Screenplay Format: The Complete Guide

What font and margins does a screenplay use?

A screenplay is set in Courier or Courier Prime, 12 point, on US Letter paper. The left margin is 1.5 inches to leave room for binding, the right margin about 1 inch, with 1 inch at the top and bottom. Page numbers go top right, and the first page carries none. That fixed setup is why one page is close to one minute on screen.

Everything else is about where text sits across the page. Action runs the full width. Dialogue sits in a narrower column in the middle. Character names sit further in, and transitions hug the right edge. Software handles these indents, but it helps to know them when something looks off.

How do you write a scene heading?

Every new place or time gets a scene heading, also called a slugline: INT. or EXT. for inside or outside, then the location, then the time of day. INT. DINER - NIGHT. Keep locations consistent, because the production team schedules from them. If the action carries straight on into a new room, CONTINUOUS works in place of a time.

How do you write action lines?

Action, sometimes called description, is what we see and hear, written in present tense. Keep paragraphs to three or four lines so the page breathes. Put a character’s name in caps the first time they appear, with an age and a quick sense of who they are.

How do you format dialogue in a screenplay?

Before every speech, the character name goes in caps on its own line, indented toward the centre. The dialogue sits right under it in its own column. Use the same name every time: a reader who meets MOM, SARAH and SARAH MILLER in three scenes will assume three people.

A parenthetical is a short note in brackets between the name and the line, like (shaking off the rain). Use it for tone that the line alone would not carry, or a small action mid speech. If you need more than a few words, it belongs in action.

Where do transitions and extensions go?

Transitions such as CUT TO: and DISSOLVE TO: sit flush right. Modern spec scripts use them sparingly, since every new scene heading already implies a cut. FADE IN: at the start and FADE OUT. at the end are still common.

Extensions go after a character name: (V.O.) for a voice from outside the scene, (O.S.) for someone just out of frame, and (CONT’D) when a speech carries on after a line of action. The element guides below cover the trickier cases, like phone calls, flashbacks and text messages, with live examples for each.

What is the difference between a spec script and a shooting script?

The script you send to contests, managers and readers is a spec script. It leaves out scene numbers, camera directions and revision marks. Those arrive later, in the shooting script, once a production is real. If you are writing to sell or place, write a clean spec and let the page read fast.