# How to use ScripTao

The app follows how television is actually written: develop → bible → break → outline → draft → revise, then storyboard and prep. You don't have to go in order.

## The stages

- **Develop**: Find the idea: logline, genre, tone, comps, the series engine. Produces: Logline, Pitch one-pager.
- **Bible**: Characters with want/need/wound, the world and its places, season arcs. Produces: Series bible, Character sheets, Location list.
- **Break story**: The room: episodes as columns, beats as index cards across acts. Produces: Season board, Episode beat sheets.
- **Outline**: Scene-by-scene: place, who, goal, conflict, turn. Produces: Scene outline, Step outline.
- **Draft**: Write pages in screenplay format. Produces: Writers' draft.
- **Notes & revise**: Notes rounds (showrunner, studio, network), coloured revision pages. Produces: Notes log, Revision sets.
- **Visualize**: Storyboard / comic panels: shots, angles, blocking. Produces: Storyboard, Shot list.
- **Production prep**: Lock pages, breakdown by scene: cast, places, day/night. Produces: Locked script, Breakdown, One-liner.

## Three ways to start

- **Guided setup:** answer a few questions and get a bible, episodes and a board.
- **Blank page:** skip the wizard and start writing immediately.
- **Import:** paste or upload a Fountain script, a play or a public-domain novel.

## Fountain

The script editor uses [Fountain](https://fountain.io), plain text that any screenwriting app can open.

## The assistant

Optional. Ask in plain words; every change comes back as a card showing exactly what would change. Tick the parts you want, then Apply; Revert takes it back. It is off until you agree to send your project to it; see [privacy](https://scriptao.com/privacy).

## Revision colours

white, blue, pink, yellow, green, goldenrod, buff, salmon, cherry

## Glossary

**Logline**: One or two sentences: who wants what, what's in the way, and why it's a series rather than a movie.

**Series engine**: The repeatable situation that generates episodes: a case of the week, a family business, a heist crew.

**Bible**: The reference document for the show: world, characters (want / need / wound), places, season arcs, tone.

**Breaking story**: Working out an episode's beats as a group or alone, usually on cards on a board, before any outline is written.

**A / B / C story**: Parallel storylines in an episode. A carries the most weight; B and C echo or counterpoint its theme.

**Beat**: One unit of story change. A card on the board.

**Outline**: A scene-by-scene prose plan of the episode, written after the break and before the script.

**Reverse outline**: An outline written from a finished draft, one line per scene saying what it actually does. It exposes scenes where nothing changes.

**Setup / payoff**: Something planted early that matters later. An open setup at the end of a season is a promise you broke, or a hook you meant.

**Dramatic irony**: The audience knows something a character doesn't. The knowledge matrix shows where it happens.

**Coverage**: A reader's report: logline, synopsis, ratings, and a pass / consider / recommend verdict.

**Revision colours**: Production drafts are re-issued on coloured pages so everyone knows which version they hold.

**Locked**: In production, a script whose page numbers no longer change; later changes become A-pages. In ScripTao, locking freezes a draft version; page-locking is not in ScripTao yet.

**Breakdown**: The list of cast, places and elements per scene that production uses to schedule and budget.