John August

Highland

Other Things Screenwriters Write

Episode - 437

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Follow Up, Highland, News, QandA, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, Treatments

John and Craig discuss the other stuff screenwriters write, from beat sheets to scriptments and everything in between. The differences are sometimes subtle, but each can have value — in the right circumstance.

After that, they dip into the mailbag (24:23) for questions on TV bibles, writing while traveling, and using “I” in titles.

Premium subscribers: stick around for a bonus segment (47:31) on the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator and how its questions may be useful to screenwriters.

* John will be part of the [Beyond Bars: Changing the Narrative on Criminal Justice](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beyond-bars-changing-the-narrative-on-criminal-justice-tickets-91710373195) panel on February 26th
* Contact [brand@johnaugust.com](mailto:brand@johnaugust.com) for information on [Highland 2](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland-2/students.php) for students and educators
* [Outlines](https://screenwriting.io/what-does-an-outline-look-like/) and [treatments](https://screenwriting.io/what-is-a-treatment/) on screenwriting.io, and some examples in the [johnaugust.com library](https://johnaugust.com/library)
* Scriptnotes, episodes [436](https://johnaugust.com/2020/political-movies), [434](https://johnaugust.com/2020/ambition-and-anxiety), and [432](https://johnaugust.com/2020/learning-from-movies)
* Reddit’s [r/imsorryjon](https://www.reddit.com/r/imsorryjon/top/?t=all)
* Scott Silver on [IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0798788/?ref_=tt_ov_wr) and [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Silver)
* The [Myers–Briggs Type Indicator on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator) and an [online test](https://www.16personalities.com/)
* The [Big Five personality traits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits)
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by James Llonch ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
* Scriptnotes is produced by Megana Rao and edited by Matthew Chilelli.

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/437standard.mp3).

**UPDATE 2-21-2020** The transcript for this episode can be found [here](https://johnaugust.com/2020/scriptnotes-episode-437-other-things-screenwriters-write-transcript).

Hiring a coder

Apps, Bronson, Geek Alert, Highland, Los Angeles, Weekend Read

We’re bringing in a new person to help us update some of our older Mac and iOS apps. Maybe that’s you!

Requirements:

– Experience with Mac and iOS development (either professionally or on your own)
– Familiarity with web APIs
– Proficiency in Swift
– Ability to read (and understand) Objective-C

For the right candidate, it should be an interesting assignment. You’ll be rewriting existing Objective-C code as Swift, and bringing a 2019 perspective (and technology) to previously-solved problems. You’ll be working beside Nima Yousefi, who coded Highland, ((Fun fact: Highland 2 is almost entirely Swift, except for some very low-level stuff dealing with PDFs which goes all the way back to the original Highland.)) Weekend Read and a lot of other useful apps for writers. He’ll show you the ropes and help guide you through the process.

This is a contract gig, maybe 40 hours of work altogether, but there’s always the possibility of future projects. We’re looking for someone in Los Angeles who’s available on Tuesday and Friday afternoons for some in-person discussion.

The right person might be transitioning from another field, a college student, or someone on a gap year. You can look at this as an educational experience, intern-like, but definitely paid. If you’re a hobbyist coder considering becoming an indie app developer, it would be a good introduction. That’s how Nima got started.

Interested? [Drop us a note](mailto:assistant@johnaugust.com) to introduce yourself and your work. Please include links to stuff we can check out, especially Github and sample code.

My writing setup, 2019

Apps, Follow Up, Geek Alert, Highland, Writing Process

On Twitter, @londonsquared [asked for an update](https://twitter.com/londonsquared/status/1090921403015139328) on my writing setup, which I’d last [written about in 2016](https://johnaugust.com/2016/my-writing-setup-2016).

Honestly, very little has changed in the past three years. I still have the same computer, desk, mouse, keyboards and headphones. I print so little that today was the first time in years that we needed to buy a new toner cartridge.

My only real piece of new hardware is the [iPad Pro](https://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/). While I don’t love the squared edges — it feels thicker than the old ones — I find myself using the redesigned pencil all the time. On the whole, I like it a lot.

I’m hand-writing much less than I used to. Most of that is because I’ve been writing the [Arlo Finch books](https://johnaugust.com/arlo-finch), and it’s so many words that I just can’t keep up with paper and pen. But I also do [#writesprints](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23writesprint) a lot, using Highland 2’s built-in Sprint feature.

write sprint list

I write absolutely everything in [Highland 2](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland-2/). I’m the main beta tester. ((Version 2.5, coming soon, has some pretty amazing new features in it.))

For other software, I’ve started using Apple Notes in place of Evernote, and switched back to OmniFocus and Mail.

Back in 2016, I wrote:

> My mail setup is a mess. The right combination of rules would probably allow me to sort out the wheat from the chaff, but I haven’t invested the energy. Plus, getting it to work properly in iOS would be a big challenge. Increasingly, the iPhone is where I’m doing email triage.

If anything, it’s worse now. I set up a rule to shunt anything with the keyword “unsubscribe” to a special folder, but that’s just hiding the problem rather than addressing it.

On the whole, I’m honestly surprised I haven’t changed more things over the past three years. I’m generally an early adopter and experimenter. But until we start using goggles instead of screens, I suspect this is going to remain my basic setup.

Why Highland 2 doesn’t automatically add CONT’D

Formatting, Fountain, Highland

In screenplays, when a character continues speaking after a line or two of action, the convention is to write (CONT’D) after their second character cue.

TOM

Sure, these radioactive cockroaches might kill us all...

He gestures to a glowing wall of swarming roaches. Like a thousand tiny pixels, they form surreal moving images.

TOM (CONT’D)

But look how pretty!

Final Draft and many other screenwriting applications will add these (CONT’D)s automatically unless you tell them no. And you should say no.

**These kind of (CONT’D)s should never be left to algorithms.** I’ve [written about this before](http://johnaugust.com/2015/is-automatic-contd-a-bug-or-a-feature): ((I was halfway through writing today’s post when I realized I’d blogged about CONT’D twice before. Apparently, I’ve defaulted to Tom and Mary in my examples since nearly the beginning of the blog. They’ve seen some shit.))

> Consider Sandra Bullock’s character in Gravity. Minutes may elapse between her spoken dialogue, but Final Draft will default to adding the (CONT’D) since no other character has spoken in the interim. You can delete the (CONT’D), but it’s a hassle, and it will come right back if you reformat text around it.

To prevent this kind of Gravity situation, Final Draft could set a threshold where it only adds (CONT’D) if fewer than X lines of scene description interrupt the dialogue. But that wouldn’t catch a more common problem like this:

MARY

Tom, stop staring at them! They’re hypnotizing you!

But it’s too late: Tom is transfixed. He starts walking towards the reactor core, completely in the roaches’ thrall.

Mary grabs him, trying to hold him back. But he’s too strong.

Finally, Mary spots Hector up in the control room. She yells, hoping he can hear her --

MARY

Hector!

Mary’s shout to Hector isn’t a continuation of her previous dialogue. It’s a new thing. Some screenwriters would choose to add the (CONT’D), while others wouldn’t.

The point is, it’s a choice the writer should be making, not the software.

[Highland 2](https://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland-2/) will auto-complete if you start typing the (CONT’D), but it won’t try to put it there by itself. That’s consistent with the general philosophy of Highland and other Fountain-based apps: **we will never change your actual text**.

Note that these CONT’Ds are a different species than dialogue breaks at the bottom of a page. In these circumstances, there’s no authorial intent. It’s simply the screenwriting software trying to fit an appropriate amount of text on a page, and signaling to the reader that dialogue keeps going.

Highland 2 adds these (MORE)s and (CONT’D)s when you print or preview. They’re not baked-in because page breaks can change as you add or delete text.