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Script Format & Style Guide

An insider's checklist of do's and don'ts

Yes, it's true: an overworked, ill-tempered Reader stands between you and your brilliant screenwriting career—and if your Reader gives up after 10 pages, it's over.

The good news is much of what annoys a Reader has to do with presentation. Make your script look professional, and you vastly increase the chance it will be treated professionally.

Your Script must be properly formatted

Readers are extremely sensitive to formatting. A poorly formatted script immediately announces itself as an amateur work.

Your script must be written in 12-point Courier font, on 8 1/2" by 11" white paper, three hole punched, bound with two brass brads.

Never use spiral or glue bindings. Do not use fancy colored or plastic covers (exception: your script is in development at Really Important Studios, and it arrives via limousine, in a tasseled lamb skin binder, escorted by no less than three of the current America's Top Model contestants. This is perfectly acceptable).

Do not include artwork, photos, or drawings (unless essential to the story), or any sort of preamble to "explain things" to the reader, a.k.a. the 'Kiss of Death' (exception: a short prologue explaining historical data relevant to the story).

For the definitive guide to script format, I recommend Standard Script Formats by Cole/Haag.

Do Not Exceed 120 pages

Don't even think of altering the font, font size, margins, or line spacing to make a bloated script look smaller. Readers will notice the deception immediately.

To curry favor with the Reader, ideally shoot for a page count in the 90's. That's a little short, sure, but Readers appreciate having less work to do.

Three Brads or Two?

Within the film industry, it is standard to use only 2 brads to bind a script, even though the pages are three-hole punched. If you've read a script bound with two brads, you'll notice the pages tend to catch, making it difficult to read.

So why do the studios use only 2 brads? I like to think it's because they're too cheap to pay the extra fraction of a cent for three. But that is of course pure conjecture.

Aha! you say. I'll bind my script with 3 brads to make it easy for the Reader to read it. Not so fast. Doing so immediately identifies your script, alas, as an amateur submission.

Shots

Avoid putting camera directions/specific shot information in your script unless absolutely necessary. First of all, this is the director's job, not the writer's.

Also, unless you happen to be an experienced director and/or cinematographer, you'll make a fool of yourself.

Scene Numbers, Continued's...

Don't use these in Spec drafts. Scene numbers and Continueds are normally only found in scripts that are in production. If your script is lucky enough to be in production, it very likely no longer requires the services of a script Reader.

Exception: submitting your in-production script with scene numbers/continueds to the Reader who rejected it for purposes of revenge. Best if accompanied by photocopy of enormous check.

Scene Headings

Standard Script style tends to evolve, and currently there is a trend to get rid of explicit INT/EXT headers and just use an All-Cap tag line:

Many Readers no doubt viewed this change with great skepticism, but it has become accepted practice in the industry, and it does make the script easier to read. It's more work for the production team when it comes time to do the breakdown, but—Hey!—that's not my job.

If you are uncertain about how to use this trend, or anything else currently in fashion, you will not go wrong by sticking with traditional script format.

Character Names in All-Caps

This varies a bit depending on which side of the Pond you're on. Here in Hollywood, Character names are CAPITALIZED once within Action Blocks the first time that character appears in the script:

This is a clever way of telling the Reader, "Hey, watch out—there's a new guy coming along. Pay attention." If you don't do this, you risk your fast-scanning Reader missing the new character's entrance entirely, and having to backtrack to find out where he/she came from.

Pay Attention to Naming Patterns

Make sure your characters have easily distinguishable names. Don't name one character 'Patty' and the other 'Patricia.' It's probably a good idea to not repeat any letters of the alphabet (Alex, Betty, Carl, Dexter, Emily) when naming characters.

Exception: Advanced Writers may intentionally want to confuse the reader about their characters' identities.

White Space

Put as much White Space in your script as possible. Use lean Action/Description paragraphs, plenty of line breaks, and keep Dialogue blocks short. Readers find the sight of white space very soothing.

Alternately, Readers begin scowling and muttering angrily to themselves when confronted by script pages cluttered with excess text.

Write Down the Page

Not exactly a format issue, but too important not to mention: you must get in the habit of thinking Down instead of Across. Each page must reflect exactly one minute of screen time. If this means your paragraphs are only one word long,

so

be

it.

Don't Stand Out

In general, this is the golden rule of formatting. Scripts are highly standardized, for good reason. Ambitious young go-getters want to gussy their scripts up to make them visually stand out in a crowd. Don't. This only attracts unwanted attention.

Stand out with the quality of your writing. Write a brilliant screenplay, and I'll forgive you if you break every rule on this page.

...Well, maybe not if you spiral-bind.

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