Writing A Script

Writing a script is essentially writing the story for a movie that will be shown in cinemas. It is a play in which you have to include the outline for all the aural, visual and behavioral aspects of the characters so that the producer will know how the characters are supposed to sound and act. In this kind of writing, you don’t tell the story to the audience – you show them. You have to write what the audience will hear and see.

When you write a movie script, you have to know about how this type of writing is presented. There are two formats you can use. One is a submission script, which has not been purchased and you are hoping that a producer will like your writing enough to buy it. The other is a shooting script that has been purchased and has to go through a series of rewrites before the shooting of the movie can take place.

Use 8.5 X 11 paper when writing. The page numbers are in the top right hand corner on all but the first page. Courier 12 is the recommended font. This is because approximately one page of script written in this font equals one minute of the movie. If you use scriptwriting software, all the margins are set for you so you don’t have to worry about that aspect. A typical movie script is from 95 to 125 pages long.

Movie scripts have specific attributes that you must include when writing. They are the same as the main parts of a story – beginning, middle and end. You also need a list of characters, setting, plot, climax and resolution. However, each scene of the script needs a scene hading, which is a short description of the location and time of day. Whenever a different character speaks, his/her name should come first followed by the words the character is to say. This is called writing dialogue and it is the main part of writing a script. The dialogue of each character should resemble normal speech in short sentences. If you do need a character to speak for any length of time, the length of the paragraph should not be any longer than your index finger when printed on he page.

You also have to indicate how a character should sound when speaking – excited, sarcastic, etc. The script should also have instructions for transitioning between scenes by using the phrase “dissolve to”. If you need the camera to follow a character as he/she moves about, you have to include this direction in the script by saying Wide Shot or Tracking Shot.

The best advice for anyone wanting to get started in writing scripts for movies is to read sample scripts. If you can get the script of a movie and read along with the script as you do watch the movie, this would give you a form of hands-on training for this work.