The majority of software for writers is aimed at solitary writers, toiling away alone with their pens and paper—or laptops. Adobe Story CC, however, is meant for a different kind of creator. At first blush, it's an app for screenwriters. But really, it's an app for screenwriters who also produce and direct, or those who work closely with a production team. You can write a script, as well as describe in detail the shots you want in each scene, right alongside the dialogue, voice overs, and action lines. The online-only Story also generates production schedules. For those who write, direct, and produce, it's exactly the kind of service that can corral creativity into meaningful and actionable output. Note that the CC in the app's full name stands for Creative Cloud, of which it is a part.
For the lone screenwriter who's about to spend two years figuring out the best way to tell a story, Adobe Story is overkill. You won't need all the preproduction tools that make Adobe Story special. A better option for working screenwriters who don't produce or direct is Final Draft ($249.99 at Amazon) , which is an Editors' Choice. Other apps for writers, notably Editors' Choice Scrivener and Storyist, cost much less. They're also better for writers who work on not only scripts, but also other types of projects, such as books.
Price and Platform
Be careful trusting what you read online regarding Adobe Story's availability and price. The service offerings for Story changed dramatically in early 2017, and outdated and misleading information is still fairly prominent online.
Here's the deal: You can try Adobe Story for free for seven days, and the only way to use it is with an online HTML5 app. There used to be desktop apps, too, but they are no longer available.
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You have two choices for how to pay for the software. A subscription to Adobe Story costs $9.99 per month. For that price, you get only Adobe Story, nothing else in the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. That cost is about half as much as any other single-app subscription price from Adobe. The second way to get Adobe Story is through the All Apps Creative Cloud subscription, which runs $49.99 per month. Students and teachers can get an All Apps subscription for $19.99 per month.
Unfortunately, there are no mobile apps for Adobe Story. There used to be an iOS app few years ago, but it's been discontinued. The company says it has been working on making its HTML5 app friendly for mobile browsers, however. The reason screenwriters typically want a mobile app is so that they can make an edit or write down an idea in the script whenever those thoughts come to them. It's a bonus if the app works offline, too.
While $9.99 a month doesn't sound too expensive, it adds up over time. Many other writing apps keep their costs low to appeal to struggling artists. The Mac-only Storyist ($59.99 at Storyist) {{/ziffarticle}, for example, is an app for all kinds of writers, and it includes well-designed templates for screenplays and teleplays. It only costs a one-time fee of $59. Scrivener has templates for scripts as well, and it costs just $45. Scrivener is compatible with both Windows and Mac computers, and for that very low one-time fee, you can install the app on as many machines in your household as you like, so long as they are all on the same platform.
Final Draft costs a bit more, $249.99, but at least you can install it on two machines, which adds value. And you only have to pay once.
As mentioned, however, Adobe Story isn't quite comparable to all these other writing apps because it's as much focused on the preproduction data about the script, like the shooting schedule, as the content of the script itself.
Getting Started
The primary benefit of screenwriting apps, or templates for screenplays inside other kinds of writing apps, is that they automatically adhere to industry standards of formatting. Scripts must meet certain criteria so that everyone involved with the production understands what's what. Dialogue is centered, character names before lines appear centered and in all caps, margin widths and alignment changes depending on what kind of information appears, too. Doing it manually could result in tears. Doing it with the right tools is a breeze.
Adobe Story applies formatting similarly to Final Draft and other apps with screenwriting templates. The first thing that belongs on the page is the scene heading. The app automatically left-aligns the text and offers type-ahead suggestions for the correct abbreviations you can use, such as INT. for interior and EXT. for exterior.
As you type, Adobe Story guesses what kind of line comes next, whether an action, dialogue, or something else. If it's wrong, you can simply select the correct type of line from a short list of options.
As you add character names and scene settings, those begin to pop up in type-ahead suggestions as well. It makes typing efficient and ensures consistency of language throughout your the script.
Advanced Features
Writing the script is one part of making a film or television show. Another part is coming up with ideas for shots, and Adobe Story has tools for this. You and your collaborators can make notes about shots within the context of the script and add quite a bit of detail when necessary, too.
Another part of preproduction is making sense of all the location where the team needs to shoot. Scene headings provide the basic details, but they don't contain address, notes about the on-site contact, or whether the location is inside a studio lot. Adobe Story has tools for managing those details, too. You can even attach a photo of the location (via URL only, however).
All the metadata that gets added to the script comes in handy when it's time to start figuring out a shooting schedule. A producer and crew need to view scenes not in order of the story, but grouped together based on location so that they and plan for an efficient shoot. Adobe Story can also save information such as how many minutes each scene will be in the final film, how long it will take to shoot, and the start and end times of the shoot. If you spot an error, say, that a scene was scheduled to take only one hour to shoot but will really take three, you can update the field and tell Adobe Story to readjust the planned shoot times for everything that follows.
When working with multiple scripts, it's helpful to be able to compare production schedules to make sure there isn't any overlap that double-books people. Adobe Story does that automatically when you generate a report comparing any two schedules.
To explore all the features of Adobe Story could take days or weeks. The app offers a lot. Adobe has great video tutorials to help you learn what else is inside and how to use it. For example, the app has tags, which seem simple enough. When I watched a video tutorial that explained tags, however, I learned they could be used in several ways that are specific to film and television, such as for flagging product placement or FCC regulation issues. The tutorials are well made and worth watching from time to time just to make sure you haven't left some useful stone unturned.
Another big benefit of Adobe Story, particularly if you're already steeped in other Adobe products, is that you can pipe in the script to
Sharing and Collaboration
Adobe Story supports collaboration well. To work at its best, everyone who is collaborating needs a license for Adobe Story or Creative Cloud. When you share a script or a project, you can assign one of three different permissions levels: coauthor (gets full editing power and the ability to add new documents to a project), reviewer (can add comments only), and reader (can read the script only and cannot see comments). Story also has a solid Track Changes feature.
If your collaborators don't all have Adobe Story, there are other options for collaborating. You can export the script to a different format and share it with other people that way. You can export to .csv, .fdx (Final Draft), .pdf, .txt, and Movie Magic Scheduling format.
If collaboration is an important part of your work, that might be a reason to consider using Adobe Story, as it's a notorious weakness among almost all the other writers' apps I've seen. Final Draft has a somewhat clunky coauthoring tool in which multiple people can view a document simultaneously, but only one person can edit at a time. I'm hoping these apps can catch up to Google Docs in this regard, because it remains one of the best apps for collaboratively writing, and it's been in that position for years. Other apps need to offer the same ease of use and fluidity of coauthoring in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.
Not Just for Writers
While Adobe Story CC is screenwriting software, it's just as much built for getting a script ready for production as it is for developing a story. Like many Adobe products, it's jam-packed with features that take a while to explore and learn to use. For a screenwriter who doubles as her own producer or director, I couldn't imagine a more suitable tool.
Some writers, however, find it distracting to write in apps that offer more than what they need. That may very well be the case for screenwriters who have no interest in directing. For those writers, I recommend using a different app that stays more centered on the writing process, such as Final Draft or Scrivener ($59.99 at Literature & Latte) .
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