What Is a Screenplay? Definition, Format and a Sample Page

A screenplay is the written blueprint for a film or television episode: every scene, every line of dialogue, and every action the audience will see, set down in a fixed industry format where one page runs roughly one minute on screen. It is a working document for a crew, not a finished piece of literature.

Updated 2026-09-22 · About 7 sections · 5 answered questions

What is a screenplay?

A screenplay is the text a film or television episode is built from. It describes what the camera sees and what the microphone hears, scene by scene, in the order the audience will experience it. Nothing else goes in: no inner monologue, no backstory the viewer never learns, no instructions to the composer.

The format is standardised because the document has a job beyond being read. A producer uses it to estimate cost. A first assistant director breaks it into a schedule. Actors learn lines from it. Because the layout is fixed, 12-point Courier on US Letter with a 1.5-inch left margin, one page runs close to one minute of screen time, and everyone in the chain can trust that a 105-page script is a roughly 105-minute film. That is why a screenplay looks the way it does and why readers notice immediately when it does not.

A feature screenplay runs 90 to 120 pages, comedies at the shorter end. A half-hour TV script runs about 25 to 35 pages and an hour-long drama about 50 to 62. The full breakdown by format is in how long is a screenplay.

What a screenplay contains

Every screenplay is assembled from a small set of elements, each with its own position on the page. You will use six of them constantly:

Scene heading (slugline) — one ALL CAPS line that opens each scene: INT. or EXT., the location, the time of day.
Action — present-tense description of what happens and what we see. Also called description or the black stuff.
Character cue — the name of whoever is about to speak, in caps, positioned toward the centre of the page.
Dialogue — the words spoken, in a narrower block beneath the cue.
Parenthetical — a short direction on how a line is delivered, in brackets between cue and dialogue. Use rarely.
Transition — CUT TO:, DISSOLVE TO:, FADE OUT., right-aligned. Modern spec scripts use almost none.

Here is a short scene using all six, laid out as it would sit on the page:

INT. LIGHTHOUSE KITCHEN - NIGHT

Rain hammers the window. NELL (60s, oilskin still dripping)
sets a lantern on the table between herself and TOM (30s).

                         NELL
          The boat's not coming back tonight.

                         TOM
               (not looking up)
          Then we wait.

She slides the lantern toward him. He does not take it.

                                              CUT TO:

Notice what is missing. There are no camera angles, no lens choices, no music cues. A spec screenplay, the kind you write to sell or to get hired, leaves those to the director. If you want to see every element on a single page, including the rarer ones, read screenplay formatting examples.

Screenplay vs script vs teleplay

People use these words interchangeably, and in conversation that is fine. In a contract or a submission form they are not the same thing.

Term	Means	Typical length
Screenplay	The script for a feature film or a short film. The word implies the cinema format.	Features 90–120 pages; shorts 1–40
Teleplay	The script for a single television episode. Same elements, plus act breaks and often a cold open and tag.	Half-hour 25–35 pages; hour 50–62
Script	The umbrella word. Covers screenplays, teleplays, stage plays, radio and commercials.	Any

So every screenplay is a script, but not every script is a screenplay. The Writers Guild credit on a film reads "Screenplay by"; on an episode it reads "Teleplay by" when the story and the script were written by different people. Use "screenplay" for film and "teleplay" or "pilot" for television, and nobody will mistake you for a beginner.

How a screenplay differs from a stage play, a novel, a treatment and a shooting script

The neighbouring forms all tell stories, but each is written for a different reader with a different job. Confusing them is the most common reason a first script reads wrong.

Form	Written for	Key difference from a screenplay
Stage play	A theatre company	Dialogue carries almost everything; locations are few and fixed; stage directions are sparse because the audience cannot cut between places.
Novel	A reader alone	Can go inside a character's head, cover years in a sentence, and run any length. A screenplay can only show and can only run about two hours.
Treatment	A buyer or financier	Present-tense prose summary of the story, usually 2–10 pages, with little or no dialogue. Written before or instead of a script.
Shooting script	The crew on set	The same screenplay after it is locked for production: scene numbers in the margins, camera directions, revision pages in coloured paper.

Two of these trip up new writers constantly. The first is the novel habit: writing She remembers the summer her father left in an action line. The camera cannot photograph a memory. Either show the flashback or cut the line. The second is the shooting-script habit: numbering scenes and calling shots in a spec. Readers see CLOSE ON on page one and assume you have not read many scripts. The difference is laid out in spec script vs shooting script, and a treatment gets its own explanation in what is a treatment.

Who reads a screenplay and why format matters

Before a screenplay reaches a director it passes through readers whose job is to say no quickly. A script reader at an agency or a competition may cover five scripts a day and writes coverage: a logline, a synopsis, a page of comments and a verdict of pass, consider or recommend. They read the first ten pages closely and the rest at speed. Anything that slows them down, including a nonstandard font, dense action paragraphs or dialogue that wanders across the page, costs you attention you cannot get back.

After a reader comes a development executive, then a producer, then talent. Each one reads for a different thing. The executive reads for concept and market. The producer reads for cost: how many locations, how many night shoots, how many speaking parts. The actor reads for their character and skips everything else. Standard format lets all of them find what they need without hunting.

Format is also how page count stays honest. A script in 11-point Arial with tight margins might be 95 pages of paper and 130 minutes of film. The moment someone reformats it in Courier, the true length shows, and the writer looks as if they were hiding something. Screenwriting software exists to make this a non-issue: Zen Writer formats each element as you type, so the page count you see is the page count a reader will see. The rules themselves are in how many pages should a screenplay be.

How to start writing a screenplay

Do not open a blank page and type FADE IN:. Almost every abandoned first script died on page 30 because the writer did not know what the ending was. Start smaller.

Read three produced screenplays in your genre. Not the films, the scripts. You will absorb the rhythm of the page faster than any book can teach it.
Write a logline. One or two sentences: who wants what, what stands in the way, what is at stake. If you cannot write it, you do not have a film yet. Start with what is a logline.
Outline before you draft. A page of beats or a stack of index cards saves weeks. Know the ending, the midpoint and the moment everything is lost.
Draft fast, in standard format from the first line. Reformatting a finished draft is miserable; formatting as you go is free. Open the free online screenplay editor and it handles the layout while you write, no login needed.
Rewrite, then get notes. A first draft is raw material. The script that gets read is usually the fourth.

The whole process, with page targets and timelines for each stage, is covered in how to write a screenplay. The rest of the screenwriting guides go deeper on each step, from outlining to querying.

Mistakes that mark a first screenplay as amateur

Directing on the page. WE PAN ACROSS, CLOSE UP ON HER EYES. Describe what we see; let the director decide how.
Unfilmable action. Thoughts, memories, smells, and what a character "has always felt". If a camera cannot record it, it does not belong in an action line.
Wrong length. A 160-page drama or a 70-page feature is rejected on the page count alone.
Wrong font or margins. Anything but 12-point Courier reads as an attempt to game page count.
Parentheticals on every line. (angrily), (sadly). If the line needs a label, rewrite the line.
Introducing characters without a cue. The first time a character appears, their name is in caps in the action with an age and one telling detail: NELL (60s, oilskin still dripping).
Writing it in a word processor. Word and Google Docs will fight you on every element. A dedicated tool, even on a phone, gets it right by default; see how to write a screenplay on your phone. If you already have pages in a document, paste them into the free screenplay formatter and it will rebuild them as a properly laid out script.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a screenplay and a script?

A script is any written text for a performance: film, television, theatre, radio or advertising. A screenplay is specifically the script for a film. Every screenplay is a script, but a stage play or a radio drama is a script that is not a screenplay.

How long is a screenplay?

A feature screenplay is 90 to 120 pages in standard format, which runs about 90 to 120 minutes on screen. Comedies sit near 90 to 100, dramas near 100 to 120. Short films run 1 to 40 pages, a half-hour TV episode 25 to 35, an hour-long episode 50 to 62.

Does a screenplay have to be in Courier?

For anything you submit, yes. Twelve-point Courier on US Letter with a 1.5-inch left margin is the industry standard, and the one-page-per-minute estimate depends on it. Readers treat a different font as a sign the writer is either new or hiding the true page count.

Can I write a screenplay in Word or Google Docs?

You can, but you will spend more time on indentation than on the story, and the result rarely matches standard margins. A free screenwriting app such as Zen Writer, or the free online editor at /screenplay-writer/, formats each element automatically and exports a PDF readers expect.

What is a spec screenplay?

A spec screenplay is one written speculatively, without a commission, in the hope of selling it or using it as a writing sample. It is written in clean spec format: no scene numbers, no camera directions, minimal transitions. Most first screenplays are specs.

Ready to turn this idea into a screenplay?

Zen Writer lays out scene headings, action, character cues and dialogue in standard format as you type, so your first screenplay looks right from page one and exports as a clean PDF.

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Screenwriting Education

What Is a Screenplay? Definition, Format and a Sample Page

What is a screenplay?

What a screenplay contains

Screenplay vs script vs teleplay

How a screenplay differs from a stage play, a novel, a treatment and a shooting script

Who reads a screenplay and why format matters

How to start writing a screenplay

Mistakes that mark a first screenplay as amateur

Frequently asked questions

Ready to turn this idea into a screenplay?

Continue reading

How to Write a Screenplay:

How Long Is a Screenplay?

What Is a Logline?

Spec Script vs Shooting Script: What Is the Difference?

Plain Text Screenplay Formatter

Script Read-Time & Page Estimator

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