Screenwriting Blog

Use your story toolbar to check your story stats at any time in SoCreate. Navigate to the green box with your working title, and click the chart icon. The box will flip to reveal your current story stats. Stats include the number of action items, dialogue items, scenes, sequences, and acts. You’ll also find story time, which estimates how much time your current story would take on screen. Click the box to flip it back to your working title ... Continue reading

Screenplays should be quick, snappy reads with moments of “oohs” and “awws” that grab the reader’s attention. Something that I find myself struggling with, especially in first drafts, is describing the action of what’s going on. Too often I can go overboard, and overly describe what’s happening. I find myself painting the picture of what you’re seeing, and while that works in prose, in screenwriting, it’s just slowing down your readability. So if you’re like me and find yourself struggling with the snappy quickness of the descriptions in your script here are five tips to help you speed things up... Continue reading

Locations appear in two places in your story, once in your Story Toolbar and again as a scene heading wherever that location is used. To remove a location from your SoCreate story, navigate to the location header in your story stream. Using the three-dot menu icon, click “remove.” This location has now been removed from your scene. However, you’ll notice the location still appears in your Story Toolbar to the left of your story stream. This is because the location is still being used elsewhere in your story. Once you’ve removed the last use of the location in your story, the location will disappear from your Story Toolbar ... Continue reading

Screenwriters know that a synopsis is crucial for pitching your script to producers, agents, and other industry experts. A synopsis is a condensed version of your screenplay that provides an overall summary of the plot, characters, and possibly themes. You only get one chance at a good first impression; make sure your synopsis gives potential readers the best introduction to your idea! Keep reading to learn more about writing a synopsis and to check out some screenplay synopsis examples! What is a script synopsis? A synopsis gives a broad summary of the screenplay's plot, characters, and ideas ... Continue reading

The Notes feature allows you to write inline notes within your script in SoCreate. Navigate to the dialogue stream item in which you want to add notes. Click the N symbol, then place your cursor wherever you want to insert a note and then type. Notes won’t add time to your overall story time. In blue text, they’re easy to distinguish from normal dialogue. And, they’re easy to remove. Simply click the trash can icon next to the note to delete it. Notes are great for adding ideas to your screenplay that you can flesh out at a later time ... Continue reading

View every location in your SoCreate screenplay from your Story Toolbar at any time. Your location bank shows the Doodles or images you’ve chosen to represent locations in your story. View details about a location by hovering over its thumbnail. Here, you’ll find the location image, name, description, and a three-dot menu icon to edit location details ... Continue reading

When sitting down and writing out the first draft of your script, you’ve got all these different things planned out, but how often do you stop and consider the transitions between scenes? How much focus should you even put into transitions? Isn’t it enough to just imply cutting to the next scene? Why do we need transitions anyway? You’ve got questions, and I’ve got answers! Today I’m talking all about how to transition between scenes in a screenplay. What is a Scene Transition? Transitions are essentially directions to editors about how to move from one shot to the next. The most popular transition CUT TO ... Continue reading

There are two ways to edit character dialogue in SoCreate. First, navigate to three dot menu icon near the dialogue stream item you wish to edit. Click edit this dialogue. Then type to add, edit, or remove dialogue from that dialogue stream item. Click anywhere outside the dialogue stream item to finalize the change. Or, you can edit dialogue simply by clicking within the text box you wish to edit ... Continue reading

As screenwriters, we all care about the craft of screenwriting and share a love of storytelling. While some people might chalk screenwriting up to a job full of daydreaming and imagining, we know it takes serious work and dedication. Like with any other job, screenwriters deserve fair compensation for their work! So today, let's talk numbers! Specifically, let's get into how much a writer can expect to be paid for selling one of their scripts. How much do Amazon and Netflix pay for scripts? Keep reading to find out! It's important to remember that the price paid for a script could differ significantly depending ... Continue reading