Eating Worms for Inspiration. Good or Bad?

In general, I would say that your examples work, but they play a bit fast and loose with the actual definitions of the words. But – the main thing is that the examples seem good, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.

Dramatica is overwhelming by its nature, and lots of people drown, and I don’t want to do that to you.

As for this, here’s the thing. Dramatica, with it’s 4x4 design, tends to attract very linear, mathematical thinkers. But lots of it is actually a very mathy look at very subjective emotional things. It works really really well as analytical tool for subjective throughlines, which is great, but the result is that people who don’t naturally get into the skin of their characters learn (incorrectly) that they don’t have to, that they can get by thinking about them objectively. But this doesn’t tend to work for creation, only analysis.

[Unless you want to write really thin stories, probably action movies, probably not great ones.]

So, not only can Dramatica mislead you inadvertently, it can also get you working your story logic muscles (which is good), and get you to ignore your intuitive character muscles (which is bad) and the result is an increasingly worse balance between the two (also bad).

If you (or anyone) are interested in doing this, shoot me an e-mail, and I’ll bounce some stuff off of you.

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