Many of you have been asking about software/apps for scriptwriting. So, I thought I'd pop a quick little guide in here for you. Let me know if I've missed anything out! You can write a basic script using any word processor - Word, Google Docs, Pages etc. But if you want to get serious about scriptwriting, and if you want to share your work with actors at your local theatre, or agents, or film producers, at some point you’re going to want to use an app or software package to create scripts in industry-recognised formats. (and you’re also probably going to get a bit fed up of using the tab button/spending ages formatting each part of your document at some point). And yep, you did read that correctly - formats. Plural. Because each branch of the industry has its own specific format(s) - radio, TV, film, theatre - and there are even some regional variations. But, honestly, until you’re in production with something where there are very specific formatting needs, for now, you just need something to do the most common types - screen and stage. The word you’re going to see me use a lot here is ‘elements’. By this, I mean the different parts of a script. Not scenes or acts. I mean what each bit of a script within each scene tells us. These are basically the following: - Scene heading - in theatre, usually the scene number, sometimes a title for each scene.  - Character - the name of the character who is speaking, or performing some kind of action (‘MARK walks into a room’, for instance) - Dialogue - the words a character says, either out loud within the actual scene, off camera/offstage, or as a voiceover (like a narrator in a film) - Action - anything that can be seen or heard in a scene, other than the dialogue. - (Parentheticals) - usually within dialogue to explain how something is delivered - shouting, whispered, to another specific character -  or a pause.  - Transition - at the end of a scene, how it ends - e.g. blackout in theatre, fade or ‘cut to’ on screen 

What are you going to write this week? How many scenes/pages/plans? I’m going to finish the first vomit/riot half of my new play. What about you? Happy writing! Mark 😀

Hello there, thanks for letting me join, I thought I'd say hi and answer the ten questions in the hope that it tells you something about me - but for goodness sake, don't let on what it is. Not to me anyway. Whisper it in dark corners and haunted forests where I won't be able to hear you. 1. What’s your name? Paul MacEoghain 2. Where are you from? Liverpool originally, I've lived in Wrexham since 1997 3. Why do you write/want to write? To tell the stories currently taking up far too much room in my head. 4. What’s your favourite story? A Christmas Carol. 5. Who’s your favourite fictional character? Doctor Who. 6. Favourite writer? Terence Dicks. 7. What world do you wish you’d come up with? Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger universe. 8. If you could change the ending of any existing story, what would it be (and why)? Jaws. I'm with Spielberg on that one. The ending is so anticlimactic after the events of the preceding story. The shark just dies? Nah, Blow it up! Smile you sonuva... 9. What would the story of your life be called? I'm currently writing it. At the moment it has the working title of "The Story So fa...", but that'll change once something better comes along. Anyway, what it does have is a subtitle on the first page reading: "The events depicted in this book are true. Except the bits that aren't." It's a semi-fictional autobiography. 10. Where do you hope to get to with your writing? Fortune and Glory. Failing that I'd be happy just to have somebody say they enjoyed it.