The Storyteller’s Must-Have Mac Bundle offers 7 top-reviewed apps to unleash your storytelling prowess.
Montage
Don’t Let Your Screenplay Get Lost In the Pile
Screenwriting is a creative process, but it’s not a free-for-all. It requires a specific type of formatting and crucial structure in order to tell a functional story. You can have a blockbuster idea, but without the proper screenwriting format, it won’t get read. Montage contains everything you’ll need to format correctly so your script won’t be just another being glazed over.
3.5/5, Macworld
- Provides proper formatting for screenplays & plays
- Supports importation from Final Draft directly into Montage
- Allows you to save as Montage or Final Draft file format
- Gives you multiple views like Script View & Outline View to organize your script
- Full Screen Mode keeps you free from background distractions
StoryMill
Your Best Selling Novel Begins Here
StoryMill is a simple yet powerful novel writing software for writers of all levels, providing a complete database for characters, locations, and scenes. Take your novel idea and suss it out in this software designed to ease you into the writing experience. Purposely designed to include all the elements essential to writing as well as providing a place for organization, StoryMill is the one stop shop to get your Best Seller onto the page.
4/5, Macworld
- Set daily writing goals & track them using the Progress Meter
- Keep track of cliches & monitor how many times you use a word
- Add pictures, tags, files, links, or make notes to any item in your project
- Monitor the time & dates of scenes & events to keep an organized timeline
- Compare versions to make different edits & revisions
- Write in a clean, distracting-free landscape using Full Screen Mode
Narrator
Hear Your Text Brought to Life & Gain Auditory Editing Power
Narrator is a text-to-speech and dictation app for Mac, allowing you to play back multiple voices in a story. Whether you’re studying lines for a play or trying to hear how a written conversation sounds aloud, Narrator gives you the power to hear what you’ve written so you know exactly how it sounds.
4/5 Stars, Softpedia
- Have one or multiple voices in your story read aloud
- Dictate a letter & listen to it read back to you
- Paste text or import an RTF, .txt, or .doc file & get it read
- Control the rate, pitch, inflection, & volume to give voices a wide range of expressiveness
- Assign voices to read for different parts
- Use the Dictionary preferences feature to replace acronyms or symbols w/ more elegant phrasing or spell words differently so they’re pronounced correctly
- Export what you’ve created directly to iTunes to listen again & again
MacJournal
Keep Journals with Audio, Video, Annotations & More. It’s Journal Keeping for the 21st Century.
Chronicle memories, life events, and thoughts with MacJournal, a personal journaling and blogging application. Include photos, images, video, or even audio to any entry. It’s journal keeping for the 21st century. With MacJournal you can document any life event with all the senses and emotions that come with it.
‘If you keep a journal, write a blog (or a couple of blogs), or just want to have a great place to jot down your thoughts without worrying about losing them, then MacJournal 6 is hard to beat.’ 4.5/5, Macworld
- Create as many journals as you’d like for work, home, family, or friends
- Upload entries to your blog on Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, Tumblr, & more
- Add color, sound, & imagery to each of your journals
- Select a favorite song from iTunes, a photo from your Pictures library, or even a YouTube video to add to any entry
- Sort your journals by topic, date, mood, content size, & more
- Set aside time each day to write & use the Timer to monitor your progress
- Protect your journals w/ password protection & AES-256 encryption
Contour 2
Dissect Your Story & Never Again Ask, “What Comes Next?”
Contour 2 brings written beauty and intuitiveness to a whole different level. This writing app implements functionality that helps every kind of writer, giving you the tools to keep your story on the right path, and you on the writing task. Developed by Emmy-nominated writer Jeffrey Alan Schechter, Contour teaches you the perfect blend of plot-driven versus character-driven storytelling. Follow the Contour system and you can kiss writer’s block goodbye.
4/5, Macworld
- Answer just four questions to get well on your way to creating a masterpiece
- Use a fill-in-the-blanks & intuitive approach to identify the crucial elements of your story outline
- Understand your stories through archetypal themes
- Study the entire scripts of blockbuster movies dissected through the Contour system
Mariner Write
Simple Is Better When it Comes to Word Processing
Elegantly efficient and powerful, Mariner Write is your go-to word processing tool for Mac. Tired of having countless mysterious features in your word processor? No worries. Whether you’re a professional writer, educator, student, or just need to create documents, Write has just the right amount of functionality needed for all types of writers.
- View different parts of your documents at the same time w/ the Split Pane
- Use customizable headers, footers, endnotes, footnotes, or a simple style sheet
- Work w/ keyboard shortcuts for repeated tasks
- Open MS Word files & save your documents as RTF-Word files for sharing
Persona
Create Better Characters for Your Stories
Aimed at the character development space, Persona aids you in crafting archetypal themed characters and plots by using time-honored psychological principles to describe the motivations and interaction between different types of people. You’ve got tools for outlining, research, spellchecking… but Persona is your one tool for character development. And characters are what will make your story.
- Access archetypal characters w/ detailed personality traits, qualities, flaws, backgrounds, occupations, & how they interact w/ other personalities
- Explore unique characters’ psychologies & the background that influences their dealings & dialogue
- See what happens if your character becomes corrupt & turns from hero into villain
- Create Smart Groups based on attributes like tags, type, sex, or any word or phrase from your notes
- Construct ad hoc groups of characters without a defined relationship in order to explore interactions
