Write a screenplay with InteriorDay

You can write on any device, on any software.

On phones Google Keep is great to quickly write dialogs ideas, and as it is synced with your computer, it’s easy to merge them up in your screenplay later. Google Doc is great as it offers backup and revisions history, and also simultaneous multi-users! Dropbox Paper is great too, and Word can still do the job. Choose whatever suits you.

When writing remember that you never need to write in uppercase letters, this will be automatically fixed when you generate your screenplay as PDF. This is very helpful when you write on phone or ipad.

The app also provides some tools to fix and clean up various things (uppercases, spaces, missing periods, empty lines between paragraphs, …), so you don’t have to worry about many things when writing. Keep the (automatic) clean up for later.

Let’s write !

Scene heading

Simply:

int. a mansion - day

But you can write it like this to help visibility:

** int. a mansion - day

Another way:

Scene's title ** int. a mansion - day

The scene title is optional. It will appear in the outline view in the software but not in the screenplay.

You can also add scene numbers like this:

int. a mansion - day #1
int. a mansion - day #2A
int. a mansion - day #1-2

Action

Just write plain text:

Geoffrey nods to his pilot and they swoop toward the ledge. He laughs as jill hits the deck.

Dialog

geoffrey.. Where the hell are you?

Note the .. (two periods) after the character name. It’s the “trick” that means it’s a dialog.

With parenthesis and extension:

geoffrey (OS).. (loudly, filtered) Where the hell are you? (louder) Hello?

Transition

Lines starting with t. are transitions.

t. fade to black.
t. fade in:
t. match cut to:

Additional features

Shots

Just like “scene headers” but with *** instead of **

*** CLOSE ON: THE RING OF POWER

Dual dialogs

Add a caret ^ to the beginning of simultaneous dialogs:

^ Anna.. Cheers!
^ John.. Cheers!

Outline

You can add information about the structure of your screenplay. It will be visible in the app (and not in the generated PDF). Insert a # to insert a new layer in the structure. You can divide your screenplay structure as much as you want.

# Act 1
## Sub-act 
### Sequence A
#### Sub-sequence
##### Sub-sub-sequence
INT. IN THE MANSION - NIGHT
…
# Act 2
…

Notes

Every line starting with // is a comment. Comments are ignored in the generated screenplay.

// this is a comment
// it won’t be in the generated PDF

////////////////////
// this is also a comment
// anna.. dunno what to say.
////////////////////

You can also add a comment at the end of any line :

anna.. I don't know wat to say.  // reminder: fix the typo!

Or use ranged comments like this:

Anna is 20 /* maybe 30? */ years old.
anna.. Oh Romeo /* producer want to name him Bill! */ wherefore art thou Romeo?

(Ranged comments are only available in dialogs and actions)

Alignment

How to align text:

> I'm right aligned.
>< I'm centered.

Script informations and settings

This is optional. The app has a menu to easily set these informations.

@Title=Sinking boat
@Credit=Written by
@Author=Jamy Cameran
@ContactInfo=202-555-01519
@PageHeader=Copyright TheWriterZone 
@PageFooter=Revision 3
@PageNumbers=yes/no
@SceneNumbers=none/left/right/both

Last modification tag

A button in the app automatically update this. Useful to keep track of various versions.

@ModifiedAt=2020-11-02 09:22:39

Tips

Write even faster

A simple trick is to write character names with abbreviations.

aa.. hello
jo.. hi!
aa and jo shake hands.

At some point, you’ll use the app to automatically rename “aa” to Anna and “jo” to John:

Anna.. hello
John.. hi!
Anna and John shake hands.

You can do this for characters, places, transitions, …

Help topics

Click on these links for more help:

     Writing on both Mac and iPad/iPhone

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