Are you considering entering your screenplay into a festival or competition, applying for a mentorship scheme, the BBC, or sending your script to any other industry professional?
Be it television or film, here’s a comprehensive outline of best practice for formatting your scripts…
You can find Scene Headings in the menu of your screenwriting software. I use Final Draft but there are some great free programs out there and having the formatting options available will save you a ton of time.
Once you’ve got the hang of Scene Headings they can be fairly straight-forward: EXT/ INT. WHERE – DAY/ NIGHT. Whenever the time or location changes, you need to start a new scene. Showing time has passed in the same location: EXT/ INT. WHERE – MOMENTS LATER. Or: EXT/ INT. WHERE – LATER.
Rules of thumb: Never add dialogue straight after a scene heading, always set the scene first with Description. I’ll elaborate on this further down.
Make sure not to repeat information in the description that can be stated clearly in the Scene Heading.
The most important thing is to keep scene headings consistent. Don’t chop and change like I was accidentally doing in previous drafts of Somewhen BCE:
I settled on EXT. TIMETRAVEL.INC’S MACHINE – DAY. Although most of these examples will work fine, as long as they are… (What’s the magic word?) Consistent!
Showing a different location with action happening at the same time as a previous location – CONCURRENTLY/ SAME TIME. Showing when time is continuing but the location has changed – CONTINUOUS / CONTINUED. Which would look like: EXT. TIMETRAVEL.INC’S MACHINE – CONTINUOUS. Or: INT. TIMETRAVEL.INC’S MACHINE – CONCURRENTLY.
Don’t put years, dates or times in Scene Headings (also called Slug Lines). That’s what Supers (or Titles) are for.
Transitions are usually an editing decision made by the director, rather than a direction that needs to be scripted. Plus, they take up pivotal space on the page as well as being old fashioned. Avoid them unless it’s absolutely necessary.
As we have already learnt, a new Scene Heading should be used instead of LATER: It should be: INT. ANTONY’S OFFICE – LATER.
There is no need to add CONTINUED at the bottom of your page.
SUPER: or ON SCREEN: For Titles / words and numbers that appear on the screen where viewers can see them.
In Present Tense (don’t use gerunds (ings)! He runs. (NOT) He is running) set the scene appropriately. Tell us where we are, evoke an atmosphere, and tell us who is present at the beginning of each scene. But not in a list like in the Dances With Seagulls example above. It is also prudent to mention here that the movie, series or episode title should not be on the script. There will be a separate Title Page that competitions and festivals will choose whether they want you to include or not.
Don’t include any ‘unfilmables’ – i.e. Character’s thoughts or background information. Write how you want your actors to feel and how you want the audience to feel about the characters’s choices and ideals.
Don’t overuse ‘we see’ or “we hear”. This is another clear amateur error. In the Dances With Seagulls script, ‘we hear’ is not overused throughout, but this line can be condensed so as not to repeat information. Always consider if every word is absolutely necessary. This line would be better as: Clanking of broken china and clattering of trays.
Write as concisely as possible, the more white space you can create on the page, the more fluid the read will be. Try to avoid having paragraphs of Scene Description any longer than four lines.
To help break things up and pull focus on the important info, try to think of each new shot on the screen warranting a new line on the page. And I know I’ve said it before but it’s important – Don’t direct the actors, the camera, or the edit!
Characters – capitalise our first introduction. Main characters should have a separate line of introduction, like the example from Somewhen BCE highlighted above.
When introducing a character, we want to know their name, vague age, and personality in as condensed form as possible: KATE (40s, kind with tired eyes) picks up… Layouts are a personal preference, it could be KATE, 40s, kind with tired eyes, picks up… The main thing is to keep consistency throughout.
Only tell us what your character is wearing if it’s of importance to the narrative and expresses something about their personality, attitude or flaws. Show the characters personality through their actions.
Don’t detail any background information about a character that we can’t see on screen and definitely don’t put the character description in with the character’s dialogue, like the above example from Dances With Seagulls. The only information that can go next to the Character’s name before dialogue is whether they’re seen on the screen by the viewer when they say it. We’ll get to Dialogue in a moment.
Keep names consistent throughout – if you introduce us to DAVID, don’t call him Dave later on in the script (unless it’s another character saying his name in the dialogue).
Give secondary characters a descriptive name – Homeless Man, Police Man, Angry Man, etc… like in the example from my Major Projects script The Divergents in the image above.
Dialogue should never follow a slug line as we learnt in our very first section, Scene Headings. After setting the scene with the Description and painting a picture of what’s happening before a character speaks, then we use Dialogue to express how the character speaks and what they say.
Here are some general rules for best dialogue practices:
When two characters talk at the same time, it’s called DUAL DIALOGUE or SIDE-BY-SIDE DIALOGUE and is exemplified above in the Somewhen BCE scene: INT. TIMETRAVEL.INC’S TIME-MACHINE (C.P). This is where scriptwriting software is extra handy, you highlight both parts of dialogue and hit Dual Dialogue, and it puts them together for you.
In brackets next to the name of the Character who’s speaking, you can state where the character is when speaking. Sometimes the character may call from OFF SCREEN (O.S.) or OFF CAMERA (O.C.). Or if your character is not seen but is narrating, you could use VOICE OVER (V.O).
A Parenthetical should go between the character name and dialogue. It can be used under the character’s name if it is not obvious who the character is speaking to, or what tone of voice is used, demonstrated by Pamela in the example above. Words in parentheses are never capitalised and should not go after the dialogue or be used to direct any significant action.
You can use Parentheses to indicate when a character is singing, and also for a hesitation or an adjustment in speech – a (pause) or a (beat). I have a personal pet hatred of the overuse of (beat) in a script, especially where you could add more information about the pause.
Express a character being interrupted using a double dash or an ellipsis like in the examples above, but please don’t chop and change – remember our magic word!
Don’t write dialogue in another language – This renders the lines of dialogue completely useless as unless the reader is fluent in Russian, French, or whatever language you’ve used, the lines will not be understood. See the correct example in romanticide above.
Some competitions and festival judges will prefer scripts with nothing in Bold, Italics or CAPITALIZED. I personally like to use bold fonts to identify the parts in the dialogue that are being emphazised. I find this helpful when hearing people read the characters out loud, which I would always suggest doing with your script before sending it anywhere. Read-throughs are your friend.
Please note, for a shooting script (the script used for the actual production of the film/episode) the writer will work with the producer and/or director (and in post, the editor) on a version of the script that does include camera shots and transition details.
SUMMARY
Readability – Above all else, your script should be clear and easy to read. If the reader is viewing pages with the format they feel comfortable with, they will find it easier to digest the content, and likely continue further into the screenplay.
Many thanks to Mark Tournoff who is converting his radio script for Dances with Seagulls into a screenplay and Chris Hern whose original film script for Romanticide is being developed into a mini-series – both of the scripts used were rough drafts.
If you’ve found this helpful, then please look out for my Narrative Devices post later this year, which will look at advanced formatting such as montages and flashbacks.
