Dramatica® Pro - Download (Windows)

The creative writing partner that helps you create great characters, plan your plot from start to finish, and blast away those writer's blocks.

Got a great story but don't know where to start?

Dramatica Pro software is your creative writing partner. Create great characters. Plan your plot from start to finish. Dramatica Pro blasts away those writer's blocks. Dramatica Pro is the only story development software to receive four stars from Writer's Digest magazine.

Structure your plot

Answer Dramatica's questions about your characters and plot. This narrows down the possible ways of telling your story to the one that best expresses your vision.

Illustrate your story

Use your story to write specific examples of character arc, story goal, plot points, theme, and conflict. At the click of a button, see how your story's scenes compare to examples of history's greatest writers.

Create Scenes

Weave together all the parts of your story. Determine how elements of character, plot, and theme will be revealed to your audience. Place your examples into specific Acts, Scenes, or Chapters. Use this plot outline to write a killer first draft.

Join the Dramatica Community

Thousands of novelists, screenwriters, playwrights, and fiction writers use Dramatica Pro to perfect their story. When you write with Dramatica, you'll join a large supportive writing community.

Strengths Over Other Story Software

General Strengths

Holistic

Approach stories from any aspect of character, theme, plot, or genre that they want.

Does what no other software program can do

Based on answers writers give to story questions, it can tell the writers things about their stories that the writers did not tell it. This is essential when trying to work out story problems. By answering questions writers know about their stories, Dramatica Pro can indicate how the other parts of the story should fit together in order to support the choices they have made.

Story content and subject matter independent

This means writers can use it for any genre, medium, and topic. That is why it is good for screenplays, novels, stage plays, TV shows and series, as well as documentaries and other unexpected uses.

Based on the Dramatica theory of story

Compatible with many aspects of other popular story paradigms, such as those of Robert McKee, Chris Vogler, Syd Field, Linda Seger, Michael Hauge, John Truby, Dara Marks, Aristotle and others.

Story Analysis

Dramatica Pro is equally useful for story creation as it is for story analysis.

Comprehensive

For serious writers, Dramatica Pro is most comprehensive tool for developing story structure and understanding the inner workings of story available.

Specific Strengths

StoryGuide

While most of Dramatic Pro is holistic, the StoryGuide leads writers through the process of creating (or analyzing) a story step-by-step. The StoryGuide begins with the story's title, moves through creating characters, developing the plot and themes, and ends up with building a step outline of the story. It has three levels, each level adding depth to the development of the story.

Structure Templates

Dramatica Pro comes with three preset structures templates: Screenplay, Novel, and Short Story. These templates give writers a jump start by having a set of character archetypes and general suggestions for a beat outline of the story included.

Story Engine

The story engine lets writers make story structure choices and see the effects of those choices on the other parts of the story structure immediately.

Character Building

The build characters window lets writers give specific story functions to the players in their story using drag-and-drop. This allows writers to give structural purpose to their characters, while also controlling their complexity.

Reports

While developing stories in Dramatica Pro is at least half the benefit, another benefit are its reports. Dramatica Pro has over two dozen reports that organize the story elements into readable prose. Some reports focus on character, plot, or theme, while others show an overview of the story's structure and storytelling. The Treatment report shows a beat outline or treatment, which can be exported directly to Movie Magic Screenwriter or Outline 4D. All reports may be printed or exported as text.

"The Dramatica Theory of Story by Chris Huntley and Melanie Anne Phillips demonstrates the effect of story on the mind of a human being. Using this theory in tandem with the Dramatica Pro software enables a writer to understand how particular elements of a story affect the mind of the viewer, enabling the development of easily accessible, entertaining, and, most importantly, powerful stories about the human condition. If you're going to purchase any story development application, Dramatica Pro is by far the best choice."

George Strayton, Writer for Sam Raimi on XENA: WARRIOR PRINCESS and HERCULES: THE LEGENDARY JOURNEYS (Universal Studios), DRAGONLANCE starring Kiefer Sutherland (Paramount Pictures), and the film XOMBIE, optioned by top Hollywood screenwriting/producing duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (TRANSFORMERS, FRINGE, STAR TREK, COWBOYS & ALIENS)

"Dramatica Pro is the ultimate creative writing companion and our TopTenREVIEWS Gold Award Winner. This program is stacked with great features and allows you to determine and organize every aspect of your story before you ever begin to write. You can easily switch between different story guide paths, allowing you to achieve your maximum writing potential. Write Brothers Inc. designed this software with the serious writer in mind, and it shows—Dramatica Pro has more practical features than any other writing product we reviewed."

TopTenReviews.com

"I believe there is no tool out there that allows you to skirt formulaic writing better than Dramatica."

Michael Backes, Apple Master; Screenwriter, Rising Sun
Cofounder, American Film Institute/Apple Computer Center for Film and Video Makers

"Dramatica: Indispensable power tools for my imagination . . . Dramatica is my indispensable tool both in bringing form to my new novels and in the repair and tune-up of stories that I am revisiting. It has added a new, grander dimension to my craft. These are power tools no storyteller should be without."

Tracy Hickman, NY Times Bestselling Author, DragonLance (series), Rose of the Prophet (series), Deathgate Cycle (series), Bronze Chronicles (series)

"I’ve used Dramatica as a creative tool on virtually every script I’ve written professionally, dating back to before BAND OF BROTHERS. It is, by far, the most comprehensive and useful theory and software for understanding what makes good stories work that I know of. I highly recommend it as a resource for all writers.”

Erik Bork, multiple Emmy and Golden Globe-winning screenwriter, (HBO’s BAND OF BROTHERS and FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON)

"The story for Copy Shop was in my head for 10 years. Dramatica is with me for 5 years – long enough to burn the 12 essential questions into my subconsciousness. The 12 minute film won 25 international awards and an Oscar-nomination."

Virgil Widrich, 2001 Oscar Nominee
Best Short Film: Copy Shop

"I suppose subjecting myself to the process—the discipline of Dramatica—has had an invaluable consequence: I have more confidence in the final product. I know the bones of the screenplay are good because I know I made my fundamental decisions in a most dramatically informed way."

Marc Moss, Screenwriter
Along Came A Spider, Flint

"Dramatica is a dream come true for any writer who thinks in cinematic terms, and it makes a wonderful creative companion. You cannot take your brain off it!!!"

Euzhan Palcy, Screenwriter/ Director
A Dry White Season, Sugar Cane Alley, Cesar

"Dramatica Pro guides you through the nitty gritty of creating your story. It’s a focusing tool. I’ve taken my story ideas with character sketches and plugged them into the Dramatica Pro program. By the time I finished answering all of the questions, my story is fully realized and I’m ready to write."

Yvette Freeman, Writer/Actor
Winner—Hollywood Black Film Festival Screenwriter Award

"Dramatica is the most effective tool in the market place today for writer’s on every level."

Bill Duke, Actor/ Producer/ Director, The Limey, Payback, Hoodlum, Sister Act II

"Dramatica Pro is a story development tool I am pleased to recommend to other writers. It can either develop a story with minimal feedback from the writer or significantly enhance an existing idea by fanning writer passion to an unexpected level. This has allowed my story development process to shift in several truly systemic ways."

David O’Neal, Novelist, Fool Me Twice, What Goes Around, The Pact With Bruno, Choosing to Kill

"I had my pitch meeting with a producer… Everything he wanted to know I’d been forced to game out with my ol’ friend Dramatica… the program will make your job as a writer not only easier, but more fun. By the way, I got the deal."

David Obst, Wired Magazine; Author, Too Good to Be Forgotten: Changing America in the ‘60s and ‘70s

"Dramatica is an essential tool for developing a story’s structure. I used it extensively to develop a screenplay that was awarded first place in the SlamDance Screenwriting Competition."

Carl Weaver, 1st Place Winner
SlamDance Competition

"My comedy won the first prize in the Salzburg Screenplay Competitiontoday. The jury said that my script was miles ahead of all others."

Virgil Widrich, Winner of the Salzburg Screenplay Competition

"I finished the first draft story outline of a piece I’ve been working on for a couple of months. It came together exactly as I had envisioned it. While I credit myself for a large part of that, endless accolades must go out to Dramatica. The program forced me to focus on exactly what I wanted to do. It also gave me great insights as to do much of it. You guys really did a job with this program."

Dana Cameron, Writer

"...I can say that I have never approached a book project with more confidence that I am on the right path. Dramatica Pro refuses to let me off the hook; rather, it forces me to think things through, directly and indirectly, in such a way that no avenues seem to be left unexplored. I feel certain that this thoroughness will eliminate problems down the road—problems that surely would have emerged without Dramatica Pro’s vaccination. The process also seems to be drawing from me more than I knew I had in me. That feels good, and is reinforcing as I work through my story idea".

Patricia Sierra, Writer

"Creating characters can drive a comic bananas and I take my funny business very seriously. That’s why I chose Dramatica Pro to make my work fun. There’s only one thing missing – Comedica Pro."

Kat Caverly, aka Shirley Kenosha, Writer/Comedian, TomKat Productions, NYC

"I LOVE this software! You and your have my deepest gratitude. That you offer different approaches to the process is extraordinary in software, period, but also, indispensable for a creative modeler like this."

Roseanne Johnston, Writer

"Obviously I would not be writing if I had not derived a great deal of enjoyment and many productive hours from Dramatica. It is an impressive and graceful achievement."

Derrick Smith, Writer

"I was intrigued enough by the recent write-up of Dramatica in the current issue of the Writers Guild Journal to order a copy of theory book from your company. I am pausing after just a few pages to give you this feedback: The first four pages are perhaps the most intellectually elegant profoundly reframing words I have ever read concerning the idea of story."

Jim Boke Tomlin, Writer

"Thanks for a terrific program. Out of the box and without even looking at the manual, I used it to help me find a problem in a script I had written and optioned a couple of years ago, but attracted no further interest. Then I read the manual and have since been using it to outline a novel."

John Michael Flynn, Writer

"I’ve tried other programs and they are all fine products, but Dramatica takes you to deeper levels… If I were to rate the programs I’ve tried, I’d give top prize to this one. I first read about it in Writers Digest and was curious since it was the only one rated ‘Excellent’ in the story development software category. Now I see why."

Robert F.Phillips, Writer

"Congratulations on a great software!... I’m currently in the process of rewriting a script that I had nearly completed a month ago. Dramatica pointed out the weaknesses in my story structure in the first seven days after installation."

Jan Wellman, Writer