Merrimo User Guide › Write and plan stories

Write scripts and manuscripts on Mac

In Merrimo on your Mac, you can write chapters, screenplay scenes, and character dialogue in a distraction-free manuscript editor designed for visual storytellers.

Write and format scenes

The Prose Editor uses standard screenplay formatting combined with rich character tags:

1. In Merrimo on your Mac, press ⌥1 or choose View > Prose to switch to manuscript mode.
2. Click in the editor and start writing your narrative prose, action lines, or sluglines (such as INT. ART STUDIO - DAY).
3. To write character dialogue, type the character's name in uppercase followed by Return, or type @ to pick a character from your Cast Library.
4. Press Return again to begin typing spoken lines. Merrimo automatically indents dialogue and links it to that character's profile.

Format text and insert inline images

You can style spans of text and embed reference sketches or illustrations directly inside your manuscript:

1. Select text in the manuscript (or place the insertion point before typing) and press ⌘B for Bold, ⌘I for Italic, ⌘U for Underline, or ⇧⌘X for Strikethrough. You can also use the Format menu or the Style buttons in the chapter inspector's Page tab.
2. To insert an inline image at the cursor, press ⌥⌘I (or choose Format > Insert Image…), paste an image from the Clipboard (⌘V), or drag an image file from Finder into the manuscript.
3. Inline styles and images are stored as clean inline Markdown (**bold**, *italic*, __underline__, ~~strikethrough~~, and ![caption](url)) and sync automatically across your devices.

Adjust text column width and typography

You can customize the prose reading environment to suit your display and typing preferences:

1. Choose View > Text Column Width to switch between Full Width, Narrow, Medium, or Wide reading columns.
2. Open the chapter inspector's Page tab while a chapter is selected to adjust the story's Prose Font family and point size (the Aa button beside the font, Show Fonts, opens the system font panel for every installed font), or apply inline text formatting. Under This Chapter it shows the chapter's word count, its reading time, and whether it has a screenplay yet.

Write in Focus Mode

Choose View > Focus Mode (Shift-Command-F) to hide the sidebar, the inspector, and the toolbar, so only your text fills the window. Choose it again to leave Focus Mode: the toolbar comes back, along with the sidebar and the inspector if they were showing before.

Write a screenplay for a chapter

Each chapter can have a screenplay alongside its prose. The two are separate texts: switching between them changes what the manuscript shows, not what you wrote.

1. Select a chapter, open the inspector, and click the Page tab. Under Format, choose Screenplay. You can also press ⌥⌘2 or choose View > Screenplay, and ⌥⌘1 or View > Prose to go back. While the screenplay shows, the window's subtitle reads the chapter's title followed by “Screenplay”.
2. Under Display, choose Formatted to see the screenplay laid out on the page, or Markup to see the plain Fountain text you type.
3. Under This Chapter, check the screenplay's estimated pages, its scenes and how much of it is dialogue, and how many words of prose it comes from.

A chapter with no screenplay yet says so in the middle of the page. Start typing a scene heading (such as INT. BRIDGE – NIGHT) to write one yourself, or click Back to Prose to return to the chapter's prose.

Adapt the prose into a screenplay

With AI on, Merrimo can write a chapter's screenplay from its prose, using your Story Bible:

1. On the Page tab with Screenplay chosen, turn on Keep full dialogue to keep every spoken line from the prose instead of trimming long speeches.
2. Click Adapt from Prose at the bottom of the tab (or on the empty page). While it works the tab shows its progress and the page says Adapting the screenplay… (or, over an existing screenplay, Adapting from prose… at the top); click Stop on the tab to cancel, and the chapter's screenplay stays as it was.
3. When the chapter already has a screenplay, the button reads Adapt Again… and asks before it replaces it. Click Replace to go ahead. To get the old screenplay back, choose Edit > Undo.