Screenplay Format Guide: Scene Headings, Action, Dialogue and Transitions

Screenplay format looks fussy until you understand what it is for. A script is a production document. Producers use it to estimate length, assistant directors to build a schedule, actors to find their lines, and department heads to work out what to buy, build or rent. The format lets all of them read the same pages quickly and get the same answers.

This guide walks through each element of a standard feature screenplay, explains the conventions behind it, and ends with a sample page you can compare against your own work.

The Page Itself: Font, Margins and the Minute Rule

Screenplays are conventionally set in Courier (or a close equivalent such as Courier Prime) at 12 points. Because every character in a monospaced font takes the same width, a page holds a predictable amount of text, which is what makes the next rule work.

The common rule of thumb is that one page of a properly formatted script runs about one minute of screen time. It is a rough average, not a law. A page of fast dialogue can play in thirty seconds, and a single line like "The armies clash" can take five minutes to shoot and cut. Still, readers expect a feature spec to land somewhere around 90 to 120 pages, and they will notice if yours is far outside that range.

Margins are conventions rather than a single official standard. Typical settings use a wider left margin (around an inch and a half, for binding), about an inch elsewhere, dialogue in a narrower indented column and character cues indented further still. Software packages differ slightly. Let your screenwriting tool handle the measurements.

Scene Headings

Every new scene starts with a scene heading, also called a slugline. It has three parts, all in capitals:

INT. or EXT. for interior or exterior. Use INT./EXT. when a scene moves between the two, such as a conversation in a moving car.
Location, as specific as production needs it to be: "KITCHEN" is vague, "MARTA'S APARTMENT - KITCHEN" tells the location scout exactly what to find.
Time of day, usually DAY or NIGHT. DAWN, DUSK, CONTINUOUS and LATER are common too, but keep the set small: the heading is a scheduling tool.

A new scene heading means a new location or a jump in time. For brief moves inside one location, many writers use a shortened secondary heading such as "HALLWAY" on its own line.

Action Lines

Action (sometimes called description) is everything the audience sees and hears that is not dialogue. Three habits keep it readable:

Write in present tense. "Dana opens the door," not "Dana opened the door." The film is happening now.
Keep paragraphs short. Three or four lines is a comfortable maximum.
Write only what can be filmed. "She remembers her father's funeral" cannot be photographed. "She turns the funeral card over in her hands" can.

When a speaking character appears for the first time, put their name in capitals and give a quick, useful description: "DANA OKAFOR (40s, reading glasses pushed up into her hair) sorts mail without looking at it." After that introduction, the name goes back to normal case in action lines.

Character Cues, Parentheticals and Dialogue

Dialogue is a block of three possible parts:

The character cue: the speaker's name in capitals, indented toward the center of the page. Keep each character's name consistent. If she is DANA on page 3, she should not be MS. OKAFOR on page 40.
The parenthetical: a short direction in parentheses under the cue, such as "(quietly)" or "(into the phone)". Use it sparingly. It is for clarifying something the line cannot carry on its own, such as who is being addressed or a sarcastic reading that would otherwise be missed. Telling actors how to feel on every line reads as distrust.
The dialogue: the words, in a narrower indented column.

Extensions

An extension sits in parentheses next to the character cue and tells the reader how the voice reaches us:

(V.O.) voice-over: narration, or a voice the characters in the scene cannot hear, such as a letter being read in a character's head.
(O.S.) off-screen: the character is physically present in the scene but not visible, like someone shouting from another room. Some scripts use (O.C.) for off-camera; they mean much the same thing.
(CONT'D) continued: the same character speaks again after an interruption by action. Many programs add this automatically; some writers switch it off. Be consistent.

Transitions

Transitions such as CUT TO:, DISSOLVE TO: and SMASH CUT TO: sit flush right and end in a colon. Modern spec scripts use them rarely, since a new scene heading already implies a cut. Save transitions for moments where the edit itself carries meaning, like a SMASH CUT that lands a joke or a shock. FADE IN: at the top and FADE OUT. at the end are still common.

Montages, Intercuts and Inserts

A few special devices handle situations ordinary scenes cannot:

Montage: a sequence of short images compressing time. Write a heading such as "MONTAGE - DANA PREPARES FOR THE HEARING", then list the moments as short lines, then close with "END MONTAGE".
Intercut: when two locations alternate, most often a phone call, establish each location once with its own heading, then write "INTERCUT - DANA'S KITCHEN / HOSPITAL WARD" and let the dialogue run without repeating headings for every line.
Insert: a close look at something the audience must read or notice, such as a text message or a newspaper headline. Write "INSERT - THE TEXT MESSAGE", give the content, then "BACK TO SCENE".

Title Page Basics

The title page is plain. The title goes in capitals, centered about a third of the way down, followed by "Written by" and your name. Contact details sit in the lower left or lower right corner. No artwork, no taglines, no character lists. The title page is not counted as page one.

Spec Scripts vs Shooting Scripts

A spec script is written to be read and sold. It avoids camera directions (ANGLE ON, DOLLY IN, CLOSE UP) and leaves shot choices to the director. You can still imply a close-up: a short action line about a trembling hand does the job.

A shooting script is the version a production works from. It adds scene numbers on both margins so every department can refer to "scene 47" without confusion, and it may include camera notes, revision marks and locked page numbers. Breaking a shooting script into the shots you plan to capture is its own craft, covered in our guide to shot lists and storyboards for indie filmmakers.

If you are sending a script to a contest, a reader or a producer, send a spec.

Sample Scene

Here is a one-page scene for an original story, a quiet drama about a lighthouse keeper's daughter. The plain-text layout below approximates the indents.

FADE IN:

EXT. GULL POINT LIGHTHOUSE - DAWN

Fog sits on the water. The lamp turns once, twice, then
stops mid-sweep.

INT. LIGHTHOUSE - LAMP ROOM - CONTINUOUS

NELL ARDEN (17, oil on her sleeves, her father's coat two
sizes too big) hammers at the gear housing with the heel
of a wrench.

The gear does not move.

                    ROSS (O.S.)
          Nell. Leave it.

She keeps hammering. ROSS ARDEN (60s, cane, breathing hard
from the stairs) appears at the top of the ladder.

                    NELL
          The supply boat's due at six. If
          the lamp's dark, they'll go round
          by Kettle Rock.

                    ROSS
          Then they'll go round by Kettle
          Rock.

                    NELL
          Nobody's gone round by Kettle Rock
          since Mum.

Silence. Ross lowers himself onto the top step.

                    ROSS
              (gently)
          The Board sent a letter. They're
          putting in an automatic light.

Nell stops hammering.

                    NELL
          When?

                    ROSS
          Spring.

She looks at the jammed gear, then at him. She sets the
wrench down, takes a screwdriver from her pocket, and
starts taking the housing apart properly.

                    NELL
          Then it's still ours till spring.

Ross almost smiles. Far off, a ship's horn sounds in the fog.

                                              CUT TO:

Notice what the page does not do: no camera angles, no explanation of Nell's feelings, one parenthetical where the tone of a hard line needed softening, and a transition only at a moment that wants a pause.

Fountain and Final Draft FDX

You do not need special software to write in screenplay format. Fountain is a plain-text markup language for screenplays. You type in any text editor, and Fountain-aware tools render it as a formatted script. The core rules are simple:

A line starting with INT. or EXT. becomes a scene heading. Start a line with a period to force one (".FLASHBACK").
A line in all capitals followed by dialogue on the next line becomes a character cue.
Lines in parentheses under a cue become parentheticals.
An uppercase line ending in "TO:" becomes a transition, and a leading ">" forces one.
Double brackets hold notes to yourself, and a title page is written as "Title:" and "Author:" lines at the top of the file.

Because it is plain text, a Fountain file opens anywhere and works with version control.

Final Draft's FDX format matters for a different reason: interchange. FDX is widely used across film and television production, so producers, script coordinators and scheduling tools often expect it. Even if you draft in Fountain or another app, being able to export a clean FDX means your script can move into someone else's workflow without anyone retyping it.

Doing This in Aevon

In Aevon, a Movie project opens Script Studio, which writes in industry screenplay format so scene headings, action, character cues, parentheticals, dialogue and transitions fall into place as you type. You can import an existing script from Fountain or Final Draft (FDX) and export back to either format, so a draft can move between Aevon and other screenwriting tools or a production team without retyping.

The beat board is there for planning (see our guide to beat sheets for screenwriters), and shot lists, storyboards and script breakdowns are there when the script heads toward production. The floating Ideas and Notes panel stays open across sections, with split screen, so you can keep a note or a reference beside the scene you are formatting.

If your screenplay starts life as a novel, you can convert a project to another type at any time or add the Script Studio module to an existing project, and nothing is deleted. Our guide to adapting a novel into a comic, screenplay or game covers the craft side of that move. Aevon is free and runs on the web, on desktop for macOS and Windows, and on Android, so you can try Aevon's screenwriting software on whatever machine you write on.