Formatting

This is going to sound like a lazy question. What’s the easiest way to handle all of the tabs, centering, capitalization, and formatting required in a screenplay?

I know there are a lot of programs out there that supposedly “handle” all of this for the screenwriter, but there had to have been an easier procedure twenty years ago when these programs weren’t available.

–T. Baker

Update 2025: over the years, we’ve developed Highland Pro which is my preferred screenwriting software. Discover the journey from pdf utility app in 2013 to Highland Pro in 2025!

Yes. It was called a typist, a script services department, or your kind-hearted mother. Because the fact is, formatting scripts has historically been a nightmare. Even computers didn’t help much. Back when I started in 1993, the best way to format a script was through homemade style sheets in Microsoft Word. Every time I finished a script, I would need to go through page by page and check to make sure dialogue wasn’t dangling off pages. It was a giant pain in the ass.

Today we live in a Golden Age for script formatting. Since GO, I’ve been using Final Draft for the Macintosh, which not only handles all the formatting details, but also keeps track of scene numbering and production changes should you be so lucky as to need them. Like all programs, it has its quirks – it can be too helpful at times – but most of my friends seem to be using Final Draft as well.

Although I haven’t experimented with them as much, Movie Magic Screenwriter 2000 and Scriptware have their fans. All three programs are available for both Mac and PC, and all three have downloadable demos. Definitely try them out.

To answer your natural follow-up questions: why are these programs so expensive, and why do they have copy-protection? Probably because there’s a limited market of screenwriters (thus the high price), and being largely broke, screenwriters tend to pirate a lot (thus the copy protection). I’m not saying it’s right or true or fair, but I understand why it is this way.

Learn more about standard screenplay formatting here!

Would you recommend that a
beginning writer use script writing software? If so, do you prefer a specific
program?

–Mike

I used the style sheet formatting on Microsoft Word for my first few scripts,
partly because screenwriting software was still in its infancy, and partly
because I was too broke to buy any other program. If you already have a capable
word processor, you can certainly get by with that, particularly if money is
tight.

I now use Final Draft, which does a remarkably good job with a lot of the
script formatting drudgery. It’s worth downloading the free trial version to
see if you like it enough to spend $199 for it. Given that 80% of my day is
spent using that one program, it’s definitely worthwhile for me.

I have noticed that many films seem to depend on voice-overs,
especially films adapted from novels, I worry about overusing voice over in
my own script writing
because it seems like a kind of compensation when one can’t write the action
of a scene, or translate a character’s thoughts into a compelling visual. What
guidelines would you suggest for writing voice-overs?

–CIM

Voice-overs have a bad reputation for exactly the reasons you cite. Often,
one senses that that writer didn’t do a good job finding visuals and dialogue
to tell the story, and thus fell back on the voice-over as a crutch. And it’s
an especially pervasive problem with movies based on books, because the voice-over
is often the easiest way to translate prose to the screen.

My advice – nothing revolutionary – is to do everything you can to plan out
your story without using any voice-over at all. That means creating scenes that give the important information while moving the story forward, and using
images and moments in place of explanation.

But there are some instances where a voice-over is appropriate. BIG FISH,
which I adapted from a novel by Daniel Wallace, uses voice-over extensively,
because the movie is about unraveling the elaborate stories that a man tells.
Since storytelling is at the center of the movie, it makes sense that characters
will be narrating these tales, both on-camera and off.

What’s important is that voice-over should never replace actual scenes, nor
should it be redundant to what we do see. If a character opens a box and finds
a gun inside, the voice-over shouldn’t say, "When I opened the box, I
found a gun inside." That voice-over adds nothing, except an explanation
for the blind. But if the voice-over had said, "My uncle had many ways
of keeping us in check," then you would have changed the dynamic of the
scene in an interesting way.

Another important factor is which character is doing the voice-over. Whoever
you pick will automatically get elevated to Most Important Character status
unless you deliberately state otherwise (such as THE PRINCESS BRIDE, which
is narrated by a character outside of the world). Just make sure that whoever
gets voice-over power is worth the investment.

Finally, a pet peeve. In my opinion, movies should either use voice-over throughout
or not at all. If a movie starts with a voice-over, then never uses it again,
I get frustrated waiting for it to come back. Similarly, a voice-over that
just kicks in at the end is bewildering, because it seems to break the rules
of the movie I just watched.