Hi, everyone.
First of all, I apologize for my english. Is not my first language.
One of the best tecniques to improve the dialogue is to separate out a character´s dialogue, and work a character at a time.
It would be great to have a feature where, not only the software remembers the name of the characters automatically when you write someone talking (like finaldraft do) but to be avaible to track their progress, traits, and scenes where they apear.
and most of all, to be avaible to see and edit, only their dialogue.
For example, lets say I want to improve “Michael” dialogue. I want to read, only what he say. Not descriptions, no other characters talking back.
So, I go to edit, search by format, and there is an option to search by character dialogue. I write “Michael” and automatically, every scene where he talk is shown and I can see if what “Michael” say is coherent to his traits. If not, I can rewrite his dialogue.
There could be a check box, to chose whether you like to see other character´s dialogue, to see the context; scenes, descritions, etc…
Think about it, it could be a great help when we rewrite a script.
I think what you are wishing for is literally not possible.
Generally speaking, there is no unique and reliable mark in a text that would identify what strings are uttered by a particular character in your story. There is not even a reliable mark to identify what text is spoken or written in the voice of a character.
–gr
P.S. It must be said that, in a text with a regimented format – like you get in scriptwriting mode – something like this is conceivable (since dialogue lines are consistently marked with character name tags and each dialogue line is isolated from surrounding text), but I gather you were looking for a function not particular to scripts.
The feature that I wish, is not that different as to what finaldraft uses. And yes, it only aim for SCRIPT format. Since the other way is, as you well said, impossible to track.
The advantage that I see in doing this, is to improve dialogue, and track the actions of character,
ONLY in the script.
The following way to search, is already in the program, but you can only search by comment, footnote, between lines annotation, highlight text, color text, links, and character format. (the last one applying to characters as letters)
Imagine that it also include the characters of your script.
You could go to EDIT/ SEARCH BY FORMAT/ CHARACTERS, and there would appear a list of the characters that have spoken during the creation of your script. Since there is a line for characters, and other for dialogue, and so on, it wouldn’t be so difficult to find.
Since Scrivener aim to give as much freedom to users, there should be an option to delete characters or change their name. Once you change their name, the name would be substituted in all the parts where the character speaks.