Basic Script Terminology & Formatting Tips

 

• SR = Stage Right
• SL = Stage Left
• SC = StageCenter
• Enter = Character enters the scene
• Exit = Character exits the scene
• Beat = A pause in dialogue e.g. “after a beat, Frank continued his lecture”
• Lights fade/rise = Change of scene or focus in a scene
• Fade to black = End of the play or end of a scene
• Int. = Interior, scene taking place indoors
• Ext. = Exterior, scene taking place outdoors
• Offstage = Something is happening where audiences can’t see it such as sounds or dialogue from unseen characters.
• Aside = Character breaks from speaking with other characters to voice thoughts about the current situation or to address the audience directly.

Formatting Tips

• All descriptions and character names should be aligned with each other in the center. However, they shouldn’t be ‘centered’. In a lot of writing programs when you use the center justification option it aligns the middle of the word with the center of the page. You want your names and descriptions to be left-justified, but they need to start in the center. For the names you can just hit the tab key six times, but if you want a paragraph to do it properly you can highlight the entire section then go up to the ‘increase indent’ button in Microsoft word (It’s usually located to the right of the bullet buttons) then just click the button enough times to align it to the middle. I’m sure there’s a fancy way to do this that will auto-align everything but the more you mess around with the settings in Microsoft word the more likely you are to get a wacky result. So I stick with my method, even though it does mean you’ll have to indent everything individually.

• Names are always in capital letters.
• Descriptions are always separated by parenthesis and are always in the third person present tense.
• The title of the play and the author’s name should be listed on a cover page.
• The title, author, setting description and character list can all be centered using the center justification tool (unlike description and Character names in the body of the play).
• Only dialogue is left aligned and never indented