SCREENPLAY FORMAT GUIDE

Welcome to screenplay format.net!

If you’re considering writing a screenplay, or perhaps you’ve written a few screenplays but are still unsure as to exactly what they are supposed to look like, you’ve come to the right place.

Screenplay format is a deceptively difficult thing to master. It looks so easy, even perhaps intuitive, as you read a script, doesn’t it? Sure, the guy talking is in the middle, and then the other stuff is over at the left side… piece o’ cake.

But as you sit down to write one yourself, that’s when the headache begins. Where exactly does the dialogue go? Is it centered? Am I supposed to tell the camera what to do? What words get CAPITALIZED? How do I tell the audience that this line is supposed to be sarcastic and said with a wink? And so on and so on.

Well, fear not! We’re here to help you master screenplay format. And we’re going to do it in a fun, accessible and breezy style, because learning this stuff should be fun, not an exercise in tedium. Relieved? Good. I know we are.

This screenplay format site is presented by Creative Screenwriting magazine.

Let’s take a look at what we’re going to cover:

Is Screenplay Format Important?

You’d think the answer to this is obvious, right? The answer is a bit more complicated than you may think.

Getting Started

The part we all dread! As Douglas Adams once said, “I don’t enjoy writing nearly as much as having written.” This section will cover:

• Seriously, do I need to use correct screenplay format?
• Where to find scripts
• What paper should I use?
• Do I need to use covers?
• How do I bind this script thing?
• Screenplay format terminology
• Software

Write It!

The meat in this two-fisted burrito. Ready to get writin’? Wait—don’t you have to procrastinate a little longer first—check your e-mail, scrub out the toilet? No? Then let’s get cracking. In this section we’ll cover:

• Margins, spacing and font
• White on the page
• Title page
• Description
• Character introductions
• Shooting script versus spec script
• Dialogue
• Capitalizing, bold and underlining
• Ellipsis and dashes and periods, oh, my!
• Writing down the page
• Single or double-sided?
• Length
• Proofing, editing and spellchecking
• Common grammatical (and other) mistakes
• Inserts, enclosures and diagrams

Exercises

Once you have your sea legs, we’re going to let you take a couple practice runs. We’ll give you some text. Your job will be to put that text in proper screenplay format. We’ll then show you how we would have done it, and you can compare.

Resources

While of course screenplayformat.net is the definitive be-all and end-all resource (ahem,) there are plenty of other places to turn when you get stuck. 

Ready to take the plunge and learn all about screenplay format? All right! fasten your seatbelts, strap yourselves in, hold on tight (and any other hyperbolic clichés you might want to use here,) and let’s go!

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