Learn screenwriting
36 practical guides to screenplay formatting, Final Draft FDX files and the craft of finishing a draft. Each answer includes examples, mistakes, FAQ and the next tool or guide to use.
Screenplay Formatting: The Complete Guide
Every screenplay element explained: scene headings, sluglines, INT./EXT., dialogue, phone calls, montages, flashbacks, margins, font and page count.
What Is a Scene Heading? Format, Rules & Examples
A scene heading — also called a slugline — is the single line of ALL CAPS text that opens every scene in a screenplay. It tells the reader three things …
Screenplay FormattingWhat Is a Slugline? Screenplay Slugline Explained
A slugline is the one line of ALL CAPS text that opens every scene in a screenplay: INT. or EXT., a location, and a time of day. It is the …
Screenplay FormattingINT. vs EXT. in a Screenplay: When to Use Each
INT. means the scene plays inside an enclosure and EXT. means it plays outside. The letters are not decoration: they are the first thing a first assistant director reads when …
Screenplay FormattingWhat Does O.S. Mean in a Screenplay?
O.S. stands for off-screen. It goes in the character cue, in capitals and parentheses after the name — MARA (O.S.) — and it means the character is present in the …
Screenplay FormattingWhat Does V.O. Mean in a Screenplay?
V.O. stands for voice over. It is the tag appended to a character cue, as in MARA (V.O.), when the voice we hear is not physically inside the scene: a …
Screenplay FormattingHow to Format Dialogue in a Screenplay
Screenplay dialogue is a block of three parts: an ALL CAPS character cue at 3.7 inches from the page edge, an optional parenthetical at 3.1 inches, and the speech itself …
Screenplay FormattingHow to Format a Phone Call in a Screenplay
A phone call has three standard treatments: intercut, where you slugline both locations and cut between them; split screen, where both parties share one frame; and one-sided, where you stay …
Screenplay FormattingHow to Format a Montage in a Screenplay
A montage is a sequence, not a scene, which is why it does not get a normal slugline. Two conventions carry the label — a MONTAGE header with short beats …
Screenplay FormattingHow to Format a Flashback in a Screenplay
Three conventions are in use for flashbacks: marking the slugline (INT. KITCHEN - DAY (FLASHBACK) or INT. KITCHEN - DAY - 1987), wrapping a run of scenes in BEGIN FLASHBACK …
Screenplay FormattingScreenplay Margins and Font: The Industry Standard
A screenplay is set in 12pt Courier, single-spaced, with a 1.5 inch left margin, a 1 inch right margin, and 1 inch top and bottom margins on US Letter paper. …
Screenplay FormattingHow Many Pages Should a Screenplay Be?
A feature screenplay should be 90 to 120 pages, and 110 pages is the number most working writers aim at. The range comes from standard format, where roughly one page …
Screenplay FormattingScreenplay Formatting Examples: Every Element on One Page
Screenplay format is a fixed set of layouts, not a style choice: scene headings, action, character cues, parentheticals, dialogue, and transitions each have one correct position on the page. This …
FDX Files: Open, Edit and Convert Them
What an FDX file is, how to open and edit one without Final Draft, how to convert PDF to FDX and FDX to PDF, and how FDX compares to Fountain.
What Is an FDX File? Final Draft XML Explained
An FDX file is a screenplay saved in the format Final Draft writes: a single XML document carrying every paragraph, its element type, scene numbers, the title page and revision …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Open an FDX File (With or Without Final Draft)
An FDX file is XML, so a computer with no screenplay app installed will open it as code rather than as a script. You can read one for free in …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Edit an FDX File Without Final Draft
You can edit an FDX file without Final Draft, but not by treating it as a text file. The words live inside XML elements whose type attributes carry the formatting, …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Open an FDX File on iPhone
A .fdx file is Final Draft XML — plain text with every screenplay element tagged inside it — and iOS ships with nothing that renders it, which is why the …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Open an FDX File on iPad
Opening an .fdx on iPad works the same way it does on any iOS device: the format has no built-in renderer, so you route the file through the Files app …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Open an FDX File on Mac
Double-clicking an .fdx on a Mac gets you a blank Quick Look window or TextEdit printing XML tags, because macOS has no screenplay renderer and Preview has never handled the …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Convert a PDF to FDX
A PDF with a real text layer can be rebuilt into an editable Final Draft file in the browser, one element at a time. A scanned PDF cannot — it …
FDX & Final Draft FilesHow to Convert FDX to PDF
You send a PDF because it renders the same on every device; you keep the FDX because it is the file you can still edit. Converting FDX to PDF is …
FDX & Final Draft FilesFDX vs Fountain: Which Screenplay Format Should You Use?
FDX is Final Draft's XML: precise, app-owned, and built for production. Fountain is plain text with a small set of conventions: readable anywhere, diffable in git, rendered by whatever app …
FDX & Final Draft FilesFinal Draft Alternatives for iPhone
Final Draft does not sell you a phone app with your desktop licence. Final Draft 13 is macOS and Windows only; iPhone and iPad writing happens in a separate, subscription-based …
FDX & Final Draft FilesFinal Draft Alternatives for iPad
The iPad is not a big phone. With an external keyboard, Stage Manager and a 13-inch screen that is almost exactly the height of a sheet of US Letter paper, …
FDX & Final Draft FilesFinal Draft Alternatives for Mac
A Mac screenwriting app is judged on four things a phone app never has to answer: whether your script is a real file in a folder you own, whether the …
Screenwriting: Learn the Craft
Loglines, beat sheets, treatments, structure, page counts and the writing process — practical guides for writing a screenplay that gets read.
What Is a Logline? Examples, Formula & Free Generator
A logline is one sentence that says who a screenplay is about, what they want, what stands in the way, and what it costs them to fail. It is not …
Screenwriting EducationHow to Write a Logline That Sells Your Script
Write the logline in a fixed order: the ending first, then the want, then the obstacle, then the irony, and only then cut it to a single sentence of 25 …
Screenwriting EducationLogline Examples: 20 Strong and Weak Loglines Compared
Ten weak loglines, each rewritten into the version that fixes the specific fault, with a note on what changed and why. Every pair is an invention written for this page …
Screenwriting EducationWhat Is a Beat Sheet? Save the Cat and 3-Act Structure Explained
A beat sheet is a list of a screenplay's major story beats, each with an approximate page number where it lands. It is a structural map rather than an outline: …
Screenwriting EducationWhat Is a Treatment? Screenplay Treatment Format Explained
A treatment is the whole story written out in present-tense prose: no sluglines, no character cues, no scene numbers, usually between five and twenty-five pages. It exists so a producer, …
Screenwriting EducationWhat Is a Screenplay? A Complete Beginner's Guide
A screenplay is the written blueprint for a film: the story told in scene headings, action, character names, dialogue and transitions, formatted so that one page runs close to one …
Screenwriting EducationHow to Write a Screenplay: A Step-by-Step Guide
Writing a screenplay is a repeatable process, not a talent lottery. You find a premise you can state in one sentence, break it into beats, draft fast and badly, read …
Screenwriting EducationHow to Write a Short Film
A short film is not a small feature. It runs five to fifteen pages, commits to a single idea, and delivers one turn the audience did not see coming. Everything …
Screenwriting EducationHow Long Is a Screenplay? Page Counts and Runtime
A feature screenplay runs 90 to 120 pages, and 110 pages is the centre that keeps readers and producers comfortable. Comedy tends to land nearer 90–100 and drama nearer 105–120. …
Screenwriting EducationHow Many Screenplay Pages Equal One Minute?
One page of a standard-formatted screenplay equals roughly one minute of finished screen time. The word doing the work in that sentence is roughly: the ratio is an average across …
Screenwriting EducationHow to Write Character Introductions in a Screenplay
Introduce a character the first time they appear on screen: their name in ALL CAPS, an age in parentheses if it matters, and one short phrase or action that tells …
Screenwriting EducationHow to Write Action Lines in a Screenplay
Action lines describe what the camera sees and the microphone hears, in the present tense, in the third person, with the character as the subject of the verb. Everything else …