Scenes

Add a New Scene

You can add a scene from the header of any view, from the Edit Window, or while you write in the Page view. These controls show only when you can edit the story.

From Any View

Every view's header has a + Scene chip (in the Page view, in its Overview mode). It uses your story's own word for a scene, so it may read + Chapter or + Beat instead.

Drag the chip to where the new scene should go and let go. The scene is added there, and the Edit Window opens on it so you can start writing.

• In the Timeline and Cards views, and the Page view's Overview, drop it between two scenes. A line shows where the scene will land.
• At the boundary between two acts, nudge the chip to choose the act: left or right in the Timeline, up or down in the Page view's Overview. The line's caps turn to point into the act that gets the scene. In Cards, each act is its own group, so you drop straight into the one you want.
• In the Home, Characters and Stats views, a small map of your story's scenes opens as you drag. Drop the chip onto it.

An act with no scenes shows Drop new scene here. Drop the chip there, or click the act to open the Edit Window on a new scene.

You can also right-click a scene and choose Insert Scene Before or Insert Scene After. In the Cards view and the Page view's Overview, you can right-click empty space between two scenes, or after the last, and choose Add Scene: the new scene goes where you clicked (see Right-Click a Scene).

In the Edit Window

If you're editing a scene and want another one right before or after it, open the ⋯ menu at the top of the Edit Window.

Choose Insert Scene Before or Insert Scene After. The new scene is added and opened, ready to edit.

In the Page View

The Page view has two modes, switched in its header: Overview shows your scenes as cards, and Text Editor lets you write the whole story as one continuous script. The switch shows in templates that have a text editor. Anyone who can only read the story can switch too, but can't edit in the Text Editor.

In the Text Editor, there are three ways to add a scene:

1. When Typing a Scene Heading

Type a new scene heading, such as INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT, on the last line of a scene, in the Scene Heading format, and press Enter. Prewrite starts a new scene with that heading. It does this only for a full heading: one that begins with INT., EXT. or I/E and has a dash before the time of day, and not on a scene's first line.

2. By Inserting a Scene Break

Press Enter on an empty line to open the text format menu, then choose Scene Break (or press B). On a line that already has text, press Shift + Enter to open the same menu.

3. Using the Scene Menu

For the story's owner and editors, each scene's number, down the right-hand side of the page, opens a menu (everyone else sees just the number). The numbers show in both of the view's modes, on a computer. Choose Add Scene Above to add a scene before it.

The same menu has Edit in Window, which opens the scene in the Edit Window; Merge with Previous, which joins the scene onto the one before it (not for the first scene, or an act's only scene); and a delete item, which empties the scene instead when it's the only one in its act.

Move a Scene

You can drag scenes to a new place in the Timeline and Cards views, and in the Page view's Overview mode.

1. Click and hold a scene.
2. Drag it where you'd like it. A line shows where it will land.
3. Let go.

At the boundary between two acts, nudge the scene to choose the act (left or right in the Timeline, up or down in the Page view's Overview), just as when you add a scene.

• Copy instead of move: hold Alt (Option on a Mac) when you let go. The copy gets its own copies of the scene's story events, so changing one scene's events doesn't change the other's.
• Move several scenes at once: select them first, then drag any one of them.
  • Cmd + click (Ctrl + click on Windows) adds a scene to the selection or removes it.
  • Shift + click selects every scene from the last one you picked.
  • Drag across empty space to draw a box around scenes. Hold Shift while you drag to add them to the scenes already selected.

Right-Click a Scene

In the Timeline and Cards views, and the Page view's Overview, right-click a scene for a menu of what you can do with it. The menu shows only when you can edit the story.

• Edit opens the scene in the Edit Window.
• Insert Scene Before and Insert Scene After add a new scene next to it, in the same act, and open it.
• Duplicate adds a copy right after it, with its own copies of the scene's story events.
• Characters lists every character in the story, so you can add them to the scene or take them out (see Add Characters from a Scene's Menu). It isn't there when Prewrite adds characters to scenes automatically, or when several scenes are selected.
• Move to Stash and Copy to Stash put the scene, or a copy of it, in the Stash.
• Delete Scene deletes it. If it's the only scene in its act, the menu offers Empty Scene instead (and nothing, if that scene is already empty).

Your story's own word for a scene and for characters appears in the menu, so it may read Insert Chapter Before, for example.

Several scenes at once: select them (see Move a Scene), then right-click any one of them. The menu acts on all of them: Duplicate 3 Scenes, Move 3 to Stash, Copy 3 to Stash and Delete 3 Scenes. Right-clicking a scene that isn't selected selects it on its own first.

Empty space: in the Cards view and the Page view's Overview, right-click empty space beside your scenes, such as the gap between two of them or the space after the last, and choose Add Scene. While the menu is open, the same line you see when you drag shows where the new scene will go, and the scenes move apart to make room. The new scene is added there and opens in the Edit Window. In the Timeline, empty space keeps your browser's menu: right-click the scene next to where you want one and choose Insert Scene Before or Insert Scene After.

In the same views, an empty act's Drop new scene here block offers Add Scene too, which gives the act its first scene.

With the keyboard, press Shift + F10 (or the menu key) on a scene you've tabbed to. To get your browser's own menu instead, hold Alt (Option on a Mac) when you right-click.

Edit Scene Content

Click a scene in the Timeline or Cards view, or in the Page view's Overview, to open it in the Edit Window. In the Home view, click any scene under Scene Slides: if you can edit the story it opens in the Edit Window, and otherwise the Slideshow opens on that scene.

In the Page view's Text Editor, you write straight into the page.

In the Edit Window, the arrows at the bottom step to the previous or next scene. Between them, a strip has a mark for each scene: point at a mark to see which scene it is, and click it to jump there. With the arrows or a mark, the scene you move to opens on the same part of the window, and on a desktop the field you were typing in has the cursor again. A story with one scene has no footer.

On a desktop, the Expand button at the top right makes the Edit Window fill the screen, and Shrink brings it back to its usual size. Prewrite remembers your choice the next time you open it.

Add Scene Images

1. Click a scene to open it in the Edit Window.
2. In the Images section, click the + tile (Add image).

1. The Add images window opens. Click every photo you want, from any of its tabs (see Choose Images). Each one gets a check, and the panel on the right lists them under Ready to add · 3.

1. Click Add 3 images (the button counts your picks). They're added to the scene in the order you picked them, and the window closes.

Back in the Images section, click a thumbnail to open it above the strip. Its star (Make primary) makes it the scene's Primary image, Replace swaps it for another image (you pick one, and it takes the same place), and the trash can (Remove) removes it. Point at any of these buttons, or at the arrows either side of the image, to see what it does.

The primary image represents the scene across the app, including the Slideshow.

To change the order of the images, drag a thumbnail to a new place in the strip; a blue line shows where it will land. When no image is starred, the first one is the primary.

Choose Images

The window's tabs are down the left. On a tablet they run across the top, and on a phone they're a menu at the top, showing the open tab; either way Upload is beside them:

• Search: free photos from Unsplash. Type what you're after; results come as you pause. Color narrows them to one color; when few match, the line above the results says so, with Show all colors to drop the color again.
• Suggested: photos picked from what you've written. For a scene, that's its scene heading: INT. DINER - KITCHEN - NIGHT searches for a diner kitchen at night, then for broader places if that finds too little. The top of the tab says what they're based on (Based on INT. DINER - KITCHEN - NIGHT), and each search's Open in Search carries it over to the Search tab. Before you type anything, the Search tab shows the best of them, with View all suggestions. The tab is there only when there's something to suggest.
• This story: images already used anywhere in this story, to reuse.
• Your stories: your other stories. Click one to see all its images, and Back to your stories (the arrow at the top) to go back. Filter by story title narrows the list. A locked story can't be opened.
• Upload: your own files. You can also drop JPEG, PNG or GIF files anywhere on the window. Uploads join your picks once they've uploaded.

Your picks stay ticked as you switch tabs and searches. To take one out, click it again, or click its × in the panel.

A photo the scene already has says Already added and can't be picked again. One that's used elsewhere in the story says Added before: you can still add it here.

If you close the window with photos picked, Prewrite asks first, since nothing is added until you click the add button.

On a phone, your picks gather at the bottom of the window, with Add 3. Tap the row of thumbnails to see the list, remove picks, or Clear all.

Preview an Image

Point at a photo and click the expand button in its bottom-right corner (Expand). The photo opens large, over the whole window.

• The arrows, or ← and → on the keyboard, step through the photos of the list you opened it from.
• Add to selection, or Space, picks the photo; click it again (Selected · Remove) to take it out.
• Unsplash photos show their description and who took them, with a link to the photographer.
• Esc or the × at the top right closes the preview, and your picks stay as they are.

Add Text Formats

Each template comes with its own set of text formats (Scene Heading, Action, Dialogue and so on). You can turn more on or off:

1. Click a scene to open it in the Edit Window, and click into its Body (in some templates it's called Script or Content). You can also start from the Page view's Text Editor.
2. Open the text format menu in the toolbar and choose More….
3. Advanced Settings opens on the Text Formats tab. Turn formats on or off in the Standard, Screenplay and Creator groups. Final Draft keeps the Screenplay formats as they are; text in other formats is converted, most of it to Action.

1. Click Save.

Add a Plot Thread

1. Click a scene to open it in the Edit Window.
2. Scroll to the Plot Threads section. Its search field reads Enter new plot thread name… or, once the story has plot threads, Find or create a plot thread….
3. Type a name and choose Create plot thread: (or press Enter).

To rename a thread, click its title. To change its color, use its ⋯ menu.

Add a Story Event to a Plot Thread

A story event says what happens in a plot thread in this scene.

1. Click a scene to open it in the Edit Window.
2. In the Plot Threads section, click the thread you'd like to add to. A + at the end of its row means this scene has no event on it yet.
3. Type what happens in the box that opens (Describe what happens here…).

To see what the thread does in the scenes before and after, click Show events (it appears once the thread has events in other scenes).

When the thread has events in earlier or later scenes, a round arrow at the left or right end of its row jumps to the nearest of them. The thread stays where it is on screen, and on a desktop the cursor is in that scene's story event.

To remove a story event, delete its text.

Delete a Plot Thread

1. Click a scene to open it in the Edit Window.
2. In the Plot Threads section, open the thread's ⋯ menu.

1. Click Delete plot thread.

This deletes the thread from the whole story, with its story events in every scene.

Delete a Scene

1. Click the scene to open it in the Edit Window.
2. Open the ⋯ menu at the top and choose Delete Scene.

If it's the only scene in its act, the menu offers Empty Scene instead: the scene is cleared, and the act keeps its place.

Toggle Slideshow Visibility

New scenes are added to the Slideshow automatically. To take one out, or put it back, open the scene in the Edit Window and click the slideshow button near the top.

It reads In Slideshow when the scene is in the slideshow and Add to Slideshow when it isn't.

A scene in the slideshow also shows a small slide mark in the top-right corner of its image in the Timeline, Cards and Page views. If you can edit the story, it also appears when you point at a scene under Scene Slides in the Home view. Click the mark (View in slideshow) to open the slideshow on that scene; clicking anywhere else on the image opens the Edit Window as usual.

In the Home view, owners and editors also have a list button (Edit) on Scene Slides. It lists every scene by act, so you can put several in the slideshow, or take them out, at once.

Change Image Orientation

Scene images show in Landscape orientation by default. You may want Portrait (vertical) or Square instead, depending on what you're writing for.

1. Open the Menu (the ☰ button at the right of the header).
2. Point to Scene Images. Only the story's owner and editors have this option.

1. Under Orientation, choose the orientation. Under Framing, Cover fills the frame and may crop the image, and Contain shows the whole image.