Two on Plain Text
As always, Stu Maschwitz offers some highly considered wisdom on switching to a plain text workflow:
The point of this article is simple: Don’t take my word for it that working with plain text is the best thing that ever happened to you. Or this guy’s. Or this guy’s.
The best thing I can do is gently lay out some of the reasons I love it. Go ahead: reject them. Fight back. Argue with me. This is one of those ideas that’s worth it.
Then slowly discover plain text on your own.
Brilliant. Also noteworthy: Stu had only just learned Markdown when he conceived of Screenplay Markdown, which eventually became Fountain. That’s nuts.
John August responded to Stu with even more text wisdom:
If you’re fighting to get Final Draft to recognize a parenthetical, you’re no longer writing. You’re formatting. You’re a poet picking fonts. You’re a novelist worrying about hyphenation.
Plain text keeps you from worrying about the wrong things at the wrong time.
These are two very smart guys.