Continuing a discussion of scriptwriting software, this article looks at Sophocles, "a new screenplay software program that emphasizes the writing process. By allowing you to easily navigate and manipulate your story elements, Sophocles helps you craft a tighter, smoother flowing screenplay." [Their italics.]
I downloaded the 90-day trial demo.
First off, formatting is intuitive and straight-forward. Type "int." or "ext." and it automatically capitalizes those words and the rest that follow on that line.
Press TAB once and it moves toward center and capitalizes the character's name. If that character has already been included, it will suggest that name as soon as you begin typing it. Press ENTER and the full name is displayed and the cursor moved to the next line for dialogue.
Type an opening parenthesis and the line is automatically indented for character directions. Type the closing parenthesis and the cursor moves to the next line. It can import and export to other formats and word processing (although I wasn't able to test the exporting in the trial version).
It maintains a timing feature, indicating elapsed time in 30-second increments. Of course, directing, pauses, and other factors may come into play, but for a general guideline of length of script, it's quite handy.
Then, to help the writer even further, Sophocles maintains lists, of characters, dyads, and scenes. For the characters, it opens a window that lists all characters, how many scenes each is in, and how many total lines and words.
Dictionary.com defines a dyad as "two individuals (as husband and wife) maintaining a sociologically significant relationship." Sophocles' dyad list "displays the dyads in your script along with an indication of the relative strength of the relationship between the two characters (a measure of how frequently they speak to each other)."
The scene list displays the scenes in order, number of speakers in each scene, total number of words spoken, the opening paragraph, a synopsis, and notes.
There is an Explorer-type window along the left of the screen for easy navigation between scenes, and it can be run in a Spec mode or Production mode, too.
However, as with most screenplay software I've seen, it focuses on the standard screenplay format, but is weak for stage plays and documentary (or A/V) scripts.
All in all, though, it's a very powerful and efficient package, and for just US$120, really quite a bargain and worth trying yourself.
