Screenplay format, element by element

The page

A screenplay is 8.5 by 11 inches, set in 12-point Courier. Courier matters because it is monospaced at exactly 10 characters per inch and 6 lines per inch. Every measurement in the format is therefore a count rather than an approximation: an inch is ten characters across and six lines down, always.

The margins are 1 inch at the top, 1 inch at the bottom, 1 inch on the right and 1.5 inches on the left — the extra half inch is for the brads that hold a printed script together. That leaves a text column running from 1.5 to 7.5 inches: 6 inches, or exactly 60 characters. A page holds 55 lines of body text, with the page number sitting up in the top margin.

These are Plotiva's layout settings for a US-letter screenplay, not a guarantee that every studio or submission will use identical spacing. Follow a recipient's template when one is supplied. One page per minute is a rough planning convention: a short action description might take minutes to film, while rapid dialogue may play much faster. Time a read or a rehearsal when duration matters.

The elements, and where they sit

Distances are measured from the left edge of the paper, so they already include the 1.5 inch margin. “Space above” is the number of blank lines inserted before the element when it follows another one, which is what gives a screenplay page its particular rhythm.

Transitions are the one element set flush right rather than left. Character, parenthetical and dialogue form a stack with no blank lines between them, which is why a speech reads as one block rather than three separate things.

Scene headings

A scene heading, or slug line, states where and when, in capitals: INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT. INT. is interior, EXT. exterior, and INT./EXT. is for something like a car, where the camera is in both. The time is usually just DAY or NIGHT, because what a schedule needs to know is whether the crew is lighting for daylight.

Two blank lines sit above every scene heading, and nothing else in the format gets two. That gap is how a reader flicking through finds the scene breaks without reading a word.

Action

Action is what the camera can see and the microphone can hear, written in the present tense, in sentence case, across the full 60 character column. It is not the place for what a character is thinking, because a thought cannot be filmed.

Keep paragraphs focused on one visible beat. If a block is hard to scan, split it where the action or focus changes. Paragraph length does not determine screen time: a single sentence can describe a long chase, and a full paragraph can describe one brief reaction.

Character, parenthetical, dialogue

The character cue is capitalised and indented to 3.7 inches. It names who speaks, and may carry an extension for how they are heard: (V.O.) for a voice over, narration from outside the scene; (O.S.) for off screen, someone present but not in shot. The two are not interchangeable.

A parenthetical sits at 3.1 inches, lower case in brackets, and gives the one piece of delivery that the line genuinely will not survive without. It is the most overused element in the format. If the dialogue only works when preceded by (sarcastically), the problem is usually the dialogue.

Dialogue runs at 2.5 inches across 3.5 inches — 35 characters, a deliberately narrow column. The narrowness is the point: it makes a long speech look long, and gives an actor a shape they can read down quickly.

Two people at once

When two characters speak over each other, the speeches print side by side in two columns instead of one after the other. That is dual dialogue, and it is the only time the format abandons its single column. Use it for genuine overlap, not for quick back and forth, which reads perfectly well as ordinary alternating dialogue.

What a page break must not split

Some things cannot be separated by a page turn. A scene heading at the foot of a page with its action overleaf strands the reader, and a character cue whose dialogue starts on the next page is worse. So scene headings, character cues and parentheticals all hold on to what follows them: if the pair will not fit, both move down together.

Plotiva does this while you type, which is the practical reason the page count on screen is worth anything. A script that is only repaginated on export tells you its length after it is too late to act on.

A scene in practice

This original example separates setting, action and speech. The indents here illustrate the reading order; Plotiva applies its page measurements in the editor and PDF.

EXT. APARTMENT ROOF - DAWN

A paper plane lands in a puddle beside Noor's shoe.
She unfolds it. The ink has run.

NOOR
You could have called.

ELI (O.S.)
Would you have answered?

Noor turns toward the stairwell.

The heading establishes an exterior at dawn. The first paragraph is Action: the plane, puddle and ink are visible. NOOR is a character cue, and her sentence is Dialogue. ELI (O.S.) means Eli belongs to the scene but is outside the current shot; it is not narration. The last Action makes Noor's response visible instead of writing that she feels curious.

Try a revision

Keep the dialogue, but replace the last line with Noor dropping the note back into the puddle. The same words now lead to a different decision. This is a useful revision check: can the action carry the emotional turn before you add a parenthetical telling the actor how to speak?

Before you export

• Use a new scene heading when the location or time changes.
• Check that every speech has the intended character cue.
• Use Action for visible events rather than putting them inside dialogue.
• Inspect the PDF for stranded headings and unexpected blank pages.
• Keep a Fountain copy as well as the PDF so the draft stays editable.

The part worth remembering

You do not have to hold any of these numbers in your head. They exist so that a script can be estimated, scheduled and budgeted by people who have not read it, and every screenwriting tool including this one applies them for you. Knowing what they are for is useful; typing them is not.

Open the editor and the formatting happens as you type — or read how the same script travels as plain text.