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Likes Given: 345 Writing a Screenplay with Scrivener « on: Sun Dec 23 2012, 17:30 »



For the last couple of years I've been boring anyone who'll listen silly about Scrivener, an app which is now my weapon of choice when it comes to writing anything at all. I've become something of a stuck record on the subject. Well, tough, because I happen to think Scrivener is a truly wonderful program and I'm going to continue singing its praise from now until the end of time.



[Preface - I am not in anyway affiliated with Litterature & Latte, nor am I getting any money from this. I'm simply an enthusiastic fan. Judging by reading some of the blogs, Scrivener has many].



I first heard about Scrivener about three years ago in an interview with novelist and screenwriter Neil Cross, perhaps best known as the creator of the BBC series Luther. He said he writes everything in Scrivener, both novels and screenplays, only exporting the work to Microsoft Word or Final Draft when he had to deliver. Being a big old geek when it comes to writing software I took his enthusiastic recommendation on face value and promptly downloaded the trial version.



The couple of hours I spent with it afterwards were an absolute nightmare. I couldn't get my head around it. It had a couple of obvious attractions (more on that later) but it just seemed to me to be an unholy faff and, after a couple of attempts, I gave up. Whatever it was he saw in Scrivener, it clearly wasn't going to work for me.



I've never been so happy to be proved wrong in my life.



For the next few months I began seeing more and more references to Scrivener on various writing blogs (the brilliant David Hewson, author of the Nic Costa series, will bash on about it at any chance he gets). So I decided to go back to the Literature and Latte website and have another look. This time, I did what I should have done first time around and, rather than just downloading the program, I watched the Introduction video. And it was like a revelation.



Scrivener has a number of really brilliant features. The one that won me over, almost immediately, is perhaps the most basic but also the most useful. Scrivener works like an iMovie project in that it runs on a "one file to rule them all" principle. In the writing of any given script, unless you're one of these freaky geniuses who can just dive in and write a perfect draft first off, you're going to actually be writing multiple documents, from your initial brainstorming and notes to outlines and treatments to your first draft, to revisions, cut scenes, title pages … you can be talking anything up to ten documents. In Scrivener, while it's still true, you keep all of those documents, all the elements of your writing project, inside one document. The whole of your project open all the time, with any of the material you might need just a click away.



I was in love, in a very real sense. Now I can't imagine writing anything any other way.



What follows is a comprehensive guide to how I use Scrivener to write screenplays. This by no means a definitive "how to" for Scrivener - the beauty about this program is that it doesn't force you to adopt a specific workflow, it adapts to yours. But this is the method I have developed to write with. I hope some of this might be useful.



To be able to illustrate what I'm talking about, I'll be using the Scrivener file for "Storm Front", 2011's Christmas Special of my VS show Walker.







I should also point out that this has been done using the Mac version of Scrivener. The Windows version isn't quite as powerful (yet - I've been reliably informed that a new version for Windows is coming out next year that will bring it up to speed with the Mac version) but for the purposes of this article I'm only using features that are available in both formats.



Now, onward.



Every script starts off with a simple brainstorm, which I normally do on paper before transcribing into Scrivener. Thus:







That's like an ingredient list for the script, and it's enough to get me started. Then I turn that into a basic synopsis of the whole thing - by its very nature this is brief, it's just to let me see the big moves of the whole thing and it looks like this:







Now I can see the whole thing easily enough.



Next, it's time to break the scenes out, and this is when one of Scrivener's best features comes in: the cork board.







What I've done there is to split the screen, so I've got the outline on one side and the cork board on the other. Here I use the index cards to start breaking out the structure of the script, using the locations of the scenes as the headings and writing a brief description of each scene onto the card. This is a great way to outline and I try to break the whole thing in one sitting where I can - I tend to find the quicker I write this bit, the better the structure turns out to be.



Note the binder on the left hand side of the screen. You can see that as I add a note to the cork board, a corresponding card appears in the binder. If I move the position of a card on the cork board, the card in the binder changes position accordingly, and vice versa. This is great because it makes changing the position of individual scenes an absolute cinch as you don't have to muck around with cutting and pasting.



From there, once the cork board has served its purpose, I ditch the split screen, go into each scene individually and write up a treatment of that scene. It looks like this:







This stage is arguably not necessary and, in fact, I now don't do it very much any more, as I can usually write the scene just from the notes I made in the index card (which, you'll note, appear in the Inspector in the top right hand corner).



Once this stage is completed the script has been comprehensively planned (it's only now that another file comes into it as I'll tend to export the whole outline to a Word or Pages document for backup purposes). Now, finally, I can write the bloody thing.







If you've already got a script on the go in Final Draft that you want to bring into Scrivener, no problem. Just drag it straight into the binder and it'll import.



Scrivener's designed to be a program for writing prose. To write a script all you do is hit the 'script' button on the toolbar. From thereon in it works just like any standard screenwriting software such as Final Draft, and the controls are exactly the same (i.e. hitting tab to go to character name). It also has an auto-complete list that automatically remembers character and location names, again just like any other piece of screenwriting software. There's no great learning curve to using this. Don't be looking for it to add (CONT'D) to characters who speak twice with action between them, or add new character names if a speech is split across two pages - Scrivener doesn't work like that. Fear not though - all of that will be there when it's been compiled into Final Draft, and once you get writing you won't miss it anyway.



So it's pretty much now your standard screenwriting software, with a couple of minor differences.



Firstly, because of the nature of Scrivener, you're only seeing one scene at a time, which is great because it lets you work on that one moment to the exclusion of everything else. If you need to see more than one scene, just highlight them in the binder and they'll all be shown in the editor. This, incidentally, has a very powerful extra feature. Say for instance I want to work on a particular strand of the story, say scenes only featuring Alec Walker. I can just select them from the binder and see only the scenes he's in, straight through. This is a great little feature and I tend to use it a lot for dialogue polishes. (On the same subject, note the keywords column on the right. I use that to note who's in what scene, for this exact purpose. Then I can search using those keywords and only those scenes come up).



Secondly, Scrivener doesn't really have the concept of pages because it was designed to take that away from novel writers. When writing a novel, where you work in word counts, it's not necessary. With a script, of course, a page count is vital, so you can get this by using the 'wrap text' feature, which gives you a page layout view.



Also, I keep count of them using this little feature:







The '122 pages' number is actually just another document I insert into the binder below the title page. It's got no content at all and doesn't get compiled into the actual draft when the time comes to export it (more on that later). I simply use that to keep a track on the number of pages. This won't be 100% exact to how it turns out when it hits Final Draft, but it's close enough to be workable.



Also, note that the scenes labeled "Corrine's cell" have been sperated by hyphens. This was originally one scene that I split down (with Scrivener you can split scenes at the touch of a button). This is great when it comes to intercutting stuff or changing the order of scenes. Again, you can just drag them around in the binder to do that.



And that's pretty much it for the writing side of things. You write your script through to conclusion as you would in any normal piece of screenwriting software.



For backup purposes, at the end of every writing session, I export the script to a Final Draft file and save it to my hard drive.







The compile feature is what you use to get your project out of Scrivener and into another file format. This feature is really versatile - it can export to plain text, rich text, Microsoft Word, PDFs and, for our purposes here today, Final Draft. If you're a novelist you can also use this feature to change the formatting of your text into something appropriate for submitting your book to an agent or publisher. There's presets built in for a ton of things, or you can create your own. With a script, exporting to Final Draft is easy because that preset is already built in.



You can also decide which scenes you want to include or not include right here just by placing a tick in the box to the left. This will, incidentally, only export documents within your main draft folder - all your notes etc will remain where they are.



When I've completed a draft, after I've exported it I also make a duplicate of the whole thing in Scrivener and move that into a separate drafts folder, noted by date accordingly.







This takes us back to the 'one file to rule them all' principle.



Note as well the folder called 'unplaced scenes'. This is an idea I got from the aforementioned David Hewson. Got a scene that you know needs to go into the script but don't know where? Write it down, either as a synopsis on an index card, the whole scene, or both. Put it in here. When you need it, it's there waiting for you. This has got me out of trouble a few times. I also use this to shove in scenes I might delete from a subsequent draft, in case I need to bring them back or refer to them later.



And there you have it. That's how I use Scrivener. As I always tell people, it's a faff to get your head around but once you have done it's a terrific piece of software and I now wouldn't even think of writing in anything else. If you're a writer of any description, you owe it to yourself to try Scrivener.



To get a better look at the program, have a look at the videos from the website. They're comprehensive and give you a solid look at what the program is all about. Plus, it's cheap - the program only costs $45 and for the power that this app gives you, it's worth its weight in gold.



~ Adam Scott For the last couple of years I've been boring anyone who'll listen silly about, an app which is now my weapon of choice when it comes to writing anything at all. I've become something of a stuck record on the subject. Well, tough, because I happen to think Scrivener is a truly wonderful program and I'm going to continue singing its praise from now until the end of time.I first heard about Scrivener about three years ago in an interview with novelist and screenwriter, perhaps best known as the creator of the BBC series. He said he writes everything in Scrivener, both novels and screenplays, only exporting the work to Microsoft Word or Final Draft when he had to deliver. Being a big old geek when it comes to writing software I took his enthusiastic recommendation on face value and promptly downloaded the trial version.The couple of hours I spent with it afterwards were an absolute nightmare. I couldn't get my head around it. It had a couple of obvious attractions (more on that later) but it just seemed to me to be an unholy faff and, after a couple of attempts, I gave up. Whatever it was he saw in Scrivener, it clearly wasn't going to work for me.I've never been so happy to be proved wrong in my life.For the next few months I began seeing more and more references to Scrivener on various writing blogs (the brilliant, author of the, will bash on about it at any chance he gets). So I decided to go back to the Literature and Latte website and have another look. This time, I did what I should have done first time around and, rather than just downloading the program, I watched the Introduction video. And it was like a revelation.Scrivener has a number of really brilliant features. The one that won me over, almost immediately, is perhaps the most basic but also the most useful. Scrivener works like an iMovie project in that it runs on a "one file to rule them all" principle. In the writing of any given script, unless you're one of these freaky geniuses who can just dive in and write a perfect draft first off, you're going to actually be writing multiple documents, from your initial brainstorming and notes to outlines and treatments to your first draft, to revisions, cut scenes, title pages … you can be talking anything up to ten documents. In Scrivener, while it's still true, you keep all of those documents, all the elements of your writing project, inside one document. The whole of your project open all the time, with any of the material you might need just a click away.I was in love, in a very real sense. Now I can't imagine writing anything any other way.. This by no means a definitive "how to" for Scrivener - the beauty about this program is that it doesn't force you to adopt a specific workflow, it adapts to yours. But this is the method I have developed to write with. I hope some of this might be useful.To be able to illustrate what I'm talking about, I'll be using the Scrivener file for "Storm Front", 2011's Christmas Special of my VS show. The Windows version isn't quite as powerful (yet - I've been reliably informed that a new version for Windows is coming out next year that will bring it up to speed with the Mac version) but for the purposes of this article I'm only using features that are available in both formats.Now, onward.Every script starts off with a simple brainstorm, which I normally do on paper before transcribing into Scrivener. Thus:That's like an ingredient list for the script, and it's enough to get me started. Then I turn that into a basic synopsis of the whole thing - by its very nature this is brief, it's just to let me see the big moves of the whole thing and it looks like this:Now I can see the whole thing easily enough.Next, it's time to break the scenes out, and this is when one of Scrivener's best features comes in:What I've done there is to split the screen, so I've got the outline on one side and the cork board on the other. Here I use the index cards to start breaking out the structure of the script, using the locations of the scenes as the headings and writing a brief description of each scene onto the card. This is a great way to outline and I try to break the whole thing in one sitting where I can - I tend to find the quicker I write this bit, the better the structure turns out to be.Note the binder on the left hand side of the screen. You can see that as I add a note to the cork board, a corresponding card appears in the binder. If I move the position of a card on the cork board, the card in the binder changes position accordingly, and vice versa. This is great because it makes changing the position of individual scenes an absolute cinch as you don't have to muck around with cutting and pasting.From there, once the cork board has served its purpose, I ditch the split screen, go into each scene individually and write up a treatment of that scene. It looks like this:This stage is arguably not necessary and, in fact, I now don't do it very much any more, as I can usually write the scene just from the notes I made in the index card (which, you'll note, appear in thein the top right hand corner).Once this stage is completed the script has been comprehensively planned (it's only now that another file comes into it as I'll tend to export the whole outline to a Word or Pages document for backup purposes).If you've already got a script on the go inthat you want to bring into Scrivener, no problem. Just drag it straight into the binder and it'll import.Scrivener's designed to be a program for writing prose.. From thereon in it works just like any standard screenwriting software such as Final Draft, and the controls are exactly the same (i.e. hitting tab to go to character name). It also has an auto-complete list that automatically remembers character and location names, again just like any other piece of screenwriting software. There's no great learning curve to using this. Don't be looking for it to add (CONT'D) to characters who speak twice with action between them, or add new character names if a speech is split across two pages - Scrivener doesn't work like that. Fear not though - all of that will be there when it's been compiled into Final Draft, and once you get writing you won't miss it anyway.So it's pretty much now your standard screenwriting software, with a couple of minor differences.Firstly, because of the nature of Scrivener, you're only seeing one scene at a time, which is great because it lets you work on that one moment to the exclusion of everything else.. This, incidentally, has a very powerful extra feature. Say for instance I want to work on a particular strand of the story, say scenes only featuring Alec Walker. I can just select them from the binder and see only the scenes he's in, straight through. This is a great little feature and I tend to use it a lot for dialogue polishes. (On the same subject, note the keywords column on the right. I use that to note who's in what scene, for this exact purpose. Then I can search using those keywords and only those scenes come up).Secondly, Scrivener doesn't really have the concept of pages because it was designed to take that away from novel writers. When writing a novel, where you work in word counts, it's not necessary.Also, I keep count of them using this little feature:The '122 pages' number is actually just another document I insert into the binder below the title page. It's got no content at all and doesn't get compiled into the actual draft when the time comes to export it (more on that later). I simply use that to keep a track on the number of pages. This won't be 100% exact to how it turns out when it hits Final Draft, but it's close enough to be workable.Also, note that the scenes labeled "Corrine's cell" have been sperated by hyphens. This was originally one scene that I split down (). This is great when it comes to intercutting stuff or changing the order of scenes. Again, you can just drag them around in the binder to do that.And that's pretty much it for the writing side of things. You write your script through to conclusion as you would in any normal piece of screenwriting software.The compile feature is what you use to get your project out of Scrivener and into another file format. This feature is really versatile - it can export to plain text, rich text, Microsoft Word, PDFs and, for our purposes here today, Final Draft. If you're a novelist you can also use this feature to change the formatting of your text into something appropriate for submitting your book to an agent or publisher. There's presets built in for a ton of things, or you can create your own. With a script, exporting to Final Draft is easy because that preset is already built in.You can also decide which scenes you want to include or not include right here just by placing a tick in the box to the left. This will, incidentally, only export documents within your main draft folder - all your notes etc will remain where they are.When I've completed a draft, after I've exported it I also make a duplicate of the whole thing in Scrivener and move that into a separate drafts folder, noted by date accordingly.This takes us back to theprinciple.Note as well the folder called 'unplaced scenes'. This is an idea I got from the aforementioned David Hewson. Got a scene that you know needs to go into the script but don't know where? Write it down, either as a synopsis on an index card, the whole scene, or both. Put it in here. When you need it, it's there waiting for you. This has got me out of trouble a few times. I also use this to shove in scenes I might delete from a subsequent draft, in case I need to bring them back or refer to them later.And there you have it.. As I always tell people, it's a faff to get your head around but once you have done it's a terrific piece of software and I now wouldn't even think of writing in anything else. If you're a writer of any description, you owe it to yourself to try Scrivener.. They're comprehensive and give you a solid look at what the program is all about.and for the power that this app gives you, it's worth its weight in gold.~ Adam Scott « Last Edit: Mon Jul 29 2013, 11:25 by Vaughn » Stevie_G MZP Community Member





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Likes Given: 25 Re: [ARTICLE] Writing a Screenplay with Scrivener « Reply #1 on: Fri Dec 28 2012, 12:59 » Have to say, I tried Scrivener before and struggled like Adam at first to get my head around it all. But the other day had a good read of this article and followed the easy instructions provided for a script doing over on TEN website, and it's helped me in a way write out the brief summary's before hand for each scene idea, from what it should contain and where it wants to go (usually I just start writing and it comes to me as I write which direction I'm taking).



Now, while I still only have the trial period of Scrivener on my pc, I may consider purchasing it when it ends and used it a little more so that I use it to help create/flesh out some of my other ideas I need work on even more.



I'd recommended a good read of this article, and if you follow the instructions provided by Adam it will set you on a goal to sorting the scenes out beforehand so that you have a good guide you created of what to write in your script from the notes you have compiled all in one place. Makes having all your notes, ideas, scene placements, treatments and even characters and places compiled into one neat program.



Makes writing scripts so much easier! Tony Black Writer. Mentor. Manchild.

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Likes Given: 694 Re: [ARTICLE] Writing a Screenplay with Scrivener « Reply #2 on: Fri Dec 28 2012, 23:48 » Great article buddy.



You know I love Scrivener now from a novel perspective, but I'm going to try tackling a script in it now thanks to your words. The Cultural Conversation | Set The Tape Adam Guest Re: [ARTICLE] Writing a Screenplay with Scrivener « Reply #3 on: Sat Dec 29 2012, 11:40 » Hah! Really? That's great, Tony, I always thought Scrivener would really suit how you work anyway so if my directions can be useful then fantastic. And thanks for the kind words Steve. Send this topic

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