Amazon Storywriter
UPDATE: amazon storywriter was retired on the 30th june 2019.
If you’ve ever dreamed of writing scripts for TV and aren’t quite sure where that golden opportunity is going to come from, might I suggest you have a look at this tasty free app I discovered. The Amazon Storywriter (developed by the good people at Amazon Studios, naturally) is a very neat little app for script-writing which formats your script for you as you go and saves your work online for you to access from any computer in the world.
‘So what?’ I hear you cry, ‘There are dozens of online script-writing apps out there!’
True, but unlike most others, this script-writing app will send your completed script directly to Amazon Studios. If it is accepted, your script might well end up being the next TV show or movie to be produced by the same people who gave us Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle and The Man in the High Castle. Tell me, dear would-be screenwriter, that you’re not a little bit interested.
As far as I can tell from looking at their website, they are particularly interested in drama series, comedy series, children’s TV shows or movies, so you’re probably best restricting yourself to those genres (though don’t let me stand on your toes). I’ve not actually submitted anything yet (I’m getting there!) so I don’t have too much first hand knowledge about any issues that may or may not arise around creative royalties, contracts, copyright issues or anything else like that (therefore, I would strongly recommend doing your research before you submit anything – good advice any day of the week) but I can review it as a writing app.
The interface is very simple. There are two tabs along the top: ‘Write’ and ‘Review’. The ‘Review’ tab is, unsurprisingly, where you go to review scripts that your friends have sent you. I’ll maybe talk about that another day, but right now I want to focus on Storywriter’s function as a script-writing app. So, let’s have a look under the ‘Write’ tab!
Here we have a sidebar consisting of two fairly self-explanatory options: ‘Create a script’ and ‘Import a script’. ‘Create a script’, as you might guess, creates a brand new project which is automatically saved to the cloud. ‘Import a script’ allows you to import either text-based PDFs, FDX files or Fountain files (5MB or less) into Amazon Storywriter from your computer. Either way, what you’ll end up with is a very intuitive little writing environment: a page, already set up and ready for you to write (or continue, if you imported) your script.
If, like me, your skills in proper script formatting are a little rusty, the sidebar on the right (or ‘element menu’, as it is called) will help you to format your script as you go along without having to spend a lot of time faffing around with line-spacing, margins, alignments and all that sort of thing (though I would still strongly recommend learning how to format your script properly and proof-reading it to be certain anyway). Your work will save automatically as you type and whenever you close your project, but there is, nevertheless, a big handy-dandy ‘SAVE’ button on the top right hand corner of the screen, if you crave that reassurance that only manually saving your work can bring. You will also find a small drop-down menu at the top-right of the screen. This is where you can make (fairly limited) changes to the layout of the editor: you can hide the element menu and you can toggle ‘typewriter mode’, which causes the editor to scroll as you type.
Along the top-left of the screen there is a simple menu, most of which you will recognise from every other word processor you’ve ever used: undo, redo, bold, italics, etc. Clicking the ‘Amazon Storywriter’ logo will take you back to your home screen. There is also a single drop-down menu (which for some reason is labelled with the name of your project) which most closely resembles the sort of things you might find in a ‘file’ menu on most normal word processors, but there are some important differences. I’m not going to waste time explaining every option in the menu since most of them are self-explanatory but there are a few that are worth highlighting.
First, this menu includes all your options for letting other people (specifically, your friends and Amazon Studios) see your work. Clicking on ‘share’ lets you send your script to whoever you like: friends, neighbours, dentists, anyone. All you need is their e-mail address and they will receive a notification asking them to review your script (they must accept this). If, however, you feel your script is as good as it’s ever going to be, clicking on ‘Submit to Amazon Studios’ will begin the step-by-step process of submitting your work to Amazon for consideration, so don’t use it until you’re certain your script is ready.
Another useful feature in this menu is ‘Save a draft’, though it might not be exactly what you imagine it to be at first. Once you save a draft, it is saved as a read-only file that can not be edited. It can only be viewed, renamed, shared, exported, deleted completely or submitted to Amazon Studios. You can create as many drafts as you like (or at least, if there is a limit, I’ve not hit it yet) and you can continue to edit your script as before; only the draft files are read-only, allowing for easy redrafting without losing any previous drafts you might want to revisit. Every draft file can be found attached to your project on the home screen.
If, however, you want multiple editable scripts for the same project, choosing ‘Create a copy’ from the same menu will create a brand new project identical to the one you’re working on at the time. The only thing it won’t copy over is your read-only draft files. As before, this copied project will also be available from your home screen and will not have any effect on the original project and its associated drafts.
There is only one major thing this app does lack: any kind of planning environment where you can write up character biographies, storyboards and the like. This app doesn’t really come into its own until all your planning is already done and you’re ready to actually write a draft.
Still, it’s a swish little app for would-be screenwriters, especially if you’re a beginner looking for an easy way of having your work reviewed by your peers and considered for production by a company who can (maybe, possibly, if you’re lucky) bring it to life for you. The app’s functionality may be a little basic in some respects (though there’s something to be said for that when writing, I find) but it’s certainly much easier to use than some more expensive apps and does the job well.
Also did I mention that it’s completely free to use?
Andrew Ferguson 
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Amazing I love it
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