Scene heading
Where we are and when. Interior or exterior, the place, then the time of day. It is the line that starts a new scene, and it is the only place those three facts belong.
INT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
Writing on CanonBoard
How to write a script.
Screenplay format is six elements and a set of margins. Here is each one, set the way your draft will be set, and then how to write a beat for a round.
The format
A screenplay page is 8.5 inches wide with a 1.5 inch left margin, and every element sits at its own indent inside what is left. You do not have to measure anything — the composer's toolbar writes each element where it goes, and Preview shows you the page. But knowing what the six are is what lets you write straight into the box.
Action
What we see and hear, in the present tense. Only what a camera could photograph — not what a character thinks, remembers, or intends. If it cannot be filmed, it does not go here.
INT. LIGHTHOUSE - NIGHT
Eli climbs the last turn of the stair. The lamp is already burning, and he did not light it.
Character
Who is about to speak. Set in capitals, sitting over their own dialogue. You write the name the same way every time, so a reader can follow one person through a scene.
ELI
You said the tide gives them back.
Parenthetical
How a line is said, when it is not obvious and it matters. Use it rarely. A parenthetical on every line is a writer telling the actor their job, and it reads as noise.
ELI
(quietly)
You said the tide gives them back.
Dialogue
What they say. It sits in a narrow column under the name — that column is why a page of screenplay runs about a minute on screen, so keeping speeches inside it is how the form measures time.
ELI
You said the tide gives them back. You said it every year, and every year I believed you.
Transition
How one scene becomes the next. Flush to the right margin. Most scripts need very few of these — a new scene heading already tells the reader you have cut.
He puts a hand flat against the glass. It is warm.
CUT TO:
How to draft a beat.
A round is not a blank page. It is a specific request for the next piece of a script that already exists, judged by the people writing it with you.
- 1
Read the beat before yours
A round asks for the next beat of a script that already exists. Expand the script on the Board and read the end of it — the beat immediately before the one you are writing is the one your draft has to follow. A good beat that does not follow it is not a good draft.
- 2
Read what the round gives you
The round names what it wants, and the elements attached to it — the characters and the lore your beat turns on, and where it sits in the story's order. Those are not decoration. A draft that contradicts a character card is contradicting the canon the project has already agreed on.
- 3
Write one beat, not a scene list
A beat is a single unit of change: something is true at the start of it and something else is true at the end. One thing happens. Drafts that try to cover three developments lose to drafts that land one, because a reader choosing between two drafts is asking which one moved the story.
- 4
Keep it inside the limit
There is a character count on the composer and it is deliberate. An unbounded draft makes judging a reading assignment and quietly rewards whoever wrote most. Say it in the space and the constraint works for you.
- 5
Use the Preview
The composer has a Preview that renders your draft through the exact component the published script uses. If a line comes out at the wrong margin, the parser read it as a different element than you meant — and Preview is where you find that out, rather than after you submit.
- 6
Then upvote
You upvote the other drafts you would make canon, and those upvotes are what decide the round. Upvoting is also how a submission unlocks — once the round has enough drafts by other people, it is what stands between you and entering.
The short version
Write what can be filmed, in the present tense. Put one thing that happens in it. Read the beat before yours first. Then press Preview and look at the page before you submit.