Everyone firing up their DramaQueen is offered the new update to 2.2.5. This one is packed with a large selection of new storytelling-icons that allows to easily tag the status, character emotion, dramaturgy and event of each scene:
Our goal was to optimize the workflow between DramaQueen and Final Draft in such a way, that working on the same document in Final Draft and DramaQueen alternately would not loose any layout information. This means each and every layout setting specified in a Final Draft document is imported into DramaQueen, such as the page margins, fonts, indentations and spacings. At the same time all layout information is exported to Final Draft as well as all learned words for spell-checking.
Several changes make for an improved handling:
The revision mode — many may know it as “Track changes” — is probably one of the most missed and therefore most often asked for features. All the more reason to close this gap sooner than later!
Since quite some time we have developed ideas and concepts. At the same time such an important tool shouldn’t deviate too much from the expectations of writers and how it is done in other applications — even just for compatibility reasons when importing and exporting. So the first step was to go back to all the suggestions, requests and requirements, that we received for the revision mode, and develop several very exciting concepts.
As a result, we are looking forward to offer a solution soon — intuitive to use as ever — which will combine the best and most powerful ideas to be able to meet all usage scenarios with great flexibility:
Here is a first teaser-screenshot of our current progress:
We still need a little more time until the revision mode can be published in the next release, so it can — mature and perfectly integrated — satisfy the high expectations!
One of DramaQueen’s central ideas is to think of a story in individual storylines. Why is that so important? What do storylines do?
Storylines inspire me to go over my story several times. Because every strand has its own main character or the other way around: each character in their storyline is assigned their own conflict and development arc, their own antagonist and their own goal.
As a writer it is my job to experience my story through the eyes of each character. Within her storyline a secondary character becomes the main character. When, for example, the antagonist is seen as the protagonist of her storyline, it becomes clear that she also has a need and that her motive needs to be understandable and human. This change of perspective helps me to make my characters ambivalent and multidimensional.
Let’s look at one of the best known recent German films, “Good Bye, Lenin”:
The main character Alex wants to keep all excitement from his mother to save her life. But the other characters have their own goals too: Alex’ mother Christine faces the lie of her life in her storyline. Alex’ sister Ariane wants to start her own life with her own family and overcome the loss of her father. And Denis, Alex’ friend and colleague, wants to make great films as a director. Everyone has their very own understanding of what’s going on.
If you put all strands in relation to each other many stories turn into one. Every single one tells a part of the whole story – a different aspect, a different truth.
That is the question we constantly ask ourselves. We’ve developed a method to develop the narrative arc of each storyline. Our storyline-modus creates a filter enabling you to dive into the world of a storyline and blank out everything else. The analysis graphic tool visualizes all storylines – for more see “What the narrative graph reveals about your story”. Our latest feature automatically structures a story into single storylines. Before you had to choose each scene separately to assign it to a narrative strand. Now all you need to do is to set up the central character constellation for each storyline. DramaQueen takes care of the rest…
