How to Format Dialogue in a Screenplay

The dialogue block has three parts

A line of screenplay dialogue is never just a line. It is a block of up to three stacked elements, each with its own indent:

The dialogue column is 3.5 inches wide, running from 2.5 inches to 6.0 inches, which is the whole point of those numbers. In 12 point Courier, which sets 10 characters to the inch, a line of dialogue holds roughly 35 characters, while an action line holds about 60. If a speech is longer than one line, it wraps inside the dialogue column; you do not break it yourself and you never roll it back to the action margin.

A complete block on the page, with the indents measured from the action margin:

INT. DINER - NIGHT

Mara slides into the booth across from Ben. Neither of them
orders.

                      MARA
            You brought the letter.

                      BEN
            I brought the letter.

                      MARA
            (quiet)
            Then read it.

Three details in that example carry most of the convention. The cue is in capitals and sits alone on its line. The parenthetical is lowercase, in parentheses, and short. The speech has no quotation marks, no speech tags, and no speaker name in front of it: the cue has already done that work, and a reader who reaches the speech knows who is talking.

Punctuation inside the speech follows spoken sentence rules, with two screenplay-specific marks. An interruption is a double hyphen or an em dash at the end of the line, and a trailed-off line is an ellipsis:

                      BEN
            If you'd just let me --

                      MARA
            I don't want to hear it.

Character cues: capitals, consistency and extensions

The cue is the character's name in ALL CAPS on its own line, above the speech. In Final Draft and most templates the cue is centered within its block, which is why cues look roughly centered over the speech rather than flush at a fixed point; short names land in almost the same place either way.

• One name per character, for the whole script. If she is MARA on page 3, she is MARA on page 103. Switching between MARA, MARA HALE and MS. HALE creates three entries in the character list and forces the reader to check whether these are different people. Use the shortest form that is unambiguous, and if two characters share a first name, distinguish them with a fixed word rather than a number: MARA and YOUNG MARA, not MARA #1.
• Cue extensions go on the cue line. (V.O.), (O.S.), (CONT'D), (FILTERED) and (PRE-LAP) attach to the name in capitals and period form: MARA (V.O.). They describe where the voice comes from, not how it is said, which is the dividing line between an extension and a parenthetical.
• Unnamed characters get a consistent label. WAITRESS, MAN IN SUIT, COP #1 and COP #2 are all standard. Numbering works only if the numbers stay attached to the same characters through the scene, so decide before you write which cop is which, and never renumber on a revision.
• Two people speaking the same words together get one cue. MARA AND BEN or BOTH are used when they say the same line in unison. If they say different things at the same time, that is dual dialogue, which has its own format.
• No ages, no descriptions, no parentheses full of backstory. MARA (30s) is a stage play convention. On screen, describe the character in the action line where they first appear, and keep the cue down to the name.

Action lines and cues use names differently, and the difference is deliberate. A character's name is set in ALL CAPS in an action line the first time they appear, to mark the introduction, and in normal case after that. In dialogue, every cue is caps, every time.

Parentheticals: the one rule that keeps them from taking over

A parenthetical is a brief note in parentheses between the cue and the speech, set lower case at 3.1 inches. There is one rule that governs all of them: use a parenthetical only when the words alone would be misread. Everything else belongs in an action line or nowhere.

Four uses justify the element:

• Delivery that changes the meaning. A line that is sincere on its face and cruel in delivery needs the note: (deadpan), (whispering), (not joking).
• Who is being addressed. In a scene with three or more people, the reader often cannot tell who a line is aimed at: (to Ben). In a two-hander it is almost never needed, because the only other person in the room is the answer.
• A language note. (in French) or (in Spanish), usually paired with a translation handled in the action or in an italic line beneath.
• A short action tied to that exact line. (into phone) tells the reader the line is going down a line rather than to the person in the room.

The crutches are easier to spot:

• (angrily) over a line that is already angry. A reader takes this as a note that the dialogue is failing to do its job. This is the parenthetical most often circled in coverage.
• (beat) or (pause) as filler. A beat is an unmeasurable pause, and it stops the read to announce silence. If the pause carries weight, give it an action line:

                      MARA
            He said he'd call.

A long silence. Ben looks at his phone, face down on the
formica.

                      MARA (CONT'D)
            He never calls.

Two more rules keep parentheticals from becoming a second screenplay inside the dialogue. Keep them to one short line, lower case, with no period inside the parentheses: (quiet), not (Quietly, as if afraid someone might hear.) And if the note involves a prop, a move across the room or a second person, it is an action line wearing parentheses. (lights a cigarette and turns to the window) is an action, and it will read as an instruction the actor cannot obey in a half-second beat.

As for frequency: working scripts routinely run several pages with no parenthetical at all, and a page carrying four of them reads as a first draft. If you find yourself annotating most of a scene, the scene has a dialogue problem, not a formatting problem.

Dual dialogue and characters speaking over each other

Dual dialogue places two character cues side by side so the reader sees the two speeches as simultaneous rather than sequential:

                      MARA                    BEN
            I'm not going.          You're going.

The markup is a caret (^) immediately after the second character cue. Final Draft creates the same layout from its Dual Dialogue command, and Fountain and other text-based formats use the caret, which is why the caret is the version that survives a copy and paste. In a plain text editor or a word processor with no dual dialogue support, writers either type the caret or lay the two speeches out in a two-column table.

Use it when the overlap is the point: an argument where both people talk at once, two characters saying the same thing simultaneously, or a rapid exchange where alternating lines would imply a slower cut than the scene wants. One or two beats per script is typical; a whole scene in dual dialogue loses both the sense of the room and the sense of the cut.

Avoid it for ordinary back and forth. New writers reach for dual dialogue because it looks cinematic on the page, then use it for every argument, which flattens the rhythm: alternating lines are how a reader hears the cut, and the cut is doing dramatic work. Also avoid stacking three or more speakers in columns, which nobody can read on a printed page.

One caveat worth knowing before you commit: dual dialogue is read as a directorial instruction by some readers, and a minority of producers and managers dislike it in a spec script because it presumes the edit. The dominant practice is that it is acceptable when the simultaneity is genuinely the point, and unnecessary when it is only a formatting flourish. If you are unsure, write the scene as alternating lines and let the overlap happen in performance.

Breaking a speech across a page, and continuing after action

Two situations put (CONT'D) on a cue, and they are not the same situation.

A speech that runs over a page break. At the bottom of the page the speech ends where the page ends, (MORE) sits on its own line under the last line of dialogue, and the top of the next page repeats the cue with the continuation tag:

-- bottom of page 4 --
                      MARA
            And that is why I never told you about
            the money, or the house, or the --
                      (MORE)

-- top of page 5 --
                      MARA (CONT'D)
            -- the hospital.

A speech interrupted by action. When an action line lands in the middle of what a character is saying and the character then continues the same speech, the second cue carries the tag:

                      MARA
            I told you what happens if you open that
            door.

Ben opens the door anyway.

                      MARA (CONT'D)
            Don't.

The tag is not used when a different character speaks in between, when the character speaks again in a new scene, or when the second speech is a new thought after a stretch of action. It marks a single continuing speech, interrupted, nothing more.

Two related page rules are worth knowing even though software enforces them. First, never leave a character cue alone at the bottom of a page with no dialogue under it: that is an orphaned cue, and any proper template pushes it to the next page rather than stranding it. Second, never break a speech in the middle of a page to avoid a page break; let the page break fall where it falls and use (MORE) and (CONT'D).

Some writers now drop (CONT'D) altogether, on the argument that the reader can see the same name directly above and the software tracks continuity anyway. Both practices are visible in produced scripts. The safer choice is to keep it for interrupted speeches and after page breaks, and to keep it consistent: leaving it in sometimes and out other times is the one version readers notice.

How long a speech should run, and the mistakes readers see most

The length convention is arithmetic, not taste. A US Letter page in 12 point Courier holds about 55 lines, and the industry calibrates one page to roughly one minute of screen time. A dialogue line holds about 35 characters, so five lines of dialogue is around 25 words: about ten seconds of speaking. A speech running six or seven lines is therefore the point where a reader starts skimming rather than hearing, and a page-long speech is a set piece that the film has to be built around.

Two numbers are worth carrying in your head while you write. If a single character holds more than about half of a scene's dialogue, the other character usually has nothing to want, and the scene will read as a monologue with an audience. And if two or more consecutive pages contain no action lines at all, the scene will play slower than it reads, because speaking is slower than reading: break the block with a physical beat, and give the editor something to cut to.

The mistakes that show up in almost every early draft:

1. Dialogue typed in the action column. The single most common error in drafts written in Word or Google Docs, and the fastest way to make a page stop looking like a screenplay. The block position is the format.
2. Inconsistent indents. Tabs in one scene, spaces in the next, and the speech drifting right as the script goes on. Use element indents, not manual spacing.
3. Quotation marks, speech tags and stage play cues. MARA: I'm not going, she said. No quotes, no colon after the name, no attributions; the cue and the block already carry all of that.
4. A parenthetical on every speech. See the previous section. If the line needs an explanation to be understood, the line is the problem.
5. Sound cues and camera directions inside the block. (SFX: door slams) or (we see her face) in a parenthetical is a shot and a sound effect jammed into an actor's note. Both belong in action lines.
6. Names that change. MARA, MARA HALE, HER. Every variant is a new speaker as far as the reader and the software are concerned.
7. Hand-broken lines. Ending every line after eight words to shape the delivery. Let the column wrap; the line breaks of the block are a layout convention, not a performance instruction.
8. Speeches kept because they are good. A long speech is usually the writer enjoying a voice. Find the turn, cut to it, and let the other character answer.

Frequently asked questions

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