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Originally Posted by aleding
Hello folks,
I am also an aspiring screenwriter and I came across an app that I think is a contender to become the killer app in regard to any type of authoring software.
It is called "Scrivener" and it is available for a free 30-day trial download and then the app is like $30 after that.
It just hit v1.01 - I know it sounds new - but I have been using it to develop my outlines and scene cards and it is a breeze. It completely kills the status quo (Final Draft and Movie Magic) and it makes the process of moving from outline to scene cards to authoring really nice and easy. And anyone who has been to or worked with Robert McKee will know that "writing from the inside out" is the only "proper way" to write good scripts. While that may or may not be true, whatever your writing technique, this app has a lot of promise.
It does need some more work in terms of templates and being able to build custom formats but I am sure that will come in time - especially if the user community grows.
One last thing, this app was developed by a writer who spent several years trying, like all of us, to get the existing apps to do what we wanted and after seeing what everyone wanted, he pulled the trigger and developed his own.
Download and have fun - oh, and HAPPY WRITING!!!
http://www.literatureandlatte.com |
I was going to suggest Scrivener ... it's not a fully-fledged screenwriting app and never will be. Keith, the author, developed it for his own novel-writing purposes but has included a number of "Text Modes" which include "Screen play" and "Stage play", the latter for both US and UK markets. Version 1.02 is due out very soon in which he has apparently responded to requests from professional screenwriters to fix the maximum line-length in Screenplay mode, plus a way to calculate and mark page-length to match Hollywood requirements.
It only came out as a commercial version ($35, a steal) at the end of last year/beginning of this year, but its version number belies its maturity as an app.
Bear in mind that it is intended to do the drafting of works; it is not a word-processor and he never intends it to be. Having created the text, the intention is that you should export the result to your favourite Wordprocessor, Page Make-up software ... or for screenwriters something like Final Draft for detailed formatting. That said, and without analysing your needs in detail, I think it meets most of them. Notes, keywords, tags, Status marking ... easy to split your text right down to paragraph/speech size chunks, and then view and edit them as a continuous text ... move them around ... snapshots to preserve the current version ... full-screen mode to write without distraction if you want ... Small footprint, fast to load and to work.
Don't just download it ... also go to the Forum; very active with a number of professional screenwriters, both Hollywood and UK, participating. Also novelists, translators, journalists, academics ... people writing doctoral theses ...
My principal use is for editing translations ... you can split the screen, so in the one app I can have the original text and the translation I am editing open side by side ... unbeatable.
Mark