Rating: 
Summary: elaborate, for sure
Review: As a new user, DRAMATICA PRO 4 feels like an elaborate system of thinking created to help you, the writer, better structure your story. Keep in mind, you must have an idea for a story beforehand, as DRAMATICA will force you to think about it in more ways than you thought possible or necessary. It's a good thing...with sweat trickling down your forehead as you scramble to answer the many, MANY questions regarding your project...you're unknowingly rounding out your story in ways you probably normally wouldn't.I spent about two days trying to enter all the descriptions it was pressing for and I still hadn't completed the entire process. In the end, I actually abandoned the DRAMATICA system and just wrote the darned story from scratch...but I think that was only possible, really, because I had thought about all the angles to my story through the DRAMATICA PRO system. I was disappointed at the fact that DRAMATICA PRO is "old" software, circa 2000 (when the registration asks for "what year" you purchased it, "2001" is the latest year possible), and there's no Mac OS X support. It does run in Classic mode, however. It seems like it could be a very valuable tool, but it demands a healthy investment both in your time and in your understanding of its theory. I would only recommend the monetary investment if you're committed to the mental one.
Rating: 
Summary: Dramatica is...
Review: Dramatica is a software program intended to help you transform your story from a sequence of related scenes into a coherent exploration of a thematic concept...a real story. Note: Dramatica will not write your scenes for you: if you need help constructing a vivid scene, this is not where you should be looking. What it will do is help you decide which scenes are needed and which are superflous. It will also help you decide who your characters need to be, and how they should relate. Dramatica is an analytical method of constructing a specific kind of story, a Grand Argument story in the program's lingo. Not all stories fit into this model: if you wanted to write something like Joyce's Ullyses this tool would be no help. But most conventional stories can be shoehorned into the model. Note I didn't say what a Grand Argument story is. Well, it's complicated... Dramatica is also a theory of story built around a complex vocabulary. You can find a 54 page dictionary of terms at Dramatica.com, here's a definition from it: Grand Argument Story (GAS) -- [Dramatica Term] -- A story that illustrates all four throughlines (Overall Story, Main vs. Impact Story, Main Character, and Impact Character) in their [sic] every story point so that no holes are left in either the passionate or dispassionate arguments of that story -- A Grand Argument Story covers all the bases so that it cannot be disproved. From the perspective that it creates, it is right. There are four views in a complete story which look at all the possible ways the story could be resolved from all the possible perspectives allowed; these are represented by the perspectives created by matching the four Throughlines with the four Classes---(the Overall Story, Main vs. Impact Story, Main Character, and Impact Character Throughlines matched up with the Classes
of Situation (Universe), Activities (Physics), Manipulation (Psychology), and Fixed Attitudes (Mind) to create the four perspectives of the particular story they are operating in). Every complete storyform explores each of these perspectives entirely so that their views of the story's problem are consistent and that they arrive at the only solution that could possibly work, allowing the givens built into the story from the start. When this is done, a Grand Argument has been made and there is no disproving it on its own terms. You may disagree with they story's givens, but as an argument it has no holes. Whew! Much of the full theory is expoused in a 400+ page book free for the downloading from the same site. I've read a good bit of it...the definition above is a fair representation. The good news is that you don't really need to know all this to use the program, it'll teach as you go. The program features a hand holding module which will walk you through the process, teaching you the terms and concepts you need along the way. The bad news is that if you really want to use it to it's potential, well the learning curve is daunting. Dramatica is a numerological theory based on based on the magic number four. Well, okay, not really...but the idea of taking a breaking a concept or process into four pieces occurs over and over again in the theory which underlies the program. Does this result in a complete decomposition? I'm not convinced. Following the lead of the authors, I've referred to ideas behind the program as a "theory," but that's really too strong a term: theory implies some foundation of evidence to suggest the ideas describe some objective truth. There is no such thing. At best, Dramatica is a story model, and might uncharitably be described as a formula. It's subtle, it's complex, but still it's a formula. Is it worth the effort required to learn to use the formula? Obviously, I don't know. I would suggest that if you love structure, this program would be a great toy. If you hate structure it might be a life, or at least career, saver.
Rating: 
Summary: Very useful tool.
Review: Dramatica is a way to organise your thoughts about theme, plot-theme, and characters into a story form as opposed to something that isn't. Using its own terminology allied to templates, the user is required to fill in a set of questionnaires, which act as the input from which their story is distilled. This can be amended at will if the user feels that they are being too boxed in. The end result is more easily managed than stacks of cards and papers. It can also be easily shared with other Dramatica users by distributing files across the internet to each other (given that version sync isn't an issue). It's like having a collaborator in front of you all the time - if needed - with regard to the structure, but won't be of any help with poor prose, prose-style, bad dialogue, lack of motivation or any other essential aspects that the writer would need to know about. A badly written story, which is bang-on structurally, as far as Dramatica is concerned, is not a useful end product. In other words, the user would need to be a decent writer in the first place, using Dramatica as a tool to refine and focus their work, and not regard it an easy way out. It's not. So bearing that in mind, Dramatica shouldn't disappoint so long as the user is prepared for the discipline of story writing, in its strictest sense.
Rating:
Summary: A very useful tool.
Review: Dramatica is a way to organise your thoughts about theme, plot-theme, and characters into a story form as opposed to something that tends towards a story but is really a prose-narrative. Using its own terminology allied to templates, the user is required to fill in a set of questionnaires, which act as the input from which their story is distilled. This can be amended at will if the user feels that they are being too boxed in. The end result is more easily managed than stacks of cards and papers. It can also be easily shared with other Dramatica users by distributing files across the internet to each other (given that version sync isn't an issue). It's like having a collaborator in front of you all the time - if needed - with regard to the structure, but won't be of any help with poor prose, prose-style, bad dialogue, lack of motivation or any other essential aspects that the writer would need to know about. A badly written story, which is bang-on structurally, as far as Dramatica is concerned, is not a useful end product. In other words, the user would need to be a decent writer in the first place, using Dramatica as a tool to refine and focus their work, and not regard it an easy way out. It's not. So bearing that in mind, Dramatica shouldn't disappoint so long as the user is prepared for the discipline of story writing, in its strictest sense.
Rating:
Summary: A very sophisticated approach to story development
Review: Dramatica provides a tool to use the most sophisticated story model ever developed. The dramatica model is surprisingly general and adds quite a bit of force to your story without constricting creative freedom. Some structures, like a ladder, provide more freedom, not less, and Dramatica's structure is like that. If the idea of following the dramatica story model still seems formulaic to you, you are free to tweak it or change it as much as you want, or even use it's best ideas to form your own model. The point is that a sophisticated model produces a sophisticated story. The software is actually quite easy to use. The hard part is learning the model, because it is quite sophisticated. It will take a few weeks to get it, and probably a couple of tries to make it really work well for you. You can also get help from the community of dramatica users on the internet, who are supportive and friendly. If you're the kind of author to employ both a creative and analytical side to your craft, you will learn to love this tool. You'll hate how hard it makes you work, exploring every nook and cranny of your story in new ways, but you'll love the result as it pushes you into forming characters and plot rich with dramatic tension, thematic development, and thorough development of your story.
Rating:
Summary: Ahead of the curve.
Review: Having worked with, and studied the Dramatica theory of story development, and also looked at and read a few of the examples it is based on, it seems to me that Dramatica 4 is a product somewhat ahead of itself. By this I mean, that to convey the principles of Dramatica the prior art examples are either too archetypical with no real requirement for the use of Dramatica by those who intend writing such archetypes, or are too flawed so that they do Dramatica no favours due to them being little more than the nearest point of common reference. But by treating Dramatica as a philosophy and an abstraction, and not using it to see how prior art can be aligned to its principles, one can quickly see how Dramatica will enable the writer to create stories and forms hitherto unattainable, simply because the organisation of the story's elements and form would have been too difficult to keep track of. Therefore, in order to get the desired results from using Dramatica, the user has to gain expertise in the way of defining and structuring a story's elements with Dramatica, and not be trying to defend the outcome on prior art which is a close call. This is the hard part to Dramatica, since ideal prior art probably doesn't exist, from which to refer, except for the possibility of future works skilfully created with Dramatica. Now there's a chicken or the egg paradox.
Rating: 
Summary: Digitized 3X5 Cards
Review: I bought this product in large measure due to the reviews of other users. These customers must be university students who have been given an assignment to write a story and identify its literary components. While this can be somewhat interesting from an academic perspective, it is really not very useful for writing a story. Dramatica Pro is basically an expensive pile of 3X5 cards with a little tutoring thrown in to explain who is the antagonist, the coantagonist, the impact character, the theme, the goal the throughline, etc. Its like baking a cake while someone explains the chemical components of the butter, the sugar, the milk, etc. Nice to know, but it doesn't make the cake any better. I would expect a software application of this price to be totally interactive. For example, it has a brainstorming feature to create new characters. Great! It should tell you how to complicate your plot by adding new characters, right? Maybe it will suggest that you change your love story between two people into a love triangle! But no. The "add a character" feature does nothing except ask you the sex of your new character and assign him/her a goofy name. (Banquo or Zues or Iccabod) It also has a feature where you can select a picture of your character from a big selection of mug shots. This would be sort of fun, except the pictures are so small and the resolution so bad that it is almost painful and not worth the effort. There is also a "spin the plot" feature which would presumably offer plot twists that you had not considered. However, all this does is reshuffle the elements of the story (Instead of a happy ending, make it a sad ending). Well, duh. And there is nothing about motivation, the most important part of any novel. At every level, the application should ask, "Why does So-and-So do that"? Dramatica Pro takes everything at face value. Perhaps the level of interaction I want is beyond the current technology available. Dramatic Pro is not useless, but for $250 I certainly was expecting a lot more.
Rating:
Summary: Works great with StoryCraft!
Review: I have used Dramatica for about a year now, but the best way I have found to use it is with StoryCraft Story-Development Software. While Dramatica provides the specific details -- especially about individual characters -- StoryCraft gives me an easier-to-use format that lets me do the actual structuring of my story. I'd recommend getting both Dramatica and StoryCraft, though StoryCraft is decidedly more affordable. Two outstanding programs! Thumbs up to both!
Rating:
Summary: Converted Skeptic
Review: I hedged on this tool for some time. Feared it was too cultish, too intent on reinventing the wheel in it's emphasis on a 'Dramatica story' rather than help with My story. (sorta like a gym that jetisoned free weights and traditional equiptment in favor of some mad scientist's dreams of rubber bands and balsa wood or something). Pleased to say that I was mostly wrong. Dramatic theory is more a collection of tools and views on story structure than a manifesto toward a new structure. As such (and continuing the gym analogy) it is resistance exercise. I've both learned from its theories and in my ocassional arguements with them, further developed my personal dogmas. More importantly, Dramatica is helping me be a better writer. It has given me a broader understanding of the writing process and I'm using it to both fix a failed manuscript that I've pulled from circulation to put 'back in the shop' and improve my current work in progress. As a tool, its biggest benefits are its ability to quantify why something failed, and its forecasting capability in respect to the consequences of writing choices, meaning it nips in the bud those wrong choices and pointless digressions that in the past tookup 2-3,000 thousand words of writing before the pointlessness of the path began to emerge. Is it for you? This is not a program that tells you "Insert story element A into story position B" In my view, the Socrathic Method supporting such a program (a good one, that is) will be obsolete the moment a user reads the manuel; to interface with such a program the writer would have to learn her story in the program's terms and then feed the program 1,000 or more answers. In the course of doing that, she would figure out what the program was going to tell her. To a degree that happens with Dramatica, answering it's 200 plus questions is an active indeaver and I learn quite a bit from feeding the beast even before it does its part. Noting that some of the users who dislike the program raised the point of return on investment. In my view it is worth every penny. To contrast other investments a writer might make in their development instead of Dramatica; if a hyperthetical newbie novelist came to Amazon with $500 in startup cash (and assuming they've already got the hardware, Word, coffee maker etc.) I'd say spend $225 on texts, then buy Storyview and Dramatica. Assuming Newbie spent the first $225 wisely and well, the marginal utility of throwing more money at books on writing would be far lower than an investment in Dramatica software.
Rating:
Summary: Dramatica-How Undramatic !!!
Review: I spent my Christmas money for this product expecting a lotmore than I got for .... So now I'm both broke and storyless. Thanxfor all they hype and no help, Dramatica.
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