John August

QandA

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Courier

Formatting, Geek Alert

Update 2025: since the original posting of this blog, we’ve developed our own font, Courier Prime. It’s like Courier, but better. And, it’s free to download.

I originally posted this as a reply in a screenwriting forum, but it’s pretty relevant here.

When I bought my first LaserWriter printer (probably 1993), I freaked out because Courier was suddenly ghastly thin. On my old StyleWriter inkjet, it had looked properly typewriter-like, but coming out of the laser printer, it was a shadow of its former self.

It bothered me enough that I used Fontographer to pull the Type 1 Courier outlines from the printer, then chunk-ify them a bit and save them as a Type 3 font, which I called Dorphic. (I have no idea why I picked that name, but it seemed to fit.)

So for many years, I happily used Dorphic on all my scripts. GO, for example, was in Dorphic. I would probably still be using that face, but the shift to OS X made Type 3 fonts impossible. I scoured the net for new options, and settled on Courier Ragged, which I used for a year or two.

But a new problem came up. Up until about 2003, when I needed to turn in a script to a producer or studio executive, I would print it out and call for a messenger. I could be certain the script would look right, because I was printing it myself. But once executives (and their assistants) became more internet-savvy, it made a lot more sense to turn in scripts in .pdf form. So, while I could use Courier Ragged, there was no guarantee it would look right when they printed it out.

All of which leads me back full-circle to plain old Courier. Of the natural alternatives (Courier New, or Courier Final Draft), it’s the best-looking to me, both on-screen and printed.

A side-note: Before I became a screenwriter, I made a meager living in graphic design. So the cruelest irony is that I’ve now spent a decade using nothing but 12-pt Courier, or its imitators.

Formatting for sign language

Formatting, QandA

question markI’m having a little trouble with this current script that I am writing. A character in my story is deaf and uses sign language to communicate. I have no idea what the proper writing format is for that and I was wondering if you can help me. That character also reads lips and I do not know how to incorporate that into my script as well. Please tell me the answer oh great one.

–Donnie Nguyen

Just this week, I encountered a similar challenge, with a mute child who uses sign language to communicate with her parents. In these situations, you really have two problems: how to show it on the page, and how to make sure the audience understands what the deaf/mute/whatever character can and cannot do.

Let’s take the second problem first. You need to set up a situation that makes it clear to the audience what’s up with this character. In John Logan’s [The Aviator](http://imdb.com/title/tt0338751/combined), Howard Hughes’s partial deafness is first set up at a movie premiere, when the character obviously can’t make out what the presenter is saying. The extent of his hearing impairment is left a little ambiguous, but we get the sense (backed up with a later scene), that the problem only really manifests when many voices are speaking at once.

Since your character reads lips, you should try to make this clear as soon as possible. Here’s one possibility:

CARL SCHWARTZKOPF is looking through the neatly-folded sweaters on the table. A SALESWOMAN comes up behind him.

SALESWOMAN

Can I help you find a size?

Carl doesn’t answer her. In fact, he doesn’t acknowledge her at all. Not certain he heard her, she repeats herself, louder:

SALESWOMAN

Sir, can I help you find a size?

She’s about to tap his shoulder when he turns around. He jumps, startled to see her.

SALESWOMAN

Sorry, I didn’t mean to…

CLOSE ON her lips. We’re in Carl’s POV as she continues to speak, but there’s no sound. He’s reading her lips.

BACK TO SCENE

Carl waves a hand, somewhat dismissively: no, he doesn’t need help. He heads over to the wall of khakis.

In terms of writing out the dialogue that is meant to be sign-language, you have many options. If two deaf characters are carrying on a conversation in sign language, you’re probably going to want to subtitle it. Before the conversation starts, just write, “In sign language, SUBTITLED…” Then write dialogue as usual. The reader will understand.

If one character is speaking aloud (such as William Hurt’s character in [Children of a Lesser God](http://imdb.com/title/tt0090830/combined)), you may want to format the deaf character’s sign language dialogue differently to keep the distinction. In these situations, I often use italics:

SHERYL

Who told you?

CARL

MARGARET.

SHERYL

Margaret wasn’t there! She couldn’t have known.

Notice that in these scenes, the speaking character’s dialogue needs to help us understand the lines we’re not hearing.

Formatting text shown on screen

Formatting, QandA

First, it was such a pleasure to meet you in Austin last year. Hope to see you next year, too. I had a question that I’ve never gotten a straight answer on.

How do you format it when you’re trying to show text being written on a computer monitor, specifically showing the exchange between two people in an internet chat room (a la “Closer”, but I haven’t found that script)? I’m guessing INSERT: COMPUTER SCREEN would be a start, but what’s after that? Would the same be used to show the text message on a cell phone?

— Derek

Your instincts are right. I might choose slightly different words, but the net result would be the same:

With a glance back over her shoulder to be certain no one’s looking, Sydney quickly types in the search parameters.

ON THE SCREEN

Bank records scroll past at unreadable clip, finally arriving at a single matched record:

CREDIT DAUPHINE, 204394753, BRUSSELS

ON SYDNEY

She GASPS, recognizing her former faux-employer.

SYDNEY

(sotto)

SD6.

I used a separate slugline (“ON SYDNEY”) to get us out of “ON THE SCREEN.” If you were crunched for space, you could probably omit it; it’s pretty clear in context.

I don’t often use “INSERT:” or “ANGLE ON:” in screenplays. They feel fussy, and rarely offer anything more than a single slugline in uppercase would.

And as far as a cell-phone screen, there’s really no difference:

Hearing a strange CHIRP, Chloe digs out her cell phone. She’s gotten a new text message.

ON THE SCREEN

WHRE U AT?

CHLOE

grimaces, frustrated. Starts to dial.

CHLOE

(to Ruth)

I swear, your brother could get lost in a closet.

Keeping motivation after four drafts

QandA, Writing Process

When starting out did you ever have trouble finding motivation to keep working on rewrites? Doesn’t the same story lose its interest after about four drafts?

— Brannek Gaudet

Good guess. Four drafts is about the right number. The first draft is exciting, bewildering and fresh. For the second draft, you have all sorts of brilliant new ideas and suggestions to try out, so that keeps it interesting. The third draft is generally damage-control from the second draft, where many of those good ideas ended up not working. The fourth draft, well…

The fourth draft sucks. By this point, the intractable problems of your script are readily apparent, and you’re faced with either (a) writing around them, or (b) trying to tackle them head on. In my experience, while you should choose (b), you generally choose (a).

It all boils down to two related questions: What script did you sit down to write, and what script did you end up writing?

At this fourth draft stage, you have to really decide between Great in Theory and what Actually Works. If you approach it this way, you can sometimes gain fresh eyes on your script. Read it as if some other, lamer screenwriter wrote it. What would you do differently?

Then, do that.