Screenwriting: Dramatica Pro vs. Power Structure (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

Hi gang,

I'm thinking about trying out one of these products. Has anyone used either or both of them? Anything good or bad to say about them? If anyone knows of a direct comparison article or can compare them, that would be great!

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Kicking this back up top so maybe someone will see it. . .

 

[Lew Crippen]

Final Draft, by Micro Master and widely available is very good and probably the industry standard.

I don’t know anything about the two you mention.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

I have also used Final Draft and like it. Have not tried these two.

 

[Bob Movies]

Hi Aaron,

You can download the demo of Dramatica Pro at
http://www.screenplay.com/Support/demos/index.html

You can download the demo of Power Structure at
http://www.write-brain.com/power-structure_demo.html

There's a review of Dramatica Pro in this month's issue of Scr(i)pt magazine (with The Alamo on the cover) and I think that they reviewed Power Structure in the previous issue. The reviews aren't that detailed, they're kind of just summaries of what the programs do.

I've tried both of these programs and they left me less than impressed. To be honest, I found them completely useless. Of course, your experience may be completely different - I think it just depends on how you work. These programs ask hundreds of annoying questions about your structure / characters that don't actually help with the writing. I also think they slow you down by trying to assign a rigid structure to every script.

I feel like the best way to do an outline is to sit down and write it out by hand. The best way to learn about your characters it to write character profiles. I think the money spend on one of these programs would be better spend on screenwriting books.

If you go to the Done Deal message boards at http://pub130.ezboard.com/bdonedeal there's a forum called "
Script Services, Software, & Supplies" where they discuss all sorts of screenwriting software. If you post there, you'll probably be able to hear from people who are currently using the software, so they might be able to help you more.

For those of us using Final Draft, you might not have heard that version 7 is coming out at the beginning of April. I think FD is the best formatting software out there, so it's a welcome upgrade!

Bob

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Bob,

Thanks for the links! Sounds like I don't need to drop $200 on one of those programs, but I'll check out that message board.

(Note for those who didn't realize -- these are not script formatting programs like Final Draft or Movie Magic. They're outlining/ structuring software for developing ideas.)

I use Final Draft too. I have version 5.something, but heard that version 6 was actually *worse* than version 5! I'll have to check out the details of the new upgrade.

 

[Bob Movies]

Aaron,

I hope you find some useful info on the Done Deal boards!

In regards to Final Draft, the big feature jump between 5 and 6 was that 6 allows saving to PDF (adobe acrobat) files. I've found 6 to be a slicker program overall (I'm running windows xp at home and mac os 10.3 at my office and it runs smoothly on both.)

Bob

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Ah. I have Adobe Acrobat anyway, so I wouldn't need the PDF feature. What does version 7 add?