Use highlight colors when you outline. It can help you find things faster when you look back at the outline as you write/rewrite the script. And this way, you won’t have to read through most of the outline or the entire thing to find something.
I use yellow for things I’m not sure about, things that need more work, and things I need to research.
I use blue to let myself know something will be a scene in the script.
Green for dialogue.
Gray for setups and payoffs.
Pink for things I don’t need to use (I highlight them instead of deleting them because I might end up using them).
If you don’t want to use highlight colors, you could use something like bold words, underlines, or emojis to help you find things faster when you look back at the outline.
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Hi Maurice, I love using highlighters, I get them from Staples
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Cool, Billy Kwack. I meant the highlight colors in a program like Microsoft Word, but highlighters work if you outline with paper. Some writers outline that way.
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Hi Maurice, oh okay, cool
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I outline in Microsoft Word, Mike Childress. I've been thinking about outlining in FD.
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I use the highlight colors in Microsoft Word also/
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Nice. I use colors to group notes in Final Draft.
The holdup for me switching to FD to outline is I can turn my outline into a treatment easily with Microsoft Word, Mike Childress.
What highlight colors do you use, Pat Savage? And for what (scenes, dialogue, etc.)?
Hey, Michael Dzurak. Do you mean group notes when you outline?
Cool, Mike Childress. Whatever works for you. And yeah, you could outline after writing. I'm not sure how that'd work though. I have heard of writers going back to their outlines and working on them some more when they're stuck on the rewrite.
I usually do a lot of work on a feature outline, but my short script outlines are really short. Maybe a page each. I'm writing a short script right now, and the outline is about half a page.
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Yes! I love multi-coloured highlighters! Either real ones or the digital variety!
Let me know if you ever want advice on writing treatments, synopses, pitch decks, etc., Mike Childress.
What do you use highlighters for, Michael David? Dialogue, scenes, etc.
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Maurice Vaughan I use highlighters for 1) What I want to fix; 2) I give different characters different colours and then flip through my script colour by colour to see if every character is being developed and consistent
I like that idea of giving characters different colors and using the colors to track their development and consistency, Michael David! I might try that. Thanks for the idea.