Think about where we are - are we in a house? What room of the house? What kind of furniture is there? Where do the doors lead to? Even if the doors are technically off-stage, they do lead somewhere in the “house.” Put it in italics, and then get into as much (or as little) detail as you want.
Underneath your “setting”, you’ll want to indent this (I recommend using the “increase indent” button on your writing program, instead of tab, as it makes sure every line is indented the same amount). This is the part where you set the scene (literally). Describe your setting briefly - don’t worry, you’ll have time to go into detail in the next line. Underneath that you’ll want your setting I usually put “setting” in ALL CAPS, to make it stand out, but you don’t have to underlining or putting it in bold will also work. If you’re writing a short play that only has one act (which is generally between 30–60 pages), then just put the scene number. Start with what Act it is, left-aligned and underlined, like this:
You don’t need to put their whole life story, or a complete personality profile, just a few basic descriptors, like this:Ĭharacter 1: A, X years-old, working as a [Characteristics go here, these can be anything, like “emotional, prone to anger” or “stoic” or “lover of the finer things in life” or “no-nonsense type” just a few quick terms that gives the audience (and the director) a basic idea of the characterĪlright, now comes the hard part - the meat of your story… I’ve seen formats where the descriptions are on a separate column, but unless the production company you’re sending it to likes it that way, you’ll be just fine keeping it all in one column, left-aligned. This is also pretty simple list your characters, left-aligned (preferably with their names in bold to make them stand out), followed by a short description of them. Make a new page and continue on to the Cast… Whether or not it needs to be centered is up to how the people you’re submitting it to like it, but I find a good rule-of-thumb is to keep it simple left-aligned, with a colon and a short description of how long it is, like so:Įxample Script Title: An X-Act Play by This is pretty straightforward your title goes here, along with your name as the author (if you’re writing it with someone then you’ll put that there as well). If you like seeing things in a bigger-picture format, the image at the bottom shows what all this looks like put together. This guide is meant to be as a general format that should work for most places. Of course, if the production company you’re sending the script to likes it a certain way, always be sure to follow their instructions.
size all the way through, single-spaced (and no extra spaces before or after your paragraphs) A few quick pointers before we get to the nitty-gritty:Ĭourier, or Courier New, are usually your go-to fontsġ2pt. But after taking a college course in the craft, and completing my own short scripts, I thought I’d break it down into a much simpler guide. “UK format?” “Radio plays?” “Where does the dialogue go?”Įvery source I looked at seemed different. If you’re here, it probably means you tried googling “play format” and got a bunch of confusing, different formats - I know I did when I tried to figure it out for myself. The Simple Guide to Formatting a Stage-Play ScriptĪs a writer, I’ve tried my hand at many different kinds of storytelling but being a more visual person, I found myself drawn to scripts, both for the stage and the screen.
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