Not surprisingly, there are also a number of computer software programs offering to do similar things, and one, Dramatica Writer’s DreamKit, that promises to be “everything you need to write the story of your dreams.”
DreamKit comes out of the Write Brothers stable, a company that has been developing creative writing software for over 20 years, and since 1990 more than 80 per cent of Academy Award nominations and 95 per cent of Emmy Awards went to productions that used software created by Write Brothers.
In 1994 the company’s founders, Chris Huntley and Stephen Greenfield, were the first and only individuals to win an Academy Technical Achievement Award for the development of a writing software tool, Scriptor, the first screenplay text formatter. These are impressive credentials and, on paper, DreamKit is an impressive piece of software. It is described as a step-by-step writing system for aspiring fiction writers of all kinds and akin to having a successful author as a writing partner who mentors you all the way from initial story idea to completed narrative treatment.
The program is based on a sophisticated set of storytelling principles and concepts known as the Dramatica story model (the result of more than 15 years’ research and development), which are fully explained in a 343-page pdf that accompanies the program called Dramatica – a new theory of story.
According to the makers, the program takes you to a “story development environment where together you’ll solve the plot and character problems that prevent many good stories from becoming great enough to sell.”
It also claims to be the only software able to predict parts of the story based on the writer’s creative decisions. By incorporating these ideas into the evolving story, the writer can make it tighter and ensure that it’s free from character inconsistencies and plot holes.
DreamKit works by asking a series of thought-provoking character and plot questions designed to reduce the possible ways of telling a story down to the one which best expresses the writer’s vision. In the Dramatica story model, there are 32,768 possible ‘storyforms’ – the underlying dramatic framework of a story – so there’s little chance of a writer’s creativity being constrained by the software.
The character and plot questions are illustrated with examples and in-depth breakdowns from a diverse range of classic stories taken from 12 novels, 11 plays, 4 TV shows and 36 feature films. These include To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, Barefoot in the Park, Hamlet, Amadeus, The Simpsons, The X-files, Blade Runner, Star Wars, Witness, Rear Window, A Clockwork Orange and Casablanca.
To get the most out of this program it is essential to spend time getting to know and understand the concepts, principles and terminology of the Dramatica story model. There are several aids to help you do this, including two printed booklets, pdfs of the Dramatica book and dictionary, and comprehensive explanations in the program itself – again illustrated with examples from classic stories.
Before starting on a project of your own, DreamKit recommends getting to know the program by using one of the three structure template files (screenplay, short story and novel) and test-driving the software on a fairy tale or made-up story. For my test drive I used a basic one-line idea I have for a screenplay.
Facing tough questions
Once you’ve chosen your structure template, it’s simply a matter of clicking the start-here button to begin the story guide query system, which you can move through using previous and next buttons. The first four or five screens contain instructions on how to use the program, and explanations of the Dramatica story model. The second screen, for example, introduces the principle of ‘throughlines’ – four different story viewpoints and their areas of conflict, which underpin the Dramatica story creation system. It’s these four throughlines – overall story, main character, impact character and main vs impact – that are said to ensure a complete and consistent story without plot holes.
The interactive sections of the software – when you’re asked to answer questions and enter information – are accompanied by a series of eight help buttons, such as explain, theory, usage, context and definition. How many of these are active in each screen depends on which stage of the process you’re at.
You don’t have to answer all the questions – you may not be able to in the early stages of a story idea because you might not know the answers yet – but you can go back to any section, at any time and fill in the blanks, add to your answers or change them, and remove or add characters and change them. The process is time-consuming, but the more complete your answers, the more DreamKit can help.
You can review the progress of your project with a reports facility. Nine reports are created during a story’s development; these cover such areas as structure, character building and plot dynamics, and can be viewed on screen, printed or exported to a word processor.
After deciding on a title for the project, the story building and creation process begins in earnest. First you’re asked to briefly describe what happens, including the beginning, middle and end, and then briefly outline the events in the story. Next comes the creating and developing characters section and a screen explaining Dramatica’s eight character archetypes. These are presented in pairs – protagonist and antagonist, guardian and contagonist, reason and emotion, and sidekick and skeptic – and come with illustrations from Star Wars.
The program’s character-building screens allow you to start creating and fleshing out characters immediately. You can assign roles and activities to your players, give them detailed personality and physical traits, decide on their motivations and remove archetypes that aren’t relevant to your story. It also allows you to visualize characters by ‘casting’ them from a wide selection of character icons. Although this can be amusing at first, I’m not sure how helpful these are in practice. Of far more use is the facility to import bitmap-format pictures of your own. I sometimes find it quite helpful to picture specific people – though not necessarily actors or personalities – when building or refining characters and writing dialogue.
Once you’ve finished building characters, the preliminary foundations are complete and you are ready to create the basic dramatic structure of your story, or ‘storyform’. The storyforming section is a mixture of multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, which help create the basic dramatic framework that will then be fleshed out by the questions in the ‘illustrating’ phase.
The final stage is the ‘storyweaving’ section, where DreamKit provides a suggested scene-by-scene structure, with all your story points and illustrations already woven in. You can use this structure as it is, or adapt it, and start building your story on a scene-by-scene basis.
Adding dialogue
DreamKit only asks you to describe what happens in each scene at this point, but you could also begin adding dialogue and more detailed scene descriptions – there’s certainly plenty of room for additional information. You can also export everything you’ve done into Screenwriter.
I tested the program on three projects of my own – a novel, a sitcom and a screenplay. Just getting to the storyweaving section is a time-consuming business, even when you’ve already written your story, as was the case with the novel, where I was inputting familiar information from a finished book.
But that’s one of the great strengths of DreamKit; it makes you take time over your story, and it forces you to think very carefully about your characters, plot and themes and how everything fits together – or not, as you’ll sometimes discover. Sometimes in our enthusiasm to write those two little words – The End – we sometimes pay less attention to some of the preceding stages than we should; the program tackles this problem head on.
DreamKit is an excellent writing tool and one that I will continue to use. Once they are familiar with the software and fully understand Dramatica’s concepts, priciples and terminology, most writers will be able to use DreamKit to help create better stories. I did have some small niggles with the program – the interface could have been more appealing, for a start – but at just £79.95 (excluding VAT and postage) it’s such good value for money it seems churlish to mention them.