Questions About Dramatica Story Expert

A writer recently asked these questions about Dramatica Story Expert:

1) Will the Dramatica Unplugged video program work for Dramatica Story Expert, as well as for Dramatica Pro – or is there another course I should pursue for DSE?

Dramatica unplugged works fine for any version of Dramatica, as it deals with the dramatic concepts of the theory, not with the software.

2) What’s really the difference between DSE and Dramatica Pro?

The big difference in Story Expert (aside from being updated in look, feel, and operation) are the “gists.” These are subject matter versions of the story points. For example, rather than reading as “obtaining” a goal might read as “stealing the crown jewels.” There are thousands of gists for you to use as story ideas, and you can create your own as well. Plus, you can even access them in the “Spin the model” feature which picks an arbitrary storyform structure, then populates it with randomly chosen subject matter to help you come up with story ideas!

3) Is there anything else I should have to get me ready to use DSE?

There’s nothing you need to do to get ready to use DSE. The main thing is getting used to the new main screen, as we’ve done away with the old button-style desktop and instead open directly to a panel that focuses on the four throughlines. The menus have changed too – easier for new people, but for users of Dpro it may take a while to figure out how to get to all the old favorite features.