Spec Sheet

Writer's DreamKit 1.7

Processor: 286 or higher
Memory:3 MB RAM
Disk Space:7 MB
System:Windows 3.x, Windows 95, Windows NT
Contact:
Screenplay Systems Inc.
150 E. Olive Avenue, Suite 203
Burbank, CA 91502
Phone:818/843-6557
FAX:818/843-8364
E-mail:Dramatica@screenplay.com
Price:$99

After enrolling in my share of creative writing classes, I can guarantee this: At some point between the beginning and the end of a course, someone is going to raise the question, can fiction writing be taught? And when that happens, you can kiss the rest of the period good-bye because airing that question in a fiction writing class can produce more gas than a beanhole supper in Maine.

The folks at Screenplay Systems, though, go far beyond asking whether or not fiction writing can be taught. Not only can it be taught, they contend, it can be plotted, charted and systemized. And I have to admit the designers of DreamKit have done an impressive job of analyzing what goes into the creation of a work of fiction.

Particularly imposing is the "Table of Story Elements" enclosed with the program. This "periodic chart" of fiction is enough to send sensitive artistic types through a seventh story window with angst overload.

The table systematizes the kinds of conflicts central to all fiction. The central conflict or problem in a story is the issue that influences the actions of characters in a story.The table consists of the four elements, or classes. These are subdivided into four types, broken into 16 variations consisting of 64 elements. As you descend through these levels, DreamKit helps you to narrow your focus on the central conflict of your story.Then there are worksheets - lots of them, more than I ever saw while serving my five-year sentence at Northeastern. There's storyforming worksheets and synopsis/backstory worksheets, story enco-ding appreciation worksheets and objective character worksheets, storyweaving and theme storyencoding worksheets.

Needless to say, there are enough worksheets to drain the creative juices from any mortal born of woman.

After surveying the hard copy supporting DreamKit, your inclination may be to return it to where you bought it without loading the software. That would be a mistake, because the software is just short of amazing.

Compared to the collateral materials included with the program, the software is easy to use and fun to work worth, although the icons it uses to tag the characters you create are a little mawkish.

You start with story essentials: stating what your story is about and creating characters. Then you set about answering 12 questions. The answers to these questions will form the skeleton to your story. The process is called storyforming.

The questions focus on character and plot dynamics, and thematic choices. Will your main character grow out of something or grow into something? Do actions force decisions in the story or do decisions force actions? Does the conflict in your story stem from a situation? An activity? A state of mind?

Next, you begin to put some muscle on this skeleton through a process called storyencoding, defined by the program developers as "the process of developing scenarios and images to convey the underlying dramatic appreciation of a story." This process helps you further develop your characters and refine your themes, conflicts and storylines.

Finally there's storyweaving. This is where you begin to put all your thoughts about the story together into a coherent whole. You develop scenes and their order in your plot. You begin to resolve the issues you set into motion in the earlier sections of the program.

The end result of these processes is a "treatment." The treatment can be used as a special kind of outline from which you can write your story in a more literary form - a screenplay or a novel. No, Mabel, the program doesn't write your story for you. But it does the gritty work for you and gives you more time for the fun part: writing.A word about documentation here. With many programs, you can usually sidestep its docs and go directly to the software. You can do that with DreamKit, too, but not for long, and not if you want to take full advantage of the program. This is more than a tool for creating stories. It's a course on creative writing. And I don't mean the kind of course where everyone passes their stories around and comments on them off the top of their heads. The developers of this program have taken this material apart with an electron microscope. For creative writing class veterans, this program will be a real eye opener.Does Dreamkit work? I'll say this for it: It certainly makes you realize how complex the process of creating fiction is. That complexity could rattle someone who has never created a story before. But for dabblers in the story-telling arts, the software may provide the pencil they need to connect the dots of a floundering tale or the drive they need to pound in the pilings for a new one.

Nevertheless, after working with Dreamkit and its forms, diagrams and charts, I'm reminded of a poem called "Flower in a Crannied Wall (http://spruce.evansville.edu/~al22/tennison.html)," by Alfred Lord Tennyson.

In it, the poet questions the application of scientific analysis to things esthetic. If Tennyson were living today, one gander at Dramatica's story-telling system would inspire him to write that poem again, with even more feeling than before.John Mello writes on a variety of business and technical subjects from his home in Woonsocket, RI. He can be reached via email at jmello@ids.net.

John Mello writes on a variety of business and technical subjects from his home in Woonsocket, RI. He can be reached via email at jmello@ids.net.

News or information from Mass High Tech may not be published, broadcast, or redistributed without the prior written authorization of Mass High Tech. (c) Copyright MassTech Communications, Inc.. All Rights Reserved.