Asten for screenwriters
Cold opens, flash-forwards, “three weeks earlier.” Asten keeps the order audiences see scenes separate from the order events happen, imports and compiles Fountain and Final Draft, and marks story time that steps backward inside a run of scenes you declared continuous.
In short
Asten supports screenwriters by importing and compiling Fountain, the plain-text screenplay format, and by tracking story time and reading order as two clocks for non-linear scripts. It marks continuity contradictions in your settled facts. It is not a full screenplay formatting suite.
Common problems
Non-linear structure
A cold open, two timelines, and a reveal that depends on both lining up.
Character drift across drafts
The limp moved from the left leg to the right somewhere in draft four.
Format lock-in
A script trapped in one app’s file format.
How Asten helps
Fountain in and out
Import and compile the open plain-text screenplay format.
Learn moreTwo clocks
Screen order and story order, kept separate. CANON-E201 only inside a run you declared continuous.
Learn moreCanon checks
Scars, cars, and who knows what, settled once.
Learn moreLocal and private
An unproduced script stays on your machine.
Learn moreThree weeks earlier
- Your script opens on the fire, then cuts to “THREE WEEKS EARLIER.”
- The cut steps backward in story time. It is outside the run you declared continuous, so Asten says nothing.
- In act three a scene you dated day 15 lands before day 14, and this time you didn’t mean it.
- You swap the scenes in the binder. Fountain compiles clean.
Reading order · run “The siege”, continuous
- Ch. 8Oren sailsday 14
- Ch. 9The stormday 15
- Ch. 10The harbor burnsday 17
- Ch. 11 · flashback, outside the runMira remembers the fireday 4
- Ch. 12Landfall at Veldday 18
Story time
No scene in the run steps backward in story time. A scene taken out of the run is not compared.
No clock marks.
Limits
- Asten is not a full screenplay editor: no production revisions or page locking.
- Fountain and Final Draft (.fdx) are supported for import and compile.
- A flashback is never marked on its own. CANON-E201 appears only inside a run of scenes you declared continuous.
Asten for screenwriters
Does Asten support Fountain?
Can Asten replace Final Draft?
Asten for other writers
Keep reading
Try the pre-alpha
Open the workbench in your browser on a sample novel, or download release 0.0.1b for Windows or Linux.