Scripts follow a specific format.
Example from "The Crying Game"
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FADE IN:
EXT. CARNIVAL - DAY A loudspeaker playing Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," as we see a carnival in the distance - with a Ferris Wheel turning round and round. A black man is by a stall. On his arm is an Irish girl with blond hair. The black man is drunk, and is tossing rings around a bowling pin.
An attendant hands him the teddy bear. It looks ridiculous in his huge hands. He gives it to the girl.
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Most formatting will be picked up automatically by the site. To show dialogue centered on the page (optional but recommended) we offer special formatting tags. Just add the tags in the editor as shown in the example below.
This is how the text would be formatted in the editor:
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FADE IN:
EXT. CARNIVAL - DAY A loudspeaker playing Percy Sledge's "When a Man Loves a Woman," as we see a carnival in the distance - with a Ferris Wheel turning round and round. A black man is by a stall. On his arm is an Irish girl with blond hair. The black man is drunk, and is tossing rings around a bowling pin.
<CHAR>JODY</CHAR> An attendant hands him the teddy bear. It looks ridiculous in his huge hands. He gives it to the girl.
<CHAR>JODY</CHAR>
<CHAR>GIRL</CHAR> |
| Important Note: | It's very important to add all closing tags (</CHAR> & </D>). If left out it will cause problems with formatting. The closing tags tell the editor where the dialogue, and character information ends. |
Do not center the dialogue in the editor using the space bar. That will be ignored. Rather use tags to say "Here is where a character starts speaking" and "Here is where the character stops speaking". The site will format it when it is displayed on the screen. The two tags available are:
CHAR: Tells the site that a character is speaking.
D: Tells the site that there is dialogue.
Remember you must use a starting and ending tag. <CHAR>JODY</CHAR>. In this example we place a tag before "J" to show it is the start of the name and the special ending tag (with the \) after "Y" to show the end. Use the D tag to show where the actual dialogue is.
Again, these tags are optional. You have the option to leave them out and not place dialogue centered.