – Despite strategic and geographic failures, there remained as late as 1973 a slim chance that America’s national will—the inherent spirit to overcome adversity and eventually triumph —might win out and prevent a communist takeover of democratic South Vietnam. Failures in war-fighting strategy and missteps in redressing geographic disadvantages might have been overcome if Americans had retained faith in the mission to save South Vietnam from communist aggression.
The deterioration of the American public’s willingness to persevere and win in Vietnam, as reflected in the resolve of its elected leaders, was not precipitated by a single, specific event. It eroded over time.
Even so, one event, in particular, was a serious blow to public support for the war: The communists’ Tet Offensive, which began Jan. 30, 1968, struck military bases and cities throughout South Vietnam. Although the attackers suffered a military defeat with heavy losses, the extensiveness of the assaults and high U.S. casualties came as a shock to many Americans.
There were also “doom and gloom” press reports and commentary that had demoralizing effects on the public. Support for the war, already declining in Gallup opinion polls, dropped to 40 percent in the months after Tet, compared to 50 percent a year earlier, and never recovered.
The real dagger in the heart of the country’s national will was congressional passage of the Case-Church Amendment, signed into law on July 1, 1973. Named for principal sponsors Republican Sen. Clifford P. Chase of New Jersey and Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, the amendment (attached to a bill funding the State Department) prohibited further U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia without specific prior approval by Congress. This was, in effect, a death sentence for the Republic of Vietnam.
The Nixon Question
Although defeated in 1972 when first proposed, the Case-Church Amendment was reintroduced in January 1973 and passed in June. President Richard Nixon, politically hamstrung by the ongoing Watergate fiasco—springing from the June 17, 1972, break-in and burglary at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building—was unable to prevent its passage. The Case-Church Amendment was followed by the crippling November 1973 War Powers Resolution severely limiting the president’s ability commit military forces to combat.
Support for the war, already declining, dropped to 40 percent in the months after Tet, compared to 50 percent a year earlier, and never recovered.
Arguably, Nixon still had the power to overcome such congressional obstacles and possibly “snatch victory from the jaws of defeat” if he had still been president in 1975 when North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. Nixon, technically, could have been legally and fully justified in employing overwhelming U.S. air and naval firepower to protect South Vietnam and enforce provisions of the January 1973 Paris Peace Accords, egregiously violated by North Vietnam’s unprovoked invasion.
Nixon knew that the Paris Peace Accords were meaningless unless backed by American military power if necessary, according to his national security adviser and later secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. In his 1994 book Diplomacy , Kissinger explained: “We [he and Nixon] took it for granted that we had the right—indeed, the responsibility—to defend an agreement in the pursuit of which 50,000 Americans had died…Terms that will not be defended amount to surrender… Nixon and his key advisers announced their intention to defend the agreement on innumerable occasions [emphasis added].”
Without U.S. military power backing up the treaty, the Paris Peace Accords amounted to mere words on paper. Congress, controlled by politicians committed to ending the war, focused its attention on Nixon’s presidency rather than on the struggling Republic of Vietnam facing obliteration by communist North Vietnam.
Richard Nixon bids farewell to his presidency on Aug. 9, 1974. In July 1973,Congress, reflecting the will of its constituents, prohibited military involvement in South Vietnam. Nixon’s resignation was another sign that U.S. support had ended.
Weakened by the Watergate scandal and facing inevitable impeachment and Senate conviction, Nixon was forced to resign. After he left the White House on Aug. 9, 1974, his successor, Gerald R. Ford, politically crippled by being an appointed vice president after elected Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced to resign in a corruption scandal, was neither inclined to nor had the political standing to order the U.S. military back to South Vietnam.
The final vestige of America’s national will to save the South—an effort that killed 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese—died on Aug. 9, 1974, when Nixon boarded the presidential helicopter for the final time.
Incompetent strategy, ignorance of geography and a lack of national willpower combined to hand the communists running North Vietnam a victory in a war that was, at its beginning, America’s to lose.
The next time you hear someone blathering about why or, in particular, when the U.S. “lost” the Vietnam War, ask them about Oct. 25, 1950; July 23, 1962; and July 1, 1973. After noting their blank stares, explain it to them.
Jerry Morelock is senior editor of Vietnam magazine.
This article appeared in the Winter 2023 issue of Vietnam magazine.
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Activities & games
speech & drama exercises for young children
Build self confidence in a child with speech & drama
Speech and drama activities are an ideal way to build self
confidence in a child.
If you have a child anxious or afraid of speaking up in front of a class, adults, or perhaps
even their peers, the suggestions and activities outlined below will help you to help them. The
positive benefits will spill over into all areas of their lives.
The life cycle of public speaking fear
Being afraid of public speaking is a fear acknowledged by many adults. That children are
afraid of it too, shouldn't be a
What is more of a surprise is that their fear is allowed to persist, often
unchallenged, long into adulthood. They become the grown-ups who frequently say
they would rather "die" than make a speech.
The real fear underlying public speaking
The truth is not that talking in public is a deadly disease. The real truth is many
people, children included, fear making fools of themselves in front of others. Being "looked at"
and "listened to" is the problem. People fear being seen, for fear they are "not good enough" or
will fail in some way. Being laughed at or dismissed as stupid is the pain they're
The simple remedy to side-step risking exposure many people, including children, adopt
is to keep out of the public eye and
their mouths shut. However that solution is a boomerang.
The child who is too frightened to talk or feels so self-conscious they can't relax and join
games loses out in numerous ways. They are often overlooked by peers and teachers in favor
of bolder children. The more they are marginalized the harder it becomes to join a group or
allow themselves to be seen. Then, when forced by circumstance, like for instance having to
give a formal speech in class, their discomfort and subsequent embarrassment or humiliation,
is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
How to break the cycle of fear
Non-threatening drama and speech activities can help break the cycle.
Before you use any of these suggestions to build self confidence in a child please make
- Start slowly and simply. A nervous child is easily overwhelmed. Asking too
much, too soon, will compound their problems. Choose your beginning point with care. Put
yourself in the child's shoes and ask yourself, 'Is this a little step or a giant stride?' Being
'cruel to be kind' can backfire.
- Role model the behavior you want from the child. Show them it's OK and
safe. Do the exercises with them. This has a wonderful double-whammy pay off. They feel
valued because you gave them time and attention AND they are learning new
About these activities
The activities to build self confidence in a child are separated into 'speech' and 'drama'
because although inextricably linked, they are different.
What is speech?
Speech is how a person communicates with another. It is the conduit for spoken self-
expression. A combination of vocabulary, voice and experience gives each person their unique
oral signature. This is who they are. Their speech is what carries their being, their presence
into the world.
What is drama?
Drama, by contrast, extends and embodies speech. To dramatize is to enact
something or someone; either an aspect of oneself or someone else.
Drama lifts ordinary speech into the realm of the imagination and theater. Its activities focus
on stepping into other worlds
or experiences while speech activities concentrate on developing and extending oral language
skills. Drama teaches empathy. Handled
well, it builds self confidence through providing opportunities for a child to experience the
world from perspectives other than his own. He does not become an egoistical show-off
constantly needing applause. Instead he becomes humane.
- Build self confidence in a child by making unpressurized time to talk
with them. Many of us talk to or talk at a child. We give
instructions like 'Clean your teeth' or 'Pick your toys up'. This type of communication is very
different from talking with. To talk with implies you are actively making
room or time to listen to their side of the conversation.
- Another simple way to build self esteem is to ask open-ended
questions. These require more of a response than a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Try asking 'why'
or 'how' to elicit extended answers.
- Get down to their level. If they're sitting on
the floor playing, get down with them. This reduces the gulf between big and powerful,
small and insignificant.
- Avoid doing the talking for a child. Sometimes as adults it's easy to
assume spokesperson status habitually. The child learns that you'll do all the talking for them
and they don't have to try. They also learn you'll do it better than they can anyway. In doing
the talking you rob them of practice time. Give it back to them. Even though you may have to
wait for them to find the right words at times, know you're helping!
- Avoid reinforcing baby language by repeating it frequently. This can be
hard as sometimes a child's vocabulary mistakes are delightful and we don't want to let them
go. But we must if we want them to grow. We can write down and cherish the
errors but keeping them live for too long is unkind.
- Avoid teaching a baby language. Why complicate learning to speak with
giving a child a sub-language to learn which later must be un-learnt? Support their growth
by teaching the right words from the start. By this I don't mean pedantically correct
language but giving them a vocabulary appropriate for their age.
- Build self confidence in a child through making a point of praising their speech
and correcting mis-pronounced words non-judgmentally. 'Good on you for trying
xxx (said correctly) word. It can be tricky. Let's say it slowly together.'
- Play lots of language games. (These
are great for car journeys.) Examples: Alphabet 'I spy': I spy with my little eye something
beginning with a, b, c, d etc., Rhyming word-chains: words starting with or ending in the
same sounds. Example: cat, mat, fat, flat, sat...Or flat, floor, flood, flew, flop...
- Read stories aloud daily.
When they're very small start with stories built around repeating phrases and rhymes. If you
read the same story frequently enough, your child will begin 'reading' it along with you. Miss
bits and they'll correct you. Talk with them as you go about the pictures. Get them to tell you
about what's happening in them.
- Singing songs. Get
your child singing along. If it's a favorite you can take alternate verses or take turns making
songs about whatever is going on around right now. Pick a well known tune ('Old
Macdonald Had a Farm' is good.) and have
fun. I remember our son enjoying variations like, 'Our Big Boy James is putting on his
boots, e, i, e, i, o. He puts his right
foot in and wriggles it around, e, i, e, i, o' ...etc.
- Read poetry aloud. Children love the
sounds of poetry and will readily imitate them. Try nonsense poems, fantastical poems, or
ones with a strong beat full of words sounding their meaning. Your local library will have
anthologies in the Children's Section. Ask for help if you can't find them.
- Encourage 'talking time' at the dinner table. Make sure each child has a turn, is listened to, and not interrupted. If need be put a
time limit in place for the one who goes on and on! When they're finished, paraphrase what
you heard and respond.
- If your child has difficulty speaking clearly and you're worried it could be a
physical problem, get it assessed sooner rather than later. The problem may lie in their
hearing or the formation of the physical organs and body parts needed for speech. Specialized
therapists will do a superb job of advising the right way to address the matter. If you allow a
speech fault to establish, they become harder to stop.
- Going to a local play-group or kindergarten will definitely help build self
confidence. They'll learn in a protected safe environment to interact with people
outside of their family circle.
- Take your child when you go visiting or shopping. It doesn't have to be all
the time but enough for them to learn to feel comfortable in new situations with new
- Teach your child simple good manners and expect them to use them as a
normal part of daily living. Making their own requests politely and thanking people for things
or services received will build esteem and is a valuable first step toward
solo public speaking.
- Model good listening and speech. A child learns from those closest to
them. If you don't listen or speak well, it becomes more difficult for the child to develop the
confidence to do so.
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- Build self confidence in a child by actively encouraging their imagination and
allowing them to experiment and play with dress-ups. We had a large wicker basket of
old clothes. There was a cloak, coats, some hats, lots of scarves, shoes, bags etc, etc. I found
the more definite the costume, the less it appealed. The more flexible the items were, the
more readily they were put on. The cloak was magical one day because it made the wearer
invisible and the next it became a glamor item for going to the ball.
Also favored were
discarded 'father' or 'mother' clothes. These allowed children to experiment with being
- Encourage the retelling of stories in
their own words. Choose either true family events or a familiar tale that's been read and read
as a bedtime story. Within these, encourage taking on the voices of the characters. How did
the wolf talk? What did the Grandmother say? How did her voice sound? Can you make that
- Take your children to listen to story-tellers or children's theater
- Listen to story CD's or tapes read by trained actors.
- Limit the amount of television a child watches and monitor what they do
see. Television programs have been shown to deaden the imagination rather than
encourage it. A child watching is not working actively, they're passive. In comparison, making
your own play is hard work physically and mentally. Turning off the television will really help
build positive self-esteem!
- Allow 'truth' or 'reality' to be suspended
providing the play is safe. Jumping off the garage roof with an umbrella for wings is
going to hurt but having an invisible friend or changing your name for awhile is relatively
harmless. Provided it's accommodated without undue fuss (either negative or positive), your
child will let it go when they're finished with it.
- Allow for 'mess' to happen. The easiest way is to say where and
when the play can occur without inconveniencing everybody.
- Play yourself. Your example will build self confidence in a child. Get
involved without taking over the direction of a story or piece of play acting. This way you're
showing it's OK to 'pretend' and leaving the authority with the child. We've eaten dinner with
spare chairs and places set for
invisible guests who asked for special foods. I remember a toy train that talked, a teddy bear
who threw temper tantrums...
- If the child volunteers to make a play, tell a story, sing a song for the family to
watch, help them to do it without taking over. Ensure any comment or feedback is constructively positive and
- Do discuss the plays or fantasies your child creates with other adults in their
presence but avoid ridicule or mockery. Be careful too, about setting them up as
entertainment outside the family particularly if they are under eight. Too much attention and
praise for being clever, amusing, a real clown or for copying an adult performer can slow
their character development. There is a fine line between learning about being
another and learning to be one's self. You don't want a child whose sense of
well being is largely derived from being the center of attention and someone else!
- If you decide to take your child to drama lessons or a group, check the agenda
before enrolling. Some groups offer
wonderful programs designed to enrich and extend appropriately. Others are not so
scrupulous. A child is a child. They should
be allowed and encouraged to be one. Ask to see a curriculum and talk over teaching
A very shy child can be
encouraged to participate gradually through for instance taking part in group or chorus work
before taking on solo parts.
Instant solo focus or insensitive comparison with a more outgoing child will shut a tender one
- If you do offer criticism because you were asked,
make sure it follows a commend-recommend-commend model. Do not
compare one child with another. If you must compare do so with what that particular
child did yesterday and what they did
today or in this part of the play and that part of the play. Be specific rather than global in
your comments. Telling a child
he did a great job or that it was awful doesn't communicate anything useful.
The first gives him nothing to improve or build on. (It's all good, so why bother?) The second
denies anything of value happened. (Again, why bother?)
Also practice asking them for their critique. They will know what happened. Help them to
learn to trust and refine their own judgement.
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As a child gets older drama can become more structured or
In a classroom setting this can take place as a natural
extension of a lesson or as a lesson in itself.
If you're a parent at home looking for
simple drama exercises to help build confidence try these:
- Re-telling well known stories in which the child takes on the voices and
actions of all the characters. Examples: Little Red-Riding Hood, Goldilocks and The Three
Bears, or some of the wonderful Dr.Seuss stories. ( Don't get carried away with
costume and make-up. The less, the better. The key is not the trappings but the drama itself
and living into it as vividly as
- Take a theme from a current lesson to
turn into a mini-drama. This could focus on the people involved or the things. The cycle
of the seasons for instance adapts well. It could be taken from Winter's point of view, then
Spring's etc, etc. With imagination any lesson has dramatic potential. The idea is to keep it
simple. Once they get too complicated they can spiral out of control and become
overwhelming. The length should be about 3 minutes maximum to start with. Encourage
Introduction, Middle or Development and Conclusion.
- Talk as if...you're a showman at a fair, you're a Queen, you're a radio
announcer, you're a rock star, you're an elderly person, you're very brave...
the changes promptly allowing about one minute between each. Do it with your child. Once
they get confident swap suggestions back and forth. If you get met with refusal to play, don't
buy the argument or go into long explanations about how it is good for them. Instead, step
back and realize they are probably feeling afraid of getting it wrong! Show them by doing it
yourself that you don't have to be perfect.
- Walk as if...you're a cat, you're very tall, you've got wobbly legs, you've got
one foot always wanting to go its own way, you're important, you're very shy, you're the
President, you're walking on ice...
Again the key is rapid changes of body
language. This is a fun game to play in the park or going for a walk. Watch though that you
don't expose the child to ridicule either through your own antics or theirs. Choose your
- Swap a hat...Have a collection of hats. Each denotes a different character.
When you're wearing this one, you talk and move like this. When you're wearing another, you
behave differently. The more radically different the hats the better. You can source these very
cheaply from your local thrift shop.
- Swap a face...Make a face and have your child copy it as exactly as they
can. Hold it and speak as you think the face demands. Now it's you child's turn to give a face
to you. Keep going. Making faces is fun and can be played anywhere!
- Make a small speech (story) about xxxx ( What I want for Christmas, My
little brother,...) as if you were the King of the world, the man from the corner shop,
Grandma...(Pick subjects and people or models the child knows so they don't to work too
hard to imagine them.) The principal way this works is that being someone other than
themselves, they do not have to feel too vulnerable because it's not them. It's someone
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AND my last tip...
Do not ask them to do things you are unwilling to do yourself. If you are
nervous about making a fool of yourself and express that through criticism or throw-away
comments, you feed and normalize the fear a child feels. They'll pick up your anxieties very
If this is you and you want to help build esteem, be prepared to overcome,
or at least own, your own doubts and insecurities.
An absolutely safe and supportive way for you to do this is to join a local Toastmaster's
Group. This is an international not-for-profit organization dedicated to helping people
become confident public speakers. You'll find them fun, interesting and challenging as well.
You'll learn new skills, meet new people and soon be doing all sorts of public speaking you
never thought possible. Look on the website. You're bound to find one near you. Ring and
AND, yes, there is one more
If you're a teacher reading this and you have a fear-filled child plus a curriculum
demanding that they give solo speeches, take the time to make it easier for them by:
- Giving lots of advance time so it doesn't spring on them.
- Ensuring there is topic selection help available.
- Providing models (especially older children who have been there, done that, and
survived) to share their experiences and
- If the class dynamic supports it, using a buddy-system for planning, writing, and
rehearsal. Team up people so as the
doubtful are placed with those who can support with care. Provide clear guide-lines for good
- Organize rehearsal times in which you will be present to give suggestions. This gives
a scared child experience of the
space and speaking ahead of the real thing.
- If circumstances permit, be flexible enough to allow speeches said to a chosen few,
on tape etc.
- Be sure to praise any move toward conquering their fear.
Do you need help with speech topics suitable for children?
There are dozens of speech topics for kids
here, ready for you to take as is or
adapt for your own needs.
Or check here for more public speaking games. You'll find activities to adapt as well as ongoing
links to more.
For more information than my site can offer on confidence builders for children visit consistent parenting advice. You'll find a treasure trove of easily applied
ideas brought to you by a qualified expert.
Breaking the cycle of fear in adults
Maxwell Maltz (1889-1975), author of "Psycho-Cybernetics" said, "Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-brake on."
If you've got the hand-brake on and want simple effective strategies to remove it and boost your self-esteem read this article from the Cornerstone Edu blog: Life Long Learning Matters.


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The language that is DRAMA
When we speak or write we tend to use – as a rule – not single words, but groups of words called sentences.
When we make dramatic stories we tend to use – as a rule – groups of actions called scenes.
A SENTENCE is a group of words so arranged as to make complete sense.
A SCENE is a group of actions presented in images and sounds that are so arranged as to make emotional sense.
Sentences can be classified as STATEMENTS, QUESTIONS, DESIRES or EXCLAMATIONS. Note: Some times a question has the same form as a statement: He’s out? It’s broken?
Sentence meanings are often affected or determined by TONE.
Dramatic stories also are made up of scenes that behave as STATEMENTS, QUESTIONS, DESIRES and EXCLAMATIONS, and do not necessarily rely simply on words to make their emotional impact.
A simple sentence can be broken into three parts : SUBJECT, VERB and PREDICATE
A simple scene – when conveyed by way of images and sounds (including dialogue) - is also composed of a SUBJECT, ACTION (verb) and OBJECT (predicate).
The Subject of a dramatic scene is usually the CHARACTER that is fighting for something, but not always. Some times the subject of a scene is the character that carries the emotional weight of the action - the character through whom we, the audience, FEEL the emotion energy that is in evidence.
The Verb of the scene is what the character actually does – what is the ACTION employed by the character that dramatises the scene’s emotional meaning and whether the energy builds or is released? Action is the dramatisation of a plan that has been stimulating by a need that is either apparent or will become apparent in subsequent scenes.
The Predicate of the scene is the object of the character’s actions – his/her objective or goal in the scene, or it may well be the expression or manifestation of the dramatic problem and/or the frustrated desire it gives rise to.
One can analyse and critically examine the meaningfulness of any dramatic scene by investigating the grammar of the scene. Every meaningful (emotionally charged) scene - like every meaningful sentence - will contain a subject, a verb and a predicate. Where even one of these is missing or not clearly conveyed through character actions, the energy dissipates.
Similar to its role in the sentence, the verb – or action – is the most important part of the scene.
Dramatic scenes create CHANGE in the emotional energy of the narrative by way of the actions performed by characters in their quest to achieve their objectives or goals.
Action is the heart and life of the dramatic scene. Without it, a dramatic scene is not possible.
ACTIVE CHARACTERS = ACTIVE SCENES
PASSIVE CHARACTERS = PASSIVE SCENES
An active scene involves what a character actually does to effect change. The action is the expression of a character’s inner emotional state as conditioned by their assessment and understanding the problem or opportunity that confronts them. When characters act we see are ACTIONS.
A passive scene is any scene that merely shows what is or was done to the character in the course of the character avoiding or ignoring the problem and/or opportunity that confronts him/her. Whatever acts upon the character without the character actually striving to achieve his/her goal is an EVENT. EVENTS, when not responded to actively by a character, tend to dissipate the emotional energy (or meaning) of a dramatic story. They also run the risk of alienating the story’s audience, making it increasingly difficult for the audience to CARE about what is happening to the character.
Active and Passive scenes have their equivalents in active and passive voice.
An active scene occurs when the subject of the scene denotes the doer of the action.
When the subject of the scene is the sufferer or receiver of the action, it becomes a passive scene.
Actions – like verbs - involve moods
Indicative Mood –
a. actions that convey significant information about the characters, their world and important elements of their past
b. actions that raise questions, e.g.: why is this happening? – the creation of mystery.
Imperative Mood –
a. actions that command a reaction from other characters
b. actions that implore solidarity with or sympathy from other characters
c. actions that entreat or beg assistance from other characters
Subjunctive Mood –
a. actions predicated upon suppositions made about another character or
b. actions that convey doubt or anxiety concerning the identity of a character
or the meaning behind their actions.
c. actions that convey a strong desire or wish for something.
Actions can also be understood in terms pf Past, Present and Future.
Every action must take place at some time, either now, or before, or tomorrow.
As such an action that is shown that happens in the past in a FLASH BACK.
An action that occurs in the future – a portent or vision of something that has not yet happened – might be said to be a FLASH FORWARD
Actions occurring contemporaneously with the actual narrative action of the character’s quest are simply PRESENT.
In dramatic storytelling are expressed by the CUT, where one scene ends and the following scene begins. The dramatic conjunction is that interval in which the emotional energy of one scene is transferred or transformed in its movement into the next scene. The relationship of these scenes suggests dramatic information that is not and cannot be conveyed when the scenes are seen separately, not in relationship to one another. The cinematic conjunction is one major feature of the art of cinematic storytelling and a major contributing factor to what differentiates film drama from life-as-lived.
If we make the analogy that drama is a language for presenting emotional energy and that, as a language, it possesses its own, unique grammar for the construction and presentation of meaningful dramatic actions, then it is not a very big leap to say that every dramatic scene is analogous to a sentence, for like a sentence, the dramatic scene is the expression of a complete idea - a complete DRAMATIC idea. And like a sentence it is composed of a SUBJECT (the character driving the scene), a VERB (the central action of the scene) and an OBJECT or OBJECTIVE (what the character is striving for).
The scene below, from the hit television series, Frasier, provides a simple but vivid example of the way in which the dramatic grammar is expressed in actions in a scene involving two characters: a man and a dog.
Every successful dramatic screenplay presents meaningful (i.e.: emotionally compelling) and identifiable characters and character actions through an interconnected succession of inter-related scenes, which creates sequences ("paragraphs") and acts ("chapters") and ultimately a complete story.
The actions presented are instances of a character's desire to either achieve or attain some objective or goal, or overcome some problem or obstacle that threatens their well-being or plans, or the well-being of whatever they CARE about, which is usually another character or characters. In the Australian feature, Sampson and Delilah, for example, the evolving relationship between the two principal characters is tested by a series of crises that results in one of them committing to the well-being of the other.
Dramatic films - fictional and factional - are driven forward, narratively, by the actions of their characters. Every scene in a dramatic narrative has a beginning, a middle and an end, that evidences a change in the emotional and/or physical circumstances of at least one of the characters. A dramatic scene usually "belongs" to the character that is driving the action of the scene, and whose actions most decisively effect the movement or change that occurs within it; however, the main character of the story is not necessarily the character that will drive every scene, even though that character may be present in every scene.
Echoing the main conflict of the story, the conflict inside each scene is most successful (emotionally meaningful) if it is grounded in a character's over-arching goal or desire, and the frustration of, or threat posed to, that desire by the other characters, or by nature, or both.
A dramatic character is, by definition, a character that is striving for something, or as Michael Shurtleff observed, "a character that is fighting for something".
Striving is dramatically meaningful when it is clear that the goal is worthwhile AND when failure to achieve the goal carries dire consequences. There must be risk and the chance of failure for a dramatic story to connect emotionally. And risk and the possibility of failure occur most commonly when someone or something opposes the character's best attempts to achieve his or her objective or goal. The ensuing conflict MOVES the character to act, and what the do moves them either closer to or further away from their goal. A verbal clash between characters that results in no change whatsoever is not (dramatic) conflict.
Inexperienced screenwriters usually associate verbal altercations with conflict, whereas real conflict is an obstruction to the desire or goal inside the scene. A dramatic goal, by definition, is what is to be won or lost; it stimulates the plans of action enacted by the character to achieve that goal. If what the character wants is given to him/her too easily, the opportunity to build emotional energy through opposition is lost. And if the character merely avoids the confrontation, as is the case in far too many Australian screenplays, the character is rendered passive and emotionally uninteresting.
In successive dramatic scenes, what the main character does and what happens to him or her as a result of what s/he does, is the driving force behind the emotional energies that are being built or released.
In each dramatic scene, a character will do something that brings him/her closer to his/her goal, or propels him/her further away from the attainment of that goal.
Each instance of change effects each subsequent instance of change insofar as it provides the circumstances and conditions what happens next. In this way, dramatic screen story-telling might be characterized as a cause-and-effect process guided by a series of shots (cuts) that continuously direct the audience's attention to that region of the story (action) that most elegantly and powerfully elaborates the nexus of forces at work in the emotional lives of the characters.
FILM-MAKING as AN EXPERIENCE - reaching into the Unknown
Form is a character of every experience that is an experience. Art in its specific sense enacts more deliberately and fully the conditions that effect this unity. Form may then be defined as the operation of forces that carry the experience of an event, object, scene, and situation to its own integral fulfilment." - John Dewey (Art as Experience)
Borrowing an insight from Henry James’ tender-hearted brother, William, the American philosopher, John Dewey, conceived of aesthetic experience as a "double-barrelled" phenomenon, where experience is characterised by process and content – a doing as well as an under-going.
Experience in this sense is not equivalent to knowledge, for knowing is but one special kind of experiencing. What one does and what one suffers, or appreciates, as a result of what one does, is a cumulative process of reaching into the unknown and permitting the unknown to reach into us.
In working with the unknown, or the unconscious, knowledge is frequently an impediment to discovery; indeed, it may actually stop us from finding anything at all, other than what we already habitually know and have routinely made ours.
There is both comfort and a sense of safety in the nurture of mere knowledge, but it seldom if ever produces pure inspiration. More often than not it provides a handy way of walling ourselves up in a protective cocoon and arming ourselves with unassailable jargon by which we might fend off any attacks, intellectual, personal or otherwise. This castle-keep mentality is often grounded in an anxiety that very frequently amounts to little more that a fear of change.
Generally, Art cannot afford the luxury of vague, unreconstructed fear. This is not to say that fear is ever completely absent from the creative process, but it must never be permitted to intrude on the work in such a way as to warrant or validate stupidity or carelessness. The essence of Art is, indeed, the absence of stupidity.
Applying this notion to dramatic screen storytelling, one might say that a successful screen story is the fearless realisation (in us) – as both storyteller and audience - of a meaningful (emotional) connection or interaction with the strivings of the characters. Such an interaction compels identification. Their needs become our needs; their suffering, our suffering. When this arises out of a mutual and active interplay amongst ALL of the characters that contribute to the dramatic action, and they ALL respond in kind, the experience one has is no longer simply additional experiences; it becomes - in Dewey's terms - an experience. “In such experiences, “ Dewey writes: "every successive part flows freely, without seam and without unfilled blanks, into what ensues; there are no holes, mechanical junctions and dead centres when we have an experience".
Dewey's words evoke that sense of completeness that is the consummation of the characters' shared and shareable journeys, including the parallel journeys made and undergone by the filmmakers (storytellers), the audience and the tribe/s (all of which are "characters" contributing to the enactment – and finding - of story).
For a story to consummate in a satisfying way - as opposed to merely ending or ceasing its activities - it must present "courses of action in which, through successive deeds, there runs a sense of growing meaning conserved and accumulating toward an end that is felt as the accomplishment of a process in which we – the characters - have emotionally invested ourselves. In other words, we have to care- all of us! When this occurs, the film story produces that unique quality that Dewey speaks of as an experience.
But an experience is not likely to occur in the finished product if it has not been present within the process that has led to that product.
Drama is founded on action - and in cinema, action is realised through IMAGE and SOUND. Sound and image, however, no matter how loud or explosive, are helpless to achieve dramatic intensity unless they are guided by a fundamental grammar that is organic to the "language" that is drama. When stories are informed by this grammar, it is impossible to write characters that are emotionally neutral or don't care what is happening to them. Even if a character appears to be neutral, his/her neutrality will be imbued with a subtext that will provoke or induce consequences that are dramatic, remembering that the selection, weight and ordering of the images and sounds in a successful dramatic narrative invariably convey more than what we actually see and hear. This is why I often speak of cinema as “the art of the invisible”, for it works best when it employs the grammar to allow the logic to imply, to suggest emotions, thoughts and drives that are never literally stated or shown. In allowing the audience the space to act and react (i.e.: to co-create the vision out of the subtext) the story evokes emotional identification, producing that quality of meaning that we refer to as an experience.
A story’s dramatic grammar is something that must be taken into account by all members of the cast and crew, for the apprehension of the emotional logic that gives the story its ultimate and most potent meaning is all but impossible to translate into image and sound without respecting the guiding logic that stands within and behind the emotional life of the characters.
One does not create the logic so much as “listen” to it and act upon what one has “heard”… in the unseen and unstated spaces that are the characters’ complexities and contradictions. In this way the logic operating within the domain of a grammar directs every element of the creative unfolding of the story.
Where this underlying logic is not present, or unheeded, the visual and aural images will not reflect or effect the necessary connections or identifications to enable and maintain maximum shareability of experience, thus causing the story to stall and miss its projected target.
Emotional logic implies emotional intelligence on the part of all of the characters. Emotional intelligence demands that we conceive of drama as more than mere cause and effect. The simple cause and effect of primary experience, in which the clouded and inexplicable actions of fortune and providence are visited upon unknowing heads of passive characters, is transformed by drama and supplanted by a logic of means and consequences which introduce the notion of meaningful activity, in which characters are oriented towards some goal or objective that commands their attention and concern, as well as ours.
To invest in the characters means to empathize with them - to be involved emotionally in the journey upon which they are on. Empathy is active insofar as it is a reaching out to receive and share – as one – the tribulations, joys, hopes and dreads of the characters whose journey is also our journey, as storytellers, audience and tribe.
The purpose of dramatic film-making is to create an experience that is transformative. What is important is to understand that the transformations that occur outside the script are just as important as those occurring inside the script, and the characters that act in the story are existentially related to the characters outside the script, namely the storytellers, the audience and the tribe.
Plot = change, as McKee is fond of reminding us, but if one ignores the totality of relationships and the changes effected by these relationships as they evolve through dynamic and dramatic interactions in the process of finding the story, one robs both oneself – the filmmaker – and the audience of the reason one is making a film to begin with.
Drama is a language for presenting emotional energy. As such, it embodies a collection of grammars in terms of which every element of the story can be examined, described, criticised and illuminated. Whenever a story communicates emotionally meaningful energy it necessarily demonstrates the basic principles and processes by which that energy is successfully built and released.
A dramatic story presents energy that moves and transforms in ways that keep its audience inside the action and its effectiveness in this regard is due in no small part to the actions of the characters. In dramatic stories, these actions operate within logical, syntactical-like structures that shape and nuance the confrontations that are taking place.
Issue-based stories referencing situations that are charged with emotions not present in the stories themselves are capable of seducing careless storytellers (and audiences) into believing the stories are more dramatic or meaningful than they are. The seductiveness of “the real” frequently militates against a storyteller’s critical instincts, especially when he or she has an emotional investment in, or attachment to, the subject of the story being told. When the subjective emphasis of content and personal association de-tunes the storyteller’s sensitivity to the story’s grammar, the storyteller is at risk of reading energy into actions where in fact there is no energy at all. This is the essence of propaganda.
The only sure antidote to this fallacious reading (and making) of dramatic stories is to approach and examine the story in terms of its grammar. By looking at the dramatic grammar by which the energies of the story move and interact, the story’s maker and the story’s audience can more usefully identify, explore and assess the relative merits, strengths and weaknesses of the story, scene by scene and sequence by sequence.
As one becomes more fluent in the grammar, one becomes better equipped and more confident in one’s critical examination and appreciation of what is occurring in the narrative, seeing where the energy is coming from and why, and what its impact is on every character in every scene, sequence and act, including those energies that are merely implied or operate between the scenes “in the cut”. The experience of “the cut” is one of the more profound and subtle aspects of plot, and is what separates plot from the story-as-lived by the characters. If, for example a story takes place over thirty years, but the film is only two hours in duration, then we must find the two hours out of that thirty years that energetically conveys the emotional narrative of that span of time. The presence of “the cut” requires us to make inferences based upon what we have seen and heard in one place and seen and heard somewhere else. Something has occurred “in the cut” that we were not party to, which is implied by what comes before and what comes after.
By focusing on a story’s grammar – that is, the story’s energetic, character-driven structure – a story-maker discovers the ways in which drama means and the special syntaxes of dramatic action, image and sound that either facilitate (when present) or obscure (where absent) a story’s power to make us care.
As one becomes more familiar with the grammar one begins to recognise that it has a bearing not only on the ways in which the energy moves, but also the effectiveness of its movement. Indeed, a story’s dramatic grammar is instrumental not only in the creation of viable and absorbing dramatic characters, but also in the promotion an audience’s willingness to identify with them.
When a story’s origins intersect with our own origins, the story’s grammatical soundness – the emotional and syntactical logic by which it means what it means – may be said to cohere to our deepest intuitive understandings concerning our own humanity. Hence, to say that a story is grammatical means that its energy moves in ways that are in keeping with our intuitive understanding of human desire and its frustration, including what is unpredictable and unexpected. Its grammar is its credibility.
The danger in creating or endorsing non-grammatical stories is that one runs the risk of aborting or unnecessarily obscuring and interfering with the significance and flow of emotional energy, which can, in turn, produce the undesired effect of casting one’s audience out of the story. An ungrammatical story is a story that is unable to conjure emotion, and is therefore, meaningless.
Like its grammatical cousin, the sentence, a dramatic scene is composed of a subject (character/s), a verb (action/s) and a predicate or object (the recipient/s of the action); and, like the sentence, aims at expressing a complete idea.
In order to express a complete dramatic idea a scene must also present at least one significant change affecting the emotional energy of the character or characters involved. Such changes affect the movement of the story insofar as every change either propels the character closer to his/her goal or further away from it. The pressure or tension that a character experiences, and the actions that that experience provokes, transform the energy within the scene by either increasing the energy or releasing it. Where change is not present, the story remains static; the scene does NOT advance the story, and the energy dissipates.
A dramatic character is, by definition, someone or something that strives to transform the frustration (or anxiety) inherent in the dramatic problem that he/she or it is facing, in order to enact a healing, or bring about a resolution that will either end or significantly alter or transcend the frustration under which that character is suffering. The key word here is "strives", for a dramatic character is dramatic to the degree that he/she ACTS and, as a result of that action, effects CHANGE.
More often than not, a character is successful in his/her quest (“the happy ending”), but success is never a given, nor should it be. The only thing that can be said with any certainty is that successful dramatic stories produce significant shifts in energy that manifest as changes in character, the character’s relationships, and/or the character’s world; and that an essential component of a story’s success is its adherence to a grammar that promotes the building and releasing of the emotional energies through fresh and thoroughly credible character-based actions that enable us, the audience, to care about what is happening.
The fundamental duality expressed in dramatic action is one of emotional connection (empathy, consonance) and emotional disconnection (antipathy, dissonance). Drama results when something that had been connected is suddenly disconnected, broken or interrupted, so that the main character cannot go on thinking, or believing or feeling the same way he/she did before the disconnection occurred.
Disconnection introduces the element of conflict. It is the catalyst that starts the story; or rather the anxiety it produces in the character is what starts the story, by compelling the character to ACT. If the opposition is strong enough, and if we care about the characters, then drama becomes possible.
Dramatic actions are motivated actions – they are the external expressions of a plan directed towards a achieving a clear and identifiable goal. A dramatic character is always a character with a plan – a plan for confronting the problem, not avoiding it. A dramatic character, as Michael Shurtleff has said, is a character that is fighting for something. Hence, dramatic meaning as conveyed by characters ACTING is constituted by a basic grammar that is composed of problems, goals and plans.
Invariably, the initial plan in any dramatic story is doomed. It has to be. If it were to succeed the story would be over. If the story is to build emotional energy then the initial plan cannot succeed. Ironically, the initial plan must produce actions that compound the problem, thus leading the character/s into further PREDICAMENTS that force the adoption of new plans, or even new goals, which, if the story is to continue building energy, will involve greater and greater risks (stakes) for the characters. In other words, the plans that are devised to overcome the problem or assist the character in achieving a newly discovered goal, unwittingly lead to ever-greater problems and threats. Dramatic problems are, by definition, problems that are made worse by a character’s attempts to fix them. A character’s ongoing responses to the problems that his/her plans encounter are what an audience sees enacted as a story.
This is HOW a dramatic story works. This is the basic grammar that informs the formulaic decrees of all those screenwriting gurus from Syd Field to Robert McKee. However, taken on its own, this understanding is virtually worthless. Knowing HOW a dramatic story works is not the panacea it’s cracked up to be; it certainly won’t lead Joan and Joe Screenwriter out of their predictable and all-too-comfortable mediocrity. Strange as it may seem, it might very well lead them ever more deeply into it! Why? Because the knowledge of how drama works provides no assurance at all for the creation of compelling dramatic stories! The screenwriting gurus have been running a con. PROBLEM, GOAL, and PLAN are merely place-markers at the banquet table of dramatic action. It is with those that are sitting in the chairs that we must concern ourselves. In short, it’s the CHARACTERS, stupid! And characters are, by nature, a slippery mob.
 See Audition by Michael Shurtleff.
Feydeau's one rule:
Character A: "My life is perfect so long as I don't see Character B."
SOME SECOND THOUGHTS
Learn to write poetry. Study it. It teaches you how to create evocative and economical prose (emphasis on "economical").
Listen to people speak in conversations, especially how they structure their sentences.
Never use the words "very," "quite," "so" or "really" as adjectives. They're about as effective as a spoiler on a Honda Civic.
Take at least a year of acting. Learn to understand the process. It will do wonders for your character work and give you invaluable empathy for the end-user (if you're going to design a car, it's good to know how to drive).
Never use the word "goes" as a verb. The English language is rich in verbs. Don't squander an opportunity to use a good one.
Never start a block of dialogue with the word "Look" as in, "Look, I love you." Sloppy and ubiquitous. When I hear it, I wince.
Every scene must be a chord, not a note.
In dialogue, don't drop "g" off the end of your verbs to make a character sound "real”. It's distractin'.
Eliminate passive voice. Instead of "John is digging a hole," write "John digs a hole."
Delete adverbs entirely unless absolutely necessary. Especially in parentheticals.
Print your scripts in courier font and stick to standard format.
Avoid using the word "we" as in "we enter the room" or "we're flying over the island." It's cheesy.
Never ever have a character make an inarticulate sound in dialogue, as in: Aaaaarrrrrrrggghhh . Just write "Joe SCREAMS."
Come on. You're a fucking writer. Learn the difference between "it's" and "its," "your" and "you're," "there," "their" and "they're."
"Spell-check" and "Proof-read" are not synonyms.
Learn the difference between text and subtext. If you don't, you have no business writing scripts.
Never trust the copy store, especially Kinkos. Check each page in the copied manuscript for screw-ups.
Back to DRAMATIC GRAMMAR
AND IF THAT WASN'T ENOUGH, HERE'S SOME MORE


Commonwealth of Dominica; Dominique
Identification. Sighted on 3 November 1493 during Christopher Columbus's second voyage to the "New World," Dominica was named for the day: dies Dominica, "the Lord's Day" or "Sunday" in Latin. Carib Indians from South America had inhabited the island for almost six hundred years and other Amerindians had been there for as long as three thousand years, but their name for the island, Waitukubuli, meaning "Tall is her body," was not recorded for another two centuries. Spain soon lost interest in the island, but France and England fought each other and the Caribs for control throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. After changing hands several times and two centuries of continuous British rule, Dominica became an independent republic on 3 November 1978.
Location and Geography. Not to be confused with the nearby Dominican Republic, Dominica is located between French-controlled Martinique and Guadeloupe in the eastern Caribbean. The capital, Roseau, is located on the calm Caribbean Sea on the western coast; the rougher Atlantic Ocean forms the island's eastern shore. Though only 29 miles (47 kilometers) long and 16 miles (26 kilometers) wide, those who have tried to settle and develop the island through the centuries have been frustrated with the difficulties of accessing its 290 square miles (751 square kilometers) of land area. With peaks over 4,500 feet (1,370 meters) high, it is the most mountainous island in the Lesser Antilles and one of the last islands in the Caribbean to be colonized. It provided refuge for indigenous Caribs and later for maroons (escaped slaves), and never developed the large-scale sugar plantations that characterized other colonies. Lush tropical rainforests cover two-thirds of the island, and annual rainfall ranges from 50 inches (127 centimeters) on the coast to 300 inches (762 centimeters) in the mountains. Its volcanic origin is evident in bubbling sulphur springs and the Boiling Lake, located in the 17,000-acre (6,885 hectare) Trois Pitons National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1998). The island has few white sand beaches, but numerous waterfalls and rivers (Dominicans say there is one for each day of the year).
Demography. The 1991 population census counted 71,183 persons and provided an estimate for 1998 of 74,300 people. About twenty thousand reside in Roseau and its environs, reflecting the "drift" to the urban center during the last several decades of the twentieth century. A majority of the population, 89 percent, is of African descent, 7 percent are of mixed race, and 2 percent are Carib. The remaining 2 percent identify as white, Syrian Lebanese, East Indian, Chinese, and Portuguese.
Linguistic Affiliation. The country's complex colonial past is reflected in its languages. English has been the official language since the British took control in 1763, but it ranges from the standard varieties spoken in Roseau to creolized varieties in rural villages. A distinct English-based creole called Kokoy is spoken in Wesley and Marigot, two villages on the Atlantic coast that were settled by Methodist missionaries, estate owners, and their slave laborers from Antigua and other Leeward Islands in the late eighteenth century. The last fluent speaker of the Carib language reportedly died in the 1920s, although efforts are now being made to revive that language. A French-based creole, known officially as Kwéyo`l but also commonly called Patois or Patwa, arose in the early eighteenth century through contact between French colonizers and enslaved West Africans. Once the primary oral language
Symbolism. Dominica's national motto is Apres Bondie C'est La Ter, "After God, it is the land," emphasizing the country's French-creole heritage, strong religious orientation, and dependence on the soil. The national flag depicts a Sisserou parrot, found only in Dominica, within a red circle surrounded by ten green stars representing the parishes of the country; this is centered on a cross in yellow, black, and white stripes on a green background representing the lushness of its rainforests. The three-colored cross symbolizes the Trinity of God; yellow represents the main agricultural products (bananas and citrus); white, the clarity of its rivers and waterfalls; and black, the rich volcanic soil and its African heritage. The national flower, the indigenous Bois Caribe ("Carib wood"), was chosen because of its hardiness and for having persisted throughout human habitation of the island. It is said to represent the nation's history and continuity, and the ruggedness and resourcefulness of its people.
Emergence of the Nation. Geography has played a guiding role in the island's history. Due to the mountainous terrain and the resistant Caribs who inhabited it, Dominica was unclaimed by European powers until settled by French planters and missionaries in 1635. England, France's rival, soon vied for control. In 1686 both nations agreed to relinquish the island to the Caribs, yet repeatedly returned. By 1750, the Caribs had retreated to the rugged windward coast (they now reside in an area called the Carib Reserve). In 1763, France ceded Dominica to England in the Treaty of Paris. The French captured the island in 1778, but the English regained control in 1783.
The British concentrated in Roseau, and overseers ran estates for their absentee owners. The French, however, lived on small estates and remained well after the British took official control. A peasant-based agricultural economy and creole culture emerged. Maroons, often supplied with weapons by the French, terrorized the British from 1785 to 1814. Emancipation for all slaves was granted in 1834. Freed slaves from Dominica, Martinique, and Guadeloupe eventually took over the small estates. Dominica became the first and only British Caribbean colony to have a black-controlled legislature following the abolition of slavery. Called the "Mulatto Ascendency," they played a powerful role in politics, government, and cultural affairs into the twentieth century.
Dominica became part of the Leeward Islands in 1833, but changed affiliation to the Windward Islands in 1940. The country became an associated state within the British Commonwealth in 1967 before claiming independence in 1978.
National Identity. Social and political unrest (including attempted coups in 1980 and 1981), economic instability, and the devastating Hurricane David in 1979 complicated the transition to independence. Further divisions included language and historical settlement patterns, as rural villages were relatively isolated from each other and from Roseau and Portsmouth, the second largest town, since colonization. Despite internal differences, the national identity embraced by urban intellectuals and the government was the cultural heritage highlighting French, African, and Carib influence, more than British. A discourse of development unites the country.
Ethnic Relations. The population is predominantly of African descent. The Carib reside primarily on the Carib Reserve, but aside from maintaining some ancestral practices (such as basket weaving and boat making), they live like rural peoples around the island. People who identify as Syrian, Lebanese, and Chinese own some of the largest businesses in Roseau. Although there is some ethnic stereotyping, more salient social divisions fall along class, language, education, and rural and urban lines.
Roseau is the island's center of government, commerce, health services, education, and communications. The largest French settlement, it was named after the reeds that grow along the nearby Roseau River. French houses grew up haphazardly around a central market square; when the British came to power, they planned the remaining streets and house lots on an orderly grid system. Most buildings are small-scale, ranging from Victorian wood and stone townhouses with large verandas and fretwork to newer, more hurricane-resistant concrete structures. The city is dwarfed by the multi-story cruise ships that call at its newly rebuilt port. A large black and white crucifix and shrine on Morne Bruce overlooks the city. Old stone forts built by the British and expanded by the French include Fort Young in Roseau (now a hotel) and Fort Shirley in Portsmouth (in Cabrits National Park).
Rural villages vary by population and size. Many have a school, health center, post office, one or more churches, and rum shops. Larger villages have a community center and playing field for cricket. Rural homes are traditionally made of wood with galvanized metal roofing, and are perched on stilts. They usually have two or three rooms and a separate outdoor kitchen with a coal pot, fire, or more modern gas stove. Most are sparsely furnished, though those who can afford it fill their homes with store-bought knicknacks, dishes, and appliances. Some larger Western-style concrete houses with recently-available amenities like electricity and indoor plumbing are being built. Yards are kept neat and clean in both rural and urban areas. People socialize at shops, community centers, churches, or on the street.
Food in Daily Life. Dominica's rich volcanic soil and abundant rainfall are ideal for growing a variety of fruits, vegetables, and root crops. These are sold at market or by street vendors, but people typically grow enough for their own consumption. Bananas and plantains are central to rural diets, and are prepared in a variety of ways. The growing and processing of manioc into cassava bread and farina was once a major subsistence activity, but now wheat bread is widely available from local bakeries. Land crabs, river crayfish, opossum, agouti, and fish are caught where available. Locally raised livestock include goats, pigs, and some cows. Crapaud or "mountain chicken," a type of frog, is the national dish, but a more popular creole dish is roasted breadfruit with salted codfish, onions, and peppers cooked in oil. Imported frozen chicken and turkey parts, tinned milk and sausages, and packaged snacks are increasingly popular. Staple foods like flour, sugar, salt, and rice are purchased in town or from village shops. Individuals often sell homemade cakes, coconut milk ice pops, and sweets from their homes.
Urban residents obtain produce from relatives outside the city or purchase it at market. There are several large American-style supermarkets in Roseau, offering expensive imported goods. Most restaurants are located in Roseau and Portsmouth; in rural areas, shops may sell sandwiches or fried chicken. Kentucky Fried Chicken, an American fast food restaurant, opened in Roseau in 1997. When guests visit a home in both rural and urban areas, it is expected that some food or drink will be offered. Lunch is the largest meal of the day.
Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Holidays and important religious ceremonies are celebrated with the slaughtering of livestock and the preparation of large meals. Guests visit homes throughout the day and are given food, desserts, and alcoholic beverages or other drinks. Catholics make offerings of fruits and vegetables during church services or special masses.
Basic Economy. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, with bananas the chief export crop. Citrus and coconut products are also exported. The economy has historically relied on a successive monocrop strategy, but shifting markets, fluctuating prices, and natural disasters have recently increased calls to diversify.
Land Tenure and Property. In 1763, British surveyors divided the island into lots for sale; only 232 acres went to the Caribs. For the next two centuries, most large estates belonged to British or long-established French families. These were bought up during the "banana boom" of the 1950s by foreign investors and Dominican merchants and professionals moving into agriculture. Small-scale farmers remained scattered between the larger estates. In the 1970s, many estates were sold off in smaller plots. Today, land ownership with deed is highly valued by peasant farmers; land is also rented or worked by squatters. The Carib Reserve was expanded to 3,700 acres by British administrator Hesketh Bell in 1903, but by law it is communally owned by all its residents.
Commercial Activities. Agricultural products and manufactured goods including coconut soaps, bay leaf oils, juice concentrates, rum, cigarettes, paint, and plastic sandals are produced for sale.
Major Industries. The major industries include food processing, coconut product manufacturing, paint production, rum distilling, and handicrafts. There is a small commercial fishing industry and some commerce in timber and pumice. Tourism is developing, but is hindered by a lack of accommodations and an international airport. Billed as "The Nature Island of the Caribbean," recent efforts promote cultural ecotourism. Day cruise ship visits increased dramatically in the 1990s.
Trade. Imports total twice as much as exports. Manufactured goods, food, machinery, and chemicals are imported, chiefly from the United States. Agricultural produce is exported to CARICOM countries and the United Kingdom. CARICOM (Caribbean Community and Common Market), a treaty established and signed by most Caribbean nations in 1973, coordinates foreign policies and economic integration. Bananas are sold to Geest, a British multinational corporation. Merchants travel to neighboring islands to sell agricultural produce and handicrafts.
Division of Labor. Professional positions, including highly desirable government jobs, generally require secondary and usually some post-secondary education. Rural villagers are predominantly peasant farmers, and sometimes run small businesses. Larger businesses are owned by upper-class Dominicans and Syrian and Lebanese merchants.
Classes and Castes. Prime determiners of social class are wealth, level of education, occupation, and family history including family name, and class may change through educational advancement or pursuit of a prestigious occupation. The wealthier upper classes are concentrated in Roseau, but there are also marked differences in social class and status in rural villages.
Symbols of Social Stratification. Styles of dress, food, and language were traditionally major symbols of class differentiation, and strongly reflected rural/urban differences. Today, however, rural folk desire the same goods and modern conveniences as urbanites. English still tends to be associated with the educated upper classes and Kwéyo`l with lower-class peasants, but this is changing as rural areas become more accessible and education more widespread.
Government. Dominica has a British parliamentarian system of government, headed by a president and prime minister. The thirty-member unicameral House of Assembly has twenty-one elected and nine appointed senators, plus the Speaker of the House. A local government system allocates each village a council headed by a chairman (called a chief in the Carib Reserve).
Leadership and Political Officials. There are three principal political parties: the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP), the Dominica Labour Party (DLP), and the United Workers Party (UWP). The DFP, headed by Dame Eugenia Charles, governed from 1980 until 1995. Charles, known as the "Iron Lady of the Caribbean," was the first female Caribbean prime minister. She supported former United States president Ronald Reagan in the 1983 invasion of Grenada. The UWP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Edison James, won the 1995 elections. In 2000, it lost to the DLP and Prime Minister Rosie Douglas, who died after eight months in office. He was replaced by Prime Minister Pierre Charles in October 2000.
Elections are held every five years and are generally peaceful. Supporters travel the island in caravans by political party, and candidates often sprinkle campaign speeches with Kwéyo`l during rallies in rural villages. Political officials are generally respected and often invited to attend important meetings and events in villages; they may be severely criticized, however, if popular opinion turns against them.
Social Problems and Control. Since the early 1980s, crime has been very low. The police force is based in Roseau and maintains departments in larger villages. The court system is used to resolve land disputes and slander cases, but problems are usually settled within the family or village.
Military Activity. The police force includes a Special Service Unit and Coast Guard.
The Social Welfare Department was established in 1945. Since then, it has gradually expanded to include a national system of Social Security and various divisions such as Community Development, Local Government, Youth, Sports, Culture, and the Women's Desk.
Several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been established since independence. They often work together and with the government to utilize limited funds for projects in rural development, agriculture, health, women, and culture. Funding and assistance come from churches (especially the Roman Catholic Church) and several international agencies including UNESCO, UNICEF, and the United States Peace Corps.
Division of Labor by Gender. Women and girls are primarily responsible for childcare, cooking, and household chores. In rural areas, they often grow vegetables and raise small livestock. The majority of vendors at the open-air markets are women, and many women supplement household income by selling homemade sweets and baked goods, weaving baskets, or by working as house cleaners or childcare providers. Men harvest and sell bananas (the main export) and other crops, tend large livestock, fish, hunt, and work in construction. Both men and women are employed as professionals. Men hold more positions of authority in the churches, but both men and women are active in politics and village affairs.
The Relative Status of Women and Men. Women's work is often valued less than men's work, although women's contributions are equally or more important to household maintenance. Women are criticized if they spend too much time out of the home, while men are allowed more freedom. Women, particularly as mothers, are very involved in community life and are often the center of extensive kin networks.
Marriage. Only monogamous marriages are permitted by law. Marriage is based on individual choice, though generally limited by social class and religion. Many young people have children, often with multiple partners, and may cohabit for years before legally marrying, despite church disapproval. Men are expected to contribute financially to their children's upbringing, regardless of their relationship with the mother. Except among the upper classes, marriage usually comes later in life, after age thirty. Divorce is legal, but is rare and is frowned upon.
Domestic Unit. The household may be headed by a man or a woman. Households may consist of one person, a woman and her children (perhaps visited by her boyfriend), a nuclear family with the parents either married or cohabiting, or an extended household that includes several generations. Several families, often related through one matriarch, may have separate homes but share a common piece of land or yard with an outdoor kitchen or other resources.
Inheritance. The predominant inheritance practice is "family land," in which a parcel of land is owned jointly by descendants of the original owner, either male or female. Use of the land is determined by consensus or family tradition. Oral agreements frequently lead to disputes, but no part may be sold unless all co-owners agree.
Kin Groups. Kin groups extend beyond the household to include those related through blood lines, marriage, and friendship both within and outside the village; Dominicans frequently say that everyone on the island is related. Financial and material resources are often shared, and child fostering is common. Many households depend on money sent from relatives who have migrated overseas.
Infant Care. Children are cared for primarily by their mothers, but also by other relatives, friends, and neighbors. In rural areas, families rarely have separate cribs or rooms for infants, and they stay with the rest of the family. Small babies are kept at home, but are soon brought along to the fields, river, and elsewhere. When they begin to walk and talk, children are given small household chores. Once they start primary school, they are expected to run errands and look after smaller children.
Child Rearing and Education. Children are expected to be obedient, and corporal punishment is
Higher Education. Post-secondary education is limited to the Teacher's Training College, the Clifton Dupigny Community College, and a small branch of the University of the West Indies for continuing education. Adult education classes are offered in Roseau, Portsmouth, and occasionally in villages. Further education or training must be obtained on other islands or elsewhere overseas. According to the 1991 census, only 2 percent of the population receives a university education.
Greetings such as "good morning" or "good afternoon" are the most basic form of social interaction. People are expected to greet when they telephone, visit someone's home, or simply pass one another on the street. Strangers are eyed with suspicion, but are treated warmly once introduced. Close friends, especially girls, stand close to one another and often walk with arms around each other's shoulders or waists. Privacy is difficult to maintain but is highly valued; items are concealed when carried in public, and domestic problems are dealt with in the home.
Religious Beliefs. Roman Catholicism is the religion of over 70 percent of the population. None of the Protestant religions (Methodist, Pentecostal, Seventh Day Adventist, Baptist, Anglican, Jehovah's Witnesses, Church of God) exceed more than 5 percent. Carib and West African beliefs in spirits and obeah (witchcraft) persist despite church disapproval. Rastafarianism is followed by some.
Religious Practitioners. Native Dominicans are now being trained as clergy, but practitioners of the formal religions, particularly Catholic priests and nuns, have generally been foreigners. Obeah practitioners or seers ( gadè ) are native or are from nearby islands.
Rituals and Holy Places. The religions hold services in their respective churches. Residents of smaller villages often must travel to larger villages to attend church. Some villages have stone Roman Catholic churches dating to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, although new ones continue to be built in other villages. Many Protestant churches, especially Pentecostal and Seventh Day Adventist, have been built in the latter decades of the twentieth century. The frequency and days of worship depend on the religion.
Death and the Afterlife. Many traditional practices and beliefs, such as the Carib custom of burying the dead in a fetal position, have been abandoned in favor of Christian traditions. All Saints Day is observed by visiting cemeteries and lighting candles on the graves of deceased loved ones.
Common health problems include parasitic, intestinal, nutritional, venereal, and respiratory diseases, and illnesses like diabetes and hypertension. Dengue fever (but not malaria), teenage pregnancy, and sanitation are major health concerns. Life expectancy is seventy-five years for men and eighty-one years for women. The healthcare system includes a main hospital in Roseau; smaller hospitals in Portsmouth, Grand Bay, and Marigot; and clinics staffed with trained nurses around the island. Doctors, both Dominicans trained abroad and foreigners from technical aid programs and staff hospitals, periodically visit village clinics. There is an off-shore American medical school, Ross University, in Portsmouth. Traditional medical knowledge includes the use of herbs, plants, and tree barks to cure illnesses, induce labor, and so on. A combination of prescription and natural remedies is often used, despite being discouraged by healthcare professionals.
The state's major holiday is Independence Day, 3 November. It is preceded by festivals, competitions, and events starting in August, including Heritage Day, Creole Day (Jounen Kwéyo`l), and the three-day World Creole Music Festival, which was begun in 1997. Other secular holidays include Carnival, celebrated the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, and New Year's Day. Villages celebrate their patron saints' feasts at various times during the year. Most fishing villages celebrate the Feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in June and July.
Support for the Arts. The arts are largely self-supporting, although major events receive government, international, and private funding. Village cultural groups receive some government assistance, and organizations such as the Cultural Division, Dominica Festivals Commission, and Movement for Cultural Awareness support the arts locally.
Literature. Largely due to the high illiteracy rate prior to the mid-twentieth century, most literature about Dominica has been written by visitors or foreign-born residents. Since the 1970s, there has been a surge of indigenous poetry, short stories, and plays, though much is unpublished or of limited availability. Local historian and anthropologist Lennox Honychurch has published detailed histories and academic scholarship about Dominica.
Graphic Arts. There is a growing local interest in painting, wood carving, pottery, and sculpture. Baskets and handicrafts are sold to tourists.
Performance Arts. African and European-influenced forms of traditional dance, song, music, and storytelling are performed at various cultural shows. The Karifuna Cultural Group was formed in 1978 to revive and promote ancestral Carib cultural expressions. There is a growing interest in modern creative dance.
Lack of funding, resources, and facilities has constrained the development of the physical and social sciences in Dominica. Studies of the environment and people, particularly the Carib, have been carried out by foreign researchers and some Dominicans attending universities abroad. With limited funding, the government's Cultural Division researches and documents cultural and oral traditions.
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