Introducing the SoCreate Weekly Museletter
Screenwriting Tips, Challenges, and More!
We're excited to launch the SoCreate Weekly Museletter, a curated selection of screenwriting advice, featured SoCreate tools, fun challenges, and the latest updates about SoCreate – the more visual and fun way to create a professional script. Each month, we'll bring you the highlights of the writing community right to your inbox, giving you the tools and inspiration to keep your creativity flowing.
Diving Into This Week’s Featured Blogs
Avoiding a Bad Screenwriting Deal: When it comes to selling your script, knowledge is power. Our latest blog unpacks how to navigate a script deal, avoid common pitfalls, and protect your interests, according to Hollywood entertainment attorney Sean Pope (Ramo Law). Learn more here.
Script Coverage 101: What do industry professionals look for in a script? Our new blog provides detailed examples of script coverage, an essential tool for writers seeking to understand the ins and outs of the business. Dive in here.
Embarking on a Story Development Career: Breaking into story development doesn't have to be daunting. We've curated tips from Disney & Marvel writer Meg LeFauve on how to start, what skills are vital, and where opportunities may lie. Begin your journey here.
Try SoCreate, the more visual and fun way to create a professional script!
SoCreate Feature Highlight: Adding Direction to Dialogue in SoCreate
In traditional screenwriting tools, dialogue direction is inserted as parentheticals above a line of dialogue.
In SoCreate, use the Dialogue Direction tool for parentheticals.
Click the Dialogue Direction tool and type in the desired direction. The Dialogue Direction will appear above the dialogue item in your Story Stream. Upon exporting to the traditional screenplay format, SoCreate’s Dialogue Direction will create parentheticals above the line of dialogue and below the character’s name, exactly how you would expect it to look in a printed screenplay.
But there’s more! When you add Dialogue Direction in SoCreate, it does more for you than just state how the line should be delivered by an actor. It updates your character's image to express the emotion of the the given direction! For example, if the direction is to yell the line of dialogue, then your character’s image transforms to look like it’s yelling.
Is there any benefit to using SoCreate’s Dialogue Direction tool?
The emotive character imagery may seem like a gimmick, but there’s a real benefit to it.
When you read through your stories and see the expressions on the faces of your characters, it brings the story to life and immerses you in the action. It also gives you a visual cue while you’re editing. For example, if you’re quickly scrolling through your script to locate a piece of dialogue, you’d usually have to skim each line. But with the visual cue of an angry character’s face, you can locate the section that requires editing much more quickly. You’ll start to know your script from the expression on your characters’ faces.
You’ll be amazed at how much quicker you can work through your story rewrites as a result of these visual cues!
SoCreate Weekly Writing Challenge
Do you have what it takes to rise to our Weekly Writing Challenge? This week, your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves writing a scene where a character faces a difficult communication issue.
Location: EXT - Parking Garage – Dusk
Characters: Samson; Shelly
Scene description: Shelly opens the passenger door to Samson’s beat-up tan Geo Prism. Fluorescent lights flicker in the garage. Shelly looks around anxiously and gets in the car.
Prompt: Samson is a former police detective, and Shelly is a stranger to him with clues that could help him solve a cold case he obsesses over. But Shelly can’t speak. Write a scene that features the pair communicating about the clues.
We're thrilled to have you in the SoCreate community, and we're eager to see the incredible stories you'll create. Remember, there's no one way to creativity—it's a journey of exploration, expression, and excitement.
Until next week,
<3 Your friends at SoCreate
Try SoCreate, the more visual and fun way to create a professional script!
You guys give so much to Writers. This is excellent. Thank you!