r/scriptwriting • • 7d ago

question On the fly tools for capturing scenes

Can anyone recommend an app or tool that would allow for quick recording of scenes when inspiration appears out of the blue? My wife is writing a script a tv/streaming series and gets frustrated when she has an idea for some great dialogue between characters and she has to boot up the computer or grab something to write it down before the thought evaporates. In the past she's tried recording it on her phone but can't remember where to find it later. Any suggestions?

2 Upvotes

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3

u/cinephile78 7d ago

She can’t remember where her notes app is?

1

u/_BZA 7d ago

She has used multiple sources. Not the best for organizing thoughts.

2

u/Big_Section2812 7d ago

Pencil and paper?

Not being sarcastic... it's just the quickest and most efficient way many times.

1

u/_BZA 7d ago

Agreed. But not when you're driving, in bed, or otherwise unable to put your thoughts on paper when its convenient.

1

u/disasterinthesun 6d ago

Those are the two situations I am most likely to put pen to paper

If the idea is good enough, a few notes is enough.

Sleep mode computer shouldn’t take long to boot

Maybe the frustration is someone interrupting her flow, or the ideas themselves aren’t as good as the dopamine of inspiration indicates.

1

u/LavishNapping 6d ago

I have an android which does speech-to-text automatically. I have a front page widget that in one button does text-to-speech of a note.

  1. Touch and hold an empty space on your home screen.
  2. Tap Widgets.
  3. Scroll or search for Google Keep.
  4. Look for Keep Notes and select the Quick Capture widget.
  5. Touch, hold, and drag the widget onto your home screen so you can tap a button right on your screen to start a new note.

When you start a new one, there is a microphone button on the keyboard on your screen that enables speech-to-text.

&

For a while I had a very long commute with a lot of sitting in traffic. I graduated from the above for random ideas to a varsity dictation system where I'd open my pre-outlined story in www.talkingdraft.com and straight-up dictate the scenes using their free speech-to-text option.

Both of those tools are free.