--- name: screenwriting description: Writing screenplays for short and feature film: standard page format, scene headings and dialogue layout, scene construction with a clear turn, subtext, and revision passes that cut pages without losing the story. Use when drafting, formatting, or revising a screenplay or a single scene, or when a script reads flat, runs long, or sounds on the nose. --- # Screenwriting ## Purpose Turn a story idea, outline, or existing draft into a screenplay a reader, actor, and production office can all work from. The skill covers the standard page format, how to build a scene that turns, how to write dialogue with subtext, and how to revise in passes that cut pages while keeping the story. It ships a format checker that runs on plain text Fountain drafts, a complete short example, a feature opening example, and a scene revision worksheet. Write scripts in Fountain plain text unless the user already works in screenwriting software. Fountain renders to the standard page, stays readable as raw text, and works in version control. The official syntax is at fountain.io/syntax. ## Workflow ### 1. Fix the shape before drafting - Settle the runtime target first and convert it to pages. One formatted page is roughly one minute of screen time, so a 10 minute short is roughly 10 pages and a 100 minute feature is roughly 100 pages. The Academy Nicholl Fellowships take features at 80 to 125 pages in standard format, which matches the normal commercial range. - Write the logline, the protagonist, what they want, and what stops them, in plain sentences. If the want cannot be stated, scene work will not rescue it later. - Outline by scenes, one line per scene: location, who wants what, and how the scene ends differently from how it began. Scenes you cannot finish that line for are not ready to draft. ### 2. Format the page correctly - Use 12 point Courier on US Letter, left margin 1.5 inches, the other margins about 1 inch, about 55 lines per page, page numbers top right from page 2. Full measurements for every element are in `references/format-spec.md`. - Build every scene from the six elements: scene heading, action, character cue, parenthetical, dialogue, transition. Headings are all caps with the form INT. or EXT. plus location plus hyphen plus time, for example `INT. DINER - NIGHT`. - Write action in present tense and only what can be seen or heard. Introduce a character in ALL CAPS the first time they appear in action, with a brief age or description. - Keep parentheticals short and rare, and default to no transition. A new heading already tells the reader the scene changed. - In Fountain, check your work with the bundled checker instead of eyeballing it. See step 6. ### 3. Build each scene around a turn - Apply the scene test from Robert McKee's Story: a scene is action through conflict in continuous time and space that turns a value in a character's life. Name the value at stake, note whether it sits positive or negative at the open, and whether it has flipped by the close. If it has not moved, the scene is a nonevent. Cut it, merge it, or rebuild it. - Before drafting a scene, write four lines: who wants what from whom, the opening tactic, the beat where that tactic fails, and the turn beat in one sentence. Draft from those lines. - Enter late and leave early. Open at the last moment where the setup is still clear, place the turn in the last third of the scene, and end one reaction beat after it. - Full method, with a worked turn analysis, is in `references/scene-and-subtext.md`. ### 4. Write dialogue with subtext - Give each speaking character a want and a tactic inside the scene. Dialogue is characters pursuing that want with words, not characters reporting their feelings. - Treat on the nose lines as revision targets. A line that names the emotion, the motive, or backstory the other character already knows hands the audience a label and leaves the actor nothing to play. Rewrite it so the words are about one thing and the scene is about another: talk through an object, answer the safer question, use the wrong politeness, or say the plain opposite. - Break long speeches with a reaction in action, an interruption, or a task the hands can do. Silence, written in action between a question and a mismatched answer, is a beat. - Read every scene aloud. Lines you stumble over, or cannot say with a straight face, get rewritten before any other polish. ### 5. Study the worked examples - `examples/short-last-train.fountain` is a complete short script: four scenes, two characters, one location, a clear turn in the depot scene. Use it as the model for heading consistency, short action paragraphs, and dialogue that hides its real subject. - `examples/feature-salt-line-opening.fountain` is the opening of a feature: five scenes that set up a mystery through action and withheld information, with one voice over line placed after the audience has something to attach it to. - Copy the structure, not the content. Match their heading discipline and paragraph lengths in your own draft, then run the checker on yours and compare the reports. ### 6. Check the format, then revise in passes - Run the checker on every draft: `python3 bin/format_check.py script.fountain --target-pages 10`. It reports scene count, speaking characters, estimated pages and runtime, and flags missing time markers in headings, unclosed or staging-heavy parentheticals, long action blocks, long speeches, and lines that read as on the nose candidates. Add `--json` for a machine readable report and `--strict` to fail on warnings. - Revise in the order in `references/scene-revision-worksheet.md`: turn pass first, then structure, then subtext, then cutting, then format, then a cold read. Never line edit a scene before the turn pass decides whether it survives. - Fill one worksheet per problem scene. A scene that cannot fill the turn lines does not need polish. It needs a rebuild, a merge, or a cut. - After the cutting pass, run the checker again against the target page count, render to PDF in screenwriting software, and read one full page at print size to catch widowed cues and stranded headings that a text check cannot see. ## Output Contract A finished job delivers: 1. The screenplay as a `.fountain` file, or in the user's existing format, with consistent headings, present tense action, and a title page block at the top of the file. 2. A format checker report for the final draft: scene count, estimated pages and runtime against the target, and every remaining warning with the reason it was kept. 3. A scene list with one line per scene: heading, value at stake, charge at the open, charge at the close. Any scene that does not turn is listed as cut, merged, or rebuilt, with the decision stated. 4. For a revision job, the completed worksheet for each scene that changed, and the page count before and after. ## Operating Rules 1. Every factual claim about format follows the verified spec in `references/format-spec.md`. If a production, festival, or competition the user names uses different rules, follow their published rules for that submission and say where they differ. 2. Never invent format standards, contest rules, or page ranges. Shorts have no official page range: derive the target from the runtime at roughly one page per minute and label it an estimate. 3. One page per minute is a planning rule of thumb, not a promise. State it that way whenever a runtime estimate goes to the user. 4. Write only what can be seen or heard in action lines. Thoughts, motives, and backstory belong in behaviour, dialogue, or a scene of their own. 5. Keep scene headings identical for the same location across the whole script. A renamed location reads as a new set to production. 6. Do not direct the film from the page. Camera directions, shot lists, and delivery instructions for every line stay out of a spec script. 7. The checker flags candidates, not verdicts. Judge each warning against the scene's intent, and record why a flagged line was kept instead of deleting on the tool's say so. 8. Cut in revision by removing nonevents, late entries, early exits, and stated repeats before cutting any line that carries a turn. Page count follows story health, never the other way round.