In an early version of Scrite, index cards on the structure canvas featured additional fields, as advised by Blake Snyder in his book “Save The Cat”.
Soon after we released that version, we got a lot of backlash from writers who don’t prefer using ideas from “Save the Cat” for structuring their screenplays. Later, we allowed writers to customize story beats but had to roll back index card fields altogether.
In the recent past, we received feedback on Discord and via email to resurrect index-card fields while letting them be customizable.
With 0.9.5-beta, we are introducing customizable index-card fields.
By default, Scrite does not bundle any index-card fields, which is why you will notice that none of your index cards have anything other than a heading and synopsis.
To configure index-card fields, simply right-click on an index card and select the “Index Card Fields” option in the context menu.
In the “Customize Index Card Fields” dialog box, you can add up to five fields in either the “This Document” tab or the “Default Global” tab. While adding fields in the former tab impacts only the currently open document, the latter can impact default fields for all future documents.
The “Default Global” fields can also be customized in Settings.
Remember to click on “Apply” to save and use the fields you create. Once applied, you will notice that each index card on the structure canvas will now feature these fields.
You can even enable the display of index-card fields in the screenplay editor’s comments panel.
This allows you to write your screenplay while simultaneously keeping an eye on hints left in those fields while structuring your story.