Screenplay Format: A Complete Guide
Format is the industry's handshake. Get it right and a reader sees a professional; get it wrong and they see an amateur before the first scene ends. Here's every element, and which rules actually matter.
Why format is not optional
Screenplay format looks fussy, but it earns its rules. A correctly formatted page runs about one minute of screen time — so page count is a budget, a schedule, and a runtime, all at once. That only works because everyone uses the same elements, the same font, and the same spacing. Break the format and you break the estimate, and you tell every reader you haven't done this before.
The page itself
- Font: 12-point Courier (or Courier Prime). The monospaced width is what makes one page equal one minute.
- Paper: US Letter, single-sided.
- Margins: about 1.5 inches on the left (room for the brad), 1 inch top, right, and bottom.
- Page numbers: top right, starting from page two. The title page has no number.
The elements
A screenplay is built from a small set of elements, each with a fixed place on the page:
- Scene heading (slugline). All caps, e.g. INT. DINER — NIGHT. It names interior or exterior, the location, and the time. It tells the reader — and the first assistant director — where and when we are.
- Action. Present tense, left margin, full width. What we see and hear. Lean and visual: write only what the camera can capture.
- Character cue. All caps, indented to about 3.7 inches, above the line they speak. Add (V.O.) for voiceover or (O.S.) for off-screen.
- Dialogue. Indented under the character cue, a narrower column. The words they say.
- Parenthetical. A brief (beat) or delivery note under the cue, inside the dialogue block. Use sparingly — actors resent being over-directed.
- Transition. Right-aligned, all caps, e.g. CUT TO:. Modern scripts use these rarely; the cut is assumed.
Rules that matter — and rules that don't
Some conventions are load-bearing. Others are folklore.
- Matters: correct elements and spacing, one page per minute, a clean title page, and (MORE) / (CONT'D) when a speech breaks across a page. These keep the estimate honest and mark you as a pro.
- Doesn't matter (and hurts): camera directions like CLOSE ON or PAN TO. Directing from the page reads as a writer who doesn't trust the reader. Specify a shot only when the story genuinely depends on it.
- Depends: scene numbers belong on a production (shooting) draft, not usually a spec script. Dual dialogue is fine when two people truly speak at once, awkward otherwise.
How long should it be?
A feature is typically 90 to 120 pages. Comedies run shorter, dramas longer. A half-hour TV script is roughly 22–35 pages depending on format; an hour drama, 45–60. If your feature is 150 pages, the problem isn't the format — it's the length.
Tools and the FDX question
You can hand-format in a word processor, but you shouldn't — the indents and page breaks fight you. Purpose-built software handles the element flow (Tab and Enter move you between slugline, action, character, and dialogue) and paginates in true Courier metrics. The one thing to insist on is FDX import and export, the Final Draft interchange format, so your script is never trapped in one app.
Writing screenplays in Skarvia
Skarvia's screenplay editor does the format for you — auto sluglines, character autocomplete, true Courier pagination, (MORE)/(CONT'D) at the break, a title page that prints as page one, and FDX in and out. Then it adds what a formatter can't: a fact-checker and a continuity editor that read the script for the errors the format can't catch. It never writes your dialogue — that part stays yours.