Another Look at Software for Screenwriting

June 13, 2007

While the typical spreadsheet and project management programs were given the objective treatment in the New York times article, the cult-inducing Dramatica Pro received a bit of that old fashioned negative bias:

Some novelists even admit to using screenwriting software, which since the 80’s has gone from simply helping format dialogue and stage directions to being increasingly interactive. For her novel “Rattled,”a satirical romp set in the New Jersey suburbs, Debra Galant turned to a screenwriting program called Dramatica Pro, which bears some resemblance to a Choose Your Own Adventure book. The program “prompts you step by step to answer a lot of questions,”Galant said in a telephone conversation. Those questions can be alarmingly reductive: What’s your story called? Who are the main characters? Does the protagonist change over time or resist change? The program uses ‘Star Wars,’ among other movies, as its pole star. In one set of questions, Galant said, the program asks, “Do your character’s efforts achieve the overall success, like killing the shark in ‘Jaws,’ or failure, like not opening the dinosaur theme park in ‘Jurassic Park’?”

This makes Dramatica sound more akin to Sawyer and Weingarten’s Plots Unlimited than what it really is: an amazing insight into the mechanics of story. And as much as I love flipping through Plots occasionally for an idea or two, it does come across as taking a “plot by numbers” approach. Dramatica, however, is in a completely different league.

If anything, Dramatica is productive, not reductive. The boundless realm of creative possibilities awaits if you only take the time to understand what Dramatica is trying to tell you about your story. Sure, the language is a bit alien at first, but it has to be that way. The inner workings of a complete story are so complex that you need to use uncommon language in order to describe it accurately.

Now, I have to admit that as a kid I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Loved him. Read every single one. So maybe at first I was drawn to Dramatica because of the nature of the questions it asked. But as Andrew Dickson points out on his blog, the software “actually makes you work harder.” He goes on to say:

The real issue is that the software often gives you more story notes than you know what to do with, and opens up a whole nightmare of where your plotting is weak, your ideas incomplete, and your characters one-dimensional.

Totally agree.

The theory is designed to open up your mind about story, not force you into following a strict set of rules. Every chance they get, the creators of theory implore you to follow your writer’s instincts first. They do believe in the accuracy of their story model, but they also fully recognize the importance of the writer’s heart in creating a piece of fiction.

Personally, I have no problem with software that asks you “What’s your story is called?” Seems like something you should know. Same with the Main Character question. The next question, however, is simply reported incorrectly.

The theory doesn’t care whether or not your protagonist changes or not - that question is reserved for the Main Character. But even if that was an oversight ((Most writers interchange Protagonist and Main Character without a second thought. Dramatica believes there is a difference)), the reporter left off the other half of the question. The question Dramatica asks is “Does your Main Character Change or Remain Steadfast?” Resisting change is not the same as remaining steadfast. As Chris Huntley mentioned in a recent article comparing Linda Seger’s concepts and Dramatica:

Many great stories involve characters that remain steadfast against all efforts to change them. Moreover, the fact that they “stay the course” is an essential component of each story’s message. Imagine Job in the Old Testament of the Bible telling God he’s had too much and is throwing in the towel, or Dr. Richard Kimble in “The Fugitive” giving up his search for the one-armed man and heading off to Bermuda. Both might work as stories but their meaning would be changed considerably.

Star Wars is one of the examples contained in the software….as is The Godfather, Amadeus, Hamlet, Chinatown, Casablanca, A Doll’s House and countless other masterpieces of storytelling. Using Star Wars to discount the validity of Dramatica is so common a tactic that it’s quickly becoming a cliche.

Dramatica is designed to open up your mind about story

Finally, the last question is reported incorrectly as well. The real question asks “Do your characters’ efforts to achieve the story goal result in success or failure?” Every single book on story theory or story structure mentions the idea of having a goal that your characters are invested in. This question is simply asking - was the goal met or not? Again, if you’re writing a story with characters in it, who are after some kind of goal - it would be nice to know whether or not they achieve it or not.

But Debra has her own thoughts on the matter:

Galant said her publisher, St. Martin’s, was horrified to learn she’d relied on software. But Galant is unapologetic. “I don’t feel like it’s cheating,” she said. After all, “nobody is going to write the book for you.”When she was uncertain she could write a book, the software “kind of gave me the confidence to go ahead and try it.”

Well said.

Other Tools for Screenwriting

Although the Dramatica mention was decidedly negative, I was pleased to see two of my other favorite programs mentioned - Microsoft’s OneNote and Mindjet’s MindManager. I use both on a daily basis. Whether it’s taking notes for this site or writing my own stories, I find both invaluable in managing the information I need.

Here’s an example of a “mindmap” that I wrote up for an analysis of Collateral:

As you can see the Main Topic sits dead center in the map. From there I “branched off” into the four separate throughlines that Dramatica sees in a complete story. Those familiar with the theory will note that I placed the throughline topics in the relative position they would appear in the Dramatica Structure of Elements. ((Universe: upper left, Physics: upper right, Mind: lower right, Psychology: lower left. You can download a PDF copy of this chart here.)). Any notes beyond just the topic name are written in the sidebar to the right.

I can rearrange the topics any way I want, dragging them from one side of the screen to the other. I can also format them to look a little prettier. This shot is from the recently released version - MindManager 7. The “Office 2007”-like UI ribbon located above the workspace is fantastic for anyone new to this program. Because of it, I’ve started using tools that I didn’t even know existed.

I should also note that I’m using a TabletPC ((For more information on TabletPCs be sure to check out GottaBeMobile and TabletPCBuzz)) (specifically the discontinued Toshiba M200). I love being able to take notes in “virtual ink.” While my handwriting might not be the easiest thing to read ((That being said, the Microsft Ink Recognition is outstanding when it comes to reading my handwriting. As messy as some of the notes appear in the screenshots above, MS can convert them to accurate text 90-95% of the time.)), for me, it makes the whole interacting with a computer “warmer.” (Besides, who can deny the coolness factor?)

Here’s a page from my OneNote notebook, also having to do with Collateral:

OneNote is closer to what you think you would need for a virtual notebook. The pages are organized into tabs (located along the top) and then those tabs can be placed into different Sections - just like the real thing.

However, unlike the real thing, you can search all your notes in an instant - even your inked notes! For instance, let’s say it was a couple weeks from now and I remembered something about “twisting” the storyform. In a real-world notebook I’d have to flip through page after page until I found the note (if I was lucky enough). With OneNote, I’d just type “twist” into the search box and WHAM! This page would pop up - even without having to convert the ink to text first!

You can also record audio while taking notes. Later, when you play the audio back OneNote will sync your notes to the audio - highlighting the lines at the same time you wrote them during the original recording. All audio is fully searchable as well.

Finally, you can drag and drop files onto the pages for easy reference later. In the above example you can see two files linked - a JPG of the storyform and the DSF file (this is the Dramatica file). You can see how beneficial this could be when you start thinking about the amount of research that goes in to writing a story (web sites, word processor documents, magazine clippings etc.). Having it all in one place and fully searchable? How could any writer resist?

Helpful, Not Harmful

As evidenced by the amount of writing on this site, I’m a huge fan of software tools for writers (I didn’t even get to mention StoryView yet!). While it was great seeing Dramatica referred to in a big time newspaper, it would’ve been nice to see a tad more accuracy in the article. The appropriateness of software for writers can be likened to that of a common kitchen knife - while extremely helpful in most cases, it can also be just as easily used to harm.

It all depends on how you use it.