Still, he gleefully demonstrated perhaps his favorite feature, which allows something that he says writers avoid discussing: "cheating," or imperceptibly reducing font sizes and line spacing to bring scripts within assigned page counts. Screenwriter's tool bar has an icon labeled "Cheat." ScriptWright calls it "Fudge." "It knows what you're really after," Schulman said with a laugh.
The latest innovations are not limited to formatting, though. Programs now also tell writers how to write, or do it for them to varying degrees.
Perhaps the biggest-selling "story development" software, Dramatica, allows users to create story outlines drawing on such examples as "Hamlet," by answering 250 questions with no more than their shift, tab, enter and space-bar keys. Based on those responses and a storytelling theory developed by two University of Southern California film school graduates, the program can warn you when it finds your choices faulty. The appeal is spreading: Even Power Structure, meant as an outlining aid, has boxes with pull-down lists that allow writers to classify characters and scenes according to Joseph Campbell's mythic storytelling stages and archetypes, although it offers no opinions of their work.
Professional screenwriters who are asked about such software can turn somber, shifting in their seats as they reply that they have never heard of it, and then quickly disparage the judgment of the novices they say must be the ones using it.
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