New Software Release: Dramatica Story Expert
During July 4th week a surprise arrived, Write Brothers decided to announce and release an important 
update to its flagship software, Dramatica Pro. Enter… the long awaited new Dramatica. Dramatica Story Expert. This welcome news for the creative community as Dramatica is brilliant in many ways.
Dramatica Story Expert can:
- Enhance story development for screenplays and novels
- Offer 56 story points to control the interweaving story form
- allows writers to define characters, plots and theme, then be enabled to work it into a outline
- become a virtual creative writing partner/mentor giving ideas on future plot twists based upon decisions made and existing characters/plots.
Dramatica had been an amazing program on Mac (and Windows) which allows writers to map out a story, with enhanced character development and plot lines. Simply put, it helps writers channel creativity into amazing stories and more. It is helpful for writing a book, screenplay or even a play. One thing was certain, it was long overdue for an strong update. Dramatica 4 had last seen an update in 2001 for a minor update, which because of stable Mac OS X and Windows, allowed the developer, Write Bros, to simply focus on its small but loyal community and just market away the niche product.
With the arrival of Mac OSX Lion, sadly the legacy software compatibility ended and writers who had upgraded were left without working Dramatica. Which in many ways is a blessing because of over a decade without significant software updates had left the software a bit outdated. The look and feel of the software had been sorely needing an upgrade.
Chris Huntley of Write Bros, a co-creator of Dramatica Theory, states, “Dramatica doesn’t write the story – the writer will always have that job. But Dramatica is still the only tool that responds to writers’ choices, giving them customized direction and guidance for creating solid story structure, powerful characters, and rich thematic content. With the new Gist feature writers can better relate to Dramatica’s unique structural questions.”
So, how does it look? lets go over the 35 new features
- Gists: a new conceptual tool designed to enable writers to find structure for their story based upon over 12,000 structure/story illustrations/concepts
- Gists can be shared online with other writers, so users will not be limited to what Write Bros provides. This could be an amazing opportunity for a community Write Bros could have online.
- Master Story Engine windows
- Upgraded interface to take advantage of the latest Mac OSX advancements
Dramatica is software much like Microsoft Word, Apple Pages, Final Draft, which is a tool and doesn’t garner much publicity. In the creative community however, writers are very well served using it because otherwise you could spend hours, days or more in writers block or writing and re-writing a project. There has even been coined a term about how writers don’t like to publicize their special writing partner or secret sauce, some call it “Hollywood’s Dark Program.” Which essentially shows it as a secret competitive advantage.
Well, if you are a writer and aspire towards great tales that engage, there is no finer software than Dramatica, especially now as it has finally been updated. Some notes, the Windows version of this Dramatica Story Expert will not be released until spring of 2013.
The new release is geared to be much easier for a writer to use, with a major overhaul designed to make the story development process easier and much more enjoyable.
Peace, Love & Apple Pie believes that without doubt, the Writers Store and Screenplay.com will be busy downloading away this new update immediately.
If you are curious, more info is available at
http://www.dramaticastoryexpert.com/whats-new.html
Dramatica Story Expert is priced at: $189.95 (Download) or $199.95 Download & CD (or boxed)
http://www.writersstore.com/dramatica-story-expert
http://www.screenplay.com/p-81-dramatica-story-expert-5.aspx
Upgrade: Owners of Dramatica Pro 4.x series software can upgrade to Dramatica Story Expert 5 for only $69.95 USD (download) or $79.95 for the Download/CD or Boxed version.
http://www.writersstore.com/dramatica-story-expert
http://www.screenplay.com/p-82-dramatica-story-expert-5-upgrade.aspx
Demo a trial version of Dramtica Story Expert. (Mac OS X only)
http://support.screenplay.com/downloads/DramaticaStoryExpert/dse5.php
Some other reviews have said:
“Dramatica Story Expert provides incredibly powerful tools for creating and analyzing stories. With its innovative new Gists interface, it enables anyone to harness the power of this extraordinary software.”
Cofounder, American Film Institute/Apple Computer Center for Film and Video Makers
“Dramatica: Indispensable power tools for my imagination . . . Dramatica is my indispensable tool both in bringing form to my new novels and in the repair and tune-up of stories that I am revisiting. It has added a new, grander dimension to my craft. These are power tools no storyteller should be without.”
“I’ve used Dramatica as a creative tool on virtually every script I’ve written professionally, dating back to before BAND OF BROTHERS. It is, by far, the most comprehensive and useful theory and software for understanding what makes good stories work that I know of. I highly recommend it as a resource for all writers.”
Erik Bork, multiple Emmy and Golden Globe-winning screenwriter
(HBO’s BAND OF BROTHERS and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON)
Some Screenshots
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Yes it is prettier than the original – but those forced opaque terms peculiar to ONLY this product and not known in any other writing process simply drive me nuts – over studied and forced terms to avoid direct comparison and accusations of copying other applications. Every term in dramatica needs a convoluted and often internally referenced definition. It abounds in sentences like – “the source of the Main Character’s problems as it concerns the process of consideration”. Right!
At the end of the process you end up with an outline.
You can at least copy that to Scrivener.
Why not go to Scrivener in the first place and save yourself a mozza?
Oh! And it will not resize to fit monitors at normal resolution – so if you have a 24″ or 27″ monitor you will be working in a 15″ window inside that full screen. It will resize vertically, just not horizontally. Still a beta product. Should not be released until it is ready.
Ghost, I don’t completely agree with your complaints. Dramatica’s terms fit within its theoretical framework, in which they have very specific meanings. It wouldn’t make much sense to just incoporate terms used in other approaches, and I feel it would make matters only more confusing. I also don’t mind that the sentences tend to be somewhat abstract, since I see them more as writing prompts. It looks though as if the latest version even solved that issue for since you can make things less abstract by using “gists”.
I think it’s a bit silly to compare Dramatica with Scrivener. They are completely diffferent beasts, with a completely different purpose.
I don’t have the latest version of Dramatica yet, since I use a PC. If the bit about the resizing behavior is true, I agree that they have some work ahead of them when it comes to usability.
Patricia you say, “Dramatica’s terms fit within its theoretical framework, in which they have very specific meanings.” That is EXACTLY what I said. It is internally referenced and the terms MUST have a definition in that frame of reference. You do understand the meaning of the term FRAMEWORK or FRAME, it take it.
You then say that, “It wouldn’t make much sense to just incorporate terms used in other approaches, and I feel it would make matters only more confusing.” You didn’t give a frame of reference for ‘other approaches’. I am not talking about equal and competing systems or theories. I am addressing the fact that the theory of story telling has already acquired perfectly good terms to describe what things are and how they work… terms that go back to the ancient Greeks and terms that have entered the standard lexicon of the literary craft. The very fact that there are now three entirely discrete DRAMATICA sets of terms to describe the craft of story telling, should lead anyone to deduce that the terms are a major problem for this approach. Dramatica itself provides a table of the three sets of terms.
There is little that is intuitive or reliant on the ordinary lexicon of common literary terms and that IS a problem – even the Dramatica folks themselves are being forced to develop and evolve their ‘theory’. Dramatica is commercial application touting a new ‘Theory’ of story telling rather than an approach to story telling that provides a fresh slant, facet, view or insight and that signifies a challenge to the history and scholarship that has gone before – thousands of years of it. And in the end there is nothing new in the Dramatica theory – just a pastiche of literary analysis, craft, and some derivative psychology that the Dramatica folks tout as a new theory. There was no need to ‘invent’ the Dramatica theory until its author, who was a man, became a woman and found the wisdom and scholarship that had been literary theory until then did not serve to explain the fact that the human state of mind can encompass a long continuum of gender preferences and ways of thinking. The introduction of ‘mental sex’ into story telling is a new slant on story telling – not a new theory. That theory was well understood for years in psychology and the author saw that it could provide insights and new ways of thinking about plot and character and the story arcs that fell out of that approach. That is not a new theory of story telling. It is a different approach.
Also, I did not compare Dramatica to Scrivener. I said that at the end of the Dramatica process you end up with an outline and that you could then use that in Scrivener to complete your story – actually write it. Having said that, I alluded to the fact that Scrivener, apart from being a complete writing tool to craft your novel (or whatever you are writing) ALSO has avery solid outlining tool built in. My challenge was that comparing both, it seems smarter to me to use one piece of software and Dramatica will not do what Scrivener can do but Scrivener can pretty much do what Dramatica can do – apart from the inflated Dramatica theory.
Frankly I see them working perfectly well together with writers spinning and playing creatively with the formulaic technology in Dramatica and then exporting the Dramatica outline to Scrivener (or another app such as Final Draft or Screenwriter Pro).
I challenge you to explain what “the source of the Main Character’s problems as it concerns the process of consideration” means without using Dramatica internal referencing. Can you explain that sentence simply in duckies and horsies please.
Oh, the Dramatica folks have recognised the resizing problem and will have a fix within a month or so.
Ghostly, you asked what this sentence could mean: “the source of the Main Character’s problems as it concerns the process of consideration.” The character could consider an action, or reconsider a previous action, which leads to problems the main character is having in the story. It’s entirely up to the writer what, how or why this (re)consideration is occurring, or what it applies to. This is what I mean with using abstract sentences like these as writing prompts. If I let my imagination go rampant I can think of a lot of things that could apply, really. The fun part is trying to stretch the meaning of the sentence to where it becomes borderline meaningless. I find that highly inspiring, but I guess you like to prefer a more “down to earth” approach. Horses for courses!
Ahh! Patricia, (which means ‘noble’), the Dramatica people should hire you. Reframed the way you have done makes it entirely understandable. So I take it that the obscure words they use are meant to elicit an approximate dictionary meaning of those words. In other words, just look up the word and go with that definition. Easy peasy. I get it. But for heaven’s sake why don’t they use your simple approach ie where they say – “the source of the Main Character’s problems as it concerns the process of consideration,” they simply mean that ‘the character could consider an action, or reconsider a previous action.’ Yes that is clear. Thank you. They should say that.
I was listening to Alan Alda telling the story of how he was asked about the God Particle – the Higgs Boson. Someone in the group asked, “What’s a particle?”
The responsibility for communicating lies with the communicator not the listener or the audience. The Dramatica people always leave me feeling that they want to make me think that they went to University and can use big concepts and big words when they actually have trouble with just explaining what a particle is.
Thanks for responding.
I’m using the new version of Dramatica and have to admit there are certain things about the software that annoy me, but overall, it’s a great tool. I agree with the above comments and do struggle with understanding exactly what some of the terms mean, the language used can be very intimidating at times. The new gist feature does help decode some of that, but also adds another level of interpretation that can confuse if used too early in the writing process.
For me, Dramatica is best used as an analysis tool. If I bring it in too early into the writing process, I end up being overwhelmed with the theory, but after a first draft, firing up the software and asking questions like, “Does my main character change during the course of the story?” “What does my character really want?” “Does s/he achieve her/his goal?” “Is it good for him / her, or bad?” etc.
Being able to ask those questions, or using Dramatica to plot through those questions in an orderly way, is a really valuable tool. I’m not a fan of using Dramatica as a beat by beat creative writing tool, but for broad strokes analysis, it’s genius. That’s been my experience.
Ghostly, the particle anecdote is apt, since a “particle” is not a concept that is used within modern physics. It’s more of a layman’s term attempting to communicate what the physicists work with. Physicists also take everyday words, such as “spin” and “color”, which mean something totally different within the world of quantum mechanics.
It’s the same with Dramatica. I get the feeling that it’s not so much that theory, but the fact that you are burdened with the baggage from other theories you have learned in the past. You will have to try to let go and just with the flow of the new. I, for one, have never learned “classical” literary analysis, so I am perfectly fine with the Dramatica way.
I wonder what particle accelerators do?
Ghostly,
Dramatica is a theory of story structure; not just a software. It was a software designed to go with and help those who use their structure. If you prefer a different story structure, then this software isn’t designed for that.
If you see the brilliance of this story structure, then this software is designed so that you don’t have to study it for a couple years to be able to use. To get you to writing the best story you can in the quickest way possible, while using the Dramatica Theory.
It doesn’t make any sense to change their story structure theory to be closer to what others are already familiar with. If you don’t like the theory, then don’t use it.
The problem with having those sentence say exactly what they mean is that this is a computer program. If you have ever tried to code something you’d know how difficult it would be to do what you are asking. What they have is blank statements that based on the choices you enter add the words into them. That is difficult enough with all the options in the program. You are asking them to write a whole new statement that will pop up depending on every single option that might be given. I don’t even want to imagine having to code that, or how insanely slow that program would run with more than 32,000 options of story forms and what 64 elements in each one.
Patricia………. surely not a good argument or way of thinking…..?
“but the fact that you are burdened with the baggage from other theories you have learned in the past. You will have to try to let go and just with the flow of the new”
We should never ignore the source of the theories of today, otherwise we become dependent on the perspective and often watered down view of the new theorist.
Anyway, on a Dramatica level, this hardly applies as the creators of this software have pretty much gone their own way.
I fully agree with Ghostly here. This poster makes the case well for what hinders Dramatica and makes it appear to be a ‘random’ / ‘mad-libs’ tool in the end.
And that reason is………… Dramatica can not explain itself.
Forget what you WANT to believe. Forget the dream of software that makes you a better writer. Step back and look at it. The theory is based on understanding the terms, and the terms are so broadly (and poorly) explained that they could be taken as meaning many things. So what does that say about the theory?
Having seen a number of posts on the Dramatica forums, it was surprising (or not) to see members with many posts behind them, actually not understanding key terms, and then seeing long term users discussing the meaning between them. So actually, who understands them?
Or more to the point is that it is evident that the terms are not clear, concise or defined enough to be completely, universally understandable. And that is where the theory (of which the software is based) falls down.
Dramatica lives of the dream of the promise of making you a better writer, or making what you write great. Step back and think about that, because this should NOT be the reason you buy any software.