From time to time I want to share with you things I've found that make the filmmaking process easier. I have recently discovered and have been using a writing-organizer and outlining software called Scrivener.
I think it's fantastic. I have always been drawn to the 3x5 index card method that has been around for at least a century. What I love about Scrivener is that it does everything the index card method does - as well as the paper cards do - and then it does so much more - all the things that a computer can do.
Yet it is as intuitive and as easy to use as paper cards on a table.
From their website "Scrivener [is] a word processor and project management tool that stays with you from that first, unformed idea all the way through to the final draft. Outline and structure your ideas, take notes, view research alongside your writing and compose the constituent pieces of your text in isolation or in context. Scrivener won't tell you how to write—it just makes all the tools you have scattered around your desk available in one application."
Best of all, it imports from Final Draft - so that you can take an existing script, import it into Scrivener and then, with quick work, have a compete set of index cards that you can start rearranging as you work on the restructure. And when you are finished, it then exports back to Final Draft.
But here, I have just scratched the surface of what it does - please check out their website. There's a great 30-day Demo they offer and I promise, you'll be hooked long before the trial is up.
I'd love to hear about your experience using it or how you'll solve the problem of outlining over multiple rewrites.