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Glossary of Screenwriting Terms

buzzwords and basics

Action

Within scenes, refers specifically to physical motion or movements. As a Genre, Action Screenplays are dominated by physical action (fights, chases, explosions) and external Conflict.

Action Block

Also known as Description, a paragraph of descriptive script text that will not appear in the finished film. Action paragraphs often describe the setting, physical actions, characters, or other important information.

It's best to be as Spartan as possible with Action text. Long, unbroken Action paragraphs make a script extremely tedious to read.

Ambitious

Term used to describe a writer who attempts to break or at least significantly modify one of the key rules of screenwriting.

The Ambitious writer might try to tell an Episodic Non-Linear Story focusing on the internal conflicts of three protagonists, taking place across two hundred years.

Ambitious writers occasionally produce brilliant scripts. More often, their ambition leads to incoherent screenplays that quickly earn a Pass.

Antagonist

The opposite of the Protagonist, the Antagonist is the villain who attempts to thwart the will of the main character.

Aristotelian Structure

The modern, 'energetic' method of organizing a plot, such that the story generates increasing dramatic tension as it develops, culminating in a potent climax which relieves said tension.

Invented by no less than the Old Man himself, Aristotle, in ancient Greece, which has become the foundation of Western storytelling.

Backstory

A word that never seems to pass the Spell Check. The Backstory refers to events and details that either occurred in the past, or are separate from the main plot.

Well-drawn characters tend to have Backstories that add depth and internal conflict to their personas. Authors can also carry this concept to extremes, producing stereotypical parodies of characters.

Example: a Farm Boy dreams of leaving his uncle's dusty farm and exploring unknown horizons beyond (Star Wars).

Bookends

Structural technique in which a script begins and ends with a "Bookend" scene that encloses the whole.

Example: the script opens with a scene of a man being shot. The script then jumps back in time to show the sequence of events that led to the shooting, eventually concluding with the finale of the man-is-shot scene.

While there are many variations, The "Bookend" structure is fairly common, and therefore often frowned upon by Readers as an overused storytelling Gimmick.

Brads

The ubiquitous—and mandatory—brass pins used to bind a standard three-hole-punched screenplay. Any other method of binding is verboten.

Characters

The people who inhabit your story. To qualify as a bona-fide Character, the person must have a speaking role, or perform an action that drives the plot.

Characterization

According to Wikipedia, 'the process of creating characters in fiction.' Characterization is one of the major elements of screenwriting, and as such is directly assessed in a typical Script Coverage.

Characterization can be considered synonymous with Character Development. Readers look for Characters who are diverse (ie, they don't all look, sound, or act alike), interesting, Sympathetic, and (crucially) who seem to have a life independent from the main plot of the screenplay.

Concept

Also known as the Premise, the central idea around which a screenplay is built. Ie, Lonely boy is befriended by alien (ET).

Strong, original, easy-to-express concepts are quite rare, so much so that they can override all other concerns, leading even glaringly weak screenplays to receive a Consider rating.

Conflict

At the heart of every good screenplay is Conflict: the force (or forces) which oppose the main character.

Conflict is most typically external—ie, a villain, who works physically against the Protagonist.

The best scripts, however, incorporate not only external but also internal conflict, ie self doubt, which pits the hero against himself/herself.

Consider

Favorable rating given to a screenplay indicating the script merits further consideration for production/development.

Among professional submissions, perhaps ten to twenty percent will receive a rating of Consider—the rest will receive a Pass.

Coverage

Also Script or Screenplay Coverage, the short, 2-3 page report produced by Readers. A Script Coverage summarizes the screenplay's story, assesses the script's key elements, and offers a subjective Pass/Consider opinion on the script's commercial viability.

Creative Executive

Somewhat ambiguous title of persons who work in the Development department. Creative Executives are generally in the business of locating good stories and then refining them in preparation for possible production.

Description

see: Action.

Development

Purchased or Optioned Screenplays typically enter a phase known as Development, in which a variety of industry persons claim to love the story, but then suggest changes, many of which are contradictory, ill-considered, or even absurd.

It then falls upon the writer to do unpaid rewrites of the draft in such as way as to appear to incorporate all such suggestions while in fact changing as little as possible, a process to be repeated again and again, often for years.

Development Hell

Scripts which spend too much time "in Development" often end up in Development Hell, a sad and terrible place in which scripts are improved and improved until they finally give up and die of exhaustion.

Dialogue

The spoken lines within a screenplay. Dialogue blocks are formatted tall and skinny to accurately reflect the spoken lines' actual duration (see Time).

Energetic

From Aristotelian theory. An Energetic protagonist actively influences or "drives" the plot forward, creating their own destiny, as it were.

Screenplays with an Energetic Protagonist are themselves said to be Energetic—a reflection of the sense of movement and energy they create.

Ensemble

Story which features more than one protagonist. Generally speaking, a tricky business best avoided by all but the most Ambitious of writers.

Episodic

An alternative to the Aristotelian Plot Structure—and usually a bad one. The Episodic Plot is best thought of as a string of equal-sized pearls, in which each pearl represents a contained unit of the story (an "episode").

Such episodes are self-contained units, introducing and resolving their own individual conflicts, often with little to no connection to adjoining episodes, and no discernable Unifying thread connecting the whole.

While serial or episodic stories work well on television, they are typically a liability in the feature film format.

Execution

The manner (and effectiveness) with which a story's elements are assembled by the writer. Many scripts, even those with strong Concepts, are undone by poor execution.

Exposition

Literally: information. Specifically, the details of the plot. How an author handles Exposition is often a key issue in assessing a screenplay. Good scripts are said to 'Show, rather than Tell' their stories.

Bad scripts, which employ poor Expository technique, typically feed the audience information in large blocks. Example: when the villain captures the hero at the end, and spends five minutes explaining his evil plot in detail.

Use of Narration and Flashbacks also raise the alarm, setting Readers on alert for poor Exposition.

Feature

Also Feature Length - the standard 90 minute to two hour duration of a Hollywood release.

Flashbacks

Oh, those dreaded Flashbacks! In a linear screenplay, any scene which jumps back in time as a means of Exposition

Perhaps no other storytelling technique is viewed with as much suspicion by Readers—even though it is quite common, even in professional work.

Excessive use of Flashbacks all but guarantees a 'Pass'.

Fly Page

The Title Page. Who knew?

the Fourth Wall

From Theater: the imaginary wall separating audience from stage. In screenwriting, the Fourth Wall is said to be breached any time the author introduces himself into the script, or makes any reference to the fact that a script is fiction.

Fourth Wall breaches are almost always a bad idea.

Genre

Type or category assigned to screenplay to describe it, usually for marketing purposes. Common Genres include Action, Thrillers, Drama, and Comedy.

Guru

Any of the many screenwriting experts known for their complex systems of analyzing scripts and advising writers. Past winners include Syd Field, Robert McKee, and anyone teaching at the UCLA film department.

Successive generations of Gurus seem to finally hit upon that essential formula needed to create a successful script—that is, until their replacement comes along.

Exception: Syd Field remains the father of screenplay structure, and his book, "Screenplay", which discusses the notion of the Three Act Structure and Plot Points, continues to influence readers and creative executives' expectations.

Hero

Used interchangeably with Protagonist.

Impressionistic

Inevitably the product of the Ambitious writer, the Impressionist screenplay eschews traditional screenwriting convention, seeking instead to weave seemingly disparate moments into a unified, effective whole.

High Concept

A Concept so simple and effective it is literally capable of selling itself—therefore the Holy Grail of Hollywood Producers, as High Concept projects are considered fool proof.

Based on language, you'd expect this term to mean exactly the opposite, since it is in effect the Low-Brow approach to marketing. Low Concepts, ironically, are complex premises which require explanation and careful filmmaking to succeed.

High Concept projects easily attract star talent and studio attention, often before even a single word of the script is written. Moreover, the Concept's effectiveness can draw in audiences even when the actual film is poor. Example: take your pick!

Locale

The Setting.

Logline

A one-sentence blurb intended to describe and/or Pitch the script.

Monologue

From theater: any long, uninterrupted block of dialogue. To be avoided in screenplays.

Non-Linear

A screenplay or Story in which events are ordered contrary to their natural sequence in Time.

Strictly speaking, a Bookend Sequence would be an example of Non-Linear Storytelling. However, the truly Ambitious Non-Linear Screenplay interweaves out-of-sequence scenes throughout the story.

the Opening Ten

The first ten pages of a script. Typically, if a script has not made a favorable impression by this point, it will soon find itself in the Round File.

O.S.

Off Screen. Placed adjacent to a Character Name element to indicate that person is speaking from a non-visible position within the scene.

Pass

The overwhelmingly most common rating a screenplay submission receives—and the rating that tends to make everyone happy (except, of course, for the writer).

A 'Pass' means the Reader doesn't have to work hard to explain why a script merits further attention. Also, it lets Creative Executives and Producers off the hook, who would otherwise have to worry about risking millions of dollars (and possibly their jobs) on the project.

Passive

Always a bad thing when this word appears in a screenplay coverage. Passive Characters are said to be moved by the plot, rather than actively driving (affecting) the story.

A Passive Protagonist is always reacting to events rather than causing them. For example, a Passive Hero might be likened to a log floating down a stream. In contrast, an Energetic Protagonist would be swimming against the current.

Pitch

The sales pitch. Writers meet with Producers and attempt, in a very short meeting, to convince the Producers to buy or commission their project.

Plot

Not quite synonymous with Story, but close: Plot, According to Aristotle, is the arrangement of a story's events such that one follows logically from the other.

Plot is therefore integrally tied to Structure, and may be thought of as the causitive organization underlying the Story.

Plot Points

Theoretical entity devised by writer Syd Field as part of his effort to create the authoritative guide to Three Act Structure for screenplays.

Plot Points represent moments in the screenplay in which events take a turn in a new direction, and are principally found (or supposed to be found) at the boundaries between acts or sections.

While the concept is rather arbritrary, Syd Field's influence in screenwriting has been profound, leading many Readers to expect all scripts to conform, more or less, to his system.

Polish

Minor rewrite designed to superficially improve a script without making any fundamental changes.

Premise

see: Concept.

Producer

The one who decides whether or not your script gets sold, and made.

Production

That happiest of states in which a script has passed all Development hurdles: the rewrites are (hopefully) over, the deals have been cut, the money has been borrowed, and film is now rolling.

Protagonist

The main character or Hero. In Western Storytelling, the protagonist serves as the focus of the plot, driving the story forward with their intentions and actions.

As a general rule, scripts should only have one protagonist.

Reader

Also Script Reader or Story Analyst: a person who reads scripts professionally, often by the hundreds, and writes analyses called Script Coverage for film companies.

Depending on the company, Readers can have an extraordinary degree of power in determining a script's fate.

In some cases, an unfavorable coverage will send a script directly to the Round File with no further consideration, making the Reader a virtual Hollywood Gatekeeper.

In other cases, plucky creative execs will rewrite a Reader's coverage in order to push their pet projects up the ladder.

the Round File

A trash can.

Sequence

A collection of scenes meant to act as a unified group within the screenplay. For example, a car chase sequence.

Setting

Also known as the Locale, the physical location(s) in which the story takes place, ie, New York City.

Setting is usually one of the major Elements examined in a Script Coveage: Readers check to see that the setting has a concrete, three-dimensional sense to it. The setting should also be relevant to the Story and if at all possible add to the script's effectiveness.

A final consideration regarding Setting is its feasability, especially where the budget is concerned. A fabulously expensive setting may make an otherwise effective screenplay rate a Pass (though this has become less an issue due to the rise of Digital Special Effects).

Spec

Short for 'Speculation', a.k.a. working for free. Scripts written 'on Spec' are not commissioned works; rather, the author invests his or her time in the screenplay hoping the end result will sell.

Speeches

A.k.a. monologues - undesirable lengthy dialogue blocks in which a character speaks without interruption for more than three lines or so.

Story

The collection of events which comprise a screenplay.

Story Analyst

See Reader.

Structure

One of Screenwriting's key Elements, and also among the most complex. Structure is perhaps best thought of as the way in which events are organized in Time.

Creative Executives look for specific structural templates (ie, the Three Act Structure) when assessing screenplays. Such templates can be specific to the point that certain events are expected to happen within a certain number of pages.

While such rigid structural expectations can become an artificial constraint on creativity, Structure's importance should not be discounted. Screenplays as an artform are extremely brief, and require careful organization of events and ideas in order to coherently tell an Energetic story in the span of 90 minutes.

Theme

Another of screenwriting—indeed, storytelling's—key concepts. Theme refers to the overriding idea behind a story. It is more complex than a simple moral argument.

At its core, Theme is an expression of Truth.

Three Act Structure

The overwhelming favorite method or pseudo-method of organizing a story in script format. Based on Aristotelian theory, which posits stories should have distinct beginning, middle, and end sections.

For a complete discussion of this complex (and controversial) subject, see Screenplay by Syd Field, father of modern Script Structure.

Time

In a screenplay, a page equals one minute of screen time—a significant difference from a novel or short story, in which time is fluid and unrelated to page length.

Screenwriters must learn to write "down the page"; that is, they must view their pages as representing fixed units of time, and fill them accordingly.

Truth

The writer's one and only genuine weapon.

Unity

One of the big concepts of screenwriting. Unity refers to a script's cohesiveness. In a Unified script, all the elements work subtly together toward a cumulative effect.

Unity can come from a variety of places. The simplest way to Unify a story is to simply focus on one character. Alternately, a physical location can provide Unity. The best scripts feature Unifying Themes.

V.O.

Voice Over. Similar to O.S., but in this case, the character is not physically present in the scene.

Can be used to indicate a character is speaking via telephone, or narrating the scene.

Western (storytelling)

No, not cowboys and Indians. Western (as in philosophy) Storytelling uses Aristotelian structure as its linchpin, which posits a lone, Energetic hero, the Protagonist, facing a single, overriding Conflict, embodied by the Antagonist, leading toward a dramatic resolution.

White Space

Superficial but highly important screenwriting aspect: how "white" a page appears.

Pages which have an inordinate amount of text on them (especially long, uninterrupted action blocks) are tedious to read, and can quickly sour a Reader's impression.

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