Writing is hard. You have to bring people into your imagination. When you're trying to cast and sell a product it gets even tougher. What about even after it's sold and you want to outline your vision to a production company?
Even if you don't sell the idea, you need to sell executives, agents, and managers on yourself. Your ability to do the extra work, to demonstrate what your vision is. To create a world. Most of all, how do you and your idea stick out from all the countless scripts and treatments the gatekeepers see?
It can be nearly impossible with words alone.
Enter Prewrite, a really nifty tool I was sent yesterday. I spent last night playing with it, using one of my own screenplays, and I have to tell you, it's really fun.
Prewrite is a web app for developing and promoting screenplays.
The app provides tools for writers to develop story ideas into a screenplay, scene-by-scene -- visually with timelines, cards, and inspiring images.
It tracks story beats, characters, emotional context, plot threads, and provides advanced analysis tools for insights into story structure. These features help diagnose issues as the user writes. Plus, importing and exporting of scripts are supported for Final Draft and PDF file formats.
Angela Bourassa, Founder of LA Screenwriter, recently used Prewrite to outline her next project and shared her thoughts with her readers. “ …it turned out that Prewrite worked very well with my style of outlining, allowing me to work the way I like while offering additional tools to supplement my outlining and organization process,” Bourassa wrote.
“A script isn’t just hammered out all at once” says Prewrite co-founder David Rogers. “It’s developed over time, as ideas trickle in, or when inspiration strikes. Making sense of those ideas and determining how they fit together into a complete work isn’t always easy or intuitive, but our technology helps.”
There's even a database so you can add your dream cast with a diverse option for every role. Which is really important!
Here's the deal, you write the story, but that's only the first step. Prewrite focuses on making story development better and more efficient from the very start. Every element of a story, a character, a plot thread, or a piece of dialogue, is easily added and manipulated while helping the writer maintain the structure.
This kind of organization can keep you strictly on time with your drafts and flowing through Act II.
There are even advanced metrics!
As both a desktop and mobile-friendly web app, Prewrite allows writers to easily develop their story wherever and whenever ideas pop up. Finally, screenplays can be shared as a visual and interactive experience, allowing producers, investors, and other industry professionals, to understand the story quickly and thoroughly without reading the script.
It's also FREE for one project. Then for unlimited stories, you pay a subscription ($9.99/mo or $95.99/yr)
Happy writing!
What's next? Get our free screenwriting eBook!
So much of what we're talking about on No Film School when it comes to screenwriting is summarized in our new eBook. It also helps guide you through a 10-week writing plan that will get your script actually finished.
