Fantastic video, William. Very thorough. I finished a novel over lockdown with Scrivener and decided to have a go at a screenplay next. I got around to researching software today. Little did I know, I had everything I needed already. You've just taught me a bucket full and saved me money. Thank you, sire.
I am very glad to have this overlap with you - I am a PC guy - I am not the slightest bit interested in any other videos by anyone but your Scrivener 2, which I think are tops. Life is hard .. and short for fuse, but You are a comfortable ferry over the swamp and an Overland thru the bustle. Yes, you may quote that make fun of it.
No making fun, I’m delighted and flattered, thanks. I think the first time I heard of Scrivener was from a PC user; she’d installed it on her Windows computer at work for surreptitious lunchtime editing. It’s brilliant that the the two versions are interchangeable like that.
Thank you for breaking down everything! I've recently acquired this software for my short films and looking to switch to writing and directing as an Actor - you revealing the secrets have changed my life! haha
Excellent. Good actors have a great advantage, I think, in automatically writing dialogue that is easy to speak. Can take non-actors a long time to pull that off.
Enjoyed that thank you and you raised some points that I am chuffed to say I thought of myself, especially using a stand alone screenwriting app for scripts. I have grown up with Scrivener for 10 years plus now and love it, but I also found swopping apps with the same script created caos within Scrivener.
That's a good point, hmm. I have taken a script back and forth between Scrivener and Final Draft, but only for testing -- and testing is never the same as have a real use for the feature.
People rarely mention Fade In Pro, Kent Tessman’s app that is not only better (IMO) than Final Draft, but essentially the same price as Scrivener. Worth looking at if you’re interested in dedicated script functionality that is more fully featured than Highland or Scrivener, but doesn’t have the FD bloat. I’ve used it for years and it’s actively developed/updated.
Hi William, sat in Turkey on holiday and rewatching many of your marvellous videos while eating Turkish biscuits and drinking super-strong Turkish khave. Terrific stuff but back to Blighty on Tuesday - booooh 🙄
After several minutes of trying to figure out why the folks at Scrivener would choose Command-Shift-Y as their keystroke to access the script elements dialog box--so that I might have some sort of memory key by which to remember the keystroke--it occurred to me that "Y" looks somewhat like the indent/margin indicator on some word processors (on the ruler bar). And since choosing the script element selection determines where the cursor goes on the next line, that seemed to make sense to me, so I'll use that as my memory key for that keystroke. Whether or not that was their intention, who knows, but it works for me. It also took me some time to figure out that "biscuits" actually means "cookies." Being American, that did not occur to me right away. The first several times I heard you use the word, I wondered, why does this guy love biscuits so much? But then I figured out what you were saying and I got it. I always have cookies with tea or coffee when I write, so I realized, we have that in common. And I was proud of myself for figuring out the meaning of the term just from context, instead of having to Google it. That all said, yes, I, too, love Scrivener. I haven't yet tried it out on scriptwriting, but I will now. I have one script that's stalled, which I was writing in Final Draft, and I'm wondering if it stalled just because I really don't like Final Draft. (Can't say why.) So I'll import that one into Scrivener and see if I have better luck. Thanks for another useful and entertaining video. Have a wonderful day. Love your channel.
Cookies! It never occurred to me to translate biscuits. I'm not certain I could have worked that out if I were you, so I am impressed as well as delighted. Thanks. Do you know the British term "shifty"? As in someone looking like they might be lying. Half my characters are lying and so are the other half, so right now, reading your mention of Command-Shift-Y, I've decided to think of the keystroke as being Shifty. Get back to that script, you, it won't write itself.
@@WilliamGallagher We do use "shifty," sometimes, though I suspect not as often as you lot. (See, I knew another one. We never say you lot. We do say, "y'all" and "all y'all," but mostly in the American South.) We are two nations, divided by a single language. It's all quite fascinating to me.
@@mbullwriter Absolutely. I was thinking th other day that I love the word "gotten" specifically because here it is practically abhorred since UK people believe it's an Americanism - yet it's really British English. We just forgot to use it and America has protected it, kept it in the language. I love this stuff.
Once again many thanks for this William, fascinating. I have attempted screenwriting yet, but you have piqued my interest! I need to find some scripts to read now
You put this up early. I pay attention to these things. I loved this one as you can imagine. The good news is I could understand everything you said. If and when I get back to a script, I'll stick with Highland 2. BTW, I got all the evasion reports through to bail out today. Next up, I'll get them all on the ground. Yesterday's reports got them through to the Secondary target...my German cousin helped me local the town that was bombed. So, 79 years after the bombing he and I are working as a team on this. History is strange some times in its twists and turns.
Looking at scriptwriting from the outside, it seems like it would be a service to writers to unseat Final Draft's near monopoly. Scrivener must surely offer better support than conventional tools, or so it seems from up here in the cheap seats. Do you foresee any organizational help in screenwriting from Scrivener's cork board modes? That was the thing that hooked me on Scrivener. Also the outline lock feature, where you can have outline mode in the left pane, showing binder title and synopsis, with the right pane showing the document currently selected in the left pane. That's sweet, rad, hip, or the reet pleat, depending on one's era. I'm but a callow youth. I have no idea what a reet pleat is. Don't know why I mentioned it. I just heard somewhere that was killer-diller. As always, as ever, great video!
If you take the time to create a new Scrivening for each scene, then the Corkboard is exactly as useful in scripts as it is in books. I don't use it, but then I never really used actual corkboards and I know so many writers who do. As for Final Draft, I have enough problems with it that I can't exactly race to defend the software, but what it does well, it does very well. I said in the video that if someone has an old version of Final Draft, they should stick with it but maybe that's easy to say since I have the latest Final Draft 12.There are organisational and outlining tools in it, I don't feel that Scrivener is better in any way other than this issue of being so good on the prose side. And having the Binder. But apart from that...
Well im trying it for a bbc style audio format. I opened that template, copied in my script from Word for the first scene and waited for the magic. Nothing. It looks exactly as I did it in Word which is not BBC style and I find it too technical to use indents etc. So how does it get formatted?
It's not a converter, you don't get to run text through it and have it assign formats. You have to say this is a scene heading, and then that is transformed into one. And that is dialogue, and so on. This is one reason why I think writing from scratch is easier in Scrivener or Final Draft, doing this stuff as you go along is less of a chore.
Another great video, thanks William! I wonder whether the script feature may be a useful tool for novelists who want to dabble in screenwriting without wanting to invest in a dedicated screenwriting environment until they build up their craft? Or perhaps there could be some use in novelists writing difficult scenes as a stage or film scene to help with drafting dialogue or visualising how their characters react to one another? I guess you could be quite experimental in Scrivener to get the creative juices flowing!
That's an interesting thought. I had a radio project once where I simply could not pull off a scene I needed, and then I wrote it as a stage play and fixed the problem instantly. Just looking at something from another angle or in a different form can help.
I use scrivener all the time i know most of its ins and outs but one thing i cannot seem to locate or really find any information on is how to get your scenes to be visible numbered. there seems to have been an option but following the instructions guided leads me to a place lacking a dropdown menu I require.
I just tried following these instructions from a Reddit post that's here: Use the Format ▸ Scriptwriting ▸ Script Settings... command. Select the element you wish to have numbered (probably "Scene Heading"). In the Paragraph tab, click the Options button. Select the numbering style you prefer, from the Sequential numbering dropdown. www.reddit.com/r/scrivener/comments/ymazi1/how_do_i_number_scenes_in_scrivener/ It didn't seem to do anything in Scrivener, but when I compiled the script and exported it as PDF, that PDF had every scene numbered.
Would an industry professional notice that the script was written in Scrivener? Would they be put off by that? For example, I know the Final Draft font is slightly unique.
As long as it’s Courier don’t and the right layout, no one cares - until, probably, when you get into production. Then it helps to have a standard app but even then, it’s PDFs that are read the most.
They are both good and they both have one core function but hope to get more users by having a secondary one. In Final Draft’s case it’s that as well as scripts, you can write treatments, pitch letters and possibly even novels. I don’t think it’s especially great at those. With Scrivener, as well as being for long form prose writers, you can write scripts in them. I like how Scrivener handles scripts. But since I have both, I use both for their primary functions. If you need to buy just one, I wouldn’t see Scrivener as a cheap Final Draft. I’d think about what writing I need to do. If it’s chiefly scripts, go for Final Draft - or alternatives such as Highland 2 - and it’s chiefly long pieces or prose, go for Scrivener.
How should that work with comic book scripts? I’m used to sound effects in radio where I’ll just write “F/X: some particular noise” in the stage directions.
This is a must watch I watched this before I bought Scrivener 3 & am back for writing comic book script
Thank you.
Fantastic video, William. Very thorough. I finished a novel over lockdown with Scrivener and decided to have a go at a screenplay next. I got around to researching software today. Little did I know, I had everything I needed already. You've just taught me a bucket full and saved me money. Thank you, sire.
I’m delighted: that’s made my day, thank you.
Very useful, but I love listening to you, even for the videos that aren't useful for me. Thanks.
That's made my day, thank you.
I am very glad to have this overlap with you - I am a PC guy - I am not the slightest bit interested in any other videos by anyone but your Scrivener 2, which I think are tops. Life is hard .. and short for fuse, but You are a comfortable ferry over the swamp and an Overland thru the bustle. Yes, you may quote that make fun of it.
No making fun, I’m delighted and flattered, thanks. I think the first time I heard of Scrivener was from a PC user; she’d installed it on her Windows computer at work for surreptitious lunchtime editing. It’s brilliant that the the two versions are interchangeable like that.
Thank you for breaking down everything! I've recently acquired this software for my short films and looking to switch to writing and directing as an Actor - you revealing the secrets have changed my life! haha
Excellent. Good actors have a great advantage, I think, in automatically writing dialogue that is easy to speak. Can take non-actors a long time to pull that off.
Greatly appreciate this overview of script writing in Scrivener. Time to go and write something!
Absolutely!
Enjoyed that thank you and you raised some points that I am chuffed to say I thought of myself, especially using a stand alone screenwriting app for scripts. I have grown up with Scrivener for 10 years plus now and love it, but I also found swopping apps with the same script created caos within Scrivener.
That's a good point, hmm. I have taken a script back and forth between Scrivener and Final Draft, but only for testing -- and testing is never the same as have a real use for the feature.
Excellent video - thank you so much William
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
People rarely mention Fade In Pro, Kent Tessman’s app that is not only better (IMO) than Final Draft, but essentially the same price as Scrivener. Worth looking at if you’re interested in dedicated script functionality that is more fully featured than Highland or Scrivener, but doesn’t have the FD bloat. I’ve used it for years and it’s actively developed/updated.
Thank you: I should look into it.
This is what I've been looking for. Thank you.
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
Thanks again. Never used it for scriptwriting but must have a look.
I can still see my face the day someone told me this app I thought I knew so well had this whole other side to it. And that it is done so well, too.
Hi William, sat in Turkey on holiday and rewatching many of your marvellous videos while eating Turkish biscuits and drinking super-strong Turkish khave. Terrific stuff but back to Blighty on Tuesday - booooh 🙄
Goodness. Rewatching. In Turkey. That's absolutely made my day, thank you.
After several minutes of trying to figure out why the folks at Scrivener would choose Command-Shift-Y as their keystroke to access the script elements dialog box--so that I might have some sort of memory key by which to remember the keystroke--it occurred to me that "Y" looks somewhat like the indent/margin indicator on some word processors (on the ruler bar). And since choosing the script element selection determines where the cursor goes on the next line, that seemed to make sense to me, so I'll use that as my memory key for that keystroke. Whether or not that was their intention, who knows, but it works for me.
It also took me some time to figure out that "biscuits" actually means "cookies." Being American, that did not occur to me right away. The first several times I heard you use the word, I wondered, why does this guy love biscuits so much? But then I figured out what you were saying and I got it. I always have cookies with tea or coffee when I write, so I realized, we have that in common. And I was proud of myself for figuring out the meaning of the term just from context, instead of having to Google it.
That all said, yes, I, too, love Scrivener. I haven't yet tried it out on scriptwriting, but I will now. I have one script that's stalled, which I was writing in Final Draft, and I'm wondering if it stalled just because I really don't like Final Draft. (Can't say why.) So I'll import that one into Scrivener and see if I have better luck.
Thanks for another useful and entertaining video. Have a wonderful day. Love your channel.
Cookies! It never occurred to me to translate biscuits. I'm not certain I could have worked that out if I were you, so I am impressed as well as delighted. Thanks. Do you know the British term "shifty"? As in someone looking like they might be lying. Half my characters are lying and so are the other half, so right now, reading your mention of Command-Shift-Y, I've decided to think of the keystroke as being Shifty. Get back to that script, you, it won't write itself.
@@WilliamGallagher We do use "shifty," sometimes, though I suspect not as often as you lot. (See, I knew another one. We never say you lot. We do say, "y'all" and "all y'all," but mostly in the American South.)
We are two nations, divided by a single language. It's all quite fascinating to me.
@@mbullwriter Absolutely. I was thinking th other day that I love the word "gotten" specifically because here it is practically abhorred since UK people believe it's an Americanism - yet it's really British English. We just forgot to use it and America has protected it, kept it in the language. I love this stuff.
Once again many thanks for this William, fascinating. I have attempted screenwriting yet, but you have piqued my interest! I need to find some scripts to read now
Brilliant. I read mostly TV scripts and have deep-mined this superb site: sites.google.com/site/tvwriting/home?authuser=0
You put this up early. I pay attention to these things. I loved this one as you can imagine. The good news is I could understand everything you said. If and when I get back to a script, I'll stick with Highland 2. BTW, I got all the evasion reports through to bail out today. Next up, I'll get them all on the ground. Yesterday's reports got them through to the Secondary target...my German cousin helped me local the town that was bombed. So, 79 years after the bombing he and I are working as a team on this. History is strange some times in its twists and turns.
It's so exciting reading you saying this: there's nothing, nothing, like being deep into your own story.
Fantastic content. Thank you for all of the insight.
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
Absolutely brilliant, sir. Thanks.
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
Thank you so much for this!!
My pleasure, thank you for commenting.
Looking at scriptwriting from the outside, it seems like it would be a service to writers to unseat Final Draft's near monopoly. Scrivener must surely offer better support than conventional tools, or so it seems from up here in the cheap seats.
Do you foresee any organizational help in screenwriting from Scrivener's cork board modes? That was the thing that hooked me on Scrivener.
Also the outline lock feature, where you can have outline mode in the left pane, showing binder title and synopsis, with the right pane showing the document currently selected in the left pane. That's sweet, rad, hip, or the reet pleat, depending on one's era.
I'm but a callow youth. I have no idea what a reet pleat is. Don't know why I mentioned it. I just heard somewhere that was killer-diller.
As always, as ever, great video!
If you take the time to create a new Scrivening for each scene, then the Corkboard is exactly as useful in scripts as it is in books. I don't use it, but then I never really used actual corkboards and I know so many writers who do.
As for Final Draft, I have enough problems with it that I can't exactly race to defend the software, but what it does well, it does very well. I said in the video that if someone has an old version of Final Draft, they should stick with it but maybe that's easy to say since I have the latest Final Draft 12.There are organisational and outlining tools in it, I don't feel that Scrivener is better in any way other than this issue of being so good on the prose side.
And having the Binder. But apart from that...
Well im trying it for a bbc style audio format. I opened that template, copied in my script from Word for the first scene and waited for the magic. Nothing.
It looks exactly as I did it in Word which is not BBC style and I find it too technical to use indents etc.
So how does it get formatted?
It's not a converter, you don't get to run text through it and have it assign formats. You have to say this is a scene heading, and then that is transformed into one. And that is dialogue, and so on. This is one reason why I think writing from scratch is easier in Scrivener or Final Draft, doing this stuff as you go along is less of a chore.
Another great video, thanks William! I wonder whether the script feature may be a useful tool for novelists who want to dabble in screenwriting without wanting to invest in a dedicated screenwriting environment until they build up their craft? Or perhaps there could be some use in novelists writing difficult scenes as a stage or film scene to help with drafting dialogue or visualising how their characters react to one another? I guess you could be quite experimental in Scrivener to get the creative juices flowing!
That's an interesting thought. I had a radio project once where I simply could not pull off a scene I needed, and then I wrote it as a stage play and fixed the problem instantly. Just looking at something from another angle or in a different form can help.
Good video. You're funny and a good teacher.
Thank you, that's very good of you to say.
I use scrivener all the time i know most of its ins and outs but one thing i cannot seem to locate or really find any information on is how to get your scenes to be visible numbered.
there seems to have been an option but following the instructions guided leads me to a place lacking a dropdown menu I require.
I just tried following these instructions from a Reddit post that's here: Use the Format ▸ Scriptwriting ▸ Script Settings... command.
Select the element you wish to have numbered (probably "Scene Heading").
In the Paragraph tab, click the Options button.
Select the numbering style you prefer, from the Sequential numbering dropdown.
www.reddit.com/r/scrivener/comments/ymazi1/how_do_i_number_scenes_in_scrivener/
It didn't seem to do anything in Scrivener, but when I compiled the script and exported it as PDF, that PDF had every scene numbered.
Would an industry professional notice that the script was written in Scrivener? Would they be put off by that? For example, I know the Final Draft font is slightly unique.
As long as it’s Courier don’t and the right layout, no one cares - until, probably, when you get into production. Then it helps to have a standard app but even then, it’s PDFs that are read the most.
How does Scrivener compare with Final Draft? Pros and cons?
They are both good and they both have one core function but hope to get more users by having a secondary one. In Final Draft’s case it’s that as well as scripts, you can write treatments, pitch letters and possibly even novels. I don’t think it’s especially great at those. With Scrivener, as well as being for long form prose writers, you can write scripts in them. I like how Scrivener handles scripts. But since I have both, I use both for their primary functions. If you need to buy just one, I wouldn’t see Scrivener as a cheap Final Draft. I’d think about what writing I need to do. If it’s chiefly scripts, go for Final Draft - or alternatives such as Highland 2 - and it’s chiefly long pieces or prose, go for Scrivener.
Excellent
Thank you.
When Ben Elton was writing Popcorn, he would have appreciated the prose/script swap function.
Curses, I didn't think of that.
Big issues its missing off panel or off screen & sound effects
How should that work with comic book scripts? I’m used to sound effects in radio where I’ll just write “F/X: some particular noise” in the stage directions.
Another interesting video...
Thank you.
I say Scrivener like Scribe e ner... anyone else?
You are unique.
Please write “day” or “night” only. Your friendly neighborhood script reader.
Have you read the pilot script to "The Last Ship"? It doesn't even use scene headings and it's startlingly how well it works.