If you’re flooded with ideas for movies and you have vivid characters and themes all ready to hit the page, you’ll eventually be struck with the question – but how do I format a screenplay? This is not something that you can improvise, as there are specific industry wide standards regarding margins, character descriptions and scene headings.

Luckily, you don’t have to figure this out alone! The standard software used by professional writers is Final Draft, which contains a number of key shortcuts and sets up your screenplay draft page for you. Utilizing industry-standard formatting ensures your script appears professional and makes it easier for producers, directors, and actors to understand your vision. It’s absolutely essential to get formatting right in order for a screenplay not to hit the slush pile. An expert can take just one brief look at a page and see if it has all the correct elements in place.

Under the Final Draft menu, you’ll conveniently find all the options you need to select the following elements. But what should you actually place within them?

First, you need to set the scene with SLUGLINES, also known as scene headings, for each distinct location. Think of a slug as a label for your eventual production team. They need to know WHERE the scene is taking place, WHEN the scene is taking place in terms of light and dark, and also if the scene is INTERIOR (INT.) or EXTERIOR (EXT.)

An interior slugline in a café at night could be written as:

INT. CAFE – NIGHT

An exterior slugline on a New York street in the morning could be written as:

EXT. NEW YORK STREET – MORNING

You’re allowed to keep it simple, and just write DAY or NIGHT but many writers define the tone further by stating DAWN or TWILIGHT etc. It’s up to you.

After the slugline you’ll need ACTION DESCRIPTION. Think of this as everything that the camera/audience SEES on screen. This is always written in the present tense. For example:

DAN (39) marches, head down, towards the office.

The first time you meet a character in a script, you put their name in capitals plus their age or another descriptor such as DAN (30s, skinny, depressive) marches, head down, towards the office.

If we’ve already the character in your script, you can use lower case next time you describe them:

The monster now looms overhead, jaws salivating, claws reaching down towards the kids.

Mandy lies, devastated, on her bed.

You would never write action description in the past tense, or have it tell you what a character is thinking:

Mandy was lying on her bed thinking about how Bob dumped her. Why is this wrong? This isn’t a novel and the audience cannot know Mandy’s inner life. Plus, it is not in the present tense.

If you want to convey more of what Mandy is thinking, consider having her receive a phone call where you hear what has happened to her, or have her pick up a photo of Bob and look at it, crying.

Dialogue comes after and between action disruption and always has the character name set right above it. In general, unless it’s a long monologue, or you are perhaps doing a voice over, exchanges between characters are not often longer than two to five sentences.

Here’s an example of a dialogue exchange between two characters from the movie “The Godfather“:

MICHAEL: “My father is no different than any powerful man, any man with power, like a president or senator.”

KAY: “Do you know how naïve you sound, Michael? Presidents and senators don’t have men killed.”

MICHAEL: “Oh. Who’s being naïve, Kay?”

Notice how the dialogue is sharp and succinct. Movie characters don’t tend to use too many filler words as we do in real life. For example, you’d probably write:

KIRA “Yeah right mom, that seems totally likely” rather than

KIRA “ Uh, ha, yeah right mom, like that seems totally likely haha”

If you need to comment on a character’s dialogue to make it clear how they are feeling, then use parentheticals. These should be used very sparingly, and should provide valuable insights into the characters’ emotions, tone and actions.

Here are three examples of screenplay parentheticals:

1. JIM (sarcastic): “Oh great, another meeting.”

2. LISA (whispers): “I think someone’s upstairs.”

3. MARY (hating this) : “I’d be happy to take the next turn.”

Don’t write action description in parentheticals. For example, this is wrong:

GINA (holding open the door courteously for Ron ) “Go ahead!”

Hopefully this blog has given you basic insight into your key question of how do I format a screenplay? But there are evidently many more nuances and specifics to dig into, which are best attempted on a screenplay page. If you’re able to, consider working one on one with a professional mentor at Script E.R. in our formatting program to get you off to the best start!