Review by S Smyth

Dramatica is a way to organise your thoughts about theme, plot-theme, and characters into a story form as opposed to something that isn’t.nUsing its own terminology allied to templates, the user is required to fill in a set of questionnaires, which act as the input from which their story is distilled. This can be amended at will if the user feels that they are being too boxed in.nThe end result is more easily managed than stacks of cards and papers. It can also be easily shared with other Dramatica users by distributing files across the internet to each other (given that version sync isn’t an issue).nIt’s like having a collaborator in front of you all the time - if needed - with regard to the structure, but won’t be of any help with poor prose, prose-style, bad dialogue, lack of motivation or any other essential aspects that the writer would need to know about. A badly written story, which is bang-on structurally, as far as Dramatica is concerned, is not a useful end product. In other words, the user would need to be a decent writer in the first place, using Dramatica as a tool to refine and focus their work, and not regard it an easy way out. It’s not.nSo bearing that in mind, Dramatica shouldn’t disappoint so long as the user is prepared for the discipline of story writing, in its strictest sense.