Formatting Frenzy
Posted by K. S. Dearsley on Monday, January 25, 2016
I don't want to worry anyone, but there are only another 11 months until Christmas. That means I've already had one twelfth of the available time to achieve what I want to in 2016. As ever, time's going faster and things are taking longer than I anticipated.
One thing that has been frustratingly slow is keying in a TV screenplay. I was using a template from the BBC's Writers' Room website and had expected to zip through it. Using a template or setting up styles are well worth the small initial effort, otherwise every time I switch from action to a character's name or dialogue I'd have to change the margins. Even with the template it was a tedious chore. Thankfully, I didn't have to key in the entire script, because I would have missed the deadline. The few pages I did key in took at least three times as long as I expected. The moral of the story is: always allow yourself at least twice the time as you think you'll need, if you can.
You may wonder why I didn't write the screenplay on the computer in the first place. The answer is that when writing longhand I can change from capitals to lower case and back, use different margins and emphasise things how I like without having to think about it, so the flow of the scenes isn't interrupted. If you're one of those people who can do that directly on a computer–I salute you. At least, once the play is on there I shouldn't have to do it again. If keying in a screenplay's a fag on a computer, imagine having to do it on a typewriter, make carbon copies and repeat the process every time you send the manuscript out.
One thing that has been frustratingly slow is keying in a TV screenplay. I was using a template from the BBC's Writers' Room website and had expected to zip through it. Using a template or setting up styles are well worth the small initial effort, otherwise every time I switch from action to a character's name or dialogue I'd have to change the margins. Even with the template it was a tedious chore. Thankfully, I didn't have to key in the entire script, because I would have missed the deadline. The few pages I did key in took at least three times as long as I expected. The moral of the story is: always allow yourself at least twice the time as you think you'll need, if you can.
You may wonder why I didn't write the screenplay on the computer in the first place. The answer is that when writing longhand I can change from capitals to lower case and back, use different margins and emphasise things how I like without having to think about it, so the flow of the scenes isn't interrupted. If you're one of those people who can do that directly on a computer–I salute you. At least, once the play is on there I shouldn't have to do it again. If keying in a screenplay's a fag on a computer, imagine having to do it on a typewriter, make carbon copies and repeat the process every time you send the manuscript out.
