Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Now If Someone Can Explain That Vertical Keyboard To Me...


Just a quick survey from the multitude of visitors to this site (stop snickering)...

What software are you using for writing? Are you using a story software as well? What was your progression to this point and what would your perfect solution give you?

Just to let you know where I'm coming from, I'm currently a Final Draft user, but through my old job I received a free license for Movie Magic Screenwriter and Writer's Dream Kit, the latter of which I've been using to build the story for my current script. I've recently been checking out Scrivener, although once I typed int. and the application didn't immediately pop that into all caps as I'm used to with Final Draft, I scratched my head (perhaps it's a preferences thing). I'm also using a Mac, but I'm not angling to turn this into a PC v. Mac debate, my personal belief is whatever works for you works for you.

Some of you may also be just using pen and paper, which is totally cool, but it's remarkable to me how alien the idea seems to me now that I've been using a computer for years. I personally went pretty early to computers for writing, having started by using WordPerfect on a Data General One in high school, printing out on a dot matrix printer with the slowest and noisiest print head you can imagine. It was a machine gun and every letter hit the page like a brand.

Comment away.

6 comments:

Thomas Rufer said...

I'm using openoffice but recently I started to see how I can port all this to google docs. That way I have my scripts electronically everywhere I go.

I never go used to these screenwriting programs because I do all the formatting myself blindly and am much faster, especially when I have to do something special.

Tom said...

Popular topic, huh? Maybe I should have asked how many brads to use.

Anonymous said...

FD6. Never really tried anything else. I only use it for the script format, not notes or outlining; that kind of stuff I do with scraps of paper and blind faith.

Rene said...

Final Draft 7. I hate it. It moves the cursor all over the place to add the (MORE)s and (CONT'D)s, not caring whether you're in the middle of typing something or not. FD6 was much better.

I've heard good things about Movie Magic Screenwriter, and their other software is good.

@spanish prisoner: I was once a purist like you. I used Open Office to write everything. But then I found out I was formatting my scripts wrong. They looked right, but weren't. It could happen to YOU!

Piers said...

Final Draft 6.

Dante Kleinberg said...

I use MS Word for outlining. Don't ask why, I just like it.

Then I shift to Movie Magic Screenwriter for the actual writing. I bought it off a writing partner's recommendation, and used my girlfriend's school ID to get a big discount.

Then I edit in pencil on printed pages, line-by-line.

Lather, rinse, repeat.