Dramatica Theory vs. Practical Application

My response to a Dramatica consultant who lamented the gap between the theoretical concepts of our narrative model and its practical application:

Yeah, its tough to get a handle on this stuff, mainly because there’s a big difference between the model and the results it produces. The model is as far away from narrative or even psychology as you can get. It’s physics, really. That’s pretty far afield from writing story. The next level down from understanding how and why the model works is to understand how to use it and its results for narrative (or real world) analysis. That is the realm of the Dramatica consultant. Why it works isn’t important and how it was created is even less important than that. But, to know what each of the story points really means, how it differs from its brothers, and how to apply it in a practical way in the construction and deconstruction of stories is where the value is for almost everyone except those few nerds who must know the why and wherefore, including myself in that socially inept, detail worshiping gang of misfits.