5 Ways To Make Your Screenplay Look Professional

How To Make Your Screenplay Look Professional

The very first thing readers are going to notice about your script is not your story (sorry), it’s the formatting. For those of you who have never seen what a professional screenplay looks like, it can be a bit jarring at first. It does not look like a typical essay you would write on a Word Document. It has so many more elements and customization to think about, but there is a specific reason for this. If your formatting doesn’t match the industry standards, your reader most likely won’t even read past page 1.

In the video, we will talk about the specific font that must be used, how the scene heading should look, where the character name and dialogue should be on the page, what needs to be in the description, the necessary information in the header, and, as a bonus, we will talk about how your title page should look. After all, the title page is the first thing any reader will see.

Use the Proper Screenplay Font

The one and only font you should be using in your scripts is “Courier.” That’s it! No “Arial”… no “Times New Roman”… no “Wingdings.” There is no reason to change the font to something that you think might be easier to read or a font that you prefer. If you do this, it will “scream” amateur. And this isn’t just for character dialogue; this is for all of the elements. Scene Headings, Descriptions, Parentheticals, Transitions… everything.

The nice thing about this is that the screenwriting programs out there (Final Draft) already have this as a default when you open a new file using their templates. So there is literally nothing you need to change. Now, if for some reason you need to write in a different font for your own personal reasons, that is totally fine. You just have to make sure you change everything before you send it out. Again, if someone opens up your script and the font is something other than “Courier”, they probably won’t even read a single word.

Scene Headings Naming Conventions

Scene Headings are the elements on the page that inform the reader where the location of the scene is taking place. More specifically, it informs them if the scene is taking place Inside or Outside, the actual Building or Parking Lot or River or any other specific location, and finally, it tells them what time of day the scene is taking place.

So, how do we get all of this information across in a specific naming convention? It’s fairly simple, and here is what it looks like…

EXT. RIVER – MORNING

Let’s break this down a bit more. The “EXT.” stands for Exterior. If you were inside somewhere, then it would be “INT.” for Interior. Either way, you never write out the entire word, just the abbreviated version of it.

RIVER – Pretty self-explanatory. This scene is taking place at a River.

MORNING – Also pretty self-explanatory. This scene is taking place in the morning.

If we combine all of that, we now know that the scene is taking place outside, at a river, in the morning.

Two other quick things I want to talk about here. The scene headings will always be in all caps.

EXT. RIVER – MORNING (this is correct)

Ext. River – Morning (this is incorrect)

The last thing is the order of the naming convention. The INT/EXT. will always be first. Followed by the LOCATION and finally the TIME OF DAY. If you switch up this order, it will scream amateur. People who read screenplays and other professional writers are used to seeing screenplays in a certain format, which is why these things are so important.

Characters and Dialogue Format

Arguably, the most fun aspect of writing scripts is coming up with he characters and their dialogue. And you guessed it, there is a specific format to this as well. Make sure you watch the video because the example I give here may not look correct, becuase this isn’t a screenplay program like Final Draft is.

But the name of your character will be in the center of the page, and it will be all in caps. A lot of times, people will write their character’s name and dialogue something like this…

Phil: Hello, how are you today? (this is wrong)
Kevin: I’m well. How are you? (this is wrong)

The correct way is below…

PHIL
Hello, how are you today

KEVIN
I’m well. How are you?

The character’s name will always be in the middle and all in caps. And the dialogue falls directly underneath it in sentence case structure (not all caps).

Descriptions Of The Scene

Every scene needs to have a BRIEF description of who and what is happening in the scene. Notice how I said the word BRIEF. Amateur writers often write paragraphs and paragraphs of scene description to tell the reader every little thing that is happening. Are there situations where you may have to write a bit more than usual? Sure. But for the most part, you are going to keep it as minimal as possible. And the reason for this is page count.

Page count is hugely important when it comes to screenplays. And the more description you write, the more of the page it takes up and the less room you will have for dialogue.

The only information you really need in the scene descriptions…

Who are the characters in the scene, what are they doing, and any specific information that might need to be set up now to pay off later? And this is all written in “normal sentence structure case.”

Like the example that is used in the video. The boy is fishing. That’s it. That’s all we really need to know.

You do not need to add overly complicated camera movements in the description. That’s for the Director to figure out. And again, this just takes up real estate on the page. You don’t need to write a long car chase sequence with all of the explosions and crashes and all of that. We (the audience) know what a car chase sequence looks like. We’ve seen it a million times.

“Phil’s car screeches through a red light as Kevin follows behind in his own car as they escape from the Cops.”

That is all you really need. We get what’s happening. It’s a car chase.

What Do You Include In The Header

The header is the top part of each page, the same as it would be for any Word Document. But what do you include up there? The answer is… the minimal amount of information that you can. Now, when you are actually in production, you will have much more information (Revision Sets), but for just sending your script for people to read, you only need a couple of things.

In the video, I talk about the page number and the title of the script. That’s all you need. The page number is always going to be in the top right corner… ALWAYS. I know in school you typically had it at the bottom middle. That is incorrect. And again, the nice thing here is that Final Drafts does this for you by default! Yay! One less thing you need to worry about.

And the other item is the title of your script/episode. This will go more or less in the top left of the header. Again, there is a ton of information and different elements on scripts, and we want to make it as easy as possible for people to read. Having anything extra up there can be distracting. You don’t need your phone number or email or blood type, or anything like that.

Bonus Tip: Your Title Page

Think of your title page as your first impression with someone. This is going to be the very first thing your reader sees when they pull out your script. A lot of times, writers want to decorate their title page with custom backsplashes of mountains or whatever. I mean, that’s cool and all… but you are not trying to show off your graphic design skills. You are trying to show off your writing skills. If/when your script is in production, then you can talk about custom title fonts and logos and all of that fun stuff.

The Title Page needs to be very clean. You just need the name of the show (it’s perfectly okay to make this font slightly larger), your “Written By” credit, and those will be in the center of the page. And then the bottom left, you can have your email and phone number. And in the bottom right, you can have the date.

Again, make this title page look as clean as possible.

Conclusion

I know a lot of what I talked about here and what’s in the video might seem obvious. But making sure these industry-standard elements are in the proper format can truly make or break someone reading your script or not. It would be awful if you do actually have a compelling story that is written, but no one takes the time to read it because the formatting is confusing. And I know people might say, “But if the story is so good, who cares about the formatting?” Gain, the answer is that people won’t even give your script a chance to read if the format isn’t standard.

Industry professionals are very used to selling screenplays in a certain format. Anything that is drastically out of the norm is going to get put aside. Logically, formatting a script is a million times easier than writing a compelling story. People in the industry will absolutely think, “oh, if this person can’t even get the basic format write, then they probably can’t get the story right.”

For those of you who are just starting out and may have never seen a professional script, this is great for you! You won’t have any bad habits you have to undo. Just follow the formatting that was talked about in the video, and you will already start looking like a professional

Again, at the end of the day, we all want to tell stories, and it’s amazing that we have that passion. But appearance in this industry is a big deal. If you and your writing want to be taken seriously and looked at professionally, then it needs to look professional. Simple as that. And there really is no excuse for it not to. Programs like Final Draft do 99% of the formatting for you. And if you open a document using one of the templates I talk about in the video, there is nothing more you need to do.

This is your craft and this is your passion, so take it as seriously as you can. And if you do, professionals at the level that you eventually want to be at will take you seriously!