Script Formatting made Easy(ish)
This is a guide to how to format a radio play script so that nobody will know you don’t really know what you are doing. I’m going to take you step by step through what has to be in any script, a formatting standard that will get you by in the absence of a submission standard, and I’ve included a downloaded word document that you are free to use as a stylesheet for your own plays (although if you do use it, I’d appreciate a plug or even a link on your website back here!) Ready to get started? Let’s go!
What is everyone else using?
The industry standard for scripts is Final Draft, an excellent but slightly expensive piece of software. CeltX and Movie Magic Screenwriter are also popular. In each case you can set the elements to the standard described here (and, in fact, they will have the BBC screenplay format pre-installed – you just have to edit “action” to the “FX” standard described here).
So how does one normally format a radio play?
There is no one correct way to format a radio play script. There are a number of incorrect ways. The golden rule is to follow the submission guidelines. After that, you want to be as conservative as possible. Correct formatting is very important to the director, cast and crew, because it makes their lives easier – formatting is not the place to be clever or original, because it will just upset the people who are going to decide whether they can be bothered to work with you again.
How do you do it with Little Wonder?
The system we use at Little Wonder is based on the BBC screenplay format. Just below is a downloadable word document that shows you what it looks like. The stylesheet is called “Little Wonder Radio Play Style Sheet”, and if you just past your play into that document and change the style of each section as appropriate then it will automatically do the rest for you (ie. Set character names to the “character” style, sections of dialogue to the “dialogue” style, etc…). If you’re still confused
UPDATE: Version 3.1 fixes the problem with orphaned text that was caused by the improved headers. Download here:
Please do use and share this spreadsheet – but if you would, take a moment to tell people where it came from!
Why aren’t you using the BBC radio play standard?
I don’t use the BBC radio play format for three reasons. First, it is impossible to make compatible with Final Draft, which is the industry standard software for scriptwriting[i]. This is actually a weird fault with Final Draft that they should change (or, erm, a total failure by me to see how to do it that I should change). Second, I think it’s rubbish and difficult to read – I hate having character names on the left then the text on the right, it confuses my tiny little brain. Third, if you send a radio play to the BBC using their screenplay format they’ll accept it (unless, of course, they’ve specified a different format in the submission documents – then the golden rule applies, use the submission guidelines.).
What are the most important things to get right?
There are three parts that you must get right
- The Cover Page, which lets them see quickly what the play is and who you are.
- The Script Heading and Cast List, which, unsurprisingly, are very useful during the casting process.
- The “Elements”, which are things like character names, dialogue format, sound effects and all the main parts of the script.
The Cover Page
All parts of the script should use courier 12 point font.
The title of your play is written in capital letters, centred and underlined in approximately the middle of the page. In brackets after the title you should write (RADIO PLAY).
Then leave a blank line. Each line should have a single line space after.
While still working on drafts you should then on the next line write a version number (version 4) in lower case, followed on the next line by the date. It is often considered unprofessional to include a version number on your cover page when submitting properly. If your actually working with the production team, I find version numbers really useful because they help the director make sure all the actors are on the same version. Seriously, you’ve got to watch your actors for this one. Give them the slightest excuse and they’ll turn up with versions of the script that haven’t even been written yet.
Leave a blank line space.
Then write, centred, “Written by”, and again on the next line and centred, write your name.
Example
KEITH’S PLAY (RADIO PLAY) Version 4 19th March 2018 Written by Keith Crawford
At the bottom left corner of the cover page, left aligned, you should include your contact details: your postal address, your email, your website and your phone number. If you have an agent, your agent details should be written in the same fashion at the bottom right corner of your cover page.
Script Heading and Cast List
Not everybody puts a script heading on the first page of the script; if anything, it’s more normal to leave it out. I find it helpful. It should be left aligned, ALL CAPS and in bold.
Your cast list should include the name of each character left aligned in ALL CAPS, each with a line of their own, followed by a short lower-case description, with a full line space between each character. Keep it brief and as broad as possible – only essential details here. Remember that the less unessential details with which you encumber your character, the wider the range of actors we can choose from when casting, which inevitably means the better the quality of actors we can find. Does your lead really need to be a 12-year-old Mongolian with a lisp? That being said, important personality traits or background details (oxford educated, speaks with a stammer) may well be useful here.
Also, and this is important, refrain from the desire to surprise the reader. The production team want to enjoy and be surprised by your script, but what they REALLY want is to surprise and entertain the audience – so keep it short, keep it direct, and make sure they understand which character is which.
Example:
FRED (30’s): Northern, Male, Miner, Plain-spoken BOB (40’s): Southern, Male, Barrister, Upper-Class.
Elements and the Main Body of the Script
As mentioned previously, the script should be entirely in courier 12 point. Apparently, some parts of the BBC now use Arial, which is nice because arial is prettier. But courier is classic for a reason and gives you nice consistently measured paragraphs. Can’t go wrong with courier.
Your left margin should be set at 1.5”, your right margin at 7.5”. That’s approximately the same as the default margins in Word, so don’t worry about it.
Each page should be numbered, with the number at the bottom centre of the page.
Elements and formatting
Script Title: Bold, Underlined, ALL CAPS, centred (See above)
Cast List: Left Aligned, ALL CAPS names, lower case details, spacing 1, Left 1.5”, Right 7.5” (See above)
Scene Headings – Bold, ALL CAPS, Left Aligned – SCENE (NO.) INT/EXT LOCATION
“FX” – Courier 12, All caps, underlined, Indents L:1.5”, R:7.5” – FX, for “Sound Effects”, replaces “action” in screenplays. You should start the FX with “FX:” followed by a description of what we are hearing. Remember that it is often very difficult for an audience to identify something by sound alone, so you almost always need your dialogue to carry the action and your soundscape to support.
Character – Courier 12, ALL CAPS, Left Aligned, Indents L:3.667, R:7.25”
Parenthetical: Left Aligned, spacing 1, Left: 3.35”, R: 5.5” (So it should line up directly beneath the character name). Only use stage directions if you are asking actors to do something that isn’t clear from the text.
Dialogue: Left Aligned, 1.5 spacing Left: 2.5”, Right 6.0”. You’ll notice this is the only part of the script that uses 1.5 line spacing, but it is important that you remember to keep this spacing – it makes it easier for the actors to read and incorporate notes.
End of Script, Write “FIN”: Underline, ALL CAPS, Centre
Additional Directions
There are several standard directions that can be added at the beginning of a paragraph of dialogue, which indicate to the post production scene that they should create a sound for that voice. These directions are written in capitals and placed in brackets at the beginning of the line, and are as follows:
(OFF) Actor should speak at a distance from the microphone (the radio equivalent of off-screen.)
(CLOSE) Actor should
(LOW) Actor should speak quietly, almost in a whisper
(DISTORT) Actor is speaking through a mechanical device, such as a radio.
(V.O) A voice over from a character who is not there.
How to use the stylesheet
I’m going to stick it here again, just in case scrolling up is too much effort (click on the link to download):
Little Wonder Radio Play Style Sheet
If you’re a real technophobe, here’s a step by step guide to taking your play, pasting it into the stylesheet, and making the stylesheet do all the work so your play looks pretty. If this still doesn’t work, maybe it’s time to go on a word course!
1. Take your script. Open it in a word document.
2. Open the stylesheet. (the document attached to this email)
3. On the title page of the stylesheet, delete what is written and put in exactly the same place the details for your play. Make sure it all stays on one page by deleting any carriage returns that push your address below the page break.
4. On the first page, do the same for the script title, the cast list, and the first scene description. If there is only one scene (which is the case in all but on of our plays) you don’t need a scene number.
5. Look down at the rest so you remember what it looks like. Then delete it.
6. Now, select your entire script in your first document from below the title, copy it, and paste it into the stylesheet document using the “paste without formatting option” from your right mouse click (do not use Ctrl+V!)
7. Now, before you do anything else, save the stylesheet file under the name of your script. Try not to save it over your original version. Seriously.
8. Go through your script and make sure all character names, parantheticals (short action instructions that go in brackets with the text), sound effects, and sections of dialogue are start on their own line. Do not worry about formatting at the moment! Everything will be left aligned at the moment, and that is completely fine.
9. Go through your document, selecting each section of text that is either a character name, sound effect, section of dialogue, paranthetical, of the bit where you say end, and then click on the corresponding button at the top of the page:
Voila! Your text is automatically correctly formatted, for font, style and position. Continue until you get to the end of th script. If the type you need isn’t clear, click on the down arrow at the side and you will find more options.
Speeches that cross pages
The new version is set so that you cannot get a character name/paranthetical followed by a page break, so that they will never be split from the dialogue that follows.
However, this can create a problem IF you character has a particularly large speech that would normally get split in the middle – because what it will do is leave a huge blank space at the bottom of one page followed by the speech starting on the next. This is not the worst of all possible worlds, but if you want to do better this is how you do it.
First, click on the character name or paranthetical, select paragraph options and switch off “keep with next”, so that the tick is removed and it now looks like this:
Note: Do not do this as a modification to the base styles, otherwise you’ll fuck up the whole document.
The dialogue will now split across the page.
If you’re really searching for perfection (good idea), now put a page break where the speech splits across pages (Ctrl+Enter), and at the top of the next page write CHARACTER NAME (CONT…) using the character format, and have the rest of the speech continue below.
BUT: Only make these formatting changes after you have done everything else you want to do with the script. Because that page break is going to do bad things later.
No, I’m not going to write a macro to fix this. I really have to do actual writing.
There we go, that was easy, wasn’t it!
And that’s it – congratulations, you now know how to format a radio play!
It is worth taking some time to learn how to correctly format your work, because there are an awful lot of producers, agents and similar who just won’t bother to look at a script that isn’t formatting the way they prefer (which, regrettably, may not be the way described here – you should always check their submission guidelines).
I’m going to say this one last time, before the comments come in. There are other ways to format radio plays. This is just how we do it. ALWAYS check the submission guidelines. But, in the absence of guidelines, this is a good place to start.
[i] As best as I can tell, Final Draft 10 won’t let you put your character names on the same line as the first line of your dialogue. Which is weird, but my best efforts with google and a lot of fiddling around haven’t got me anywhere. If you know a way to make it work, please do post in the comments!
