In the last couple of weeks I have been musing again about maybe starting some screenplays. Being the person I am, I do like to prepare everything beforehand and have everything I need before I start. (This is also a convenient excuse when I don’t start or finish something - “I haven’t got the right tools for the job”. My problem)

Anyway, before I engage in too much limiting and negative self talk, I did do some interesting research on screenwriting software to ease the production of a marvelous screenplay. Word processors are all very well but they are not designed for the specific job of producing a screenplay to industry standards. And whilst outliners are useful they do not give you the tools to develop interesting and coherent stories and plots.

So I trawled the net for software that would do the job. Free software preferably. What I did find is that there is an industry (small though it may be) in software packages that purport to make it easy for you to create the next blockbuster screenplay. All slightly different with different strengths and weaknesses.

I suppose the first question to ask is why can’t a word processing package do the job for you. Packages like Microsoft Word or the open source word processing component of Open Office (free) have so many facilities inside them that surely these would be adequate? Well, yes and no. No doubt, if you are very familiar with these packages and have a good level of expertise in these packages you could design the industry standard formats and program macros that imitated some of the better screenplay software packages. But it is all a bit like hard work for a writer who is more bothered about getting on with the writing and having some help in making it easy.

Here are some of the better packages that I have come across in my research:

• Cinergy -  this is provided free and as such deserves an immense amount of respect as it makes writing and editing a draft screen play in industry standard form relatively easy. Creating scenes, dialogue, description, rearranging, editing is all made simple though the use of a few intuitive key depressions. Great for most purposes
• Final Draft - This is the package that most professionals use nowadays for developing and submitting their work to the industry. Slick and easy to use, it also goes that bit further with organization and production tools as part of the package. Costs around $230 at present or £115.
• Sophocles - worth a look at nearly half the price of Final Draft with similar features. You can try before you buy which is always good. Its PR says that it lets you concentrate on the story creation rather than on the format. $120 or £60 at the moment.
• Writer’s Cafe - This is more of a story development package rather than a screenwriting package. By that I mean that it has a number of useful features built into it that help you to research your story, save and bookmark information, to plot your storylines in an easy graphical manner and to inspire you when the going gets tough or the words dry up. A very useful complement to a screenwriting package. This software can be used for writing other than screenwriting and help you organize your work, your drafts, your rough ideas. The really neat part of this package is StoryLines - “The heart of Writer’s Café is StoryLines, a powerful but simple to use story development tool that dramatically accelerates the creation and structuring of your novel or screenplay” - a lovely visual way of plotting your stories from whatever point of view you like. At $66 or £33, it looks to be a worthwhile investment.
• There are other more expensive packages, both screenwriting and story development, that provide similar functions and features but the above list in my opinion are the ones that seem to be most writer-friendly and are understandable.

I have included links to the appropriate sites for these packages to help you assess them for yourself. Before you ask, “no” I am not promoting any of them or getting money for recommending them (what a shame - I could do with the money). I am thinking of buying Writer’s Cafe for my research and story development -  I am checking out the free trial download at the moment. And I think Cinergy will be adequate for my purposes for the time being unless I decide to market a script in Hollywood!