Early Dramatica Interview

Early insight into a revolutionary approach to writing stories.

In this BBC interview from 1994, Dramatica co-creator Melanie Anne Phillips joins other software creators to discuss tools for screenwriting:

Dramatica is not designed to make things easier, Dramatica is designed to makes things harder.

And with that one quip, Melanie sets herself--and Dramatica--apart from everyone else.

The piece tries to pick apart the affront that is software engineered for storytelling, concentrating on superficial concerns. One interviewee assumes a rigidity to the process, fearing a prescription of the same event happening at the same time in every story. Another compares Dramatica’s storypoints to the transmutation of elements in alchemy.

The first should understand that a Dramatica storyform significantly alters the order of events according to the Author's purpose or intended message. The latter should understand that a comprehensive model of the human mind requires labeling areas heretofore unconsidered.

Finding itself up against chaos theory and a model of human psychology that still exists some twenty years later, the piece failed to truly listen.

Melanie sums it all up in her closing observation.

(P.S. my thanks to reader Marios for digitizing this VHS copy and sending it in!)