Not Tropeworthy: Dramatica

Upon reading the Dramatica article, it became clear to me that this was not really a trope, but a method of narrative analysis. It can be applied to almost any work. Some of the categories on this page resemble tropes on this wiki, but the page insists on using alternative names for these tropes (for example, The Spock is "The Reason"). (If there were enough of these, perhaps the page could be made into an index, but there are not.)

Ordinarily, it would make sense to do a wick check. However, the page has only 10 wicks, only one of which is from a work page. That work page is The Croods, and the wick is not from an example, but from a Pothole. There are no examples on the page either, at least not in a traditional sense. Toy Story and Gurren Lagann are just used like Alice and Bob to explain the trope. There are a variety of works mentioned, but these are all Zero-Context Examples. Actually, it's unclear whether they're examples at all, or if all of the Twelve Essential Questions would have to be answered for a work in order to count it as an example (and this is never the case).

There are a number of things that could be done with this page. Perhaps a crowner could be created with the following options:

• Do nothing
• Cut the page
• Turn the page into a Useful Notes page
• Change the page to In-Universe Examples Only
• Create a new namespace for the analysis of works through a Dramatica lens

Some of the categories on this page are perhaps trope-worthy, but that is a separate issue.

Edited by FSharp on Oct 29th 2023 at 2:38:08 AM

Opened.

I feel this will fit as a Useful Note.

to making it a Useful Notes/ page. Sounds like an interesting concept.

to making it Useful Notes.

Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Oct 29th 2023 at 6:49:47 AM

Useful Notes

I kind of wonder if making this a Definition-Only Page would be a better idea than moving it to Useful Notes. I'm not sure that it's on-mission for the latter, but the former is a category for pages that define terms but don't allow examples, and it seems like there's support for keeping the definition without it being a trope regardless of how forbidding examples is handled.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 29th 2023 at 11:04:06 AM

I don't think it would enable that much as definition-only page based on the fact that I've never heard of anyone use "Dramatica" (at least this particular "highly structured system" as the page itself defines) as the basis for approaching media theory before, and based on the wick count, not many people do.

I have to wonder, is this even something that people are aware about that would even warrant a Useful Notes page? There's a website dedicated to this narrative analysis format, but the other wiki doesn't have a page on it and I'm finding very few google searches right now of people referring to it.

EDIT: so the one article I could find kind of blows through a big hole of this: Dramatica is apparently a software program for story structuring, and from what I can tell, "dramatica" is basically its own theory postured by itself as the narrative system of importance, it doesn't seem to be of interest to many others besides it.

Edited by number9robotic on Oct 29th 2023 at 10:42:32 AM

I feel this could work as a Useful Notes page.

Useful Notes for me

Honestly, between and the oldest version in the Internet Archive reading more like an advertisement, and some of the associated material on the web site, I almost wonder if this falls under Books on Trope.

I'm kind of wondering if we should cut the page if it was made to advertise a piece of software and/or its website, as well as the fact that the page creator(s) probably didn't get permission to move information from there to TV Tropes, meaning it's possible that the page is infringing on the copyright of the software and/or its website.

Edit: I checked and its inbound count isn't that high relative to its age.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 30th 2023 at 7:49:19 AM

Cut

In that case, cut.

Changing my vote to cut

Cut

Snip snip

Cut

I previously said I was wondering if we should cut, and now I'm fully in favor of cutting.

I'm in favour of cutting. Seems to me that Dramatica is not even a well-known thing. I would say that our page on it is pretty misleading, making it seem like a accepted concept with academic rigor, while in fact it's just some software that is supposed to help you with building a story.

Do you even know where it originated from, or it's authorship?

Edited by Nightwire on Oct 30th 2023 at 11:10:23 AM

The impression I got from the site is that it is a concept on its own, created by the same people as the software, and the software may well be intended to promote the concept, but the software is also meant to be the main tool to work the writer through the process. That's why I brought up the idea of it being Books on Trope. But if it doesn't have any traction beyond our page on it, it's probably no big loss to cut it.

(I don't believe the page was created as an advertisement, as in I don't think it was created by the same people as the software; rather I think someone just wanted to share this cool thing they found that they thought would be of interest to tropers. Note that on the oldest version of the page, the person that created it wasn't sure they had the concept right.)

Edited by MorganWick on Oct 31st 2023 at 12:20:24 PM

Apparently it was made by Chris Huntley and Melanie Anne Phillips. It even has a Wikipedia article, though a short one. Only 6 references.

I don't think the reason the page was made is as much of a concern as the possibility of copyright infringement.

Edited by GastonRabbit on Oct 31st 2023 at 2:47:40 PM

I have to say learning of this page really helped me out I hope we keep it somehow.

Note-worthiness has never been a concern in this wiki, so I don't it matters much whether it has any traction outside this side. I say index it on Books on Trope and move it to the Website/ namespace. It's not going to be a perfect fit, since it's primarily software, but it has a website with the theory and several articles related to it.

I'll add it to the crowner.