“The three primary controls (or trees) of ADF are dramatic form, dramatic character, and dramatic mask. “

African dramatic form is defined as the parallel movement of common elements through a system of condition, ritual, and change, where the change becomes an assumed contract between author and audience. African dramatic form reclaims story as an image of community, defined by a figure, what that figure means, and those who should understand this mean figure and carry it forward. The form “mimics” this model by its emphasis on shared “terms of community” between the author and audience as well as the story’s journey from one condition, or state, to a desired state through a set of shared rites.

It might help the reader to imagine ADF as a canopy from which similar dendroid branches cycle in and out of emphasis in order to create movement, establish meaning, and by this create empathy towards an understood contract. In fiction writing and analysis, the three primary controls (or trees) of ADF are dramatic form, dramatic character, and dramatic mask. 

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