Emacs Tools for Screenplays (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Emacs Tools for Screenplays (2014)

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49 pointsbrudgers17 comments

People who find this interesting will likely find the work of Mikey Peterson (https://www.masteringemacs.org/article/how-to-write-a-book-i...) and that of Frank Jonen (https://github.com/frankjonen/emacs-for-writers) valuable.

I continue to resist the assumption that writers of screenplays need radically different tools than writers of other forms. The main issue is disconnecting the task of writing from the task of layout design which we foolishly used WYSIWYG tools to conflate decades ago. In general, a tool that allows good research tracking and cross-reference (research for non-fiction, character arcs/plotlines for fiction, blocking and scenes for scriptwriting) with something that lets the writer write without getting in the way is a much better fit, and emacs excels at this. With the bonus of I can make it do what I want it to do, at any scale of complexity. Output formatting is a job for computers, not writers.

A reason writers of screenplays feel a need for radically different tools is that layout is functional rather than merely aesthetic for most screenplay formats. Most screenwriting tools are like programmer's tools: syntax-highlighters, linters, autocompleters.

The screenplay syntax is effectively the world's weirdest Python-like whitespace oriented language form. There is so much required whitespace for very functional reasons going back more than a century in some places, and people get really upset if the margins are wrong (the screenwriting equivalent of PEP-8 isn't followed), because it breaks all sorts of conventions such as the infamous "a page of screenplay should be about a minute of screen time".

Yeah there are all sorts of things people may not consider. Like I doubt the emacs plugin can lock pages, which totally rules it out for production.

Once you’re in production you need to freeze page numbers, or you’d wind up with chaos. If the DP, producer and AD are talking about page 32, they need to know they’re talking about the same thing. Subsequent revisions just slot new pages into the script. If you add text to page 32, it doesn’t spill over to page 33 and change the numbering of the whole script. Instead you add page 32a, and every page that isn’t edited stays the same. An editor that can’t do that might be fine for personal work or first drafts, but it would never be adopted professionally.

Page locking is important, but it only happens at the very very end of the screenwriting process. I've proposed a slight addition to the Fountain syntax to allow forced page numbers on inserted page breaks, which would effectively allow page locking. Use this in conjunction with version control and you'd have everything you need for production.

I’ve used both spacemacs (in org-mode with some custom functions) and scrivener to good effect for fiction, but I’m not completely convinced for screenwriting. In a screenplay the layout isn’t design, it’s a very specific format. Final draft actually does the opposite of the complaint about WYSIWYG editors: it handles the formatting automatically and correctly, so you can just write without thinking about it. We may enjoy tinkering with editors, but the eloi just want to get work done.

The other problem is more of a social one, and I guess isn’t actually relevant for most people writing screenplays, but at the professional level you’ll be expected to use final draft, if only because everyone else does.

The current version of Fountain Mode has the

  fountain-export-buffer-to-fdx

command, which exports to Final Draft's native format.

However, exporting functions are scheduled to be removed in the next version. When that happens, you can simply create a free account on https://writerduet.com/ to perform the conversion.

Other free tools that can do the same.

I'm the author of Fountain Mode. I bumped it to the top of the list because it's the probably what the majority of the Emacs screenwriters out there are using, maybe even all five of them.

Thanks Paul! I love Fountain Mode!

Fountain Mode is awesome. I use it for all my screenplays. Thanks!

One suggestion: I have use Org Mode to store all my brainstorming, outline and other relevant information. I think it would be wonderful if I integrated it with the script somehow.

Thanks :) You can do

  #+BEGIN_EXAMPLE fountain
  BOB
  Hello world!
  
  ALICE
  Yeah hi Bob.
  #+END_EXAMPLE

and you’ll get fountain aligning/highlighting. I’m not a big org user, so I’d need suggestions on how else people want to integrate. HMU in the Github issues.

Just wanted to shout out the Fountain plugin for VS Code: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=piersdes.... Nice syntax highlighting and generates a live preview as you type which you can then export as a PDF. After trying to format things vaguely correctly in Google Docs for a while it felt like I could finally focus on just writing the dang screenplay!

Very nice work. I'm interested in how you implemented the page-count/timing of a Fountain script; could you give a high-level overview?

I'm a film major and screenwriter. I store all my brainstorming, outline, and other relevant information in an Org file. I write the actual screenplay using Fountain Mode.

Fountain syntax is sensible and intuitive. This is, by far, the best screenwriting experience I have ever had. Other programs have a bunch of "story-management" features that I find bloated and useless. Fountain Mode allows me to use easily create sections that I can cycle just like in Org Mode. These "headings" organize act structure, plot points, and scenes.

The only downside is that I need to use an external tool to create PDF.

One way to make this setup even more awesome would be to integrate the screenplay with Org.

I would be able to get around to writing that screenplay I've been thinking about--if only I could find the right editor /s

Last edited 2014-05-22

It says 2020 now, but https://web.archive.org/web/20140910223112/https://www.emacs... looks substantially the same, so we'll put 2014 above. Thanks!

FTFY

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