Many people want to know what’s the best software to help them write screenplays. The answer is none. The best way to write screenplays is to learn story structure and storytelling techniques. You can do that with paper and pencil without touching a computer at all.
The biggest mistake anyone can make is deluding yourself that the “right” software can magically help you succeed as a screenwriter. That’s why so many writers are anxiously experimenting with artificial intelligence programs like ChatGPT in hopes that such a program can do all the hard work for them so they just have to cash the seven-figure paychecks they get from Hollywood.
That’s never going to happen.
If you want to write screenplays, the first program you really need is any word processor to capture your thoughts and ideas. You don’t want to write a screenplay too soon until you actually know what your story is about. If you try to make up your story as you write it as a screenplay, you’re doing two tasks at once, which means you’ll likely not doing either task very well.
Stop.
Focus on creating your story first. You can do that with paper and pencil or any word processor. However, if you’re willing to take some time to learn a unique word processor for writers, consider a program called Scrivener. (I’m an affiliate of Scrivener, which means I get a percentage of any sales made through the links on this site.)
The main advantage of using Scrivener instead of an ordinary word processor like Microsoft Word is how Scrivener stores text. If you wrote ten chapters of a book in Microsoft Word, you’d like create ten separate files and store them in a folder on your computer. Unfortunately, all of those separate files can easily get separated from each other.
With Scrivener, you create a single file and within that single file, you can store multiple chunks of text. This essentially lets you store ten (or more) chapters of a book in a single file, making it easy to find, edit, and rearrange your text. In the screenshot below, the far left pane displays an outline where each outline topic represents a separate chunk of text.
Clicking on an outline topic displays the text stored within that topic. This lets you quickly jump from one topic to another to review and edit different parts of your text.
By using Scrivener, you can organize all your text, notes, and research in a single file so you never risk misplacing a file like you might by storing separate data in multiple Microsoft Word files on your computer.
You can even use Scrivener to write and format screenplays. This lets you write scenes out of order since each scene can appear completely separate from any other scenes in your story. When you’re done writing, combine all your scenes together and save the formatted screenplay in Final Draft format, which is the standard for sharing screenplays in Hollywood.
So the two huge advantages of Scrivener over ordinary word processors are:
- Scrivener lets you combine multiple text chunks (such as chapters) in a single Scrivener file. Ordinary word processors would force you to store multiple text chunks in separate files on your computer, making them easy to misplace and clumsy to view the text in all files quickly and easily.
- Scrivener makes it easy to write scenes out of order. Ordinary screenwriting word processors like Final Draft force you to write in a linear fashion, making it harder to write scenes out of order.
The huge drawback with Scrivener is that it can be an intimidating program to use. If learning something new on a computer terrifies you, you probably don’t want to even try using Scrivener.
The main idea behind using a word processor initially is to capture your ideas for your story. Always focus on making up the best story possible. Then tell it to others and notice if they’re interested or bored. By constantly testing your story on others, you can learn the weak parts of your story and rewrite it until you have a strong story from start to finish.
Only when you have a strong story should you start translating it into screenplay format. That’s when you can use a program like Scrivener or a more traditional screenwriting word processor like Final Draft.
There’s nothing inherently magical about screenwriting programs like Final Draft. The whole purpose of a screenwriting word processor is to format your story as a screenplay. This is easy once you already know what your story is about. This will be difficult if you’re still trying to make up your story while trying to format it as a screenplay.
Ultimately, the best way to advance your screenwriting career is to develop your own knowledge and skill in storytelling and story structure. Until you can tell a great story, you’ll never be able to tell a great story formatted as a screenplay either.
So focus on improving your own skills. Then look for the software that will help you capture your thoughts and make it easy to format your story as a screenplay much later.
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