Screenwriting : Screenwritng Software by Guy McDouall

Hi Guy, I'm a novelist who has always used MS Word (and found it frustrating in too many ways with which to bore you here.) However coming from a film background I want to move into writing screenplays and a screenwriter friend said he had ditched Final Draft for Scrivener and absolutely loved it. I tried the free demo for Scrivener, loved it too so immediately bought it (very reasonable at under thirty quid.) It was a fairly intense learning curve although nothing like, for example, Photoshop or In Design, and I had the basics covered pretty quickly. I was so impressed I decided to import the novel I'm currently writing from Word into Scrivener and so far I'm finding it amazing. it is brilliant for organisation. I love the corkboards and particularly the ability to use colour-coded chips so I can see at a glance which characters appear in which chapters and (as this novel is erotic) which chapters contain sexually explicit content - previously I used to carry around a tatty print-off of my chapter plan with notes and arrows drawn in highlighter, pencil and pen all over it, which wasn't ideal as my chapter plans are organic and change during the writing process so quickly updating them including the notes is useful. When it comes to writing my first screenplay (still knee-deep in researching the craft first) I'm definitely using Scrivener. One thing I don't understand though, and I can't find an answer on the Scrivener forums, is if you're just writing spec scripts (and therefore don't need all the in production process facilities that FD provides) why would you need to export your final Scrivener files to FD? Why would you need FD at all if you can export to both PDF and FDX? I've not been able to find an answer to that one anywhere, if anyone can help I'd be most grateful.

Jude, thanks for the reply. I heard a couple of people say good things about Scriviner, so your comments certainly make it look all the more worth checking out. Your question; why do you need to export your files to Final Draft? Having not worked with Scrivener I'm not the best person to answer it. However, I certainly don't like the though of my screenplay being confined to only being worked on in Scriviner. Their own website states that it lacks some of the more advanced features of dedicated screenwriting software. You always like to think your script is going to do well enough that somebody will take an interest and want to take it further, meaning you may need those features once other people are involved. There's also the possibility that you sell a script but someone else ends up being brought in to do a draft. They may not want to work in Scriviner or even have it. Short answer, if you start looking like you might end up being a paid writer, you (or another writer brought in to do some work on your script) may need to do at least some of your work in something other than Scriviner. Most decent dedicated screenwriting programs will be able to import an FDX file.

Hi Guy, thanks...Scrivener exports to FDX...I guess what I should do is get hold of FD anyway, it would probably be best to be au fait with the software in any case...

NO! ;) Get hold of Fade In! One fifth the price and will import the Final Draft File that scriviner exports.

@Guy thanks but too late! I've got FD now and absolutely love it! :)

Well, I like Movie Magic Screenwriter. It has got similar features as Final Draft but I find the workflow much easier here.