Because the same people keep coming back

Any folder keeps a group of scripts together. But if you are writing a TV series, or a movie and its sequels, your scripts share more than a shelf. The same characters walk into every episode, and the story keeps returning to the same places. A Series / World folder keeps those people and places in one spot, so you write them up once and bring them into every script that needs them.

Turning it on

Open the folder and you will see a Series / World section at the top of its page. Tick This folder is a series or world. Only you see the box, since it is your folder.

Once it is ticked, the section opens into two tabs, Characters and Locations, and the folder gets a small Series badge beside its name in your folder lists. Click the open tab again to fold the section away when you just want to see your scripts.

Your recurring characters and locations

These tabs are your series bible’s cast and places. Put the major characters and locations here: the ones that recur across the series, not the guest of the week. There are three ways to fill them:

• Add them with the New Character or New Location button.
• Import them from a script you have already written them up in. Scripts in the folder are listed first.
• Send them up from an episode. Open a character or location in any script in the folder and click Send to series.

Pictures, descriptions and everything else you have written about them come along too.

New episodes start with the cast already there

When you add a script to the folder, or create a new one in it, we offer to bring in the series characters and then the series locations. They are all ticked, so one click is enough, or choose Not now and do it later with Import from another script on the script’s own Characters or Locations tab.

Characters the new script already names are matched to them, and locations find their scenes by their scene headings, including the ones you have not written yet.

Each script keeps its own copy

What you bring into an episode is that episode’s own copy. Change Jane’s backstory in episode three and episode one is not touched, and neither is the series version. So you can let a character grow from one script to the next without worrying about the others.

When you do want them back in step, two buttons in the character or location window do it:

• Send to series copies this version up to the series. If the series already has them, we ask whether to replace the series version or keep it as it is.
• Update from series brings the series version into this script. The character keeps the name this script uses, and a location keeps what it is in this particular story. The old picture is kept among its sketches, so nothing is lost.

Good to know

• Untick the box and the series characters and locations are put away, not deleted. Tick it again and they are back. The copies in your scripts are never affected.
• AI sketches are drawn in a script’s own world, so they are made in a script rather than on the series page. Sketch a character in an episode, then send it up to the series.
• A folder of unrelated scripts, like Horror Scripts or Out to Producers, does not need the box ticked. It is for scripts that share a story.