🧰 Our Toolset

Note

This page will provide a beginner’s introduction 101, to the building blocks that make up this workflow. Read on if you’re unfamiliar with Markdown, Obsidian, or Fountain—else, you may skip ahead!

Jump ahead:

• What is Markdown?
• What is Obsidian?
• What is Fountain?

What is Markdown?

Summary

Markdown is a lightweight markup language that uses simple plaintext formatting for easy conversion other formats.

Markdown is what I’m using to write what you’re seeing. For example, to bold words, you wrap text in double-asterisks **like this**. There’s a “Source” Mode where you see all the ugly prefix/inline-symbols, then there’s a “Preview” rendered mode where all the formatting/styling gets applied according to the symbols that you used.

There’s no one official markdown “application”. It can be used anywhere. That’s the beauty.

• FREE: Pay nothing.
• Simple: Learn in 5 minutes.
• Robust: Used for websites, documents, notes, books, presentations, email messages, and technical documentation.
• Portable: Open and edit with any program. Export and import seamlessly.
• Platform-independent: Any device with any OS.
• Future-proof: Open, non-proprietary file formats; no vendor lock-in. Preserved for forever.

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What is Obsidian?

Note

Obsidian is a markdown-based note-taking app with a focus on knowledge management: linking and organizing information.

I’ve used Obsidian for academic note-taking, reflective daily journaling, task/project planning, blog writing, exploring/synthesizing ideas, and now story-planning/writing. It’s a great app, in general.

Each note/file uses the markdown format (see above), which provides tools for you to churn out beautiful, semantically-structured text. Links, Tags and community tools help you easily connect complex files/ideas into a web of information in digital format—like a “second brain”.

• FREE: Pay nothing.
• Markdown: All the perks aforementioned above.
• Local Files: Just regular files, stored in a folder, on your device.
  • Privacy: No data gets sent to anyone’s cloud servers, so never worry about leaks.
  • Speed: Local access is magnitudes faster than cloud access. SPEED is why I searched for a Notion alternative.
  • Accessibility: Offline-first access.
• Customizable: 2000+ community plugins & themes for every workflow & style — or develop your own, like I’m doing!

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What is Fountain?

Note

A lightweight markup syntax for writing screenplays with simple plaintext formatting — just like Markdown.

Fountain is an amazing markup syntax that strips away all the complexities of formatting/styling, so that you can focus on what matters most: content. The syntax covers everything you really need. Professional screenplays have been authored in Fountain. I never want to write in any other way.

Fountain was inspired by Markdown’s design philosophy and principles, though they were never conceived to be used side-by-side. There are many excellent applications for writing screenplays in either pure Fountain, or pure Markdown. But not both—until now.

• FREE: Pay nothing.
• Markdown: All the perks aforementioned above.
  • Simple: Learn in 5 minutes.
  • Plain-text: Functional, even without the styling!
  • Portable: Archive it forever. Export to professinal PDF, and share it easily. Use plenty of compatible apps.
  • Version-controllable: Something I’ve never really seen done before, where you can use tools like Git to track the history of edits, or even create alternate-timeline git-branches of changes!