What is the difference between a script, story and screenplay? How “developed” (stage wise) are they in comparison to each other?
–Hemant
“Scripts” and “screenplays” are interchangeable when it comes to feature films, but television scripts are always called scripts. (Except when they’re called teleplays, which is only in certain on-screen credits.)
“Story” is more or less what it sounds like: the plot, the characters, the settings and tone. It differs from a script or screenplay only in that the dialog often isn’t written out, and the overall action may be somewhat compressed. A writer might be credited with the “story” for a movie, but not the “screenplay,” if he wrote a treatment but not the final script. Usually, if one writer handles both “story” and “screenplay,” he/she receives a more general “written by” credit.