The Home Connection

Learning Resources for You and Your Children

Dramatica Pro

Have you ever had an idea for a screenplay or a novel and thought, "Hey, this would really be good!" How many of us have had at least one really great inspiration that could have been turned into a terrific movie or book? How many of us followed through on our idea? Why? Because most of us don't have the time, nor do we know how to go about developing our ideas, anyway.

What if there was a software program that could help you brainstorm, develop, organize, plot, and analyze your idea from a simple sketch to a fully-realized piece of work? What if I told you I found one?

Dramatica Pro is a story creation and analysis tool that enables you to introduce yourself to your own story. The program is not about following formulaic examples where you just fill-in-the-blank. By taking the time to get into the program, taking each developmental step, writers can develop their story ideas by focusing inspiration right smack in the story's structure. It's a complex program, with lots of options and pathways, but I can promise you this: Just working with this program will get your creative juices flowing.

Warning: anyone can try this at home. But as with all writing, it takes time. There's absolutely no learning curve to using the software, but some of us may have a bit of a learning curve when it comes to focusing ourselves on thinking like a writer. That means thinking about character, thinking a story through, thinking how to put words together to create scenes, dialogue, and descriptions that will affect our audience. How often have we heard about the "writer's process," either from a TV interview with a popular writer or a printed article discussing how a certain writer works. Tell the truth, do any of you truly understand just what the writing process of, say, Toni Morrison or Quentin Tarantino consists of?

Writing is so internal, so intuitive, and it is absolutely unique to the person who is writing. It's a truism because it's true: no one else feels as you do, or sees things in exactly the same way. How you go about writing is just as individual as you are--it's just a matter of being at home with your unconscious and letting it lead your conscious mind, word by word, into a story.

Before writing one more word about this software program, though, let me assure you that no program will ever give you talent you don't already have. Repeat: no program, no pencil, no tutor, no book, nobody can ever give you talent you don't already have. The program does not take people who have no idea of story, or of characters, and suddenly create "writers" out of them.

Having said that, that doesn't preclude a "non-writer" from receiving a tremendous push in developing a screenplay or novel by using Dramatica Pro. All you need is an idea. You really don't have to be a writer to get started.

Idea into story

Getting started is a snap. Just load the software, in either format, and click into the main desktop options. No matter how expert a computer user you are, please stop there. Now pick up the StoryGuide Pro user's manual. Take it step by step. It's not that the program is difficult to use--it's not, it's a piece of cake. But, you need to understand how the choices you make in the early parts of defining your story have an impact on the overall dramatic development of your story.

Let me explain: When you first start answering questions in Dramatica, you are structuring your story to enable you to take the steps toward forming a complete story concept, and turning that in to a finished work. Dramatica's StoryGuide Pro is the guide to all the tools provided in the software. By reading and following certain instructions, you will use the software as a kind of thought provoking and supportive critic in your creative process.

Essential

You start with the Essentials. The program's detailed query system takes you through the fundamentals of creating your story. This is the part where you put the first things that come to your mind, the spark of an idea, the idea for a character and then something for them to do, which might amount to a story. It's that sketchy, and your idea can be as thin as a lead pencil. But as you answer the StoryGuide's questions and review Dramatica's feedback, your ideas start to take on weight and gain some strength.

Storyforming

Next, you move into the Storyforming module. All you need to begin here is to know your Main Character and the kinds of activities that will bring all your characters together. You just need a sense of where you want the story to go to enable you to answer the questions in this section.

Storyencoding

Okay, now you enter Storyencoding. This helps you flesh out the skeleton of your story, adding details to your characters, plot, and theme. Storyencoding takes you piece by piece through your Storyform until you've described how they will all appear in your story.

By now, you've been answering questions, figuring out motives, handling your descriptions, understanding theme--in other words, by taking your time going through this program, you are becoming familiar with your story and, hopefully, new understandings will pop up about the connections between the pieces of your story.

You've also benefited from an electronic review of over 30 detailed story analyses from classic novels, plays, and films like Amadeus, To Kill A Mockingbird, Sula, and Star Wars. You've also been reading the textbook-sized "New Theory of Story," which outlines and argues Dramatica's concepts.

Storyweaving

Finally, the Storyweaving module helps you turn your Storyform into a progression of scenes that unfold your story from beginning to end. this is where you work out how to reveal your Storyform to your audience. By the end of this module, you're fully equipped to write your story.

Ah.....you didn't expect to have the screenplay or novel written at the end of a story conference with Dramatic, did you? Of course you didn't.

I've been going through the program for the past month, and I'm just moving in to the Storyweaving module now. I'm using a coming-of-age novel that I had literally abandoned as my story idea. I worked on that novel, thought about it, and wrote it hesitantly for two years. Sum total of pages: 35. I had an intuitive sense of where it was going, but gave no thought to characterization or theme, and based the plot loosely on some autobiography with a healthy dose of imagination. I had come to a complete stop with this work, and started focusing on other things.

In my heart, I promised myself to come back to it again someday when I was older, wiser, or when the kids were in school. I figured I had two out of three (wiser is still questionable), so I kept this poor little idea in mind as I answered all the questions in Dramatica. Just by taking my time creating a Storyform, I have to report that my sense of the dramatic and of the audience grew by leaps and bounds. I've added three new characters, and I have a fairly good sense of how long a book it needs to be to accomplish closure. Who knows? I might even finish it.

Meanwhile, I have this great idea for a movie about a fireman and a female editor who work together trying to find the arsonist responsible for a string of fires and subsequent robberies in jewelry stores in New York City.....Hey, you never know.

For more information or to order Dramatica Pro, contact: Screenplay Systems, 150 East Olive Avenue Suite 203, Burbank, CA 91502; (818) 843-6557; e-mail: SSI@Screenplay.com.