Dramatica is the name of the theory and software suite created as part of a project by Chris Huntley and Melanie Anne Phillips. The term is used in the context of

narratology Narratology is the study of narrative and narrative structure and the ways that these affect human perception. It is an anglicisation of French ''narratologie'', coined by Tzvetan Todorov (''Grammaire du Décaméron'', 1969). Its theoretical li ...

and refers to a theory of narration and literary presentation. The software guides users through the writing process by giving them a step-by-step guide that focuses on plot and theme creation as well as story structure. There are two different versions of the Dramatica software. The first, Dramatica Pro, was released in the 1990s and supports both Windows and OS X. The second, a more recent version, Dramatica Story Expert, is OS X-only.

Theory

The theory was originated in 1994 as a diagnostic modelling tool built around a concept called "The Story Mind", which describes each story as having a mind of its own with its

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

built by the story's structure and its

personality Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...

is determined by the

storytelling Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own stories or narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural pre ...

. Huntley and Phillips have taught the theory at the

University of California at Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

, where it was part of a twelve-week "for credit" course for several years. The two also released the book ''Dramatica – A New Theory of Story'' via Write Brothers Press, the publishing arm of

Write Brothers Write Brothers, Inc. is an American computer software publisher founded in 1982 by Stephen Greenfield and Chris Huntley as Screenplay Systems. The company's first program was Scriptor, the world's first screenplay formatter. The company's progra ...

founded by Stephen Greenfield and Chris Huntley.Dramatica – A New Theory of Story
online version. The software is based upon Huntley and Phillips's quad theory, which is described as " ividinga story unit into four pieces and reatingrelationships between those parts". The four quads, which makes up the Dramatic Table of Story Elements, are the

Universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the universe. Acc ...

(representing situations), Mind (attitudes),

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

(activities) and Psychology (manners of thinking). In later years, the ongoing development of Dramatica was split into two branches. First is ongoing exploration into using the model to understand the workings of the

human mind The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...

itself – an area of research called (by the theory creators) Mental Relativity. The second area of development is the implementation of the model as a patented

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

called "The Story Engine" which can be used to analyze story structures to find holes and inconsistencies and also used to interactively suggest how to fix and fill them.

References

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External links

Dramatica.com
– theory and software
Screenplay.com
– Write Brothers, Inc.
Dramatica at Storymind.com
– Melanie Anne Phillips' website Narratology Screenwriting software