retrofitting an existing story with Dramatica

[phillybudd]

I'm just sharing this as an observation, no real question here.

As an experiment, I have returned to a lengthy short story from some years back. After reading it through and making a number of notes, I opened Dramatica and started entering what I determined to be the important elements, variations and thematic points.

I was surprised to find how perfectly I was able to get the main character to fit into the storyform "as is", that is, without much of anything about him changing from the way he was already defined. However, everything else changed completely. The character I thought was the IC now perfectly fits the description of another character entirely. The plot sequence bears no resemblance to what I did at all.

Being a short story it will of course never embody a full Grand Argument, and there are only four characters. But I find the process fascinating and encouraging, because Dramatica seems to want to tell me that yes, there is a story here, you just didn't put it together right.

Actually I think for people who still don't feel confident about using Dramatica, this is an excellent way to learn what the theory is doing and how the software works, even if you don't go back and re-write the story.

Jeff

[JRH147]

Great story - thanks for sharing.