Treatment

The Treatment is THE place you want to end up when you finish your development with Subtxt. When you've finished weaving all of your Storybeats into Moments, the last step is to review your Storytelling here, and then download your document so you can start writing it elsewhere.

Here you can make last-minute adjustments to your story without thinking of structure.

This is extremely important to understand: the sooner you can move away from story structure, the sooner you can start writing your story. No one went to a theater, or picks up a book, to read structure--and neither should you overthink and overanalyze your story to the point of paralysis.

There is a reason there is absolutely ZERO story structure here in the Treatment view: you need to move away from it if you're ever to start writing and finishing your story.

The Focus on Storytelling

Referring back to the analogy of the iceberg, only what you see on the surface--the storytelling appears here in the Treatment. Feel free to re-write and clean up the individual instances of storytelling throughout each and every Scene.

Only the Storybeats you have moved into Scenes will show up in the Treatment view.

When you're ready, download the appropriate text file to use in your favorite writing app.

Downloading a Treatment for Use in General Writing Applications

Many writers prefer to write in a distraction-free environment, without all the bells and whistles of modern word-processors or extensive Markdown-assisted applications.

For those writers, Subtxt offers the generic Markdown download.

Opening this downloaded file in a Markdown-enabled writing app (like iA Writer) reveals the text of your Treatment with simple styling to keep everything organized.

As with the Fountain version, clicking "Show Preview" in iA Writer reveals a nicely formatted version of your treatment.

And, when you Export to a PDF from iA Writer, you are presented with the perfect file to send off to your agent or writing group.

Downloading a Treatment for Use in Fountain Applications

When you select Fountain, the file you download from Subtxt will be named after the Title of your story, and will have an extension of ".fountain".

When you open this file in your favorite Fountain app (e.g., Highland), the Treatment is already formatted and ready to write from with very little effort.

Note how in the Navigator of Highland, Acts and Scenes are indented and organized to make it easy for you to jump from one scene to the next. In addition, each Scene is numbered in sequential order from beginning to end.

When you click "Show Preview", Highland formats your Treatment from Subtxt to make it presentable and ready to print or to Save to PDF.

Saving to PDF results in a document devoid of structure, and rich in storytelling and meaning.

Just the way you always imagined it. 😊

Downloading a Treatment for Use in Scrivener

For those who prefer the organization capabilities of Scrivener, Subtxt offers an easy way for you to get a head start on creating index cards and preparing your document for your next draft.

In contrast to the simple Markdown or Fountain approach, Scrivener requires a little extra work.

First, create a Blank document in Scrivener.

Second, select Files > Import and then Import and Split

Select your downloaded Markdown file from Subtxt (with the extension .md).

Make sure "Split and structure using Markdown headings in the text" and "Convert Markdown" are selected before you click Import.

Once loaded, you'll find the Treatment split into Acts alongside the right, along with each Scene split out into its own card.

Selecting the Corkboard finds those same Scenes organized into Acts ready for you to visualize and implement as you write your next draft.