How to Format a Screenplay

Nobody buys a screenplay for its margins. Plenty of readers stop at page one because of them, though. Format is what they see before a single word lands, and a page that looks wrong says the writer hasn’t read many scripts.

The good news is that there isn’t much of it. Eight elements do nearly all the work, and each has a standard place on the page. There’s no single exact format every professional uses, but good scripts sit inside a narrow, recognizable range. Learn where things go once and you stop thinking about it.

(Every example on this page is laid out in characters, not pixels, on the same column table the Screentype editor and its PDF export use. Resize the window and the page scales. The columns stay put.)

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INT. THE PAGE ITSELF - DAY

Start with the sheet. Standard format keeps scripts comparable: a correctly formatted page runs roughly a minute of screen time. That’s a rule of thumb, not a conversion. Produced scripts average closer to 55 seconds a page, and a production times the script separately. But change the font or cheat the margins and even the rough number stops meaning anything.

• Ragged right, not justified. Don’t hyphenate words at the end of a line. Avoid decorative formatting: bold, italics and underlining all turn up in professional scripts, used sparingly and consistently.
• Don’t cheat. Squeezing the margins or line spacing to get 130 pages down to 118 is the oldest trick there is. Readers know what a real page looks like, and a cheated page makes the page count lie.
• No production markup. A spec script has no scene numbers, no CONTINUED at the top of each page, and no draft date in the header. See spec vs. shooting script below.

Where each element sits

Every element of a kind starts at the same column on every page. That’s the whole system:

These are Final Draft’s defaults, the layout most readers know by sight. Other software and older guides sit a few tenths of an inch either way, and that’s within the range professionals accept. Nobody reading your script owns a ruler. What they notice is a name centered by a word processor, a dialogue block running the full width of the page, or elements drifting from one page to the next.

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EXT. SCENE HEADINGS - NIGHT

The scene heading, or slugline, opens every scene. It answers three questions a production has to answer: inside or outside, where, and day or night. Any change of place or time needs a new one.

• Start with INT. or EXT., period included, followed by one space. Use INT./EXT. for a scene that plays on both sides of a door or window, such as a car seen from outside.
• Name the place from general to specific. A room inside a larger location takes a second separator (NORA'S HOUSE - KITCHEN); some guides use a slash instead (NORA'S HOUSE/KITCHEN). Keep names short.
• End with the time of day. DAY and NIGHT are the clean default. MORNING, EVENING, SUNSET, CONTINUOUS, LATER and MOMENTS LATER are all in everyday professional use too. Some stricter guides want those as a modifier after DAY or NIGHT. Prefer the simplest heading that tells the reader what they need.
• All caps, one hyphen with a space either side, no period at the end. Some writers bold or underline their headings, and Final Draft offers that style. Pick one look and keep it. Two blank lines above (one is acceptable), one below.
• Time jumps are a choice. A superimposed title such as SUPERIMPOSE: "THREE WEEKS LATER" is the cleanest way to put a jump on screen. Plenty of working writers put it in the heading instead when that reads clearly, so treat it as house style rather than a rule.

Spell a location exactly the same way every time. If it’s HALFWAY DINER on page three, it’s not THE DINER on page forty. Somebody will turn your headings into a shooting schedule.

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INT. ACTION LINES - CONTINUOUS

Action (also called description) is everything we see and hear that isn’t dialogue. It runs the full 60-character width from the left margin, in ordinary sentence case, one blank line above each paragraph.

• Present tense, active voice. “Nora wipes the counter,” not “Nora is wiping” or “Nora is seen wiping.”
• Mostly what we can see and hear. Showing beats telling: if she’s tired of this place, show her doing something tired. A short line of interior information is fine when it makes the read clearer. Just don’t write backstory the audience will never get.
• Keep paragraphs short. One to four lines is common, and a new paragraph reads as a new beat, often a new shot. A longer block is fine when the moment earns it.
• Capitalize a character’s name the first time they appear, usually with an age and a few words: NORA BEAUMONT (60s), reading glasses on a chain. After that she’s just Nora. Some guides set the age off with commas instead of parentheses.
• Caps flag what matters, sparingly. An important sound (The door BANGS open.), prop, reveal or movement can go in caps. Cap everything and nothing stands out.
• Put on-screen text in quotes: signs, headlines, texts, the words on a monitor.
• Direct the reader’s eye, not the camera. Imply the shot with what you choose to describe rather than calling camera moves. “We see” isn’t banned: working writers use it on purpose to control a reveal. Just don’t spend it on nothing, and don’t repeat what the heading already said.

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INT. CHARACTER CUES - CONTINUOUS

The character cue is the speaker’s name above each speech, in caps, at a fixed tab 3.7" from the left edge of the paper. That puts it roughly centered over the dialogue, but it isn’t centered by a word processor. Centering each name starts ELI and DETECTIVE MARGARET OYELARAN at different places, and they’re supposed to line up. It’s the most common sign of a script typed in Word.

• All caps, no colon. The cue has to fit on one line.
• One name per character, for the whole script. If she’s NORA on page one, she isn’t MRS. BEAUMONT on page eighty. Leads usually go by first name.
• Minor characters can go by their role: WAITRESS, TRUCKER, COP #2. Every line still needs a speaker, so don’t use A VOICE. Name who’s talking and add an extension.

Extensions: V.O., O.S. and CONT’D

An extension goes on the same line as the cue, one space after the name, in caps and parentheses. It tells the reader where the voice is coming from.

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INT. DIALOGUE - CONTINUOUS

Dialogue sits directly under the cue, in a narrow column that starts 2.5" from the edge and is 35 characters wide. The narrow column is deliberate. It keeps speeches quick to read and keeps page counts comparable.

• Sentence case. A whole speech in caps is hard to read, so let the words and an exclamation point carry the volume. To stress a word, underline or italicize it, and do it rarely.
• Usually spell out numbers and symbols the way an actor would say them: “twenty dollars,” not “$20.” Phone numbers, codes and dates can stay as numerals.
• Show interruptions with a double hyphen (Kitchen's flooding --) and trailing off with an ellipsis (I just thought...).
• Break long speeches up. More than about half a page of unbroken dialogue is a monologue. Make sure it earns that, or break it with action.
• Foreign languages: if the audience should understand the line, write it in English with (in Spanish) as a parenthetical. If they shouldn’t, say so once in action and don’t translate it.

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INT. PARENTHETICALS - MOMENTS LATER

A parenthetical goes between the cue and the dialogue, starting 3.1" from the edge and no more than 25 characters wide. It covers how a line is said, who it’s said to, or a small bit of business during the speech. If it wraps, the second line lines up under the text, not under the opening parenthesis.

• Lowercase, no period, a few words. (to Eli), (beat), (into phone).
• Always before the words it affects, either under the cue or between two lines of dialogue. Never at the end of a speech. Anything that happens after the speech is an action line.
• Only for the character who is speaking. If someone else does something, that’s action.
• Only when the delivery isn’t obvious. If a line already reads as sarcastic, (sarcastic) adds nothing, and actors don’t like being told. Use one when the tone contradicts the words, or to show which person in a room is being spoken to.

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INT. TRANSITIONS - LATER

A transition describes how one scene gives way to the next. It goes on its own line, in caps, against the right margin, ending with a colon, between the last action of one scene and the heading of the next.

• Leave out CUT TO:. Every new scene heading already means a cut. In a spec script, each CUT TO: costs two lines and adds nothing.
• Use one when the cut itself means something. MATCH CUT TO: when two images rhyme, DISSOLVE TO: for time passing, SMASH CUT TO: for a jolt.
• FADE IN: and FADE OUT. are optional. Traditionally one opens the script at the left margin and the other closes it, the one transition that ends with a period. Plenty of contemporary specs leave both off, and Final Draft now calls an automatic FADE IN old-fashioned.

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INT. SHOTS - CONTINUOUS

A shot (CLOSE ON, ANGLE ON) points the camera at something inside the current scene without starting a new one. It goes in caps at the left margin with one blank line above, where a scene heading gets two. Don’t confuse it with a mini-slug, a short location line inside a scene. The two are different elements.

• A shot can’t change the place or the time. Moving into the kitchen needs a new scene heading.
• The common ones: CLOSE ON, ANGLE ON, INSERT for a detail we need to read, and a P.O.V. that names both the character and what they see. BACK TO SCENE returns to the wider view.
• Use them rarely in a spec. Choosing shots is the director’s job. Usually the better move is to write the sentence so the reader already sees the close-up.

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EXT. SPECIAL CASES - NIGHT

Most scenes need only the elements above. A few situations come up in nearly every script, though, and each has its own convention.

Phone calls and intercuts

When we hear only one side, the voice on the line is (V.O.), never (O.S.), because that person isn’t in the room. When we see both sides, establish each location with a full heading, then write INTERCUT so you don’t need a new heading for every line.

Montages and series of shots

Open with a heading that says what the sequence is, then list the beats. Lettered beats, shown here, are one clean method. Dashes, short mini-slugs or separate headings are equally accepted. The next scene heading ends it, so END MONTAGE is optional.

Superimposed titles, flashbacks and dreams

• On-screen titles for a place, date or time jump go inside the scene as SUPERIMPOSE: "NEW JERSEY, 1994". You’ll also see SUPER: and TITLE OVER:. Pick one and use it throughout.
• A single flashback scene can add the word to its heading: INT. HALFWAY DINER - DAY (FLASHBACK). Dreams and fantasies work the same way.
• A longer flashback sequence can open with BEGIN FLASHBACK: and close with END FLASHBACK., or use standalone FLASHBACK and END FLASHBACK lines. Several formats are accepted. Either way, every scene inside it still gets its own full heading.

Dual dialogue

When two characters talk at exactly the same time, their speeches go side by side. Save it for real overlap, like an argument where neither person is listening.

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INT. THE CAPS LOCK KEY - DAY

Capital letters on a screenplay page mark things somebody has to find, cast, schedule or record, and things the reader shouldn’t miss. Cap everything and they’re noise.

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INT. THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE - NIGHT

Where a page ends is part of the format too. These rules make sure nobody turns a page and loses the thread.

• Never end a page on a scene heading, shot, character cue or parenthetical. Move it to the next page and let that bottom margin run a little long.
• Never start a page with a transition.
• Split a speech only between sentences, with at least two lines on each side. Put (MORE) at the bottom, at the cue position, and repeat the name with (CONT'D) at the top of the next page.
• Split action only between sentences, too.

Screentype handles page breaks, (MORE) and (CONT’D) as you type. Try it →

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INT. THE TITLE PAGE - DAY

The title page is the plainest page in the script. Same Courier, and the safe default is no artwork, logline, cast list or epigraph.

• Title centered, in caps. Written by centered a few lines below, then your name.
• Writing partners are joined with an ampersand (Sam Rivera & Jo Park). “And” means the two writers worked separately, and credits treat those differently.
• Contact details go at the bottom left: name, email, phone, or your representative. Some writers put them bottom right, and either is fine.
• Draft dates and numbers are usually left off a spec. WGA registration or a copyright notice is optional and accepted, though many writers leave it off. For contests, check the rules, since many want no name on the script at all.

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INT. SPEC SCRIPT VS. SHOOTING SCRIPT - DAY

Most produced scripts you can download are shooting scripts. They carry scene numbers, CONTINUED at page breaks, camera angles and revision dates, all added by the production after the script was bought. A spec script, the one you write to sell or to get read, leaves all of that off.

(Read produced scripts for the writing. For the format, strip the scene numbers out in your head.)

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