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I just started using Dramatica Pro, and part way through the process it announced I'd answered enough questions to determine the story form. It then advised that I start over to see if a different Story Form would be chosen and that I should then determine which I liked better.

How do I get it to show me what Story Form was chosen?

How do I compare Story Forms if it doesn't tell me what the chosen form is?

I thought that maybe I'd have to continue further in the process, but it specifically told me to stop where I was.

If you understand this part of the software please let me know what I'm supposed to do.

Thank you

I thought that with everyone here who has been using Dramatica Pro that people would have an embarrassingly simple solution for me (perhaps something obvious I missed).

Is it that Dramatica has a weak spot and no one here actually understands the story form aspect?

I'm sincerely interested to know, because if this is the case, I'll simply proceed and see what happens instead of staying stuck here.

Thank you again.

I use the Story Engine Settings report (Reports -> Advanced Reports -> Story Engine Settings) which shows the details of the story form you've chosen. You can then print or save to a text file.

The same information is also available in The Brainstorming (Spin-the-Model) tool, which, if you click the SPIN button, can show you the # of your storyform.

Graham

There are several places to find out what your storyform is once you've reached a single storyform.

The easiest is to go to the Story Points window and look around through there. It's not an efficient way to explore your storyform, but it does give a little bit of explanation and context.

Another way is to go to the reports window. The most efficient way to see everything is to choose the Story Engine Settings report from the Advanced Reports. I recommend clicking on the "Vocabulary" button so that the short definitions are listed at the end of the report. Print this report out for later reference as you create alternate versions. There are many other reports (in fact, most all of them) that give you insight into the storyform chosen. You might want to check these out as well.

Another way is to go to the Story Engine window (Storyforming > Story Engine...). Though this window does not show you all the story points, it does show you a lot of key story points.

There are still other ways to see your storyform, but those are the most direct and helpful for those new to Dramatica.

Hi Graham,

Thank you very much for this information. I will try this

Jennifer

As a new user myself, I had trouble with this. I wish there were some way to compare them side by side, but alas...

When I have two storyforms I want to compare, I export the Story Engine Report to a separate text file for each storyform. I then open both text files and maximize each window (so the text in each file will be in the same position on the screen). Then I compare the reports by switching back and forth between the two files (Alt-Tab in Windows).

Graham

Thanks Graham, that's a good idea.