Write for the Story, not the Production Manager
Introducing standard script formatting too early undercuts clear cinematic storytelling. You don’t need formatting software. You need a pen and paper, ideas, and a clear idea of what the audience knows and understands at any point in the story.
What this essay isn’t doing.
This essay is not an argument against standard script format. It’s an argument against introducing it too early. What follows are three specific ways early formatting distorts story thinking—and why separating development drafts from production drafts leads to stronger films.
Three reasons to not use standard format until you need to.
REASON 1: Cinematic stories proceed in sequences, not scenes.
Cinematic storytelling proceeds in sequences, not scenes. Breaking a script into scenes is a historical carry-over from writing for theatre, via live television drama.
In cinema, its biggest use is budgeting and scheduling the shoot.
A sequence is a coherent piece of story unified by direct cause and effect, with a distinct beginning, a period of escalation, and a resolution that triggers a shift to a new sequence. It can consist of anything from a single scene to a series of micro-beats, in all sorts of combinations.
It is unified by the story it is telling, not by the practicalities of shooting.
The scene breakdown that is derived from the standard script format helps everybody plan their part of production. But it doesn’t help you work out the best way to tell the story.
What’s more, while it’s relatively easy to convert something written as sequences to standard format, once you’ve put the words down in standard format it’s much more difficult to go the other way. Even to think the other way.
- Writing in scenes fragments the reader’s focus by location and time; sequences are structured by momentum, narrative flow, intention and consequence.
- Writing in sequences encourages the writer to use narrative energy to manage the order you reveal information; writing in scenes encourages disclosure by production necessity.
- Sequences protect POV and mystery; scenes flatten narrative layers.
REASON 2: Standard format encourages you to tell the story through dialogue, not action.
Dialogue loves to rush in and solve your script problems when they would be better solved through structure, action and consequence.
When you’re developing the story, write it as something much more like prose, describing what you see and hear in the cinema. No more. No inner monologues. Only include the dialogue you need to tell the story, no more. You can always fill out the dialogue later, when you’ve got the story working.
Many non-Hollywood film cultures do this as a matter of course, with the director and writer collaborating to write the scenario. Only when the story is working cinematically does the writer add the dialogue.
Doing that clarifies which dialogue is purely functional, supporting the action (‘Forceps, thanks nurse.’); and which is working to shift the drama in ways that action isn’t, or can’t.
REASON 3: Standard script formatting encourages anticipation.
If you have ever done any acting training, you will understand the importance of not anticipating. The problem arises because the actor knows what’s going to happen next, but the character they are playing doesn’t. The simplest example is an actor flinching before another character unexpectedly slaps them.
But there are just as many ways of weakening a script through anticipation as there are ways of weakening a performance through anticipation. And the standard script format exacerbates almost all of them. A simple example: don’t use the character’s name in the script until the viewer could also know it.
In development, write your story as it will be seen, heard, and understood by somebody who comes into the story knowing nothing beyond what they see and hear on screen.
To be clear – the problem is not the audience. After all, they will never read the script. The problem is you and your collaborators, because standard script formatting reveals everything in the formatting, which deadens your sensitivity to what the audience knows and doesn’t know yet.
When you are developing your story, you need to consciously be aware of what the audience knows so far. Consciously drip feed them the information they need. Stay aware of what they know and don’t know, and build your storytelling around managing the flow of information. Lead them, and deliberately mislead them. But don’t feed them.
Avoid over-literal plodding storytelling by hewing to one of the great aphorisms of cinema: DON’T EXPLAIN, REVEAL.
Some simple examples
Number one, don’t give any of your characters names in your story until the audience also knows their name.
It’s fine to write yourself a character breakdown as a separate document, and later include that in your finished document, but don’t give the characters names in your working script until the audience could have seen it or heard it.
You might write a character breakdown that says ‘GERALD FITZPATRICK: a middle-aged Conservative banker who likes to think that he is a bit of a free spirit’ and to call him GERALD from the very beginning of your completed standard script. But only do this when you convert your real script into the authorised standard script.
Up till then you might write something like ‘a slightly paunchy middle-aged man with hair that curls over his ears, wearing a pinstripe suit, a shirt with contrasting cuffs and collar, and a jaunty bowtie.’
Only after somebody opens the door to his office and says ‘Sorry to interrupt Gerald. Have you got a second?’ would I include his name in my prose working script.
Number two, avoid the trap of the all-saying scene heading. Here’s a concrete example of how formatting can prematurely collapse a reveal.
A series of increasingly Draconian resolutions is being put and passed in some kind of tyrannical version of Parliament.
The leader of the government stands, belligerently moves a motion attacking a group of people for their sexuality and taking away their employment rights. Sits to cheers from his supporters.
SPEAKER:
All those in favour say Aye
GOVERNMENT BENCHES:
(howl out)
AYE!
The speaker nods encouragingly at them, and then turns to the opposition:
SPEAKER:
All those against…?’
A COUPLE OF FEEBLE VOICES ON THE OPPOSITION SIDE:
Nay.
SPEAKER:
The Ayes have it.
To cheers, the leader of the house stands again.
LEADER OF THE HOUSE:
And further, this house moves that anybody found guilty of speaking publicly
in favour of those vile practices in any way, face imprisonment.
GOVERNMENT BENCHES:
(before the speaker has even asked)
AYE!
SPEAKER:
(chides)
Now, now!
All those in favour,…
GOVERNMENT BENCHES:
(A resounding roar)
AYE!
At the back of the sparsely occupied opposition benches a short timid man half-raises his hand and rises apologetically – frightened but determined.
SPEAKER:
The member for Crossley?
MEMBER FOR CROSSLEY:
Madam Speaker, this is a bridge too far.
Is this democracy?
Is this civilisation?
Is there no space in our world for dissent?
He is drowned out in a barrage of boos, paper cups and rolled up pieces of paper.
CUT TO:
CU: A hand, writing in a thick book with a fountain pen. Turns the page and completes the sentence on the next page.
CU: The member for Crossley, thinking.
CU: He flicks through the pages of a very dense legal tome, one of many stacked on the table in front of him.
The sound of metal scraping on metal. He looks up.
CU: A pair of eyes peers back at him from a narrow slot.
He stands and crosses to the door of his prison cell.
Now imagine that you wrote the same thing, EXCEPT in standard script format, which would of course replace my simple CUT TO: with
- INT. PRISON CELL EVENING
You have immediately anticipated a moment that works much better as a reveal. You’ve anticipated what people will read in the script, and worst of all, you’ve subconsciously anticipated it for yourself.
Once we know where he is, you can use the heading, but up to this point, I would avoid it. If you must, use a neutral heading like INT. DARK ROOM.
But then you risk falling between stools. You sort of fix the story problem, but at the expense of production clarity. When the FAD is putting together the shooting schedule, is DARK ROOM the same place as PRISON CELL in following scenes?
(Of course, you might want to make the cut A PRISON DOOR SLAMS BEHIND OUR HERO…, jumping straight to the reveal, and that would be a good cut, but that’s YOUR choice, not a choice forced on you by the formatting.)
I explore sequences in much greater depth elsewhere—see below.
