I made a simple yet profound discovery about Final Draft tonight.
I knew it had various templates for screenplays and also for stage plays, but once you select one you are seemingly stuck.
Then, however, I realized that you can just manually adjust the five or six pre-set formats (like CHARACTER or DIALOGUE or ACTION or SCENE HEADING) into any format you want.
Why is this significant?
Because, after having written so many screenplays, it was really slowing me down to switch to a stage play format where everything is in the entirely “wrong” place on the page.
Plus –– unlike screenplays –– there doesn’t really seem to be a universal consensus regarding formatting scripts for theater. Even Musicals look one way and British plays look another.
But now that I can write the script in Final Draft screenplay format –– having mastered that for the optioned novel script I wrote this Spring –– and just convert it all when I’m done in a few easy keystrokes, I basically feel like it’s All Systems Go.
My old, familiar formatting and all my memorized shortcuts are like old friends I’m hanging out with once again, where no times seems to have passed.
I’ve only written 20 pages, but it’s obvious to me that it’s going to bea series of endless Green Lights ahead.
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