Writing
Screenplays are written in Fountain, a plain-text format for scripts: you type ordinary text and the editor formats it as a screenplay while you write. Treatments, notes and other prose are written in Markdown.
Screenplay elements
| Scene heading | A line starting with INT., EXT., INT./EXT. or I/E, e.g. INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT. Any line can be forced into a heading with a leading . |
|---|---|
| Action | Ordinary paragraphs. |
| Character | A name in capitals on its own line, with the speech right below it. Force a cue with @. |
| Parenthetical | (quietly) between the cue and the speech. |
| Transition | A line in capitals ending in TO:, or forced with >. |
| Centered | >THE END< |
| Section | # Act One: structure for the outline and the beat board, not printed. |
| Synopsis | = Anna finds the letter., a line about a scene, not printed. |
| Note | [[ check the date ]], not printed. |
| Page break | === on its own line. |
Typing
- Enter at the end of a speech, a heading or an action ends the element and starts a new one after a blank line. Shift+Enter inserts a plain line break.
- Tab on a new line switches to capitals for a cue or heading; at the end of a cue it adds a parenthetical; on a line of action it turns it into a cue.
- Scene headings, locations, times of day, character names and transitions are completed as you type.
Drafts, snapshots and history
- Snapshots are saved automatically and whenever you name one, export or import. History compares any two (line by line, word by word per scene) and restores an older state, as an edit or as a new draft.
- A draft is a new round of the same document (first draft, second draft…). Starting one can freeze the previous draft so it stays as it was.
- Scene numbers can be locked into the text; new scenes in between are lettered (12A).
Around the text
- Comments: select text and choose Comment. Comments stay on their text through edits and new drafts.
- Outline on the left; Preview shows the paginated script.
- Board: the beat board, with a card per scene in columns per section. Drag cards to reorder scenes, and save alternative orders to compare.
- Tags: mark props, costumes, locations and other breakdown elements in the text; the breakdown lists them by scene and by element.
- Analytics: characters, locations, scene lengths, presence across the script.
- Table read: hear the script read aloud, with a voice for each character (needs the workspace's own ElevenLabs key, set on the project's Voices page).