Character Pro 5 (report)

Randall_Oelerich

Randall_Oelerich

Veteran
I purchased Character Pro 5 (Writers Store, boxed CD/DVD, $85 with shipping; but it can also be dowloaded from typingchimp.com for $ to get a license key) and am liking it. Installation off the CD took literally about 30 seconds. Yeah, 30 seconds. No bulls*%t license key to type in, no username, no organization, just a checkbox to agree to the license terms and then click a button to install. 30 seconds later it is on the hard drive (installing software like Movie Magic Screenwriter is quite a different story as some of you reading this might know). The license allows for physical transfer of the software to other PCs as long as the software is only used on one PC at a time (reasonable); makes it convenient to have on a home PC and a coffee shop laptop pc, storing the project file on a usb flashdrive.

30 day money back guarantee if bought off the Writers Store. If downloaded for $ from typingchimp.com there is a 60 day money back guarantee. No free trial download that I could find.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, what I like about CP5 is that it uses enneagrams as well as DSM-IV (the bible for psychiatrists) for developing normal and abnormal personalities for characters. Walks one through sets of questions with easy choices, loads of examples and simple click to use choices. Honestly, by just clicking a button to go with examples for enneagrams and DSM-IV material, tons of text information is automagically added to the growing character profiles. Of course you type in things like hair color, eye color, favorite phrase each character makes, etc.

EDIT: (scratch the avatars, not there, i must be confusing this software with something else I tried recently, sorry; it was Character Writer that has the character avatars. Damn if the two programs are so similar, same company makes them, I might just see if I can return Character Pro and use Character Writer, still trying to figure out what one has that the other does not, except for the avatars that Character Writer incorporates.)
r
 
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I use this program to generate ideas for character motivation. It's helpful because, as you point out Randy, it uses Enneagrams and DSM. Makes developing round characters easy.

I would recommend this program to any screenwriter who wants to explore quickly a large number of character motives and potential interactions between characters of varying personality types.
 
Turns out I goofed and bought Character Pro when I should have bought Character Writer. Same company makes both products, so I emailed the company and they explained to me how Character Writer is the newer product, Char Pro is sort of becoming outdated. Luckily the company is being really nice and gave me a license key to Character Writer, free. So I can switch to Character Writer (which also has the character avatars, images by the way).

From typingchimp.com in an email to me:

"Actually, Character Pro has been around for about ten years and hasn't
changed much. We decided to create a new program, Character Writer, to
replace it. So Character Writer is the new product and will be our platform
for future enhancements. Character Pro will always be around and we'll
always support it, but Character Writer will be our main writing program
from now on."
 
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Working with Character Writer now-- I like the character images feature so I can add visual images for a character. Downloaded images off images.google.com They must be <5k as the Help file mentions, but what the help section does not mention is that the images must be resized to 90x90 pixels. Works great once a photo or image is resized to 90x90 and is less than 5KB in size, and is a jpeg or gif image.
 
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Assumed you meant Character Writer. A couple of the Typing Chimp products are similar, but the only one with DSM is Writer (I think), which is what I use. The Quickstory program is ok, but it can take your story off in a direction you never intended (good or bad depending on your story).
 
I wish the character avatar images in Character Writer would carry over in the character summary (Character Pad) in that software, but alas the summary report is just text. I emailed typingchimp to request that as a new feature for a future update (I have been having a bit of fun picking images, using photos off the web, for character avatars). ~r

kylekmd said:
Assumed you meant Character Writer. A couple of the Typing Chimp products are similar, but the only one with DSM is Writer (I think), which is what I use. The Quickstory program is ok, but it can take your story off in a direction you never intended (good or bad depending on your story).
Click to expand...
 
kylekmd said:
Assumed you meant Character Writer. A couple of the Typing Chimp products are similar, but the only one with DSM is Writer (I think), which is what I use. The Quickstory program is ok, but it can take your story off in a direction you never intended (good or bad depending on your story).
Click to expand...

So, what does a character development program do, to create 'healthy' characters??? Since neither the DSM nor in general clinical psychology has a detailed description of 'healthy'...

Further, as a note, DSM avoids any 'backstory', aka 'causes' for the behavior that is indicative of a particular disorder...

I mean, Astrology and I believe the Enneagram sort of side step the issue of 'disorder', by just stating 'behavior', that is in a sort of non judgemental way.
 
j1cleark,
Character Writer actually has quite a bit of 'healthy' character choices, and also lots of background generation. Of course once the software does its own thing (if you choose to have it generate healthy and or unhealthy material as well as background material) it allows you to go in and edit as much as you want. And you can always choose to manually type in your own material rather than use its 'use suggestion' buttons. Download it and give it a try. Or not. It is just a tool to use or not. ~randall

j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
So, what does a character development program do, to create 'healthy' characters??? Since neither the DSM nor in general clinical psychology has a detailed description of 'healthy'... Further, as a note, DSM avoids any 'backstory', aka 'causes' for the behavior that is indicative of a particular disorder... I mean, Astrology and I believe the Enneagram sort of side step the issue of 'disorder', by just stating 'behavior', that is in a sort of non judgemental way.
Click to expand...
 
btw/ there is a demo version of CW at the site and i've been playing with it a little. pretty cool. the "story" menu is grayed out, and you can't save your work; but other than that, it seems complete. fyi
 
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