I recently purchased a new operating system to adhire to Gustavus' new no Win98 policy, a process that required much searching and gnashing of teeth. Ultimately I discovered a company offering academic discounts from which to order the software. The product arrived this morning accompanied by a catalogue wherein I found the following product:

Dramatica Pro 4.1: The Ultimate Creative Writing Partner

Immediately the title was disconcerting. The blurb that followed, however, was far more frightening.

"Dramatica presents a fresh approach to writing your story, one that stimulates you to create a solid structure, deeply dimensional characters, meaningful universal themes, and clearly defined dramatic conflict. And it does something no other writing software can do - it predicts the rest of your story, based on the decisions you've made! Dramatica pro 4.1 writing system is easier to use than ever. "Term Swap" replaces specialized Dramatica terms with plain English. Shorter & simpler paths in the StoryGuide help you quickly turn your idea into a story and begin writing."

More worrying details can be found in this product synopsis: http://www.filmwareproducts.com/WriteBrothers/wb904045.html

I'm not quite sure whether to be disgusted, terrified, or largely bemused. Perhaps all three. This is most certainly one of the more depressing programs I've discovered in my lifetime. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, but this seems to be largely an antithesis of creative writing. If this really has been"embraced by writers, reviewers, and over 700 colleges and universities", I'm seriously worried about the future of the creative writing craft.