Basic Screenwriting Style Guide

A screenplay is made up of scenes. Scenes are essentially the building blocks for your
screenplay. Each scene must move the story forward. This can happen by revealing
character,* developing plot, theme, or revealing any important information (back story)
that is necessary. Whatever it is, the thrust of the story must be moving. Here is a sample
of a short scene (we’ll call it Scene A):

INT. BUILDING - DAY

An office building. There’s a secretary at a desk. She’s very cute and

young. The room has several chairs and a nice lamp. The Secretary seems
to remember something, puts away her work, and stands.

She then walks outside.

EXT. PARKING LOT

She finds a car. This is when we notice JOHN, medium build, 30s,
dressed in a wrinkled suit. He looks lost.

Okay, not a bad a scene. Let’s discuss it:

INT. BUILDING - DAY

This is known as Slugline. It’s telling us if we’re Inside (INT) or Outside (EXT). It also
conveys what time of day it is. Below the Slugline is a Description of where we are.
Then there is the Action and Exposition.

We also have the characters. You’ll notice that the name JOHN is in caps and this is
because he is a new character to the story. Remember, this is only a scene. Every time
you introduce a new character the name must be in CAPS and your should offer a brief
description of the person.

Lets look at the same scene again, only this time with some annotation:

INT. BUILDING - DAY (Slugline)

*
And remember, when I say “reader” I mean the audience. Always consider how your story will be
revealed to an audience sitting in a darkened theater. All of them wanting to suspend their disbelief long
enough to enjoy your story. But, if you betray this trust you will have broken the scared rule and you can
never regain it again in the story.
An office building. There’s a secretary at a desk. She’s very cute and
young. The room has several chairs and a nice lamp. (Description) The
Secretary seems to remember something, puts away her work, and stands.
(Action)

She then walks outside. She has her purse and is searching for her car
keys. (Action)

EXT. PARKING LOT

She finds a car. This is when we notice JOHN (New Character), medium build,
30s, dressed in a wrinkled suit. (Character Description) He looks lost.

This short scene can be expanded to include yet another element, Dialogue.

JOHN
Hey baby, need a lift?

The Secretary doesn’t hesitate. She SMACKS him squarely in the face
with an open hand. John is left smarting.

JOHN
I’ll take that as a maybe.

This section brings up a couple important elements to the scene. With your Action
descriptions you can focus the reader’s attention on a specific act, or even sound, by
placing it in CAPS. This technique comes and goes in terms of its popularity, so only use
it with restraint. You may have seen examples on the Web of scripts where the writer
uses CAPS indiscriminately. Don’t do it. Those scripts are from profession writers.
Professionals are always allowed leniency from the Readers. Less is always more. So
when you do use it, it will really draw the reader’s attention to something.

Finally, sometimes use a little wit and humor in your script. Don’t overdue it, be smart.
Humor is a good way to reveal character (something else I’ll cover later). Now, lets look
at the above scene again. This time we’ll add some creativity and a strong visual edge to
our descriptions (we’ll call it Scene B):

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY

Lush, clean, gothic… Marble walls and floor. Statues surround the room,
looks like ancient Roman.

A PAIR OF SEXY LEGS

Dressed up with high-heels and silk stockings. They take us outside to

the parking lot.

PARKING LOT
It’s full of money. Germany and Italy are well represented.

JOHN

No money, average, mid-30s. We find him off to the side as he looks

into the building, nervous…Where have those sexy pair of legs gone?
There they are.

JOHN
Hey baby, need a lift?

The SEXY WOMAN attached to those legs doesn’t hesitate. She SMACKS him
squarely in the face with an open hand. John is left smarting.

JOHN
I’ll take that as a maybe.

He enters the building.

Now, this scene is pretty rambunctious. It has an edge and a unique style. This would
work if your script were a comedy detective caper. You can’t always write with this type
of an attitude. But you can inject your own personality in a scene, and a script. You
should always strive for finding your own unique “voice.” But his doesn’t your script
should be full of wisecracks. When someone has a unique script it’s fresh, and offers a
new twist to what is always a familiar story. Because it’s true, there are no new ideas,
only new ways of presenting them.*

Lets look at this last scene with some annotation:

INT. OFFICE BUILDING - DAY (Notice the more detailed Slugline compared to Scene A.)

Lush, clean, gothic… Marble walls and floor. Statues surround the room,
looks like ancient Roman. (Visual and simple.)

A PAIR OF SEXY LEGS

Dressed up with high-heels and silk stockings. They take us outside to

the parking lot. (The Action has a unique voice and pace to it.)

PARKING LOT (notice the omission of EXT. This is a sub-heading and doesn’t always require the
use of INT or EXT.)

It’s full of money. Germany and Italy are well represented.

JOHN (A much strong way to draw attention to a new character than we did in Scene A.)

*
Yes, there exceptions to the rule. The Matrix might be one. You can have something that is new and
unique. But even with The Matrix, its roots run deep. There are plenty of Asian films that predate it in both
theme and action.
No money, average, mid-30s. We find him standing off to the side
looking into the building, nervous. (A great Description. Very few words are needed
to give the reader a visual of John.) Where have those sexy pair of legs gone? There
they are. (Sometimes you can inject humor when it is appropriate.)

JOHN
Hey baby, need a lift?

The SEXY WOMAN attached to those legs doesn’t hesitate. She SMACKS him
squarely in the face with an open hand. John is left smarting. (The use of
caps for SEXY WOMAN means it’s the first time we meet her; before all we saw were her legs. Her
age isn’t important. In this scene she’s not an important character. “Sexy Woman” is all that is
needed.)

JOHN
I’ll take that as a maybe.

He enters the building.

This scene actually reveals a little about John. He’s a dope, not very charming, and
incredibly dimwitted. As this excerpt is from a comedy detective caper, John is obviously
the cliché dimwitted detective who bumbles his way through a case, and in the end
stumbles his way into solving the case.

Linda Seger in her excellent book, Making A Good Script Great, has a great chapter
called, “Creating the Scene.” In it she says:

“Great scenes can build tension and suspense, move an

audience to tears or terror, even cause physical changes to
happen in the audience from sweaty palms to a fast heart
rate. A great scene involves the audience emotionally.” (p.
74)

Each scene builds on the last. The stakes should always be rising. Do not leave the main
character (the protagonist) for very long, and when you do it should be to show us what
the antagonist is doing.

We’ve discussed that the protagonist has a goal or desire that must be achieved in your
story, and that there should be obstacles that he/she must overcome. The same could be
said for each scene. There must be a purpose for each scene. If you’ve created a scene
and it does not serve the story, no matter how funny you think it is, kill it. A dead scene
that you keep in the script will bring the story to a grinding halt and your risk the chance
of losing your reader’s attention. This is perhaps the hardest thing new screenwriters must
develop. An eye for details such as this can make all of the difference between a script
that sells and one that doesn’t.

Lets study a scene from one of the best written screenplays you’ll come across.
Joe Ezterhas’Basic Instinct is one of the most solidly constructed stories you’ll find, and
it’s a perfect example of a screenwriter having their own unique voice and style.

EXT. A BROWNSTONE IN PACIFIC HEIGHTS - MORNING Winter in San Francisco:

cold, foggy. Cop cars everywhere. The lights play through the thick
fog. Two Homicide detectives get out of the car, walk into the house.
2.

NICK CURRAN is 42. Trim, good-looking, a nice suit: a face urban,

edged, shadowed. GUS MORAN is 64. Crew-cut, silver beard, a suit
rumpled and shiny, a hat out of the 50's: a face worn and ruined: the
face of a backwoods philosopher.

This is from the second scene of the script. I want to focus your attention onto the
character descriptions for Nick Curran and Gus Moran. Ezterhas is a true master of
character driven screenwriting and it starts with his descriptions. This screenplay has a
nice pace, beat and dare I say rhythm. His staccato bursts are livid and lively.

Another Example, the same scene sequence as Nick and Gus enter the Brownstone:

INT. THE BROWNSTONE

There's money here -- deco, clean, hip -- That looks like a Picasso on
the wall. They check it out.

GUS
Who was this fuckin' guy?

NICK
Rock and roll, Gus.
Johnny Boz.

GUS
I never heard of him.

NICK
(grins)
Before your time, pop.
(a beat)
Mid-sixties. Five or six hits.
He's got a club down in the
Fillmore now.

GUS
Not now he don't.

Past the uniformed guys... nods... waves... past the forensic men...
past the coroner's investigators... they get to the bedroom.
Look at how vertically structured the script is (lots of white space). It doesn’t always
require a lot of words to describe the setting, mood and actions of the characters. Less is
always more.

INT. THE BROWNSTONE

There's money here -- deco, clean, hip -- That looks like a Picasso on
the wall. They check it out.

This description above ranks as one of the better ones you’ll ever see. What’s so good
about it? First, it’s one line! Second, it’s colorful and very VISUAL. I can picture the
place. I can see the décor and the line “Picasso on the wall. They check it out” is simply
DESCRIPTION at its best.

The entire script for Basic Instinct reads like a breeze. The action lines are on average
short, but with just a few words Eszterhas gives us an extremely visual description. His
dialogue is right on. Each character has their own voice and the dialogue flows with
grace, flamboyance and sometimes with a certain edge to each word. He uses director
words well, but also injects a lot of slang. It’s a script like Joe Eszterhas’ Basic Instinct
that shows how screenwriting can truly transcend being simply a craft. There are other
examples where this is true, like Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption.

Screenwriting is first a craft that demands the attrition of words. The faster your can get
into your story and not bog it down with weighty descriptions and action sequences the
better. Sometimes you can’t avoid lengthy descriptions, and that’s okay. Just keep
everything as tight as possible.

Further Reading: “Scenes”

Neill Hicks, Screenwriting 101 (Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 1999), see pages 124 to 134.

William Froug, Screenwriting Tricks of the Trade (Los Angeles: Silman-James Press, 1992), see pages 56
to 59.

Michael Hauge, Writing Screenplays That Sell (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), see pages 113 to 152.