Write Brothers Dramatica Pro 4 (Win/Mac)

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Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TYCR
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 12, 2000
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (32 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,516 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)

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  #12 in	Software > Macintosh > Business & Office > Word Processing
  #15 in	Software > Education & Reference > Script & Screenwriting
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Product Description

Amazon.com Review
Aspiring and seasoned writers take note: gone are the days of handwritten note cards, extensive plot revisions, and hand cramps. Dramatica Pro promises to be your writing coach, your secretary, your guide, and even your therapist as you develop sharp, focused storylines together.

Getting started in Dramatica Pro as a beginning user is intuitive and easy. In the StoryGuide segment, there are three levels of story forming, and we tried out the most advanced (which is estimated to take three to four days of work). Dramatica Pro comes with 32,768 potential "storyforms," all of which incorporate structural, thematic, and dynamic elements of your story. After answering about a dozen of the multiple-choice Dramatica Query System questions, we were able to decide on one storyform. For those that choose not to pursue the multiple-choice route, there is also the Story Engine, which allows for a more holistic and freeform method of sketching out your basic story.

One thing you'll notice right off is the unique language of Dramatica Pro. While many terms--motivation, pursuit, antagonist--will be familiar to most writers, there are a number of terms that are used in specific relation to Dramatica Pro's capabilities. Fortunately, at each stage of the story-creation process, there are a number of help buttons (such as Explain, Theory, Usage, and Context) that provide further definition of terms and their usage. And after a few sessions, we found ourselves thinking about "signposts," "journeys," the four "throughlines," and other features that bring a story into focus.

Dramatica Pro's main desktop is the portal for all story-building activity. Its 12 tiles present users with options for developing just about every aspect, from character creation and polishing, to plot-progression charts and reports on your progress and story. Because Dramatica Pro does not try to be a word processing application, every nook and cranny is filled with developmental prowess to help hone your skills while discovering your story.

One aspect of the application that we appreciated was the opportunity for writer growth. After becoming familiar with the application's interface, we were able to use Dramatica Pro's Story Engine and Story Points to access our story's "master controls" without all the exposition and explanation. Also, Dramatica Pro offers a Brainstorming command that allows the program to intelligently tweak your storyform into something new should you experience writer's block.

Overall, Dramatica Pro is a great resource for writers. By enabling you to focus more on your stories and less on the mechanics of storytelling, you'll feel empowered to try new things and explore your creativity. --Emilie Dirks

Amazon.com Product Description
Got a story in mind? How about an idea for a story? Either way, Dramatica Pro acts as your creative-writing partner. The software takes you to a story-development environment, where you'll solve the plot and character problems that prevent many good stories from becoming good enough to sell. Dramatica's StoryGuide assists you from the initial idea all the way through to completed narrative treatment, inspiring you and supporting you along the way.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

231 of 237 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Tool for Creative Writers, June 26, 2000

By	Deborah A. Woehr (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought this program 2.5 years ago and have been using it to create plots for novels, short stories, etc. Versions 2 and 3 were tedious and full of technical jargon, which kept me looking at their dictionary of terms. I snatched up version 4 immediately because of one feature. They added a toggle switch which converts all the technicality into layman's terms. So, it's easier to understand, thus easier to use.For those of you who are not familiar with Dramatica, it is a creative writing tool which helps you decide where your story is going by asking you certain questions about plot, themes, character motivation, and story dynamics.It offers you two ways to do this: the short version (50 questions), which only takes you a day, or the long version (200+ questions), which could take you up to a week. This program doesn't write your story for you; it makes you think. And, it can give you ideas which you may have never considered before. To me, it's well worth the price.

218 of 236 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Digitized 3X5 Cards, January 22, 2001

By A Customer

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.

51 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars elaborate, for sure, October 20, 2002

By	chris romano "toonlets.com" (Topanga, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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.