Quick answer:
You can copy and paste text from any Word document into any question in Dramatica.
But, having said that, there is no reason to import a complete story or Word document into Dramatica.
Dramatica is not a word processor and it doesn’t “read” your story. In fact, you aren’t supposed to write creatively in Dramatica. So what does it do?
1. Dramatica finds holes and inconsistencies in your story’s structure.
2. Dramatica makes suggestions for how to fill and fix them.
In short, Dramatic ensure perfect story structure.
How does it do this?
Dramatica is built around the world’s first and only patented Story Engine. It is a model of story, similar to how the double-helix is a model of DNA.
Simply put, Dramatica’s model of story contains all the elements necessary in a complete narrative and also has built-in “rules” on how these pieces can go together so that your story both makes sense and feels right to your audience.
These rules weren’t artificially created and imposed on your story, but were derived from narrative itself – what it is, how it works, how it affects readers or audiences.
So how do you use it?
Functionally, Dramatica is a series of questions about your underlying structure that are connected to the Story Engine. Every time you answer a question by making a choice about how your structure is or how you want it to be, the Story Engine cross references that choice with all the other choices you have made to do three things: One, ensure you aren’t working against your own structure and Two, points out where you have holes and inconsistencies in your story’s structure and Three, makes suggestions for how to fill the holes and fix the inconsistencies by using the rules of narrative to project the direction your narrative needs to take to most strongly support the story your answers have shown you wish to tell.
So, in Dramatica you are not working with the text you wrote for your story, but are answering questions about the reasons behind why characters do things and feel as they do, how that relates to the events in your plot, your them and the structural demands of your genre.
When you are finished, you will have a full understanding of all the dramatic elements in your story, how they work together, and how to unfold them so they make sense to your reader or audience. To help you with this, after you have completed your structure, Dramatica generates about 100 pages of explanatory reports about many different aspects of your story that you use as reference while you write and make revisions on your story in your word processor.
Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica