Instant Dramatica
Musings from Armando Saldaņa Mora

Admit it, Mr. Crichton...

Hi. I'll give myself a short introduction and then I'd like to discuss a question that surely troubles all Dramatica users:

I'm Armando Saldaņa. I live in Mexico city and -as supposed- Spanish is my first language, so forgive my horrifying use of English. I've been writing constantly for about 12 years, I've been selling fiction for the last five years, and I've been working on the Mexican television for the last year (yes, even script editor for the program of the guy on the cockroach suit). I've met Dramatica six months ago and became an instant addict, I even argue with my wife in terms of "You're not reducing my morality focus on your universe domain, you... Contagonist!"

Now for the question: I'm sure that the first question you had about Dramatica (specially after finding out the price) was "Does this stuff really works?" So you try to find out of a well known writer or story that was made using Dramatica and, guess what? you won't find none! And mostly because no one wants to tell. That's right. In the business you're as valuable as your "talent" (meant: your capacity to produce magic stories that everyone loves out of nowhere), and if a producer finds out you're using a creative software, he'll think "Well, the software wrote it, not that megalomaniac screenwriting bum! Cancel his check!" So you make a leap of fate and buy the program, you study it hard, struggles through it and write a complete story... Now here's the catch! I bet that most of you thought when the story was finished "Is this it? Gee, I could have written this myself in half the time with a hand tied up my back!" I made and experiment and went through my past teleplays. Through my new Dramatica look they seemed horrible to me! They were no structure, nothing happened, no one changed or had any challenge, every event seemed tacked on... So the next question arose: have the theory changed me or is it the software apreciations showing it's magic in my present work? let me rephrase: Can I now write Dramatica stories without using the software?

Have any of this happened to you?

What can you say about the "Does this stuff really works" predicament?

Index of Dramatica Theory Materials

Storymind.com is pleased to present this collection of materials about the Dramatica Theory of Story. We hope you find it both useful and through-provoking.

This information is divided into three sections:

The Dramatica Theory
A complete exploration of the theory in every detail

Historic Documents
The development of Dramatica from the beginning

Speculations
Dramatica applied to psychology, physics, religion and more

The Dramatica Theory

Dramatica Theory Book Online
Free online edition of the 400+ page book, Dramatica: A New theory of Story, in which Melanie Anne Phillips & Chris Huntley originally documented their work.

Dramatica Dictionary
Official definitions of all terms in the Dramatica theory and software.

Dramatica Writing Tips
Useful and informative articles on how to approach and employ both the Dramatica Theory and Software.

Constructive Criticisms
Practical illustrations of how applying the Dramatica theory could have made some well-known successful story's even better!

Dramatica Q & A
Answers to questions from users of the Dramatica Theory and Software.

Instant Dramatica
Even more directly practical essays on using Dramatica for real-world writing situations and problems provided by noted screenwriter Armando Saldaņa Mora.

Historic Documents

Dramatica - The Lost Theory Book
Early attempts to document the theory, including many unfinished conjectures and false starts.

Dramatica Development Archives
Early documents created during the development of the foundations of Dramatica.  Often later discarded, they show the roots of the thinking that ultimately evolved into the theory as it stands today.

Speculations

Deep Theory
Transcript of a class on the outer fringes of Dramatica Theory I taught as part of a now-defunct Dramatica Certification course.

Dramatica Math
A mathematician takes a stab at describing the Dramatica model in terms of dimensional distortions.

Mental Relativity
An exploration of the theory of psychology modeling which grew out of the development of Dramatica.

Dramatica I Ching
Several of our users have noticed a similarity between the character grid in Dramatica and the elements of the traditional I Ching.  Though unintentional, perhaps all models that look deeply into the mind will resemble each other.

Our Most Popular Products

StoryWeaver Story Development Software

By far, our most popular product, outselling all of our other products combined!  StoryWeaver takes you step by step through the entire process--from initial inspiration to completed novel or screenplay.  At just $29.95, StoryWeaver is affordable for any writer.  (Details)


Movie Magic Screenwriter

is one of two industry standard word processing screenplay formatters, the other being Final Draft.  Each of these programs offers a complete suite of screenwriting tools to make your next script a breeze to write.  (Details


Dramatica Pro

Unlike any other story development product, Dramatica Pro uses a patented Story Engine to interactively help you build a structure, find and fix dramatica holes and inconsistencies.  (Details)


20 Hour Writing Course on CD ROM

This intense program features 20 hours of video documenting the entire college-level course in creative writing given by Melanie Anne Phillips, creator of StoryWeaver and co-creator of Dramatica.  Just $19.95  (Details)

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