# Dramatica - ever heard of it?



## sunandshadow (Jan 6, 2011)

tldr: if you hate software designed to help people write fiction, please click the back button and skip this thread.


I'm taking a bit of a survey of the different writers' communities I belong to.  Dramatica is a writers' aid software.  A common misconception is that this type of software "writes the story for you".  It doesn't, at all.  This type of program generally provides a theory about what is in a typical piece of fiction and how those things are organized.  Then they give the user questions to prompt them to brainstorm character and plot.  They probably also have some sort of way to collect the user's brainstorming into an outline.

Dramatica in particular is the most complicated existing writer's aid program.  This complexity comes mainly from the fact that it presents an original theory of what a story is instead of building on a familiar one such as the hero monomyth.

So, I was just curious.  Had you ever heard of Dramatica, do you use some other writers' aid software, do you think it sounds interesting?


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## Poetigress (Jan 6, 2011)

I've heard of it but never used it (I remember seeing ads for it a lot back when I subscribed to Writer's Digest). I'm generally not interested in that sort of software, although I'm sure it can be helpful for others.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 6, 2011)

Haven't heard of it, don't use it.  I probably should, considering how crazy complex some of my stories tend to get, but I don't tend to like to organize my works in any kind of real detail.  A simple outline is nice, just to put in major plot points or things I think I should remember as I'm going, but when it gets too complex, it's like, shouldn't I just be writing the damn piece instead of intricately detailing every single point of the story in some kind of computer program?  Not that Dramatica does that; I have no idea what it does.  But you see what I mean.
I guess it would be useful, though, as an organizational tool.  But again, I can deal with just using a list or a spreadsheet if I need it, so getting some kind of software... eh.  But I'd have to look more deeply into it.  Maybe it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, and I'd fall in love with it instantly if I started using it.


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## sunandshadow (Jan 6, 2011)

Dramatica is not an organizational aid, although there some other great softwares for organizing complex novels and series.  Storybook, Liquid Story Binder, and yWriter are some popular organizational programs.  Dramatica on the other hand is about guided brainstorming and helping people design a balanced story which presents a complete thematic argument that covers all relevant topics.  Dramatica is mainly helpful to A. People who have difficulty going from initial idea to actual story, and B. people who produce stories which are unbalanced/underdeveloped in some areas.

Dramatica primarily looks at three aspects of fiction: Plot, Theme, and Character.

The plot part, it starts with a basic 4-act structure.  (It's also compatible with a 3-act structure if someone preferred that.)  But then the original part.  The main point of Dramatica theory is the idea that to show all sides of a story there are four important throughlines: 1. The main character's personal internal story, 2. the story of the second most important character (usually one of the antagonist, the love interest, or the main char's best friend/partner), 3. The external plot that all characters participate in, and 4. things that happen within relationships, especially the relationship between the two most important characters.  So basic plot structure of a story in Dramatica is a 4x4 grid: the breadth is the 4 throughlines, and the length the 4 acts.  Then it gives you a set of 16 terms: 4 about perspectives on time, 4 about general types of activities characters do, 4 about types of mental states, and 4 about types of psychological changes.  You assign one of these to each act of each throughline to describe the mini-theme of that part of the story (will be approximately 3 scenes).

Now we've gotten down to theme.  The theory goes that each throughline will have an Issue, which is it's thematic focus.  Then it will have a related Problem, which is the real problem which needs to be solved in order to successfully end that thread of the story.  And it will have a Symptom, this is the fake problem people focus on instead of or before the real one.  Now there's another list of terms: 16 groups of 4 terms.  Again you assign one group to each act of each throughline to describe what's going on in that part of the story.  So now you have 5 words you can meditate on to brainstorm approximately 3 scenes.  You can have less or more scenes if you want.  The idea is to show how the terms are in conflict with each other, which is a building block of the overall thematic argument of your story.  Example: one pair of terms is Control and Uncontrolled.  So you think about which is good and which is bad, and which characters say or do something in favor of one of the other.  If you do all that you should have a workable novel or movie length plot outline.  I've left a lot of stuff out though.

The theory about characters goes that one of them will go through a major change, while the other remains mostly steadfast (but they can still have some personal growth or decay).  This is because the two characters represent the opposing sides of a thematic argument which one of them will 'win' by standing firm, while the other caves in and changes.  But it could be the steadfast one who is the loser in terms of having stood firm on a bad position, while the change character might win by changing from a bad position to a good position.  Or if the correct one stands firm and the other changes from bad to good, they both sort of win.

Characters are also described as be-ers or do-ers, and as logical/linear thinkers or intuitive/holistic thinkers.  Each of the two major characters gets a Unique Ability (which makes them particularly suited to solve a problem or show a correct path in the story) and a Critical Flaw (which creates problems or hinders them at solving problems and may cause them to fail).  There's another list of terms to pick from for the Unique Abilities and Critical Flaws.


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## Scarborough (Jan 6, 2011)

Is this freeware, and do you happen to have a link?

I don't think I'd use the software, but I find the theory behind it interesting. I'm unclear what is meant by "Issue" or "thematic focus", though. Also, if this isn't freeware, I feel like screencaps would help, because I keep reading through the paragraph re "Issue", "Problem", and "Symptom", and I'm having a hard time understanding how the program organizes those into 4x4 grids (if the program does organize those into 4x4 grids?), or what the 16 groups of 4 terms are.


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## sunandshadow (Jan 7, 2011)

I was just trying to give a quick overview, there's parts I didn't mention at all so I'm not surprised that it doesn't all add up.  Issue is what the whole throughline, or plot strand, is about, so it appears in all acts of that throughline.  Symptom has a partner term I didn't mention, Response, and likewise Problem has Solution.  I didn't mention these because if you know what the Symptom is, the response is always it's opposite, same with problem and solution.  But if you want to talk about mapping them onto acts, you need all 4.  There are differing opinions about how best to add these into the plot progression.  The easiest way to do it is: Symptom - Act 1, Response - Act 2, Problem - Act 3, Solution - Act 4.  That's what I'd tell a beginner to do.  The author of the second, advanced theory book disagreed, he suggested putting both symptom and response in act 3 and problem and solution in act 4.  The least clear but possibly most realistic way to do it is to say that Symptom, Response, Problem, and Solution exist within the minds of characters, and some characters will take longer to figure out the true problem or may never get there at all, while other characters might grasp the true problem from the beginning but be unable or unwilling to do anything about it until near the end of the story.

Here are the 16 groups of 4 terms:
http://storymind.com/dramatica/dramatica_theory_book/ranges.gif

The theory books are free unless you want a hard copy:
http://www.dramatica.com/theory/theory_book/dtb.html <- This one is the base book, the other stuff is all extra
http://www.dramatica.com/theory/armando/dfsintro.html <- This is the advanced, optional book

The program is commercial ($210 for the official version, which I think is too high, but no one asked me, and you might be able to get it cheaper on ebay or something) but it has a free demo, which has saving and exporting disabled.  There is a mac version and a windows version.  I don't think the current windows version is compatible with Win7; a new version of the program will supposedly be available some time this year.  Here's the link to the demo:
http://www.screenplay.com/t-dpdemo.aspx

There's also an associated mini-program called Instant Dramatica but it requires the real program to work, and there's no official distribution of it because it's user-made.  It's windows only.  So if someone wants that they have to join the mailing list and ask or it might be available in the yahoogroup.

Finally here's a tutorial thingy I made called the Big Four: it shows the four basic types of story that can be created with the program and the terms associated with each:
http://www.dramatica.com/downloads/BigFour2Large.png
Umm there's a typo in type 4, Worth is in there too many times where a different term is supposed to be, I need to fix that. -_-


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 7, 2011)

Uhhhh... okay.  The more you talk about it, the less I start to like the idea.  It sounds like you'd get the same benefit just from taking a class or reading a book on plot structure and storytelling theory.  Because it feels like if you only relied on the software, your stories would after a while all start to feel like cookie-cutter replicas of each other.  In which case, you learn story structure from it, and then start thinking for yourself, at which point the software becomes useless except (cough) as an organizational tool.  So is that worth $200?
Maybe I'm missing something.


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## Love! (Jan 7, 2011)

i should give it a try
at the very least it seems like it'll make getting all my ideas down easier
do they have a trial version?


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## sunandshadow (Jan 7, 2011)

M. Le Renard said:


> Uhhhh... okay.  The more you talk about it, the less I start to like the idea.  It sounds like you'd get the same benefit just from taking a class or reading a book on plot structure and storytelling theory.  Because it feels like if you only relied on the software, your stories would after a while all start to feel like cookie-cutter replicas of each other.  In which case, you learn story structure from it, and then start thinking for yourself, at which point the software becomes useless except (cough) as an organizational tool.  So is that worth $200?
> Maybe I'm missing something.



I don't understand why you think the stories would be similar to each other.  They would be only be similar if you made the same choices over and over again, in which case it would be you making them similar, not the theory or software.  The only thing they'd really all have in common is 4-act structure, and even that you could work around if you particularly wanted to.  They'd all have to have one most important character and one second most important character, but they can have other important characters beyond that, or you can tell a double story with two pairs of important characters, or one character who plays a role in two parallel stories, or have a collective character where two or three characters act as a group to fill the role of the second most important character...

The Dramatica theory book _is_ a theory book on plot structure and storytelling theory.  So you're getting that free.  The software is to walk you through using it because the theory is complicated enough that someone new to it usually can't hold it all in their head.  Dramatica as a book-software package is directly comparable to something like the Marshall Plan software and workbooks, which have about the same price and the same general function of walking a struggling writer through a concept and plot structure for a novel or movie.  You theoretically could learn to use the theory without buying the software, no one's telling you you need to buy it.


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## sunandshadow (Jan 7, 2011)

Love! said:


> i should give it a try
> at the very least it seems like it'll make getting all my ideas down easier
> do they have a trial version?


 Yes I linked the demo in my post above.    If you happen to have Win7 it won't be stable though, so be aware of that.  If you have 64 bit vista you have to run it as a 32 bit program but I think that's automatic, or just one checkbox in the properties of the program startup icon.  But more importantly, you pretty much have to read the basic theory book first before the software will make much sense.  Theoretically you could use the Storyguide and read the reports without having read the book, but I'm not sure if it would totally confusing.


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## M. LeRenard (Jan 7, 2011)

I guess I just got the impression from your description of it that it's really restrictive.  But clearly it's more complicated than that.  Even so, not every story works in a three- or four-part structure.  Some stories don't have clear antagonists or protagonists, goals, or anything like that.  So I guess it's good for really well-structured stories, which I suppose is what most people like to write, and for anything beyond that you're on your own anyway.
Either way, it's not for me.  I do all this shit in spiral notebooks.


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## Love! (Jan 7, 2011)

sunandshadow said:


> Yes I linked the demo in my post above.    If you happen to have Win7 it won't be stable though, so be aware of that.  If you have 64 bit vista you have to run it as a 32 bit program but I think that's automatic, or just one checkbox in the properties of the program startup icon.  But more importantly, you pretty much have to read the basic theory book first before the software will make much sense.  Theoretically you could use the Storyguide and read the reports without having read the book, but I'm not sure if it would totally confusing.


 i have linux and winxp...wat do?


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## sunandshadow (Jan 7, 2011)

Dramatica is about helping people structure stories, so if you don't want structure, you don't want Dramatica.  That's fine.  But I don't think it's restrictive.  Technically it wants there to be an antagonist and protagonist, but neither of these needs to be one of the two important characters, it could be someone off in the background.  There definitely do have to be goals though.  Even in uses unrelated to Dramatica there are generally supposed to be goals - that's where conflict and climaxed arise from, someone pursuing and achieving or dramatically failing to achieve a goal.  The number of acts is quite moddable once you've mastered the basic theory, you could get 5, 6, 8, 9, 12... but I usually think it's just confusing to mention all the advanced options when I'm trying to give someone a basic overview of the theory and software.  I was trying to make it simple, and I can see how stating the basic 'rules' without mentioning all possible modifications might give an impression of restrictiveness.


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## sunandshadow (Jan 7, 2011)

Love! said:


> i have linux and winxp...wat do?


 WinXP is fine with Dramatica.


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